"Demon Trap" Chapter two of a Novel Ive been writting 1875 words - Writers Forum

Gate · 04-20-2008, 03:26 AM

Zac knew the power of information. Zac was a machine, an automation. He did what was practical to further his plans. He wasted nothing. He bathed when his odor might hinder him. He ate when the mirror revealed his malnourishment. Most importantly, before all other considerations, he was a killing machine. He was as complicated
as he was lethal. He was a clockwork of wheels and cogs all working toward two interconnected objectives. Pain and gain. His greed and sadism were matched only by a subconscious self contempt he wasn’t aware existed. To Zac, it was the power which sustained him. A seething hatred that burned straight through him, exposing to the world around him an evil shrouded in a pleasant handsome face. Evil disguised brilliantly in what to all outward appearances wasjust another street rogue, a harmless addict. Zac was a duality, a machine and a force of nature. A true sociopath, an
antisocial black hole, from which no sympathy, no mercy, no light could ever escape.
Zac had one fear only. Always he was in fear that a day would dawn with no prey. No one to torture. He would have to settle for less than blood. That was not an option.

The name on the shiny new plaque read, Detective Major Nathaniel Richard Lay. An award of brass and wood bestowed on men who had to touch the untouchables. An award for those unfortunate few who had the fortitude to
delve into the abyss of human malfunction. It was a hopelessly inadequate gesture, presented by bureaucrats who, if they had a clue, would try to fire the moron responsible for the pitiful charade. Ric Lay knew all this, but his intelligence, humility and insight were such, that he took no offense. If he could spare others the knowledge of what existed out there… well, he would gladly feign gratitude for their good intentions, regardless how inadequate. Ric was a thirty eight year old, Detective Major on the Metro Nashville Police Force. He had a Masters degree in Forensic Psychology with a minor in Law Enforcement Administration from Vanderbilt University. He was no paperback, fictional PHD flying coast to coast solving crimes of passion. Ric was baptized in babies drowned in kitchen sinks. His teachers had no voice, sometimes no head, always dead. Detective Major Ric Lays’ school was spent inside the minds of living, breathing, walking demons masquerading as humans. Ric didn’t work the gang beat or the common drive-by shootings. Ric chased monsters. He was a modern-day Van Helsink. His monsters, like those of folklore, prowled the night leaving trails of the dead.
Detective Major Lay worked alone. He was six feet, two hundred ten pounds of hard dedicated man. Only his eyes gave him away. His eyes proclaimed to all, he had secrets, keep your distance. He had learned to be cautious. He had to let his mind roam with the devils. In order to profile a monster, he had to become a part of the unspeakable. He had to let his psyche become a captive of the thing. A thing no human description could ever convey. His was a dangerous occupation. It wasn’t the arrests, it wasn’t physical where lines are drawn and boundaries kept, it was eternal. The danger inherent in his job was in the world of ideas and thoughts, deep inside insanities, elusive boundaries. He had seen more than one of his contemporaries lose himself. He watched as associates lost their way. Einsteins equations held true, nothing escapes the blackness.

Zac watched. His patience and discipline would have left a sniper commander in complete awe. He was undetectable. He watched the truck from two hundred yards away. Lil P had been in there over four hours. His heart rate was fifty three beats per minute. His respiration was slow, deliberate. In four hours his only movement had been his eyes scanning. He had blinked three times. The two inside the big Volvo sleeper/living compartment were oblivious to the intense surveillance. Davis was spent. Again, Precious had let him indulge all of his fetishes. She enjoyed it. Lil P had her tiny handbag with her. As always it contained only three items. Feminine fresh wipes, condoms and a cell phone. She was wiping herself down. She hadn’t been high in over an hour. Lil P liked Davis. He was her only regular. He was a freak, but that she could handle. She would leave five hundred dollars richer. She had wiped down her arms and neck. Now she took a fresh wipe to her right foot and after cleaning her toes and soles, she grabbed her left ankle with both hands and brought her foot to her face. She whistled at Davis who was blissfully smoking a Newport with his eyes closed. When he looked her way, she playfully licked her big toe then sucked the pinky toe into her mouth and winked at him. Davis almost dropped his cigarette. She
giggled at him and continued to bathe with the perfumed wipes. Most “tricks” never got this kind of personal attention, but he let her take control. She liked the way he worshiped her whole body. He wasn’t a psycho like mostof the animals out there. Plus like always she had told him an epic story of a friend who was in a bad way. Suffice it to say, she easily got him to cough up another seventy five. Now she had more than enough to fulfill her desires. Gina had sought out just one girl earlier. A real beauty. She began to feel moist heat between her legs, just thinking of her. She couldn’t wait to hook up.

