Friday, October 24, 2014

Halloween Story teaser/excerpt/opening/stuff

So every year I at least try to write a story that deals with Halloween, be it characters or themes, as well as Christmas. Well after several years of running out of time, I finally finished one last year on time! This year, the process is running a lot smoother, and even though I'm not halfway done yet, I feel pretty good about where I am and that I'll finish it by next Friday (spooky spooky ghost puppet make-up day). With that said, I figured I'd drop the first few pages of the story for this year here, because I have a blog and can do that now. Hooray for opportunity. If you're interested in reading the story, leave a comment (or if you know me...tell me or something) and I can figure out somehow to get it to you. If not, then, enjoy this little excerpt anyway! Also don't forget to follow me on Twitter (@seanovan13) and Instagram (@seanovan10) for updates on when I upload!

Ch. 1--Open Investigation


“No pills? Cuts? Needle markings? Nothing, completely unmarked?” detective Goldberg asked the physician once again. The physician, once again, nodded. Goldberg put his hand over his mouth, then rubbed his chin. “Then what the hell killed him?”
            “His brain is, or was, also functioning just fine before the time of death,” the physician asked. “I’ve studied many, many suicides, sir. Most I would like to forget. But this takes the cake.”
            “So then, how do we know it’s a suicide?” Goldberg asked, looking from the physician to his two detective allies behind him.
            “Nobody had been in or out of the house since the night before,” replied the detective. “Lives right across the street from me. He had a few drinking problems back in the day, but if it was anything from that it would be extremely easy to spot, and it wouldn’t really require a physician.”
            Goldberg scratched his head. “Guy’s not even pale, it’s like he’s just in a coma.”
            “No, he’s dead. His brain is shut down, his heart isn’t beating, none of his muscles seem to be, I supposed, ‘on.’ Then again, looks like he hasn’t had to worry about that for a while.”
            “What?” Goldberg asked. “What do you mean by that?”
            “Well for probably the past week, week and a half maybe, his muscles have been slowing shutting down, slowing up body activity until it finally came to a halt and now, well he’s dead.”
            “Muscle degradation?”
            “No. Just, muscle slowing down-age.”
            “And what could cause this?” asked Goldberg, thinking he was onto something. The physician was obviously his best hope here for figuring out what happened at 2123 Elm Tree Street last night at apparently around two in the morning.
            “Lack of brain activity, simple as that.”
            “Wouldn’t that also induce muscle spasms?” asked Goldberg, trying to think critically since the situation, and his job, called for it.
            “I can check for any. If so then this isn’t a suicide it’s just a strange case and nothing to really worry about.”
            “A dead man is always something to worry about. But we’ll give you time to check it out. Let’s go boys, to the hall.”
            Goldberg and his two assistants moved out of the room and into the bustling hallway. The reporters had, for the most part left, but were ravenous to find out about the man who died of nothing. That meant that either the story had died down or they were giving it an hour or so until they could get an update.
            The house was very well put together, though not to the point of suspicious. Some magazines were scattered on the counter in the room and a pair of shoes were sitting in the middle of the hallway. He turned into the study, keeping his hand unconsciously on the butt of his gun. He peered in, nodding to his assistants to go into the room.
            Suddenly, a rock soared into the room, shocking the two assistants and forcing Goldberg to draw his gun. He rushed outside and saw three young men in masks standing outside. One had a fist raised and the other two had rocks in their hands, though they were raised just like their ally.
            “How many does that make that?” shouted the one without the rock.
            Their masks were plain white, only with holes for the eyes. From the distance he was standing at, Goldberg couldn’t at all see into it and peer into their eyes but it hardly mattered. Goldberg kept his gun raised yet the young men seemed completely unfazed by this.
            “Get over here now!” shouted Goldberg. Still, though, the boys would not move.
            “How many?” he repeated. “This street is riddled with the dead and we want answers, and we will not back down until we have them!”
            He aimed his arm forward, and the two boys, with incredible strength and accuracy, hurled the rocks at Goldberg. Goldberg hesitated to try and shoot but instead decided to take the safe route and shielded himself. The two rocks hit his forearm and leg, stinging Goldberg.
            “Sir!” shouted his assistants, sprinting up to him. They took out their weapons and started after the three boys.
            “No, wait!” shouted Goldberg. “It’s fine, they’re just kids, they’re not a big deal.”
            They nodded. Goldberg put his weapon away, signaling for the other two to do the same.
            “Let’s just see if we can find anything,” Goldberg said.


