Tag: Writing

Bonus story: Preparing For The Hunt

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 3 Comments

She sat at the bar in one of the nondescript dives darkened against its regulars ugly mugs. Stale beer and smoke lined the air in a visible haze with more than hints of desperation and depression beneath them. Places like this were a dime a dozen in a mega-city like Neo-Chicago. Over the decades the hustle and bustle of white and blue-collar bodies and El-trains morphed into the steady bob and weave of crowds two and three times their elder’s size. Over them were the intermittent whir of the light-rails and near-silent engines of electric, public and private transports. Gusts of wind from the city’s collective– albeit quiet– roar, made the Windy City’s name all the more apropos.

She’d been there at least six hours, had nursed two or three drinks in that time. Obviously of the Femme Fatale variety, she was all decked out in leather, calf-high boots, and pierced just about everywhere to be seen– and in a few places that couldn’t be. The metal accented piercing, blue eyes that would swallow whole anyone whom looked into them. Straight, brown hair fell around her leather shoulders that folded and crinkled in as she sipped a warm beer.

Her eyes were drawn sideways as a man entered the bar across the room. A gust of wind blew his clothing with a wild tousle from a passing train, sucked the door shut in a slam. He marched up to the bar, ordered a scotch, threw it back. He slammed the glass down, motioned for another pour. She watched him carefully, one leg crossed over the other at the knee on a high stool.

“Rough Day?” She asked behind a drink.

He made a half nod, slugged back another shot, slammed the glass down again, “Laid off.”

She raised a brow, spoke with a curiously still upper-lip, “Sounds rough to me.”

He cast a glance at her, saw her in full; a hint of arousal tainted the air, as it did with all the men that saw her for the first time. Most never got past the first advance, but something about her said she might let him go further, if not all the way, just for the fun of it.

He leaned on an elbow to face her, “Never seen you here before.”

She gave a sly smile, “I’d imagine I’m here when you’re working.”

He smirked, “Well my the day’s not so rough then. What d’you do then?”

Her mouth made grandiose motions with the words, “This and that.”

He inched along the bar toward her. She could smell the half-erection in his pants, the course of arousal that stank like a high-school boy’s locker room– all testosterone and revving engines. She tilted her head toward it for a silent, subtle whiff. He missed the movement, sensed her interest from the slight glaze of her eyes. In truth, her heightened sense of smell was as much a weakness as a strength– especially when hunting. All she needed was one, minor whiff to trigger the animal inside her.

She tongued her sharpened incisors and canines, kept them hidden from him. They were frightening at first appearance, kinky afterward. The result of a failed attempt to embrace an illness she’d received in her teen years, she’d learned the hard way not to show them prematurely.

He seemed to make a motion, as if to hesitate and ask her permission. She made no protest. He moved forward, allowed by the dulled glaze her thoughts had left in her eyes. Between her heightened senses and her careful evasion of baring her teeth, most of her inner-resources were too occupied to notice him before he’d sidled up beside her in his lean.

He slugged back another shot, eyed her body with a heavier breath than his last. Most would have missed it, even she might have, were she not so intent on remaining focused after the last oversight. The erection was probably full-on by now, or at least as full-on as denim would let it get. Her ultra-attentive eyes flitted downward at a lump, each breath through her nose tinted by his scent.

He ordered another shot with a twist and a wave that shifted the air toward her, bathed her in testosterone and pheromones. Her body trembled, her groin warm. Hot blood flowed through him, but she wanted it hotter, faster. She slid off the chair without volition as the bar-tender slid over shot.

She stopped him from drinking with a quiet lean, whispered into his ear, “I want you.”

The erection was full-on now. She eased back with a long, sensual inhale through her nose. Beneath her leather coat and t-shirt her nipples hardened, panties already wet with anticipation. She slugged back the shot, made eye contact. Her piercing blues swallowed him whole. He swayed after her as she led him out by a hand.

His feet clomped along, leaded by a curious insulation that left him numb to the world, but kept his body fiercely alight. They maneuvered out of the bar and into the alley beside it. It would’ve smelled of piss and trash were it not for the overpowering scents of animal lust. She pulled him to the back wall, the least offensive smelling of its depths. An aggressive shove threw him against the wall. Her hands writhed as her tongue fought to take control of his. He submitted, hand loose against her side as she slid down, ready to swallow him more wholly than before.

When she came back up a few moments later with a long swallow, she kissed up a trail his neck to suck at his collar bone. Then, her tongue skirted his jugular. Numbed by pleasure and confusion, he almost didn’t notice when she her teeth sank in. Hot blood flooded her mouth. A hand grabbed her hair with passion. Then, pain; his eyes went wide, neck struggled against her. He was light-headed by the time he saw his death coming.