About a quarter of a mile south of Trinity Lane on Dickerson, Kera Kelley was walking across the lot of the defunct and dark Noble Car Wash. Kera had made sure Binky, her pimp, had seen her crossing the chained-in lot. The city had set steel poles in the asphalt about waist-high and strung heavy gauge chain through eye bolts atop the poles. For awhile, police cruisers would se on the lot, but that became too costly with man hours and windshields. The chains were little less than a nuisance to the flesh and drug trade on the corner. Lucy Avenue ran down the side of the carwash and two doors down Lucy, it was business as usual in the alley. Beginning around two p.m. till two a.m. the mouth of the alley did a brisk trade. It was three fifteen a.m. Wednesday, Kera Rene Kelley was just arriving at the alley. She glanced back to see if Binky was following her in his ninety four Coupe De Ville. She snapped her head back and to the left, her ponytail swishing in the air. Her eyes searched the alley. She began walking, she was to meet Lil P in the alley way around three thirty. She knew from the other girls, that if you disappeared with Lil P , the consequences could be harsh. She had talked the hot, young red head into meeting now instead of Wednesday afternoon. This way she shouldn’t bring too much wrath down on her head. Most of the traffic was over for the night. Kera was nineteen. She would be twenty in September. She had made her way to the track in mid July. Binky had found her strung out on crystal meth, a new plague crossing the country like a wild fire in the wind. While crack cocaine was nasty, it was a binge drug. A run on crack was short lived. When the money ran out, you were done. A small dose of meth could keep you awake for days on end. Binky had cleaned her up and had recognized her brand of spiritual bankruptcy almost instantly. Kera was a product of multiple dysfunction. Polyschema pathology was the newest new age psycho-babble. She was born one generation removed from Southern trailer trash in Glasgow, Kentucky, only fifty five miles from where she now stood. At six, Keras’ mother found herself single, broke and trying to manage a daughter plus a healthy pain pill habit. Hydrocodone, oxycodone….hillbilly heroin. At seven, her mothers’ boyfriend took a special interest in Kera. He bought her silence with several effective currencies, guilt, shame, food, toys and threats. A five pronged attack form which no seven-year-old could escape. Kera soon accepted the attention as love, the gifts as rewards. Even her own body betrayed her. By nine, she was enamored by the sensations of climax. Her power over a grown man made her feel a false sense of control. By eleven, her mothers next boyfriend needed no such weapons, no orchestrations whatsoever. In no time at all, Kera seduced him. She was the real McCoy, a genuine Lolita. Kera was an expert at coaxing a man or woman, for that matter, to climax. Her prowess came with an awful price. More men had ejaculated in her mouth than there were days in a year. Some nights on the track, eight to ten men at an average of twenty dollars each. Kera had no clue who she was emotionally. She was, maybe, at a twelve year old level. Her guilt, shame and pain created her own special self contempt. Her feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness would soon be insurmountable without divine intervention. Soon Kera would join the unfortunates who come to believe they deserve a wretched existence. Only oceans of unconditional love can conquer that kind of spiritual deprivation. Tonight though, she was nineteen going on twenty, self forgiveness hadn’t even crossed her mind. The same pigheaded rebelliousness that had caused her to leave home at seventeen, was alive and well. The mysterious invitation, an opportunity to rendezvous with Lil P was a temptation she had no power to refuse. She sauntered on up the alley, her lithe, five foot eleven, one hundred thirty five pound, young hard body giving away her good mood with a fresh bounce to her step.

Zac rose to his feet. His first deliberate movements in almost four and a half hours. His target was on the move. Lil P had left the big rig. She wasn’t leaving the Circle T, he observed, just as he had predicted to himself. Returning to his former position, Zac relaxed. Zac knew things always, somehow. When she came up the street, she did not disappoint. True to her previous pattern, Lil P went straight to the drug dealers spot. A call from her cell phone while in the bathroom of the Circle T had no doubt brought him. They always met at the parking lot of the Days Inn on the corner of Trinity Lane and Dickerson Pike. She copped a half ounce of hard(crack cocaine), continuing on her way, she left the dealers car on foot. She headed south on Dickerson. Walking without a care, oblivious to the menace which beheld her. Zac followed, like a jungle animal, confident in its power yet subtle enough to remain in shadow, careful not to reveal its superiority to its prey. Still Zac was barely contained. Muscles tense, taut, ready to explode in fury. Flesh and blood, bone and sinew, fear and loathing were the elements of life with Zac Cunningham.

