I'm new here. I like to write poetry and short stories, but am probably better with poetry at this point. Anyway, here's an idea I hope other writers in Hip Forums will dig. I've started this story. Maybe you would be interested in helping me with the rest of it? All you gotta do is add a paragraph or two. ____________________________________ The small but expensive hotel suite seemed more like a cage tonight. The television offered no comfort, no escape from the sorrow. Each station and every commercial reminded him of what he didn‘t have. He imagined what it would be like if things had only been different. “I couldn’t help it.” , he whispered aloud to his accusing thoughts. “Nobody will ever understand.” The smoke from the joint and a dozen Marlboros hung in the room like an evil spirit enveloping him, slowly suffocating and sucking the breath from his already tired lungs. With a heavy sigh he got up from the bed, put on his favorite leather jacket and turned off the TV. After taking another shot of tequila he stepped out into the beckoning cover of darkness. He felt doomed to continue his search. He tried to anticipate finding it, but had trouble even remembering what it was he was looking for. He would settle for any bit of escape from the truth. At the least, in a few hours he’d be thoroughly entrenched in drug and alcohol induced numbness. The snow had been falling since morning and had covered the city with a thick layer of pure glistening white. He thought, “You can cover the dirt, but you can never remove the stain.” A lump formed in his throat as he fought back that dreadful howl which had been growing more fierce in his gut for months. A howl that constantly raged and tore at his insides demanding release. But no, not tonight! He had come this far and wouldn’t break down now. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out two Bird Eggs and swallowed them along with the pain. He could taste the blood in the thick sputum he had coughed up just before. Shoving the thought from his mind, he imagined that tonight would be different. “Sure!”, he reassured himself. “Things could change.” With a bit of renewed confidence he hummed a little tune, slid into the seat of his Mustang and set out for Silky’s. “We will, we will rock you!“ The sound of the bass thumped rhythmically from the powerful speakers matching the increasing thump of his heart. It was almost ten, not much traffic and the highway was surprisingly clear. “I’ve paid my dues. I’ve done my time. I’ve served my sentence, but committed no crime…“ We Are the Champions was one of his favorite songs by Queen. It was good timing for the song, because by now that familiar glow had fully engulfed his brain enhancing each note. Speeding along at 90 mph, a shiver rippled throughout his body in a rush as he felt the Mustang slip into high gear. A smile formed on his face as he relished the moment. “Man, it’s all good! I got a hot ride, a cool job and a nice place to stay. Who wouldn’t want to hook up with me?” His drifting thoughts then replayed a familiar scene. He would finally meet that special girl who would understand him. One who would take him into her arms, stroke his head and give light to his blackened spirit by telling him, “Don’t worry baby. Everything’s gonna be all right.” The Christmas lights on the houses along the highway melted into a continuous neon ribbon. The rainbow of colors combined with the overhead lights of the signs and billboards to form a carnival like light show that flickered and played off the windows of the car. It looked like Christmas Eve, but to Mike it was just another reason to party. One thing he could depend on, there were always plenty of good people at Silky’s. It was easy to find a close spot since the parking lot was only half full. He pulled into the space, stopped and revved his engine before he shut it off. Once inside Mike flipped his hair back with his hand and lit a smoke. There was a definite technique to making an entrance. You had to look cool and unconcerned. As he strolled to the bar he was careful not to appear to be looking at anyone. He scanned the room from the corner of his eye as he passed the pool tables and booths along the wall. There were 20 or so people here, and his radar homed in on two good looking, albeit older chicks sitting in the corner. One was checking him out, and so was the Mexican dude at the end of the bar. Mike knew Antonio would have some primo coke. The “score” mode automatically kicked in as he sat down next to the animated man. “Mikey! Feliz Navidad my brother! Good to see you man. Santa came early this year. If you been gooood you might get a present.” Antonio spoke quickly with only a slight accent. He had that glazed look in his eyes and cool grin on his face that told Mike he was in luck tonight. ...to be continued by you
Antonio gave a nod of his head and a girl who was hanging out at the bar started to make her way toward the two gentlemen. When she got to the table Antonio told Mike he could have the coke and Cindy here for the regular price. Mike was really up for some company tonight and couldn't resist the offer. So Mike and Cindy climbed the stairs up to Cindy's room. Mike shut and locked the door while Cindy undid her blouse and pulled out the bag of coke she was holding in her bra. Mike laughed and said first things first, if I get too coked up I'll never cash in on the best part of this deal. Cindy laughed also and told Mike she was glad his priorities were in the right place. So she laid back on the bed and motioned Mike to make his move. "Let's see what makes you tick, big boy".
