A story we write together!

Creative Forums Creative Writing
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This is a game I like to play on different forums. I thought we could give it a try also here at I Love Philosophy. The rules are simple, just continue the story I am beginning below. Write as long as you like, but a couple of paragraphs should at least be written. Let the writings begin!

Doug closed the book and turned off the computer. This was it! Now was the time for action, no longer could he sit by and watch while society degenerated into Sin. He would cleanse this sinful city of Boston, or die in the attempt.

He went into the basement, and opened the safe. From it, he extracted the tools for the job. … [to be continued]

2

From it, he extracted the tools for the job.

A hollow bump and a half-strangled, almost inhuman gurgle startled Doug enough to drop almost every tool in a noisy clatter around his feet. The excrutiating pain that shot through his smallest toe was not enough to halt Doug’s turn and lurch towards the ottoman in the farthest corner of the room, across which was still draped the brutally battered form of his ex-wife. He had left the bitch for dead earlier that day, and could not restrain the half smile that slowly crept across his face. Was it seven years of marriage and a slow divorce that had left the old hag with such staggering endurance? No matter, Doug hesitated just long enough to set his face into an accustomed pout, before one swift jab of the screwdriver deep into her temple brought the stirring body to rest once more.

3

With a small giggle, Doug let the limp body fall to the ground, once more. He then washed his hands, and started hauling the container of potassium cyanide towards his car. With quite some effort, after all it was a big container, he managed to place it in the trunk, together with the other stuff he’d recently aquired.

“Ok, here we go, God!”, Doug said loudly to himself. He did a final check of the inventory inside the truck; it was all there. With a final caress of the Bible beside him, he started the engine, and left the garage.

4

And knocked a small child off his bicycle as he sped down the street, chortling disquietingly, stroking the small cat which accompanied him in the passenger seat…

5

“What newness death can bring,” thought Doug.

Old Doug was dead. He’d died a few times over. As a boy, intelligent Doug suffered a quick and tragic death by the hand of principle. Faith and unquestioning loyalty to the words of God had done it, had given him a guilt in the analogies and realizations that would often flood his mind at the young age of 9. Ignorance took over and his exceptional abilities at focus, and his absolute determination, were enough to blunt them out almost permanently.
From there Doug just “put up” with life. He kept himself entertained by life’s games: sports, politics, jobs, fashion. Regimented and disciplined by simplicity, by microcosms of reality, Doug meandered through a life so ordinary.

But now, after a different translation of the same Words that had impacted him before, and still quite equipped with determination ressurected and reformed, Doug was ready to fill in the blanks of the puzzles that had presented themselves in the last days of his life.

“Life,” he thought, “is deserved ONLY by the very righteous.”

Doug grabbed his pussy and mashed his foot down as hard as he could, the wind that suddenly swept through his truck a simple metaphor for a complex puzzle of emotion and rebirthed righteousness.

6

But the cat wasn’t into rough play and bit down on the soft part of Doug’s hand forcing him to toss her onto the divided highway at terminal speed.

“Goddamn cat,” He thought. Just like everyone else in his life Patches just didn’t understand he was trying to help her. He was just trying to save her as he would soon save Boston as he was once himself saved, but he’d have to eat first.

He spotted a faded burger stand rising from the cracked asphalt that fenced this godless city and turned in to eat.

7

The hamburger vender glared at Doug with disgust developed from the greasy shirt and pointless white apron wound around his waist. his face was fat, along with his belly, and the mustard container he held in one hand and the burger he held in the other seemed to want release. Doug couldn’t allow such helpless things go without aid.