            The three masked points continued their plight in the woods, sprinting as fast as they could. Their leader, also running the fastest, was almost laughing hysterically. They were all about fifteen feet from each other and were showing off impressive athleticism as they dodged trees and bushes without missing a beat.
            I watched, sitting atop a branch hidden from their plain sight. I put my hand up to my ear, listening in to what Zachary and Pete were saying.
            “Okay, guys, I’ve got them,” I said. “How much do I pursue?”
            “Just take them down and give them to the cops, then check out the scene,” Pete said.
            “Alright, broken limbs it is,” I said, and leapt off the branch.
            I tucked, rolled, then threw a diamond shard into the leg of the one on the right. I dashed after him with my super speed, quickly scooping up his mask and leaping back into the air.
            The other two escapees turned around, slowing down slightly.
            I appeared from behind a tree, jogging close to them. I shrugged, moving past them. The two other boys also shrugged but kept on running. In my right hand I formed a diamond shard, then instantly moved in.
            I dove at the leader, knocking him down with ease before spinning around, staying on my feet, and stabbing into the arm of the one on the left, then elbowed him in the back the neck and knocked him out. The mask-less one was coming at us now, limping, but he fell to a shard in the thigh.
            In a daze, the leader looked around. I kept my mask on, but pushed him into a tree. He was still conscious, somehow, after all that. I gripped him by the collar and lifted him up.
            “I’ll start with an answer to your question,” I said, keeping my voice the same since it was muffled by the mask. “Eleven people on Elm Tree have died so far from the same cause and nobody knows why.  Thirty more in the neighborhood are dead and there are one hundred people in this county alone that are dead. I’m also well aware that ten more people are dead because of your kind, whatever you call yourselves. Well whatever you are, you’re anarchists.”
            “No, we want the truth,” he said through the pain. “Nobody dies like this, it’s a conspiracy, man, and we’re here to stop it!”
            “You people are the reason there are over a hundred deaths!” I shouted, shoving him against the tree again. This time he was hanging onto consciousness on a very thin line. “The more goddamn attention you call to it means whoever is doing it is going to keep doing it because they want attention.” I paused, almost smiling behind my mask. “And Halloween in a few days, that’s probably it too.”
            “Who…the hell are you anyway?” he asked. “Not one of us, too young to be a cop…”
            “You might know me by what the media calls me,” I said.
            “Gurgh, gah, at?” he bumbled.
            “The Diamond Boy,” I said, and tossed him away. He landed on his butt before sprawling out on the ground, completely gone but not dead.
            I ripped off the mask, peeling of some of the paint while I was at it. I looked around at the three bodies and sighed.
            “May have overdone it,” I said.
            “You know, Axel, these guys aren’t the Assassins,” Zachary pointed out. “They’re fragile.”
            I looked around at them almost exasperated. “Who the hell is pulling the strings here, man? I’ve been here for a week and out of all the guys I’ve fought from this group are a bunch of older high schoolers and early college kids.”
            “They’re the perfect patch,” Zachary said. “Why not pick from kids who are unsure of their ideals yet? Plus, when something like this happens, in our liberal society, everyone is going to want to take the side of answers and freedom instead of helping the police look for it.”
            I laughed. “That was a pretty hefty political statement there, Zachary.”
            “Yeah, damn dude,” Pete said. “Been working with you for what feels like forever and I’ve never heard that out of you.”
            “Look, this kind of stuff just gets under my skin,” Zachary said.
            “Yeah well some psycho who’s on a kill streak of over a hundred people in the area gets under my skin,” I said. I looked up and leapt into the bushes, watching as an armadillo rolled up next to one of the unconscious bodies. “Cops are helping with the investigation, either. Hate to keep asking but why’d you send me?”
            “Because you’re the best equipped out of all of us to take on a guy of this caliber,” Pete said. “Well, and Tommy, but, hey, Tommy, where are you, anyway?”