At first he was getting into it. Cindy was young, hot and had all the right moves. But the fantasy of his "perfect" girl, along with the anticipation of the awaiting cocaine rush overcame the primal lust of his loins. It didn't take Mike's tick long to tock! "Whoa, lover boy! Didn't your momma ever teach you it was bad manners to eat and run?" She watched Mike as he fumbled for a smoke. His hair was long, thick and dishelved. Though she doubted he worked out, his body was taught and firm. Mike had wide shoulders, a nice ass and a chest that was meant to lay her head on. She and Mike had been together twice before. He seemed different than most of Antonio's scum bag customers. For the first time in a long time, she entertained the notion that maybe, just maybe..... "What's it matter sweetheart? You get paid either way. Besides, you were the one eating." They both laughed. Mike counted out $2500 dollars from the wad of cash he pulled from his jeans pocket, threw it on the bed and finished buttoning his shirt. "That should cover the cost of of the blow and the blow job." Mike grabbed the bag from the nite stand and dumped about a gram of the crystaline substance onto the table. He cut half of it aside and rolled his bic over the other half to crush it into snortable powder. "Cindy, get your ass dressed and get over here and get a bump! Hey, you got something I can fix the rest of this up with?" Yeah, he was different in some ways, but in all the wrong ways he was the same as the others. Cindy knew that Mike was not your typical needle freak, but she was afraid he was quickly becoming one. If things were only different. If she weren't a whore and he wasn't a doper. If they had met in some other place at some other time... "Sorry babe. I'll take a rain check on the candy. Maybe next time. I need to make all I can tonight so I can give my babies a decent Christmas tomorrow." "Later then.", he replied. Mike turned his attention to crushing up the remainder of the dope. Cindy finished dressing and cast one more look over her shoulder at Mike as she headed out the door. His head was tilted back with eyes closed as he emitted a deep groan of satisfaction. He was enjoying the rush of the drug more than the head she had just given him. ...to be continued by you
First, Mike had to ditch his car, a '65 Mustang poppy red with black interior. He restored the body himself and the babied 225 A-Code 289 under the hood was sweet. He wouldn't be needing all that tonight. Tonight he needed percise timing and he needed stealth. The only way he could kill Sammy and live would be a surgical strike. Mike pulled into the garage, shut the car off and poped the trunk. He grabbed a couple of cases and went into the house. He walked through the house without turning on a light until he reached a windowless bathroom. He felt confident that no one knew about this place and he hadn't been followed. Turning on a dim night light he stripped and pissed and changed into the black clothes that were in one of the cases. He removed his Browning's 1911 and silencer, Mike loved the classics, and a hip pack from the other case. He laced his shoes put on a black ski cap and gloves and headed back out. Once outside Mike followed a stone path that lead around the back of the saltbox. The path went into a small patch of woods. There chained to a shed was a charcoal Marin Point Reyes. This bike was stable, fast, quiet and all tricked out for the snow. Mike was a fanatic about riding, something else no one here knew about, not even Sammy. Mike stood for a moment and took long deliberate breaths. He started to visualize every step of the mission. He would have to ride exactly 14.8 miles to get back to the boulevard. Once there he would go down three alleys and cut diagonally across the dogless part of a complex before he could stash his bike and walk the remaining .27 mile to find Sammy. Sammy was not only a creature of habit but he was down right compulsive. Mike stopped visualizing and unlocked the bike. He knew he'd have to see himself do it in his mind before he'd actually be able to put a bullet between Sammy's eyes. He just couldn't think about it now. Sammy would never be looking for a bike. When they were kids, Sammy had seen Mike get hit by the car as Mike rode down the driveway and onto the street . Mike was thrown from his bike, broke his leg and suffered a concusion. He hadn't been on a bike again, until just 5 years ago. Sammy never knew. Mike knew in order to stay alive he'd have to master all of his fears. He never imagined, though, that he'd have to kill his brother. Mike mounted his bike, clipped into the pedals and started pumping rythmicly. The snow was light now and felt good on his face. It wasn't easy peddling through the unplowed roads but man and machine were both jacked out for this ride. Mike had to focus now. He couldn't let thoughts of regrets get in the way. He wasn't responsible for what Sammy had done to the town. He was happy their parents were dead and spared the sorrow Mike now felt crushing his chest. As he gasped for a breath he felt the back tire kick out. He hit the ground tasting blood, snot and snow. As he fell he heard the prepubescent voice of Sammy screaming "Michael watch out, the car" then the squeal of tires and that sickening thud. Mike sobbed now as he lay quietly alone in the snow. How had things gotten so fucked up. He sat struggling to sort out the past and present through the tequila and the coke. He knew he couldn't blame Carter for everything, even though that would make setting him up a little less bitter to swallow. Now who was the whore? Mike picked himself up and checked his bike. He was relieved to see no damage was done and very little time was lost. He got back on and rode, hard. He knew he'd have to focus on the killing soon. Now, his brain played back the days with Carter, Antonio and Sammy and how all his dreams turned into this nightmare.
