Fiction: Breaking Tradition
Back in 2007, a friend and I experimented with keyword fiction -- we took turns coming up with random keywords and then tried to make a short story out of them. (We'd done this for our Iron GM challenges on our old gamer board, the Village, and that was a lot of fun, so that was where the idea came from.)
In any case, going through some old files tonight, I found one of my keyword fics. I haven't re-read it since I finished it, apparently, but it's interesting to go through it again and be able to spot some of my own quirks in the writing of the thing -- particular phrases, descriptives, etc., that still manage to work their way into my more recent pieces. Also ... it's kind of rough, but there are some mental images I like, so I'm glad I didn't pitch it.
For this story, the keywords were "strange visitor, eclipse, military experiment, goth chick." Follow the breadcrumbs to read more.
Strange Visitor, Eclipse, Military Experiment, Goth Chick
2450 Words
8/07
Head swimming with beer and heat, Chris slipped around the heavy wooden door, gratefully escaping into the muggy July night -- still hot, but at least a slight breeze stirred the air. A few steps from the doorway, he paused, groaning, and leaned against the wall of the club. The rough brick felt cool against his cheek, and he could feel the pulse of the music seeping through the building's skin into his own veins. He closed his eyes and shivered; the effect was weirdly erotic and nauseating at the same time.
"Hey, man, got a dollar?"
He opened one eye and sought out the source of the words. The voice was gravelly and wet, a precursor to tirades of coughing that made his own chest tighten. Standing a few feet away was an older man, rail-thin and stooped. His stringy gray hair poked in wild patches through a holey knit cap, and the layers of clothing -- surely a recipe for heat exhaustion in this weather -- were dingy enough to discourage any color differences in the weak marquee lighting. The man's watery gray eyes were focused intently on him; his mouth pulled up in a slight grin despite fading tracks of tears marking each cheek.
Chris opened both eyes, giving himself a moment to adjust. "What for?" He winced at the dull echo of his own voice.
"Ain't gonna lie, 's a bottle o' Mad Dog down there wit' m'name onnit." The gap-toothed grin widened a fraction as he gestured vaguely toward the liquor store.
Chris nodded and fished a bill out of his pocket. Diane and her friends had pretty well wiped him out tonight, why not finish the job? He rolled to the right, placing his back against the wall, and offered the crumpled paper to the bum.
The bill vanished from his hand, and the older man's eyes lit up at the five. "Knew you'd unnerstand. Yer a good man. Hey." The bum straightened and stepped closer, eyes shifting from side to side conspiratorially. "Hey. Listen. If yer smart, y'll get outta sight. T'night's the night. Moon goes inta hiding and spooks come out. She comes out, too." He shuddered and dropped his voice. "Better the spooks than her, maybe, but I dunno for sure. Depends on her mood. Takes yer chances, anyhow."
The club doors opened, and a couple stumbled out, giggling and groping. The bum flinched and recoiled a few steps, then turned back to stare at Chris for a moment. "Ain't crazy, y'know. Ain't," he insisted. A wild spark lit his eyes, the warped reflection of the club lights, maybe. "Yer a good man. Better ya scoot, an' if she finds ya, don't let 'er in, but be polite. She's a lay-dee!" he whispered fiercely, using oddly precise enunciation on the last sentence. With a nervous glance at the sky, the man hunched inward, clutching the five, and crept off down the sidewalk.
Unable to stop himself, Chris glanced upward. Thick clouds had rolled in during the evening, and occasional flashes of lightning snaked through the storm cover. Of course the moon would be hidden tonight. He closed his eyes and exhaled, forcing himself to relax. Jesus. Either he'd had far too much beer tonight, or he'd just won the crazy bum lottery. Or both. Either way, home ... bed ... sounded good. He shoved his hand into his jeans pocket and groaned again as he came away with nothing but loose change. Of course. He'd just given away the last of his cash. No taxi.
Staring somewhat forlornly after the retreating bum, he debated going back into the club to call a friend for a ride, but finally rejected the idea. The thought of diving back into the stifling cacophony made his stomach lurch. He thought he remembered a pay phone down the street, though, at the all-night gas station a few blocks away. With a steadying breath, he rolled off the building and started walking, carefully guiding himself along the walls.