She climaxed with loud, wailing moan as his last bits of blood drained from his pale body. She pushed away from the wall, chest heaving. His corpse slid sideways, limp and empty. Her tongue circled her mouth. She swallowed hard, the mixed ambrosia of sweet cum and coppery blood a cocktail of Nirvana. HPPD– Hypovolemic photo-phobia disease– had given her half the recipe, but she’d concocted the rest on her own. It made it all the sweeter to suck them dry before she drained them, once more embraced the term “vampire.” It was a romantic notion of course, she was just another afflicted soul, but whatever she was, she was grateful for it’s gifts.

She returned to the bar, gave the tender there a knowing look. When she sank back into her seat, she lifted her beer to nurse it, only to see a gaggle of men enter ready to drink and party. She tongued her sharpened teeth and once more prepared for the hunt.

Short Story: Monster or Saint?

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Heavy boots thumped a one-two rhythm across hardwood floors laced tightly to mid-calf with skin-tight, leather tucked into them. Wide hips from a plump back-side swayed as their long, muscled thighs and calves made steady progress across a wide room. It reverberated like an empty opera hall, almost echoed each step back at them.

From her belt, the woman dislodged a small device, slipped it over her middle and ring fingers with a circular attachments that palmed it in the rest of her hand. Her toned abdomen was visible in the exposed span between her waist band and half-shirt, contracted and flexed with heavy breaths and the exertion of muscle as her arm and shoulder lifted. They extended, the device in-hand pointed outward.

Ahead stood a man she loathed; he was parked in the center of a wall of gray stone that accented warm maple with as a drab thing of mock-beauty that framed the house’s rear. In it, a fire-place crackled and popped, cast opposing fire-light against the subtle sconce and ceiling lighted shadows that complimented the room’s darkened corners.

The man’s graying features were astute, blank, as though he sensed something heavy in her mind and walk. He could not have known how heavy. He was never one for human signals or pleasantries, but all the same remained mannered, almost polite even– as likely to shake a man’s hand as to slit his throat.

His one, empty hand rose as if filled, guided by the other with a glass of thick Merlot in it, “Evelyn.” His voice contained neither the slightest hint of paternity nor remorse, “So wonderful of you to join me.”

A thrum of electricity grew in her hand, triggered a roar. A beam of violet and blue plasma spit outward from the device, struck him dead center. He and the house’s rear wall disintegrated to dust. The sound was something like a wrecking ball colliding with cement while wood splintered, and rebar twisted.

She was through the smoke, outside without the slightest hint of regret or guilt. He’d have been proud of that, but then he was never one for pride– arrogance perhaps, but never pride. Pride was a weakness. One whom could be prideful was open to manipulation. It was just as foolish as his arrogance in believing he could keep a person enchained for twenty-one years. It was even more arrogant to believe such when it was his own daughter, or that she would continue to love him after he’d murdered her mother, used her as a test-bed for genetic manipulation to form “the perfect woman.”

“It will only hurt for a moment,” he’d always said.

The only thing near to regret in her was that she hadn’t made him suffer. His death had been quick. Not like her mother’s; a slow torture to extract information on whether or not she’d turned over his secrets to authorities. Evelyn remembered little of her child-hood, repressed as it was, but the look in her mother’s eyes as she pled for mercy was more than a memory. That image had a monopoly on Evelyn’s hate, all of her ire and pain contained therein. He’d put the bullet in her head himself, didn’t even flinch when his wife’s– mother of his child’s– blood splat across the hardwood with bits of brain and skull.

The pool-house ahead was already swarmed by his security detail. It didn’t matter. They were too late. They hunkered down along its sides and rear, took aim with high-powered rifles. A lift of her arm and a thought; the pool-house disintegrated, took limbs and whole bodies with it. Those that weren’t dead now joined the symphony of night-time chaos she’d triggered with dying screams.

She angled wide around the pool, caught the movement of three guards that sprinted along its far-edge. Evelyn stopped. The device tracked them for a moment. Then, a lone blue and violet burst made a crater of a row of hedges and their bodies. She continued in-step, by now the screams silent, but replaced helicopters that throttled up in fast thumps, made gusts of wind scream from the high roof of the enormous, villa-style home.

Her father had always liked his helicopters; they took him anywhere he wanted to go and their view made him feel as if the king he’d always attempted to become. They were as much a part of him as his arrogance or lack of mercy.

Evelyn turned on-heel, sighted one helicopter. A plasma burst sheered off its top half, part of the pilot gone with it. The husk burned in a tail-spin as the other began to lift off below it. They collided mid-air. An explosion shook the estate grounds as fire rained on the villa. The gnarled steel of the two choppers plummeted through the roof, ignited secondary explosions in the house and garage.