            There was a pause. I raised my hand to my earpiece, tapping it, wondering if Tommy were even there. A small chill come through the air, making me shake for a second. I adjusted my hood to cover my neck. My jacket was warming my arms just fine and since I was squatting my legs were warm anyway.
            “Oh, yeah, I was just down on Voorhees Lane,” Tommy said. “There were a few guys here but when the saw me prowling around they split. Must have headed over to Elm Tree.”
            “They were probably just looking for the cops,” I said. “Just makes you wonder how long until they start shooting bullets instead of throwing rocks.”
            “Right around the same time that they get ammunition, undoubtedly,” Zachary said. “The town is small enough to the point where it’d be noticed but now that over a hundred people are dead in the county I’m surprised more people haven’t taken up arms.”
            “Doesn’t seem to be much use,” Tommy said. “From all the bodies we’ve examined, guns won’t stop the people from dying.”
            “It’ll stop the person behind it all,” Pete put in.
            I hugged the tree and dropped down, starting my walk toward the house again. The neighborhood was large and Elm Tree street was the main road. Most of the houses faced a forest that separated it from the middle school, which was probably where the masks were headed to when they made their break. I was assigned Elm Tree and Tommy Voorhees, which would be the last scan of the neighborhood for us. We’d cover three in one week and more bodies just kept on piling up.
            I cleared the forestry and chucked a mask I picked up toward the cop car. It dinged off of the hood, catching an officer’s attention. He called for the detective and walked inside the house. While he was distracted, I dashed for the car, hiding behind it. The police began to file out of the house, the reporters following them. Nobody even bothered looking behind them as the dogs ran toward the woods, the police following. When the final set of high heels was gone, I pulled up my hood and walked into the house.
            The house was extremely dusty, almost dusty to the point where I could see footprints. This dead guy either was horrible at dusting or he hadn’t been home in a while. Knowing that the cops had already checked out the lower levels, I nimbly moved upstairs, looking around for any rooms that looked slightly less dusty.
            An odd scent permeated the air, but barely. I looked around. Either someone was still in the house with me or there was something else at work. An odd presence was also making itself known, one that was familiar to me. I couldn’t put a name to the presence, but it was one that was old, yet impactful.
            I followed it, leading me past several closed doors until I reached the only open door in the whole upstairs. It was a guest room with nothing on its white walls but a few dots of red on the lower part of the back wall. The room was a total mess, with the shelf turned over and clothes poured out. Some roaches ran along the wall at top speed. The bed was unmade and a pillow was along the wall. The scene wasn’t entirely new, as Tommy and I had both investigated torn up rooms following a murder like these before.
            Only, this time there was something new to the room. The dots of blood were along the wall, but a strain of blood ran down from the wall onto the carpet and under the bed. I pushed the bed away.
            There under the bed was the carcass of a ripped up rabbit, followed by a dog, and finally, an Ouija board laying between the two of them. It was covered in red. Curiously, I moved it toward me with my foot. Ouija boards were meant to be used to contact spirits, which was a load of crap, yet, had this guy actually believed it?
            I flipped it over, uncaring if it broke. On the back, actually was a set of instructions. Scratched in was, “Will kill the word.”
            I chuckled, flipping it back over.
            “Guy had an Ouija board,” I said to my allies.
            “Can you sense what word he used last?” asked Zachary. “They’re supposed to be spiritual, you know.”
            “Yeah, I bet,” I said. I put my hand over the looking glass. “Well, can’t hurt to try, right?”
            I waited for a second, watching in anticipation for it to do something. I was feeling something very slight from it but nothing major. Almost as if there was a very weak spirit hiding within it.