Gate · 04-20-2008, 03:27 AM

Tell me what you think really....I hope you like it
Brad AKA Gate

Nevermore · 04-20-2008, 12:32 PM

I found this piece to be quite unique, there is a style here which is dark and gritty without being grotesque, an excellent balance.

My main issue is that there are many characters here and it took me a while to really find out who's who. This was most problematic in the third section, where we return to Zac. I like the idea of serveral characters being involved n a singluar event, but there needs to be some means of distinguishing one person from another. Perhaps not all of your characters need names? A feature of appearance can make identifying a character much easier than a name.

Also, there are a few characters who seem to have no real input into the action. Perhaps it is not necessary to into the backgrounds of your characters in one go, but pace out memories or observations as the novel progresses. If we are not to see a character again, (e.g they are killed,) then this could work, but it can be a bit disruptive.

On the whole, I enjoyed it. The plot is really quite simple at this stage, but the tension is there. Good job.

Gate · 04-21-2008, 02:41 AM

Thank you The first part of the story is in the fiction section but here is the link for clarification first chapter
http://www.writingforums.com/fiction...ence-lang.html

Ungood · 04-21-2008, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gate7041

Zac knew the power of information. Zac was a machine, an automation. He did what was practical to further his plans. He wasted nothing. He bathed when his odor might hinder him. He ate when the mirror revealed his malnourishment. Most importantly, before all other considerations, he was a killing machine. He was as complicated

Several issues here: Zach is a Machine as such he would not show the signs of malnourished or get body oder.

Just like your car does not show "Signs" of running out of gas.

Quote:

as he was lethal. He was a clockwork of wheels and cogs all working toward two interconnected objectives. Pain and

Quote:

gain. His greed and sadism were matched only by a subconscious self contempt he wasn’t aware existed. To Zac, it was the power which sustained him.

Ok, he is a robot/android thing. Too much here is not agreeing with itself. HE needs food, he is sustained by power, it gets confusing as to what I am looking at.

Quote:

A seething hatred that burned straight through him, exposing to the world around

Quote:

him an evil shrouded in a pleasant handsome face. Evil disguised brilliantly in what to all outward appearances wasjust another street rogue, a harmless addict.

No addict is "Harmless" just FYI and no one looks at an addict as "Harmless" try some other word, Ignorable maybe?

Quote:

Zac was a duality, a machine and a force of nature. A true sociopath, an

Quote:

antisocial black hole, from which no sympathy, no mercy, no light could ever escape.

Too much, he's a robot. Your making this "Android" seem too human, or too organic. It is not working well.

Is Zac unique in the fact that he is a robot?

Quote:

Zac had one fear only. Always he was in fear that a day would dawn with no prey. No one to torture. He would

Quote:

have to settle for less than blood. That was not an option.

Lame fear really... explain this some other way, so that it sounds like something he would fear.

Quote:

The name on the shiny new plaque read, Detective Major Nathaniel Richard Lay. An award of brass and wood

Quote:

bestowed on men who had to touch the untouchables. An award for those unfortunate few who had the fortitude to
delve into the abyss of human malfunction. It was a hopelessly inadequate gesture, presented by bureaucrats who, if they had a clue, would try to fire the moron responsible for the pitiful charade. Ric Lay knew all this, but his intelligence, humility and insight were such, that he took no offense. If he could spare others the knowledge of what existed out there… well, he would gladly feign gratitude for their good intentions, regardless how inadequate. Ric was a thirty eight year old, Detective Major on the Metro Nashville Police Force. He had a Masters degree in Forensic Psychology with a minor in Law Enforcement Administration from Vanderbilt University. He was no paperback, fictional PHD flying coast to coast solving crimes of passion. Ric was baptized in babies drowned in kitchen sinks. His teachers had no voice, sometimes no head, always dead. Detective Major Ric Lays’ school was spent inside the minds of living, breathing, walking demons masquerading as humans. Ric didn’t work the gang beat or the common drive-by shootings. Ric chased monsters. He was a modern-day Van Helsink. His monsters, like those of folklore, prowled the night leaving trails of the dead.
Detective Major Lay worked alone. He was six feet, two hundred ten pounds of hard dedicated man. Only his eyes gave him away. His eyes proclaimed to all, he had secrets, keep your distance. He had learned to be cautious. He had to let his mind roam with the devils. In order to profile a monster, he had to become a part of the unspeakable. He had to let his psyche become a captive of the thing. A thing no human description could ever convey. His was a dangerous occupation. It wasn’t the arrests, it wasn’t physical where lines are drawn and boundaries kept, it was eternal. The danger inherent in his job was in the world of ideas and thoughts, deep inside insanities, elusive boundaries. He had seen more than one of his contemporaries lose himself. He watched as associates lost their way. Einsteins equations held true, nothing escapes the blackness.