Doug brought the bloody screwdriver from the pocket inside his jacket which was used earlier on his wife. The hamburger vender was not new to the idea of being stabbed considering his position in the ‘bad’ part of town. Doug did not hesitate to impale the fat bastard with the screw driver as he had done so many twisted souls before him, the driver was forced so hard through the vender that it reached the walled behind the flabbergasted hamburger dealer. Doug smiled, and freed the hamburger from evil’s clutches. Yet the hamburger of itself imprisoned a delicious blend of mustard, ketchup, pickles, onions,tomatoes and lettuce. Such beauty should not be kept hidden from the world, henceforth Doug engulfed the burger in its entirety and let out a modest belch.

8

Such beauty should not be kept hidden from the world, henceforth Doug engulfed the burger in its entirety and let out a modest belch.

Doug, in a moment of absolute zen, looked down at the defeated man and proclaimed, “I’m lovin’ it!”

Satisfied at his clever remark, Doug strolled back to his truck swinging his keychain in circles around his pointer finger. As a car pulled up and parked next to him, he made eye contact with the elderly woman in the passenger seat and nodded in friendly acknowledgement.

“What a nice young man,” she thought, only later realizing the only thing juicy she’d find at the burger stand that day was a skewered glutton and the pile of feces Doug had left upon his fat, rosey cheeks.

9

Doug ran his fingers over the canister before he settled into the gray cracked vinyl seat of his truck. Now that he felt strong after the burger and a purge he was determined to choose his ultimate target before starting off again. Would it be those buttoned down bastards strutting around in their pea coats and fuzzy scarves in Harvard Square. Perhaps the privileged few and their admirers up at Beacon Hill. No, he knew exactly who should bear god’s wrath. He smirked considering the box of plastic funnels, duct tape and care bears lying next to the cyanide and put the key into the ignition.

10

It wasn’t long after turning the key to start the engine did blue and red flashing lights sparkle in their full glory with a loud quick whirling sound of a siren behind him. Doug looked at his rear-view mirror to see two cars marked under the Boston Police Department. Indeed his actions concerning the fat bastard alarmed two nearby cops, courtesy of some fearing person with a cellphone.

“Get out of the vehicle! NOW,” shouted one of the officers. As he opened the door, Doug smiled with a glee that seemed almost perverted. “Get down on the ground with your hands on your head!”

“But officers,” Doug spoke cooly while walking towards the two cars, “you misunderstand what I am trying to do!”

With that said Doug quickly started dashing to the hood of the nearest car. The two cops (one for each car) fired but one managed to hit the target, a small nick on Doug’s left arm, enough to start spewing blood. But this didn’t stop the focused zealot as he jumped off the hood on to one of the cops and began wrestling with him on the pavement. The other cop ran around the car but in the struggle on the pavement, the gun was ripped from the officer’s hands. Doug smashed the butt of the .38 into the forehead of the cop then carelessly pointed at the other and fired at his gut. As the cop with the gunshot wound fell to the pavement, Doug pressed the barrell of the .38 at the now dazed and confused officer.

“You must feel honored,” he spoke with great admiration, “you are one of the first to go to Hell before the thousands of others in this wretched city!”

With that, he pulled the trigger, leaving blood and brain to ooze out the back of the cop’s head. He immediately looked to his left seeing a fully loaded automatic 10 gauge shotgun in the police car. He figured, why not start the cleansing here? So he took the shotgun, along with another from the other cop car, and walked into the fast food joint.

With an automatic shotgun in each hand, bodies began flying and falling and crashing all over the place. No one was spared, and afterwords, more guns and ammo were found in the trunks of the cop cars.

11

his cause may have been great and piety commandeble, but he was getting an undeniable kick out of this fast food joint massacre, he heard a sound from behind his, a small child was crouching behind was was obviously her mother.
the mother rose speaking jerkely, although she spoke at high speeds her clarity was commendable.

please please, take me if you have to but spare my child, surely she is innocent
but like all those convinced by their cause age was of no consequence. he turned to the women holding his recently aquired uzi at head height and sspoke calmly.

