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 Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2014 12:53 pm
There was nothing John liked more after a hard day at work than a bottle of whiskey and listening to Etta James. Since his drinking days were over, only Ms. James accompanied him on his drives to and from construction sites. Sometimes he hung out with Whitney Houston, but Etta was his favourite girl. Her voice filled John's rusty red pick-up truck, and coloured his mind with memories of his wife.
'..At last...'
Nina had cast a spell in her white dress. It clung to her dancer's body in all of the right places, and warmed more than just his heart. John remembered the evening she'd proposed to him as though it had happened only yesterday, her lips synced with the words that carried over his radio now, and closed his eyes at a red light in order to see her better. The truck engine roared, but was drowned out by the ghost of the woman who should have been sitting beside him.
'My love has come along...'
There had never been a more beautiful woman. Vanessa looked like her. John smiled at the thought of his daughter, and pretended not to notice a nearby liquor store. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
The light turned green, and he continued on his journey home, broad shoulders sagging with exhaustion.
'I found a dream...'
John pulled into the parking lot outside his apartment building.
'...that I could speak to...',
He shut off the engine, but lingered inside, waiting for Ms. James to finish.
'A dream that I can call my own...'
John rubbed the side of his face with his big hand, rattled his car keys in his lap, and stared out the windshield up at the balcony of his home. There was a light on in the living room. His children must have still been awake.
'John, will you marry me?'
He'd said yes. Never regretted it for a second. Missed her every goddamned sober day for the rest of his life.
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Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:06 pm
It groaned, the surfeit of voices competing for dominance in their cacophonous chorus. Its footsteps fell erratic, stumbling, while it fought to stay upright during its weary travels. The creature often balanced itself against walls, cold and gritty and caked with grime, while it paced the silent alleyways in some desperate, demented search. Gold eyes feverish, mouth slightly slack with a hunger that festered in its gut, it peered through gaps between buildings toward the black battlefield where cars raked their lights over the ground like angry tines.
Bischofite fell ill with hunger some time ago - he recognized this intimately. No longer had he any concern for avoiding the enemy, for dodging those possessed of camera phones and curiosity, for it mattered little anymore. Consumption loomed at the forefront of his mind as the sole motivator for his prowls that deep night. He knew his reliance on lieutenants, on bored captains trying to buy favors proved too dependent, too damnably useless and expendable and superfluous, so he ventured through the stark and barren streets himself.
And that was when he realized the ubiquitous, rotten gnawing known as starvation.
During his time in the Rift, ambient energy sustained him marginally enough to ignore eating much more than a couple bags of chips or a tin of mixed nuts in a day. He stockpiled, rationed, and planned out every scrap of calorie to his satisfaction as it often filled those endless, empty hours where he found no moon above to allow him passage into the shadows. He hated it and loved it all the same, loved it like the tedious tasks touted by taxidermy. Hated it like he hated the empty, festering sorrows that etched themselves into every corner of his mind.
The creature-general peered through another break in the endless, nagging brick to find a single car, still running, parked in a driveway. The building sported luminance in at least one window; he cared little about onlookers. And within that dirty, beaten car, through the back window he spotted a single occupant in the driver's seat. An easy target. A quick drain. A boon of energy to prove to his peers, to the Negaverse, to himself that all capability was not lost in translation.
And then he could eat.
Finally Bischofite passed through the narrow mouth toward the street, crossing in the same shambling fashion that he managed before. His wings stood spread, though they offered no more company than a dozen bodies breathing alongside him. And once he approached the car, glimpsed closed lids through the rearview mirror, he crossed to the very front of the car where he paused for just a moment to watch the man within. Gold eyes settled on relaxed features, reclined posture while tinny music sounded from within the vehicle. Finally Bischofite flexed both hands as thick, sticky tar soon oozed down to cover every scrap of bare skin up to mid-forearm.
Palming the hood simultaneously, he loosed a wordless yell intertwined with a dozen others. In stress came great energy, and he demanded exactly that.
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