For a moment, the fire gleamed in Evelyn’s eyes as she watched– both from the house and her own fury. A moment later she swiveled forward again, continued her march. Security guards shouted, screamed orders back and forth, even fled for their lives. Their pay wasn’t worth dying for, not anymore anyhow, especially given her father’s incentive to die for him was nullified by his own death.

She marched, unimpeded, between columns of hedges on either side of her. The pristinely manicured grounds had been a status symbol more than anything. Even then, they were as much a part of her cage as the gate far ahead was. To the crunch of gravel from the path beneath her boots, Evelyn kept her rhythm firm, pointed for the grounds’ wrought-iron, rear-gates. Beyond waited her getaway vehicle and the promise of a new life. Nothing could have stopped her from reaching it even had it tried.

She was through the gates in less time than it felt, twenty-one years of misery almost over. She slid into the rear-seat of a vehicle, slipped the device off her hand. A man beside her presented a cupped palm for it. She dropped it in. He turned it over in his hands, examined it. Then, with a nod to the driver, the vehicle began to roll forward.

“Your father?” The old man asked. Evelyn glared. He gave a lone nod, eyes forward, “Fitting his greatest invention should be his last, and that it should be the death of him.”

“My father,” she said caustically. “Was a monster. Monsters deserve to die.”

The man’s face pinched inward pensively, “Indeed.” He swallowed hard in a dry throat, glanced over at her, “I can’t help but wonder, if perhaps killing a monster, makes one a monster too.”

She sneered, “Perhaps it makes one a saint.”

He gave a smirk, laughed quietly and nodded to himself as the car drove on through the night toward an uncertain future. Whether monster or saint, it didn’t matter to Evelyn; she was free, now able to be either or both if she so chose.

Bonus Poem: Sold Our Soul For Oil

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

This country,
sold its soul,
for oil,
and jet-black coal.

We polluted the land
and perverted our rights,
for illusory security,
and cold, dying nights.

Were we not so young,
we might not be forgiven.
But we will not be,
unless we take action.

We watch puppet shows,
elect their prettiest lad or lass,
but they’re all the same–
a hand up their ass.

Then we let the rich
walk across our backs,
trample our faces in mud,
and drown us ‘tween the cracks,

of a system we built,
but they bought and paid for,
what shame we should feel,
despite all our labor.

So much for,
the land of the free,
and home of the brave–
if only we’d see,

that such platitudes fail,
when faced with the truth;
that rich oil barons,
and religion’s uncouth.

Until then I guess,
we’ll all have to accept,
that the rich will get richer,
by snapping our necks.

The Collective: Part 7

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

7.

Interrogation

Ville Andersson hung from a chain under a leaking water pipe. Between the rancid water that ran down his exposed upper body, the puddle beneath him, and his still-wet pants and socks from the rain, there wasn’t much of him left dry. Lex planted a heavy slap across his face to rouse him.

He shook awake, “What the hell? What’s going– who d’you think you are?! Let me down at once!”

Another slap silenced him. Lex stepped back into the cross-light that filled another, nondescript basement in yet another abandoned tenement. Rachel angled between the two from the right, a chair in her hands. She swallowed hard, set it to their left. Fear and regret infected her as she stepped back with a pair of jumper cables in her gloved hands. The cables snaked to the chair, connected to a new-age high-strength car battery there.

Andersson eyed the jumper prongs in Rachel’s hands, “You must be joking. Filthy pig!”

Rachel shook her head. Lex slapped Andersson’s face again, refocused his attention on her, “The battery isn’t enough to kill you. However, if your body is electrified long enough, your nervous system will fry. Even after the current’s removed, you will continue to feel pain. Your muscles seize. Your pulse becomes erratic. You struggle to breathe, but can’t. You want to scream, but only gasp. Your Jaw clenches. Teeth grind.” Lex took a step back, “If you’re lucky, your pain receptors will blow-out before it is over. You’ll go in to shock. Only when your brain starts to shut down will the agony finally end.” Lex removed a massive, fluid-filled syringe and needle from an inside pocket of her jacket, “That is, unless someone shoots you with adrenaline.” She lifted the syringe, made sure it was a focal point between them, “Straight in your heart.”

Andersson swallowed breathlessly, “ Wh-what do you want?”

Lex’s eyes narrowed slightly, “The location and bypass measures for the Collective’s vault.”

“How d’you– No, no I can’t,” he said with a fearful shudder.

Lex sighed, crossed her arms, then nodded to Rachel. She trembled, flinched as she sparked the prongs together. Andersson protested, pled. The clamps spread wide with a forward step. She thought to hesitate– it was this or Lex killed her. If she left, the Collective killed her. It wasn’t a choice, just a different form of torture. At least Ville’s was obvious.

