Thread: Devil Incarnate

Hi Higurro

First point -it’s a simple but specific statement - no need to embellish the moment.

Second point – perhaps I should have joined the two sentences:- There was a single street lamp, the light by which revealed the heavy wrought iron gates set across the drive of Chigwell House.

Third point - Footsteps - the act of taking a step in walking, I use the word crunched to establish the actual noise made by their footsteps.

And the last - If it wasn’t for the missing girl… I think wasn’t as it applies to girl, first person singular. I might suggest weren’t is becoming a little archaic like whom where nowadays simply who is more often accepted.

Thanks for the comments it’s always good to have thought provoking feedback. I now await the attack from the purist’s brigade.


Devil Incarnate (part seven)

Inspector Lingam lay with the end of his legs extended over the gap of the missing floorboards. A cloud of dust, caught by the torch beam, swirled about the spot where only seconds before Father Daniels and Veronica Roche had been. In some panic, Matt scrambled back a from the edge of the hole. All the while, he kept calling out for Detective Harrison.

“Harrison, Paul where the devil are you.”

There came no reply. Turning and rolling on to his stomach, Inspector Lingam crawled out into the corridor. Pointing the torch in the direction of the main landing, Detective Paul Harrison was nowhere in sight. Matt rolled on to his back and propped himself up on his elbows. Looking through the open doorway Matt stared across at the gap in the middle of the floor. Realising he was now on his own, the Inspector cursed as he got to his feet. Cautiously he took a couple of paces forward and peered over the edge of the gap. The beam of his torch was reflected back by the maelstrom of dust raised by the shattered flooring. He could see nothing of what lay below. The only course of action was to return to the ground floor. There to find Father Daniels and Veronica Roche, and hope they hadn’t sustained any major injuries.

As Matt Lingam turned to walk back to the landing, he was sure he caught a movement in the torch beam. His first thought was of Paul Harrison. However, on reaching the head of the stairs the young detective was nowhere to be seen. Below the front door was as they had left it, still wide open. Through the gap came a faint light from the street lamp further down Hobs Lane. Then out of the corner of his eye, Matt could have sworn he saw a movement. Was their somebody hiding behind the door? He pointed the beam of his torch to take a better look. At that moment, the door swung shut, closing with a shuddering bang.

The sudden movement shattered Matt’s remaining nerve. He dropped the torch and watched as it rolled off the landing. As the torch bounced down the stairs, the beam went out, but not before creating an array of sinister shadows around the walls. Being no hero, Inspector Lingam might have sought to hightailed it out of the house right there and then. Yet reluctantly he stayed. Slowly and with caution, he started to make his way down the stairs. At the bottom, he retrieved his torch. Trying the switch, luckily and with much relief it still worked.

By the Inspectors calculation, the gap in the above floor was over the library room at the back of the house. Going back through the double doors, Matt entered the large room that the Chigwell’s had used for their functions. The beam of the torch swung around the elaborate wallpaper, hanging in shreds. The flooring littered with scattered remnants of packing cases and old sacking used by the squatters. Crossing the floor to the library Matt pushed the door fully back on its hinges. First, he made a sweep of the beam upward and across the ceiling. The Inspector easily located the gaping hole from the floor above. However, a further shock awaited his already shattered nerves. The weight of the ceiling coming down had broken straight through, punching a hole right through this floor as well. The Inspector’s fear rose, as on shining the torch into the depths, all he could see was a smoke screen of raised dust. It obscured everything, including the whereabouts of Father Daniels or the girl they had been about to rescue.

It took only a few moments for Matt to decide what he had to do next. Turning Inspector Lingam headed towards the short passageway that led down to the work area of the house. At the bottom of the stone steps was a wide corridor with doors that led to the kitchens, laundry rooms and what had once been servants’ accommodation. After spending some time exploring, Matt realised they only accounted for half of the upper floor space. He started to search for a doorway that would lead under the other side of the house.

Back standing in the kitchen, Matt slowly swept the torch beam around the room. Along the far wall were the two-deep ceramic sinks both cracked and broken. To the right as a part of the central support to the rooms above were the chimneys. Their recesses housing old fashioned heavy iron ovens. Then in the corner, half hidden by a tall shelving unit that had fallen forward, the beam picked out another doorway. The Inspector had to clear a path across the kitchen to reach it.