no one is innocent, especially not todays youth he spat in the mothers face,

you have corrupted her and she will pay for your sins and her own

she turned to him saying

i don’t want to die

to which he replied, somewhat heartlessly

then you should never have been born

with this he took aim and shot, at such close range what followed was inevitable, there was a crack as her skull exploded and then the brain fluid spattered out covering everything in a metre radius icluding her crouching 7 year old daughter. who sat eyes closed shaking and crying. and who he noticed had wet herself with fear, he picked her up and sat her on the bonnet of a nearby car and looked her straight in the eye.
he had never had children, and more poignantly perhaps couldn’t.

her pitiful choking sobs filled the otherwise silent air and he contemplated her carefully

child what is your name

to which she lifted her eyes and her voice shaking audibly said
hope

then sudden;y over the hill from the distance came the sound of…
[/b]

12

then sudden;y over the hill from the distance came the sound of…

… music, cheerful and festive, and getting louder. A merry tune was floating through the air of flutes and bag-pipes, drums beating a natural rhythm that moved like the wind, and they danced and twirled and Doug and Hope watched, silent, as they were soon surrounded by whirling gypsies with thumb cymballs and monkeys with tamborines. Doug was shocked by their complete lack of interest, they seemed to not even care they were dancing in blood, twirling over a fresh homicide. Doug face contorted with confusion as the dancing picked up, became faster, the gypsies seemingly multiplying in number, the beat entrancing, hypnotizing, and he looked back to hope, who was standing now, admist the fever, in the epicenter of the now raging festival, and she was still while the world around her flashed, and she spoke to him clearly through the melee:

Doug…

Doug?

“Doug wake up Doug… Doug!”

“Huh?what, the cyanide–”

Doug raised his head off his synthetic wood desk. A faceprint of saturation remain on the desk and he wiped his mouth.

“Cyanide?” his boss asked, …

13

…but before Doug could respond he slipped back into his dream world again. As the revelers dispersed Doug found that the blood stained pavement had turned to dirt and grass- Hope was wearing a frilly white dress and bobby socks with black patten leather shoes- her blonde curls tied up in pig tails. She extended a hand to Doug and sweetly urged him up off of the ground. As soon as he was standing Hope began to run wildly, laughing- still holding hands with Doug and periodically looking up at him trying to keep up with her, she continued her manic pace up the side of a small hill. His look of confusion and tire only made her smile wider. When they reached the top of the hill Hope threw herself down in a patch of dandelions. Doug knelt beside her wondering what she was going to want him to do next.

“Lets roll down”, she said. Doug sighed and looked up and away, as there was no use in protesting- she would surely persuade him at some point. Doug and Hope started to roll down the hill- slowly at first and then faster. When they reached the bottom Doug looked over at Hope who was now laughing again. A slight smile could not be hidden from his face, even though he tried. He couldn’t resist her cuteness- the way her pigtails had loosened into a tangled mess, random scuffs on her otherwise shiny shoes, the green and yellow stains on her dress seemed all the more enchanting. There was something cathartic about her innocence, something more gratifying than revenge or murder. Doug pondered for a moment, remembering a girl from the past- he gazed off into space, breathing shallow- grasping towards something he thought he used to know. Some compassion… or love and the moment when this was stolen away and inverted into madness. His thoughts seemed to be coming together but then…

Suddenly… a strange sound and Doug noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Something was moving in a nearby bush…

14

A vision… through his dirty wire-rimmed glasses he could see a shadow of a woman. Now the curve of her bare shoulder glistened from the reflection of the sun which was beginning to set. She was moaning his name, over and over as if in a trance. Had he been dreaming? My God, was this who he thought it was? He felt like bursting with joy just to see her face after all these years. His blood-stained hands reached out to her as he and Hope looked at each other in disbelief. It was the only…

15

…thing that had ever mattered to him and, like all the things most valuable in his life, he’d lost it. And although it had been a long time since, the events of Doug’s past had made it something he couldn’t muster the strength to grow from.

“Doug, what’s happened to you?” she said in angelic tones.