Noise from the club faded as he steadily drew further away, replaced only by the ebb and flow of traffic, and the occasional rumble of thunder. It was late enough that there were few cars on the road, now, mostly people on their way home from the bars, and a few unfortunates on third-shift lunch. As he walked, the breeze slowly leeched the alcohol from his brain, leaving him tired and nursing a slight buzz. After a few blocks, he narrowed his eyes against the glare ahead; the newly-remodeled Speedway was a garish oasis of light, all shiny new gas pumps and stadium lamps trapped under a canopy occupying nearly the entire end of the block.
Shielding his eyes from the harsh lights, Chris made his way to the pay phone on the edge of the property, thankful he didn't have to venture deeper into the tinny muzak echoing through the pump stations. He turned his back to the lights and rested for a moment against the phone box. The wind had picked up, but hopefully the storm would wait a few minutes more. Coins ... coins ... he retrieved a few from his pocket and leaned against the cool metal of the faceplate, searching for a coin slot. Ah, there -- his fingertips traced the outline of the hole. As he picked up the receiver to check for a dial tone, fat drops of rain began to splatter the sidewalk around him.
Cursing, he dropped the handset back into its cradle and turned his face upward. The drops were heavy, but felt blessedly cool against his skin.
"You probably shouldn't be out there. Lightning's attracted to metal, I hear."
Chris rubbed his eyes and glanced backward, toward the canopy. A young woman in a black sleeveless sundress and buckled boots stood dry below the overhang, watching him with a concerned expression. Her dark hair was caught up in a loose bun with wooden chopsticks, and the harsh lighting bleached her olive skin to a dirty tan. She waved him toward the canopy, then clasped her hands behind her. He wasn't sure how he'd missed her, a gothic smudge in the surreal brightness of the station.
"Yeah. Right." He sighed and pushed himself away from the phone box. Once he was out of the rain, he smiled weakly at her. "Sorry, it's been a long night."
She nodded, watching him. "You should be careful. There are scary things out tonight."
Chris paused, and looked at her more closely. She seemed about his age, maybe 25 or so. The makeup around her eyes might be a little heavy, and she had a definite drift toward the dark in her fashion statement, but she seemed sane enough, despite her words. "You're the second person to say that tonight."
A flicker of sadness crossed her face, and she nodded again, but said nothing. Chris shrugged and took a seat on the rounded edge of a cement planter at the periphery of the canopy. The wind peppered his back with errant rain, but he was still too warm, and didn't mind.
The woman stepped back without looking and balanced on a strip of cement at the end of a parking spot. They watched the rain for a few moments, until finally Chris let his curiosity get the better of him. "You waiting for the phone, too?"
She had been watching the cars, and seemed caught off guard by the question. "Phone? Oh. No, I'm waiting for someone." She nodded toward the street. "They should be along any time now."
"Boyfriend?"
She blinked, then laughed. Her voice was pleasant, he decided. Soothing and less grating than Diane's. And she had a perfect dimple when she smiled -- a true smile, without the sadness he'd sensed earlier. "No, not a boyfriend." She didn't offer any further explanation, but merely watched him for a moment as she balanced on one foot, hands still clasped behind her. "You're nice," she said finally. "My name's Lyssa."
He grinned tiredly and waved, trying to work out the best way to ask for her number. "Hi, Lyssa, I'm Chris. I apologize in advance if I say anything stupid. I had a bit to drink tonight."
Lyssa nodded, bemused. "I know. It's all right." Before she could say more, movement caught her eye, and her gaze shifted toward the gas station entrance. A white van, unmarked, with no back windows, rolled to a stop in front of the convenience store. She tilted her head slightly, as if to hear better, and the amusement abruptly drained from her expression, leaving an eerie blankness.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Chris. They're here."
With calm, fluid movements, she reached back and slipped the twin chopsticks from her hair; a sudden eddy of wind danced around her, and the loose curls whipped and writhed like snakes. When she turned back to Chris, her eyes had gone black as storm clouds. He shuddered as lightning arced across the sky, and then, several seconds later, reflected in her eyes, as if it had to travel great lengths to reach her.