            Suddenly, the glass jiggled. Slowly, the glass moved over. “R” to “A” to “B” to “B” again to “I” to finally “T.” Rabbit. Then, it spelled out dog. Finally, it spelled out “Chester.” I rose slowly, waiting for the Ouija board to spell out another name, or word. My hand stayed over it, the presence growing in the Ouija board. Then, the pressure exploded, sending a strong chill up my spine as the board spelled out “House.”
            “Oh, that’s not good,” I muttered. I ripped my hand away, feeling the pressure slowly seep back into the board. I rushed downstairs, soaring past the body before I cut my feet and ran back, covering my hand with my shirt and lifting the blanket over the body, patting the body down looking for a wallet. I extracted it, noting the man’s name was indeed Chester.
            “Son of a bitch,” I muttered again. I looked around the house, waiting for something to happen. So far, the board was three for three, having apparently killed the rabbit, dog, and this Chester guy.
            I wondered, though, if it was the board that did it or if it was Chester himself. Clearly, something took to bloodying up the two animals, but Chester didn’t have a scratch on him.
            “Hey!” a voice shouted. I whirled my head, seeing a cop running my way. He probably figured I was a mask.
            I was on my feet in seconds. The cop continued to run, aiming his gun at me. He tripped over something, the shock casuing him to fire. It ricocheted off the ground, creating a spark as the bullet pierced the gas tank. The spark reached the car, igniting the car and causing it to explode. The car was close to the house, so the fiery debris landed in the house and began to ignite the whole complex.
            “Alright, so, we may or may not have some spiritual problems here,” I said, running upstairs. I took hold of the Ouija board, it’s presence growing as the fire did.
            “It’s the board, isn’t it?” asked Pete.
            “Shut up,” I said. I ducked back inside, where the cop was now as well.
            “Freeze!” he shouted, aiming the gun.
            Without much of a choice, I ran down the hall and leapt through the window, tucking in my legs and rolling into the backyard. The cop was sprinting after me, forcing me to continue my run. I hopped over the fence, then transformed into my diamond form and burst forth, out of sight from the cop.
            I planted my feet, creating a huge rut in the ground to stop, then transformed again, placing my hand over the earpiece to make sure it was still there.
            “I got the Ouija board,” I said. “Looks normal, got lots of blood on it. Tommy and I will take a look at it later.”
            “So, what, did it predict the guy’s death or something?” asked Zachary.
            “No,” I said. “I think it may have caused it.”
            “It did?” asked Zachary. “It only reacted after you let some of your energy into it, right?”
            I nodded, even though they couldn’t see me. “Which means to activate it would require some semblance of spiritual energy, which Chester more than likely didn’t have. And I’m not sensing anything remotely close to spiritual in the area outside of the board.”
            “Well someone’s controlling the damn thing,” Pete said. “Maybe just not from the town.”            “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, beginning to walk forward. The rendezvous point with Tommy was in that direction anyway, and plus now I could talk. “You’re almost making it sound like they would need psychic abilities, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen.”
            “Well what about when you met that woman, how Jack O’ Lantern teleported you to that one place?” asked Tommy.
            I shook my head, again forgetting they couldn’t see me. “She went to Hell with Jack, it can’t be her. Do you think the masks have something to do with this?”
            “From what we know the masks are a bunch of crazy kids who can’t tell justice from injustice,” Pete said. “It’s best we leave them out of this.”
            “Doesn’t mean we can leave us out of them,” I said. “Tommy and I will come up with a plan and fill you guys in. Something’s definitely going on with the board but the sudden appearance of the masks with these murders is hinting at something.”
            Zachary sighed on the other side. “You know, Halloween used to just be gimmicky, now all these dudes are taking it seriously. Kind of kills the vibe, I just want candy.”

            I laughed. “Don’t worry, my kicking of the ass is candy for me. Tommy, let’s meet up.” 

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