Meanwhile Cindy is sitting at the bar of Carters' casino when Carter the man walks up to her, sits down at the bar and orders her another drink. "Tell me babe, how's your boy friend Mike doing these days?" he asks. "He's not my boy friend, and the last time I saw him he was blowing his brains out with some coke." She could tell there was something wrong by the way Carter was looking at her. "Out on the streets they're saying he's out to blow Sammys' brains out too and hoping to put the rapp on me," Carter said matter of factly. Just then two of Carters’ men came crashing through the back door of the casino holding a battered looking Mike between them. “Hey boss, look what we found in the snow outside,” said one of the men. Carter looked Mike square in the eyes and asked him if he thought he would have gotten away with making him the fall guy. Mike was too beat up to say anything so Carter told his boys to take him out back and put a bullet in him where it would do the most good. Cindy screamed no and started toward Mike but Carter held her back until she heard that fatal shot from out back. She ran out the door to find Mike laying in a pool of his own blood. Now unknown to anyone, Cindys’ mother was a white witch who brought her daughter, Cindy, up in the fine art of witchcraft. Cindy however told her mother she would never resort to using her occult power but seeing Mike bleeding to death changed her mind. She had done some metaphysical healing with her mother but nothing this serious. As one may swiftly unravel a large piece of kniting simply by drawing one loose thread out of it, so to Mike had began to come undone. Catching up the thread and rolling it up does not restore the garment. Yet as I plunged through the maelstrom of his random thoughts, I reached for him, snatching at the threads of him, gathering and grasping them even as I sought frantically for their ever diminishing heart and source. I found myself in strong death currents now, and I held myself intact. He was being torn apart, shredding rapidly in the clawing flow of sentience. To call him back, I would have to risk myself, but as the fault was partially mine, it seemed only fair. What I felt in return from him was like a questioning echo as if he could barely recall who he had been but moments before. I netted him out of the tangled flux, sieving the threads of him and keeping them whilst letting the others flow through my perception of him. The tapping of my thought was a heartbeat for him, and a confirmation. Then for a time I held him, steadying him,and finally felt him come back to himself. Swiftly he gathered to his center threads that I had not perceived as being part of him. I was a stillness around him, helping to hold the thoughts of the world at bay while he re-formed himself. And Mike opened his eyes and smiled at me.