The wind shifted again, and began pelting Chris with rain flung sideways under the canopy, each moment building a growing intensity. The drops, once fat and lazy, bit like needles, now. There was something very wrong here, he knew. It was in the crawl of his skin, the sinking feeling in his chest, the slow slide of reality cracking under pressure. And yet ... despite the urge to fling himself into the punishing rain and flee into the night, something had rooted him to the spot.
Behind the woman with night-black eyes -- Lyssa, was that what she'd said? -- a man opened the passenger side door and stepped out of the van, surveying his surroundings cautiously. He was dressed in military greens, though Chris couldn't say what branch. He carried himself with an assurance that spoke of experience, and after he noticed Chris and Lyssa on the other side of the canopy, he spoke to someone inside the van. The soldier couldn't see her eyes, though, Chris thought in a panic, and his fingers reflexively tightened on the edge of the planter.
He couldn't see the bottomless forever.
After a moment, the man nodded once and closed the door to the van. As the soldier walked into the station, Lyssa began to speak; like her movements, her voice was paradoxically calm and soothing, contrasting sharply against the storm around them.
"There are men who are stupid enough to play with the children of gods, as if this place were beneath the notice of the Others. They have been deceived by fools, and think to make weapons of stolen Names and bloodlines."
Oh ... shit. Chris felt his blood go cold as her words began to sink in. Obviously she was insane, too, but her eyes ... he shuddered, still unable to turn away, as the black orbs swallowed another stab of lightning. She whispered something in another language to the storm winds -- harsh and staccato, sounding vaguely Greek or Hungarian to his ears -- then the van lurched sideways behind her. Even over the wind and rain, he could hear sudden shouts and cursing as they erupted from within. The soldier inside the station paid chatted briefly with the clerk and paid for his purchase.
She turned slightly, to watch the scene behind her, but continued the bizarre narration. "These men do not understand; we are not governed by laws, but by the traditions etched into our Names. Traditions that can be re-written by those powerful enough. Understand, Lost One: earlier tonight, you showed compassion toward one of mine, and so I spare you my touch. I bear you no malice, nor do I harbor ill will toward your city. These men are my prey, and they alone; so it is that I break tradition and call upon the hidden light of Lady Selene to allow this son of Volos to shed captivity and his pain. This lesson," she continued, and shifted her weight to balance now on her left foot, "will be swift and brief." For all the formality in her words, she sounded as if she were reciting a grocery list.
On cue, the shouts gave way to shrill screams and the wail of torn metal pierced the storm. A throat-scraping, inhuman howl crescendoed as the van's movement turned violent, punctuated then by the ricochets of semi-automatic gunfire and the sound of shattering glass.
Chris watched, paralyzed, as realization dawned on the soldier inside the building, and the man dropped his purchase to throw open the glass doors, racing out with his sidearm drawn. Abruptly, the quivering van fell silent, and the wind just ... ceased. Something dark and wet and solid slid down the side of the van to land with a plop on the pavement below. Visibly shaking, and trying to keep his gun trained on the van, the man in fatigues cautiously approached the passenger side door and looked in through the shards of glass. He barely turned away before he doubled over to vomit. In the sudden quiet, the retching sound made Chris's stomach twist in sympathy.
As the soldier groped for his radio, Lyssa glanced back to Chris; with profound relief, he realized her eyes were just eyes. "You should go," she said. "The rain will continue a while, but you will find another phone. You do not want to be here when the other soldiers come to answer his call. I claim this one in the name of madness; he will not be contained as the wolf was."
"Con ... contained?" The howl. He glanced involuntarily at the van. Jesus, all that from a wolf? What the hell ...? "Who ... no, what are you?" Chris's voice was hoarse and cracked. His limbs felt watery and weak as he slipped off the planter and took a step backward.
Lyssa smiled, a melancholy gesture, and shook her head. He could see now the darkness of her hair was a rich, deep burgundy; the curls fell in hopeless tangles down her back. "My name has been forgotten by all but scholars. Perhaps this is for the best. I am both glad and sorry we met, Chris. It is not often that I am met with such calm."
She stepped backward off the parking curb, again without looking, then turned and began walking lightly toward the silent van. Almost reluctantly, Lyssa, daughter of Nyx and the harbinger of raging madness, cast one final look over her shoulder.
"I sincerely hope we will not meet again."
Labels: fiction
posted by miakoda @ 12:36 AM
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