Standing by the fallen shelving, Matt tried to lift it out of his way. In doing so, the wood suddenly exploded. The noise it made reverberated around and around the confines of the kitchen. Full of dry rot it produced a shower of splinters and an unpleasant cloud of dust. In a fit of coughing, Matt waved his arms about in a frantic effort to clear the air. It took several minutes before he was able to breathe more easily again.

Finally, Matt stood before the door. Surprisingly the key was still in place. Even more so, when on trying the key, it turned easily in the lock. The mechanism was heard to click as it released. Yet in trying to open the door, it remained firmly stuck. Matt tried shouldering the door open then resorted to kicking at the bottom panels. A third kick and he broke through. Kneeling, he aimed the torch through the gap to see if anything was blocking the door from the other side. His nerves already on edge, what Matt though he was seeing, sent a shiver down his spine. The apparition held in the beam couldn’t possibly exist.

QDOS

Devil Incarnate(part eight)

Matt’s imagination had to be working overtime. This was all a trick of his addled brain and brought on by the shadows cast by the torch. Shaking his head in disbelief and with his breathing becoming laboured, he pulled back. Matt swung himself around and sat down heavily with his back against the door. His eyes tightly shut, he drew in several deep breaths. Opening his eyes again, he was sitting in semidarkness. It took a moment for him to realised he’d dropped the torch on the far side of the door.

Inspector Matt Lingam was again having grave doubts as to what he was doing here. Then came a dose of rationality to spur him on. Somewhere beyond lay Father Daniels and the girl with who knew what injuries. Matt started to convince himself, what he thought he had seen had been created by the shadows. His sense of duty restored, he stood up. Leaning against the door, surprisingly it gave way and swung open. There seemed no logical explanation as to what might have held the door shut. Neither was there any evidence of the mysterious shadowy figure Matt thought he had seen. The light from his torch illuminated an empty set of narrow stone steps leading downwards. Gingerly Matt retrieved the torch, then keeping his back to one of the sidewalls, he slowly descended step by step.

At the bottom, a passage stretched away into the darkness. The Inspector shone the torch left and right checking the walls on either side. Then amongst the shadows at the far end, again he thought he glimpsed a movement. There was that sinister feeling, as if someone or something was trying to direct him. Matt Lingam felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise. Standing in the background light of the torch beam, he was full of uncertainty.

Moving slowly forward the Inspector took stock of his surroundings. The passage construction was of solid stonework with doorways set at regular intervals along each side. In places, some had been bricked up. In others, the doors had been removed or fallen in. Those doors still in place hung from rusted hinges. It did not take the Inspector long to realise these were cells belonging to the original prison. In some, Matt saw the remnants of discarded furniture. For the most part the torch beam showed them to be empty. In coming to the end of the passage, the last door showed signs of having been forcibly opened.

Matt hesitated, should he enter. What lay waiting in the room beyond? Summoning his courage, he cautiously peered around the edge of the doorway. Rectangle in shape, it was similar in size to the other cells. Stepping into the room Matt sensed a presence that sent a shiver down his spine. He felt the drop in temperature, then his whole body was racked by a bout of the shivers. In between chattering teeth, the Inspector took deep breaths in an effort to calm himself. The seconds ticked by in agonising slowness until finally the shakes started to subside.

Acting in his role of detective and having recovered some of his nerve, Matt began to explore the area of the cell. Until now, the torch beam had only pointed at the flagstone floor. Moving the beam across to the opposite wall, he raised the torch to illuminate the far side of the room. Matt froze and freaked out at what he saw. He held his ground only because fear routed him to the spot. The stories of Chigwell house were they true. For caught in the beam was the head and shoulders of a ghastly apparition. A deathly ashen face, white grey hair, the clothes garnished with dust and strands of cobwebs. Undeliverable as it might seem, and beyond all reason, this could only be a creature arisen from the grave.

QDOS

Hi posting penultimate so I can finish tomorrow - Sunday. Need to put in some extra time on my Day job!