Charged steel touched Andersson’s skin at his chest and hip. His mouth opened to scream, rasped instead. His body writhed, shook. The current locked his jaw. Freshly cooked skin perforated the air. Rachel fought to keep her stomach from climbing her throat. Her arms made micro-moves to keep the prongs on Andersson. He juked, spasmed, seized. She kept conscious; her treatment would be worse, at least this proved her usefulness.

“Enough.”

Rachel almost fell backward. The prongs lifted, spread apart. Andersson dangled, helpless. Errant shocks still arced over him. His jerked and twitched with whimpers. Scorch-marks of red, over-cooked skin had yet to blacken or peel.

“The vault, Ville,” Lex said calmly. “We know it is in the Alps. Its coordinates and bypass protocols and this ends.”

His jaw chattered from the electricity’s effects, “I-I c-can’t. T-they’ll k-kill me…”

Rachel winced, met Lex’s eyes. She gave a slight nod. Rachel steeled her throat against the bilious rise from her gut. Her hands re-fixed their grip on the prongs.

“N-no. No!”

Andersson’s cries turned to a sustained growl. Current rocketed through him. Blue spines emanated in waves across his skin in water from the pipe above. Jaw-muscles clenched. Enamel ground. His legs and shook until Rachel was sure she’d lose contact.

“Stop.”

Rachel was woozy. She returned to her spot beside the chair. Lex took a few steps forward, put a pair of fingers to Andersson’s neck. In one motion she uncapped the syringe, jammed into his heart, and shoved the plunger in. His body tensed with a rasping scream.

He was suddenly fully alert, “Okay, I’ll talk. I’ll talk.” He sobbed, “You’ll… n-need a p-pen.”

Andersson was true to his word. He began to talk, at length. He needed no further incentive. Evidently the adrenaline had been as bad as Lex remembered. Or perhaps the Swiss man was merely less robust. He revealed the coordinates and vault security protocols all the same. Rachel scribbled his words on a few sheets of paper, along with a remote IP address to download the vault’s specs.

“T-that’s it,” Andersson finished. “Th-that’s all there is.”

Lex nodded, “Very good, Ville.” She drew a blade from her back.

“B-but, I gave you everything you wanted!”

Lex’s eyes were cold, “Not everything.”

The blade whirled. Her arm extended. Steel plunged into his heart. His body gave a final twitch, then went limp against its binds. The blade withdrew, whirled. Blood splat across the back-wall.

Rachel stared. She’d suspected Lex would kill Andersson regardless. Between what Rachel had done herself, and what Lex assured she’d suffer if she resisted, she’d entered a sort of autonomous fugue state. She was aware of the atrocity she was committing, but somehow it was now all the more real. The papers shook with her hands. Her throat bubbled acid.

She sprinted for a distant, dark corner of the room, fell to her knees. The sound of retching heaved acid from her empty gut. Bile stung her sinuses over putrescent mold. The sickly combination fueled her dry-heaves. Rachel forced herself to come up for air, the wet basement’s stink too powerful. Her knees trembled as she rose. Lex re-sheathed her blade, collected the papers.

“I-I c-can’t do this,” Rachel stammered.

Lex’s methodical actions remained unhindered, “Are you reneging on our deal?”

Rachel swayed into a clumsy walk to approach Lex, “What deal? You mean turning me into a monster in place of killing me? Or sending me back to the Collective to have them kill me? Where’s the deal there, Alexis? Where’s my incentive?”

Lex remained collected, “I’ve told you before, my name is Lex.”

Rachel grit her teeth. Tears welled in her eyes, “You’re just going to use me until I’m not helpful anymore, then kill me anyhow. Even if you don’t, you’ll send me back to the Collective, make them do it for you. So where’s my incentive, Alexis?”

Lex made a move that Rachel was sure would end her life. Instead, she found herself nose-to-nose with her, “My name is Lex. Your people made sure Alexis died in prison, falsely accused of her parents’ murder.” Rachel’s breath trembled, hot on Lex’s face. “Have you ever been in a Collective Prison for dissent?” Lex’s eyes sharpened with her tongue, “Do you know what they do to people they can’t turn into Sleepers?” Another breath trembled, mixed hot air with the basement’s cold on Lex’s face. Rachel’s eyes clenched shut in terror. “Trust me when I say, Andersson’s torture was a reprieve compared to what they did to us– to me.”

Lex straightened, increased the distance between them. Rachel’s eyes flitted open, but remained down-cast, petrified.

“Every breath you take from this moment forward is a gift from me, Rachel Dahl,” Lex said harshly. “You may not have been my captor, but your negligence allowed me to be theirs. Trust that if I wanted you dead I would not hesitate to kill you. One day, you will recognize that. With it, you will see you’re only alive because your crimes are not irredeemable. Only then can you begin to seek redemption.” Lex turned to leave, “If I were you, I would do everything to ensure I retain that opportunity.”

Missed part 6? Read it here!