In the Moment

The ripper considered a long time, he considered, watched, waited, argued, fought; but in the end there was only one choice to be made. 1

And who was he fooling, really? Everyone is something. You can't run from who you are.2

Anyway, once you're here, once the heat punches you in the nostrils and the iron stink sings in your bones, and the drooling wet trickling over the back of your hand is someone else's red water, it's a bit late to protest too much. 3

So no more protesting. 4

Delve stares enraptured and amazed at the hitchhiker, at the hitchhiker's frozen face, at his own shocked expression reflected in the rear-view mirror. 5

Most especially, at the knife handle protruding from the other man's abdomen. 6

He hadn't meant to do it, not really, not *yet* at least, not like *that* anyhow, but somehow he had parked, he had turned around to speak to the hitchhiker, and then it seemed the knife just happened to be in his hand, and when his passenger's eyes met his and it seemed the man might be about to scream, well ... the knife just jumped. 7

Really, that's what it felt like. Involuntary, external. 8

It jumped, bit, struck, and now the blade was sinking deeper like a steel fang, as if with a will of its own. 9

Now Delve's eardrums ring and jangle with the pressure of the hitchhiker's screams, the soft fabric of the man's shirt pressing damply against his smooth-furred hand as the blade sinks to the hilt and tries to go deeper. 10

Delve doesn't quite understand how he got where he is. Somewhere deep inside, some dark primal instinct screamed for satiation, shuddering through the half-coyote's spirit.11

Disoriented, sensing that relief was but a single thin barrier away, the ripper rips. The knife struggles to remain where it is, blissfully buried in the belly of the bellowing bovine beast. But the pit bull mix exerts his will and his strength, and it twists but it comes, tearing sideways out of the hitchhiker's flesh with a disgruntled sound like a wet canvas sack being torn in two. 12

Almost immediately the knife jumps again, leaving a crimson bow spray behind it in the air. 13

The ripper finds himself living up to his type-cast again and again, sucking breath anxiously amongst the gasping bellows of his dying guest's last sickly attempts to continue screaming. 14

Blinking, he must wipe his arm across his face several times, as the blood gets in his eyes, stinging. He licks his arm unmindfully after, more focused on the surprisingly, delightfully active weapon than on cleanliness.15

Silence drops heavily like a blood-soaked blanket over the car.16

Delve feels much better, really.17

But tired. Alone. And cold. So very cold. 18

The ruined corpse retains more or less the shape of a human body, but it seems now more like a snug, warm cocoon in which to hide, an edible tent with dead skin walls. 19

Lying within the shattered, tossed and investigated gore, curled up, soaking the warmth of the other man's blood and flesh into his own skin, the ripper wishes he could stay here forever. 20

Inevitably, however, the blood goes cold, the last vestiges of healthfulness leave the flesh, and it becomes something *other*, something unfoodlike and unlovable, an abode for flies, a den of beetles, a low-cost fixer-upper for worms. 21

Already, Delve feels the pressure building up again as his fascination with the corpse turns to disgust, to loathing.22

So he must find someone else, and do it all over again...23

He reflects that a burning car does not lend the most palatable of flavors to roasting meat.

Author notes

This was originally an automatic-writing session. I've been trying to edit it into something resembling an actual story, or scene/vignette at least, but... I dunno. Maybe I should expand it? I have a lot of these little "kill-scenes" collected that don't have much else to them. But is there much point in detailing the capture, the whys of each victim, when it's basically always going to be variations on the same theme? Readers who give a damn, I could really use some help with this one. This is for option 6 -- a psychopath. I hope this is what you were looking for.

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Comments

1 - 9 of 9

  • EZlats
    October 25, 2008

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    o.o whoa. Twisted stuff man, twisted stuff.... great job.

    There's no back story to this or explination for it or anything... but that's ok. It's a story about a psychokiller (and what a psycho this guy is.) Psycho's don't need back stories or explinations, they just need exhibitions of how insane they are and that's exactly what you did.

    You showed this guy was totally nuts, but you didn't try to do it from a sane man perspective or have the guy think he really was evil. You did it from the insane point of view. He doesn't realize he does it and he doesn't realize what he really did (or if he does realize he doesn't feel bad)

    Near the end where you made him crawl into this guys dead corpse and use it like a blanket or whatever was just the icing on the cake.

    Everything was pretty perfect as far as I could tell.