Devil Incarnate (part nine)

Inspector Lingam stared at the ghoulish face and it stared back. Its mouth opened wider and in a natural act of defence, Matt raised his arm. The fiendish creature also raised its arm as if to strike. For a moment, Matt thought he might make a run for it. However, as he made to turn the Inspector realised his error. The mouth of the creature broke into a thinly veiled smile. With sudden acknowledgment, Matt Lingam let out a sigh of relief. The ghoulish image confronting him was nothing more than his own reflection. It came from the polished surface of a large metal shield. Even so, it still took several minutes before Matt’s heart beat slowed to a more regular rhythm.

On closer inspection, Matt lifted the piece of armour off the peg from which it had been suspended. In doing so came another surprise, it concealed a hole in the wall. Matt shone the torch beam through the opening. Beyond lay a room with a high vaulted ceiling. Yet low and behold, there was a familiar figure stretched out across a pile of broken floorboards.

Wasting no time, Matt worked to widen the hole. A minute or two and it was already three times the size it had been. Pulling at the loose stones a great chunk of masonry was suddenly released. The bottom of the hole collapsed on the floor in a pile of rubble. Matt wasted no time in climbing through the gap. Father Daniels was still breathing thank God. Raising the old priest into a sitting position, he started to come round.

“How are you feeling Father?” Matt Lingam asked. “You had me worried there for a while.”

“As you ask, I have a thumping headache and an agonising pain in my left shoulder. Apart from that naturally I feel fine.”

“Good, well that’s not so bad.” Matt Lingam said smiling.

“What exactly happened up there?” asked the old priest.

“I guess your combined weight was too much for the flooring. It must have been rotten to the core and just gave way.” Matt looked up at the section of ceiling that had come down. Shining his torch beam, he could barely see the outline of the broken flooring above, let alone that of the first floor. “You came down a couple of floors, that’s a fare old drop Father.”

“Oh! And how’s the girl.”

As if in answer to the Fathers question, they both heard Veronica Roche call out to them.

“I’m over here. Please, please help me, my leg.”

Matt turned to the sound of the girl’s voice. She lay trapped by a broken joist and half buried beneath fallen rubble. Standing up Matt turned to see what could be done. In the light of the torch, he checked if the beam might be moved without bringing down more of the ceiling.

“Don’t worry I’m going to get you out of here.” Matt assured the girl.


Taking the end of the broken joist in both hands Matt Lingam pulled slowly on the beam. As it started to move, Veronica Roche eased her trapped leg from beneath. A few moments later Matt released the beam and helped the girl to her feet. There was a small gash on the leg that had been trapped, but no blood flowing from it. Apart from a number of bruises, Veronica Roche seemed fine. Well not entirely, Matt brushed the plaster and rubble dust from her shoulders. Looking at her face brought forth a smile. Standing in their present circumstances, the gothic style eye makeup, black lipstick and painted fingernails seemed somewhat apt.

As Matt finished speaking, an icy cold blast of air came from the direction of the hole in the wall. The temperature in the room plummeted. Instinctively the Inspector swung his torch around. Standing by the opening was the image of a young girl. The clothes and everything about her was like looking at an old silent black and white movie. Yet what was even stranger, she was pointing with some urgency to the back of the room.

Matt Lingam, Father Daniels and Veronica Roche all turned at the girls bidding. The torch of Inspector Lingam illuminated a large block of stone set in a recess. The carvings on its front could have been for an altar or perhaps a tomb. What caught Matt’s attention and amazement was that the stone lid was now slowly sliding back, and of its own accord. After a while, the grating noise of stone scraping on stone stopped. Matt shot a quick glanced down at Father Daniels.

“Can you see inside?” asked the priest still sitting on the floor and shaking his head in disbelief.

“I can’t quite make it out. Yes, yes I think its hollow,” replied Matt.

In the next instant, a spiralling black cloud began to rise up from the opening. The girl and both men watched transfixed by its swirling movement. The rippling surface gradually started to take form. It took the distinctive shape of a head with a short stocky neck that rested on broad shoulders. The contours of the face continued to take shape and become more solid.

“My God,” cried out Father Daniels. “This is as I feared, t’is the Devil’s work for sure.”