Too much and a very rough break from Zac.

Quote:

Zac watched. His patience and discipline would have left a sniper commander in complete awe.

I stopped here, the comparison of a machine to a human was getting grateing on my nerves.

Look Zac is a robot, treat him like one.

BTW: Your writing is getting much better ! =D>

Ungood.

Nevermore · 04-21-2008, 10:51 AM

Is Zac a robot? I was making the assumption that the mechanicl references were a way of indicating a emotional void or mental illness, although i can see why that was confusing.

Which is he? I am much confused!

Ungood · 04-21-2008, 01:28 PM

If this was an "Analogy" to say Zac was "Like a Machine" it threw me badly, it was overdone and/or just poorly explained.

I mean I thought that Zac was a robot by this description. It just did not flow well.

Quote:

Zac knew the power of information. Zac was a machine, an automation

This is what killed me. It was not a "Relationship" feeling so much as it was "He IS a Robot". I think the opening needs to be a bit different as the "Information" part also threw me.

Try an opener like this: "Zac was like a machine when it came to his life, never doing anything more or less then needed...."

That would clear this up for me.

Ungood.

seigfried007 · 04-21-2008, 01:48 PM

Unless an author specifically states a more technical basis for me to think of someone as a machine, I'll take it as a metaphor of sorts--the 'like' left usntated as no organic being is a robot. I didn't ahve a problem with that, though some of my cyborgs and androids are flabergasted that anyone would assume they have to think like machines. Thay have good AI, dammit!!!!

That said, the writing was choppy, full of 'telling' wases and other bits of passive crud. The description on Zac goes on and on for no real reason. Show us him being what he is and no one will get confused. Show his interactions with pedestrians--illustrate their polite ambivalence toward him or outright disgust, show us however you deem a sociopath ought to act (and better yet, don't use the word).

You really ought to break up those monstro-graphs, gate.

When you switch POV, do it with a skipped line and centered *** so the reader's not so jarred.

Ungood · 04-21-2008, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gate7041

Zac knew the power of information. Zac was a machine, an automation. He did what was practical to further his plans. He wasted nothing. He bathed when his odor might hinder him. He ate when the mirror revealed his malnourishment. Most importantly, before all other considerations, he was a killing machine. He was as complicated
as he was lethal. He was a clockwork of wheels and cogs all working toward two interconnected objectives. Pain and gain. His greed and sadism were matched only by a subconscious self contempt he wasn’t aware existed. To Zac, it was the power which sustained him. A seething hatred that burned straight through him, exposing to the world around him an evil shrouded in a pleasant handsome face. Evil disguised brilliantly in what to all outward appearances wasjust another street rogue, a harmless addict. Zac was a duality, a machine and a force of nature. A true sociopath, an
antisocial black hole, from which no sympathy, no mercy, no light could ever escape.

Maybe not so much into the "Machine" part then. It really did seem that you were saying he was a "robot"

Ungood.

Gate · 04-21-2008, 11:56 PM

no he's a human being devoid of most social feelings...the first chapter posted here explains somewhat what Zac is .....evil

Gate · 04-22-2008, 12:03 AM

seig,
Being somewhat computer challenged I dont know what pov or monstro-graph mean.
I copy from word I paste and it looks funny I edit thats about the extent of my ablity here. I'm so sorry I work full time write half time research quarter time and post here to get tips.....so Im sorry I may need to have someone come over and show me how to make it better

Wildcard · 04-23-2008, 01:39 PM

POV means 'Point Of View'. Damned if I know what a monstro-graph is though.

Gate · 04-24-2008, 01:49 AM

hehehe me either