His hands reached out as if to grab divinity itself and he fell over finding it was just a vision. He turned his head and tears began flowing from his eyes.

“My dear Marla… I-I want to touch you…” and he began crying.

She motioned her hands and arms around him and although he couldn’t feel them, what he felt in his heart was more than he’d felt in over 10 years.

“I don’t care that I can’t touch you, I want to be here in your arms forever.”

Marla smiled, “You can’t, Doug, you have to go on. I’ve been dead for over 10 years, Doug, its time.”

“I can’t… I can’t,” he looked downward and frowned, “it’s too hard without you.”

“Doug, EVERYONE must move on. Pain is growth. And this is why I’ve given you this Hope.”

Doug looked over to young Hope. She’d been crying but it had turned into bright eyes and smile.

“Mommy?”

16

Doug felt as though he had been cleansed anew even though in is heart he was aware that Marla had to have been a vision. The filth that had hung in the air was lifted, and for the first time in his life he felt free. The voice of his lover was ethereal and pure, which gave him a sense of peace. Until that instant, he could never erase the ugly memory of those last moments. She, who had never hurt anyone or anything in her short lifetime, had left this world, never having said goodbye, begging for her life as the bishop had choked the last breath from her body. He was, after all, the parish priest who had baptized her as a baby and was there behind the screen as she bravely took her first confession. It was a few years after her tenth birthday when it started. One fateful night, little Marla had wandered into the parish’s study and came upon an unexpected sight. It was the weekly meeting of the Order of the Divine Breathren whose secret had been exposed by one little girl: Marla. What she had witnessed was unforgettable, which was visible by the expression on her face. They…

17

What she had witnessed was unforgettable, which was visible by the expression on her face. They…

…had looked up from the carnage left on the heavy, cross-shaped table, to which their latest victim had been nailed hand and foot, their lower faces stained bright crimson, teeth glowing almost supernaturally bright in the half-light cast by the slitted windows… Then suddenly Doug’s vision seemed to distort, like a haze of white-noise signal flutter breaking up the picture on an old TV. Voices seemed to swim up through the ebbing greyness that blurred his mind:

“Pull him out !!! PULL HIM OUT - DO IT NOW !!!”
“Jeeze - just when it was getting interesting - c’mon - let’s give him another minute or two…”
“UNPLUG HIM YOU ARSE !!! - remember the last two, he’s trying to create memories that he doesn’t have ! He’ll fuse ! We can’t afford to fail with another subject ! QUICKLY…”

With a wrenching pain Doug’s conciousness receded to a tight ball of inky black - then instantly slammed back into reality. The rubbed the back of his neck where the cortex-shunt had been removed, his head felt like a baloon filled with dirty water, feelings of old guilt and remorse still ghosting through his psyche, he clenched his teeth and gripped the armrests as they slowly faded.

“You Bastards” Doug moaned “What are you trying to do to me…?”

A week ago Doug, halfway through a 20 year sentence for the killing spree that had started so long ago with the brutal slaughter of his ex-wife, had volunteered for the revolutionary new treatment offered by Dr. Giggleheim, on the promise of a drastically shortened jail-term. he was beginning to have second thoughts. An guard shoved the stubby barrel of his sidearm up under Doug’s left ear.

“Easy does it soldier - no sudden moves - Billy, get the cuffs on 'im…”

‘Fuck-this’ he thought to himself as they led him down the grey-foamed corridor to the communal pen. ‘I gotta get outta here…’ At that instant his foot seemed to catch on the very air itself - he lurched and tried in vain to clutch his head which had seemed to suddenly explode with pain. He blacked out - the spongey floor leaping up to greet him. After an instant of non-time he came to and, through watering eyes, looked up.