    • intoothandclaw
      October 25, 2008
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      Delve appears in a few other stories, including "Doubt", "Biorhythms," and "Beware of Dog." If you want to read more of his ... work, I direct you there. Someday I'm going to assemble these disconnected scenes into actual stories and finish filling them out.


  • moonwriter
    July 15, 2008

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    This was really, really good. I ahve to agree with the person who commented before me. Your descriptions are flawless and you should be published.


  • Naive.
    July 14, 2008

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    You, random person whom I cannot view due to the bullshit anonymizing contest rules, are an amazing writer.

    You describe things to perfection. Your metaphors and similies are incredible. Delve and his behavior fascinated me. And I'm going to say to you what a reader on Storywrite said to me. (Wow, that sounds stupid. -.-) You NEED to be published. You write like it's a necessity, and you simply NEED to be published. Other writers dream about it, and I couldn't care less if they attain it...but I think you need it. Nothing this good deserves to only be posted on Storywrite.com.

    Sorry for my gushing praise, but I'm just being honest.

    I agree with the other person who commented before me that you should definitely expand this. You asked if you should "cobble all these kills into one or two stories, or expand each into its own separate story, or maybe a little of both", but I suppose it depends. You could put them all together if the murders are consistant with the type of killer. Two different killings won't exactly fit together unless they can realistically be committed by the same person and that person's behavior. If the different killings reflect a different types of killers, then you could expand them separately.

    Also, you entered another piece in my contest titled "Disarticulation" where one of your comments said:

    'The only way I kept myself in control for a long time was telling myself "Not now, it's not time yet. Just wait for the right time, when you're ready, when we can get away with it and do something good for the rest of the world at the same time."

    The ending is essentially that part of me asking the rest of me, "Why do we have to wait? Why aren't we allowed to do what we know is right? The state gets to kill, cops get to kill, but I don't? Why, damnit?"'

    My opinion might be crazy, but that sounded like an amazing topic to write a longer piece about. And in your Author Notes above you were concerned about repeating variations of the same theme...If I were reading a novel about a character who killed in hopes to accomplish something good for the world, I don't think I would tire of reading variations of that. It would be very, very interesting.

    So, yeah. I hope I helped because I do give a damn. Feel free to message me if you want more input and such.

    Thanks for entering and good luck! =]

    -jj


    • intoothandclaw
      July 15, 2008
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      It's intoothandclaw. Thanks, I guess. I have trouble believing anyone would want to publish the crap I can dump out without having a famous name like Stephen King to carry it, you know what I mean?

      And I've got a few characters around which all of these little vignettes revolve. So I was thinking of taking all the ones about a given character -- Delve, or Acetyl, or Howling Silence -- and stitching connections between them into a larger story. But since it's all happening in or around the same city, albeit in different places most of the time, it shouldn't be impossible to include more than one in the same story. Ghost Tree, in fact, involves both 'Cet and Howl, so I've already started to do it.

      I need to get working on Ghost Tree, in fact. Meh.

      • Naive.
        July 17, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        Oh. xD. Thank you muchly. =]

        Sounds good. I like the name of your characters. Never heard of either of 'em before. Unique.

        Ghost Tree?

        =D

        -jj

        • intoothandclaw
          July 17, 2008
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          I intend to write Paradise City novels. If only because the city exists constantly in my head doing what it does whether I choose to chronicle those doings or not, so I might as well do it. The Ghost Tree is the only one I've actually started. Though I got an idea for another one last night...

          My characters tend to name themselves. Howling Silence is a spirit and hence has a spirit-type name, whereas both Delve and Acetyl use street names.


  • dancindream
    June 29, 2008

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    thst was really good!
    it was described amazingly, and you're obviously a great writer!
    and my suggestion to you ts this: create a novel about a killer, such as this one. take your favorite kill scene and expand it into a story about a man who must do all these jobs. perhaps he is a molestor or soemthing f the sort. you can make it a story with 2 ponts of view...you can hvae the point of view of the killer(i.e. this passage) and tehn you can have the point of view o the people trying to catch/find out who the killer is. i dunno if this makes any real sens right now, so you can message me if u need further explanations =)
    hope ive helped in some way
    and thanks for entering

    • intoothandclaw
      June 29, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      I am actually working on a couple of novel-length stories along those lines. One is called The Ghost Tree, of which I've got one prologue/first chapter (not decided) posted, and the others are more nebulous. I'm not sure if I should cobble all these kills into one or two stories, or expand each into its own separate story, or maybe a little of both?

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