"Cindy, damn uh.. I thought er.... what the hell?" Mike gurgled. A small trickle of blood made it's way down the side of his cheek and combined with the coagulating pool in the pit of his neck that had drained there as a result of the gunshot wound. "Don't worry baby. It's okay now. Cindy's got ya and everything is going to be alright." Cindy stroked Mikes thick black hair checking to make sure the bullet wound had closed and the bleeding had stopped. It had. As she did, Cindy's words echoed over and over again in Mikes brain and the comforting feel of her hands made him feel safe and secure. "Don't worry baby. It's okay now, everything's going to be alright." Was he dreaming, had he been dead then resurrected by this woman he knew only as a whore a couple of hours ago? And why was he dead, how was she able to reach into the blackness of the void he had dissappeared into and pull him back from it? Then for the first time in years the word love meant more than pain, anger and loss to him. He closed his eyes and drifted off into that familiar fantasy of meeting that special girl. "Don't worry baby, everything's gonna be alright." ...to be continued by you
Cindy’s hand gently caressed the side of his face, running the soft outer part of her palm along Mike’s bristly, bloodied cheek. She had brought forth the physical healing spirit, but the conjuring to rescue his body from death required more time, and more importantly, materials. She closed her eyes and held the darkness within her mind, internally chanting a rhythmic pattern of sounds; a small intermittent light began to permeate through the thickening black. The light grew in intensity with her inner murmuring and the sounds began to move her lips, the beginning of something audible. “Toooora Keeeee…” swam gently past her lips. Cindy opened her eyes confident that the transportation mantra would keep him alive until they could get back to her apartment. The parking lot was wide open except for Cindy’s lone vehicle, a silver Lebaron convertible about fifty yards from the location of Mike’s body. She had sprinted to the car, struggling to get the keys out of her bag, all the while sweat pouring down the sides of her face. A glimpse of her reflection from the window revealed blood splattered about her neck and chest and she shivered at the sight. She had done this before with her husband. Her mind fought against a memory reaching up from beneath her feet, grabbing at her ankles. “Javier...” escaped her lips, barely audible. She looked back toward the body lying on the pavement before getting into the car. Two words seemed to resonate within the back of Mike’s mind: 'navaho' and 'carter’. His consciousness broke through with those words and he began to question his existence. He couldn’t quite make out his surroundings and everything in the distance appeared as a kaleidoscope of shadows. A thick scent of smoke and lavender filled his nostrils and he could feel burning heat upon his lower body. The remainder of his senses followed suit and Mike quickly found himself lying on a bed in a small room, the glow from an open fireplace dancing shadows upon the ceiling. He felt weak as he tried to prop his emaciated body against the headboard. He scanned the room hoping for something to connect his present state with the past. A small picture frame on a table beside the bed brought both clarity and confusion. He recognized Cindy, though it was a younger version by at least five years, but the tall Hispanic holding her only drew blanks. He held the photo close to his eyes, tilting it back and forth with the moving light cast from the fire. “Antonio,” he thought, focusing on the high forehead and jagged cheekbones. But it wasn’t Antonio. He slid the photo out of the frame and looked at the backing. [font=tweed.]Cindy & Javi Tijuana '97[/font] “Javi?” he pondered. But nothing made sense to him. The more he came to, the more he felt the weakness in his body. The fire had begun to annoy him incessantly and, with rising anger came the name ‘Carter’. He saw Antonio. He saw Cindy. The past unravelled before him until the last frame froze, revealing the memory of cold steel pressed against the back of his skull with the words, “Carter didn’t kill Sammy…you did.” And that was the last thread he had until now, lying in what seemed to be Cindy’s bedroom. “Have they used my plan against me?” he wondered. “Do they know I’m not dead?” His pensive silence was jarred by the slow opening of the bedroom door. to be continued...
The door opened and Cindy walked in. “Mike we’re in big trouble.” she yelled. “Carter and his boys are on their way here to find out what happened to your body.” “What do you mean my body? What the hell has been going on?” Mike shouted back at her. So Cindy explained how Mike had been shot and brought back to life by occult means. “Now Carter can’t find your body and is looking to make sure the job has been done up the way he planned. If he finds you alive he’ll do you in all over again. But I have an idea. The link I used to bring you back from the dead is still in place, if I go into a trance state you can follow the link back to my body and your body will appear dead to Carter. We don’t have much time so I’m going to do this transference right now." And so Cindy sat in a lotus position with her eyes shut and started chanting as Mike felt his essence slipping away just as if he were dying all over again. But this time when he woke up he was sitting on the floor in a lotus position when Carter and his boys slammed open the door and entered the room. “There’s the slime ball we’re looking for on the bed. Go see if they were able to save the asshole.” Carter demanded. “ He’s dead as a door nail boss,” declared one of his men. “ Then take the body and let’s get the hell out of here. And as for you Cindy, just don’t mettle in this anymore or you’ll get the same treatment as your lover boy here.” he threatened as he made his way toward the door. “Cindy?” Mike whispered aloud, talking to the one within. But there was no answer. How could there be, he was in control of Cindys’ lips and all the rest of her body as well. Now he had to track down his dead body and figure out a way to get back into it. As he got up he happened to look into a mirror and saw Cindys’ face looking back at him. “ Oh God, I guess I am in big trouble.”