A naked vision was before him, Marla re-animated, pearly skin radiating an ethereal light… beaded with clean sweat and clotted blood. In her pale hands she held the crushed remnants of the brains she had pulled from the egg-shell skulls of the two guards. She reached behind him an broke the cuffs as if they were pizza-crusts…

“Hey baby, long time no see…” her voice was pure pleasure…

“Monsters” Doug groaned, “Monsters from the id…”

18

“Monsters” Doug groaned, “Monsters from the id…”

“Well, don’t worry about them anymore,” said Marla, squeezing a glop of brains as she spoke. Blood muddied with bits of brain squirted out from her clenched fist like streaks of red lighting, and her voice was thunder.

Doug was weak from the procedure-- his mind was drained, and his limp body held fast to the floor. He wanted so much to embrace Marla, to feel that she was solid and real, and not yet another poisonous apparition of the state. But he couldn’t move, and he feared that she might vanish as quickly as she had appeared.

She must have heard his thoughts again. He felt a cool, wet hand grasp his, and suddenly found himself being pulled to his feet by what must have been the sky itself-- such strength! What a power she had become. “I made her into this,” he thought.

Now he found himself standing before her, close enough to smell the sweat on her face. She was really here, somehow, and she’d saved him again, somehow. But how? “No time to think like that,” he thought to himself. No, it was her voice, in his head.

“We’ve got to get moving-- they’ll be here any second.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, blood rushing back into his head as fast as it ran out of the poor souls whose lot it had been to cross this-- this Marla he’d created.
“We’re going to the beach,” she said with a wink, “and then to Ismuth.”

Her words struck Doug’s ears like cold cannon balls. The beach? Ismuth? That god-forsaken hell-hole that forever stank of piss and mold? It wasn’t anywhere near the beach, and he’d be a pile of pigshit if he was ever going back to…

A thud, then black.

19

A thud, then black.

It was Marla who awoke amidst a filthy dungeon-like room, and the only sound was that of the flies, which swarmed through the stench of what smelled like death. She covered her mouth with one hand to quit from choking as the other rubbed the back of her neck throbbing from pain. Her hand felt warm and sticky, and she gasped aloud when she saw that it was blood. The room was dark; almost pitch, with a light coming in only from a small opening at the top of a thick rock wall. She reached over to the person next to her only to realize that he was like a block of ice, and he, too, was covered with blood. Dead.

Just then, her protective instinct was aroused and she started to search for her man. She pushed aside body after body whose arms were flailing to grab her, some half-alive and dying…some begging for her help.

“Doug, where are you,” she said with a tearful voice. “Doug, answer me…”

Nothing. All she could hear were the groans of the living dead that had been piled on top of each other like trash. She called his name again, this time louder with more strength and determination. Suddenly, the huge wooden door of her cell swung open, the light blinding her. A huge black shadow of a man stood in the doorway dragging a screaming woman by the hair. All he said to Marla was, “SHUT UP BITCH. If you don’t shut your hole, I’ll…

20

All he said to Marla was, “SHUT UP BITCH. If you don’t shut your hole, I’ll…
…shut it forever. With that he slammed the massive door and walked off, dragging his unwilling companion behind him.

Marla tried her best to compose herself. Think, marla, think. Where was this place? How and why was she brought here? What did they want?
The half dead groans and gurglings of those still grasping to life made it hard to concentrate. Escape. Quickly she made an effort to stand up, only to be rudely jerked back to the mucky stone floor by the shortly chained shackles fixed to her wrists. “Fuckin great” she muttered.

Her eyes were now adjusting to the dim light. Clearly there were ten or more people in this cell, most of them unmoving. Had they been left here to die? A chill ran up her spine as her imagination took over. Fighting as she was, the hopelessness of her situation was realized, and she began to cry.

A time later she awoke, having at some point cried herself to sleep. A crack of daylight from the ceiling now iluminated the area, and from her vantage point she could now see among other things the barred cell window she had somehow missed before. And what was beyond it.

Her eyes lit up. could she really be seeing what she was seeing? Hope came over her as she was sure the…