The features of the head continued to form in front of them. A face twisted with evil and with piercing red eyes. Glancing about the room, they settled on Veronica Roche. The mouth smiled, then the lips parted to show a row of pointed teeth with two overly large incisors. Matt Lingam stood mesmerised, his ability to rationalise lost to rising panic. Then as his nerve slipped further into the abyss, Veronica Roche let out a piercing scream and the torch dropped from Matt’s hand.

QDOS

Sorry did post this on Sunday, but looking this morning it seemed to have disappeared.

Devil Incarnate (part ten)

Now fully formed and anticipating victory, the lamia leapt from its stone coffin. As the beast advanced towards Veronica, Matt pushed the girl behind him and retreated along the wall. Coming to the corner of the room Matt desperately tried to think of what action he could take. Keeping the girl safe behind him and held back with his right arm, Matt made a last gesture to fend off his attacker with his left. It was then he heard Father Daniel’s plea.

“The gun, use the gun my boy.”

Caught in the creatures grip, Matt felt his head being forced to one side. Seen out of the corner of his eye, Matt watched the beast prepare to sink its long incisors into his exposed neck. Matt Lingam felt the cold breath of death. Yet in those last moments, he somehow managed to pull the gun from his pocket. Then as his life hung in the balance, he pulled the trigger. The gun fired its silver bullet straight up through the heart of the lamia.

Matt was at a lost to understand what happened next. With the noise of the gun blast still ricocheting around the room and ringing in his ears, the Vampire simply evaporated. It was as if it had never existed. It took several seconds for the deafness of his ears to abate before it registered that Father Daniels was calling out to him again.

“The stake, you must use the stake.” The old priest was shouting.

Matt Lingam was still in shock. Yet at the priests bidding, he felt for the smooth polished oak and pulled it free from his inner coat pocket. Matt still in a daze, staggered across to the stone coffin. Leaning over, he peered into its interior. In the defused light from his dropped torch, he could just make out the remains. A skeletal body dressed in its decayed funeral attire. Raising the wooden stake Matt plunged it into the chest. In braking through the rotten clothing, he heard it snap the bones of the rib cage beneath. Where it came from Matt would never know, there was a small spurt of red liquid, which spread out in a widening pool around the embedded stake and across the tattered clothing.

Stepping back Matt turned to face Father Daniel sitting on the floor. As he did so, he glanced across at the spectral image of the girl that had come to warn them. Suddenly a burst of light shone down from above. The girl looked up and warmly embraced its rays. Then smiling across at Matt and the old priest, she did a slow twirl. She seemed to be laughing and Matt realised that her feet were hovering above the floor. Then held in the beam of light, she was raised slowly up towards its source. Matt in watching followed the girl as she rose higher. Then as the light grew brighter and more intense, Matt was forced to shield and close his eyes.



Matt awoke with a start. He realised he must have fallen asleep. A voice was calling his name, in his muddled state it didn't sound like Father Daniels. It was far off and more feminine, a voice that reminded him of his mothers. Suddenly he sat bolt upright, it was his mother’s voice. Quickly he hit the windows key on the keyboard, then moved the mouse over the shut-down button to activate it. Leaping out of his chair, he threw himself across the room and into his bed. Pulling the covers over him, he tried to look as if he had just woken up, which in reality was quite true. Matt heard the creak of a floorboard, then the noise of the handle being turned to his bedroom door. The door opened, illuminated by the landing light stood a familiar figure.

“So you’ve been at it again I see. Well Matt Lingam this is your last chance. You have just ten minutes to get washed, dressed, have your breakfast, and be ready for the school bus. I’m not driving you in again this week.”

The door was pulled closed and Matt heard his mother’s footfalls, as she went back across the landing and down the stairs. Looking across at the computer monitor, it still had “Saving Files” displayed across the middle of the screen. A moment later, there came the sound of a dull click, followed by the noise of the cooling fan as it began to wind down. In the following silence, Matt lay staring at the blank screen. His only concern, he’d not had time to read his final score to the computer game Devil Incarnate.

*********************************

Well I hope you enjoyed my little twist at the end.

On New Year’s Eve, I was introduced to someone who runs his own company repairing old computers, Amstrad, Atari, Sinclair Spectrums, QL and the like. It has also opened up a lucrative business in retro games. I played around with those early home computers and programs in machine code. About the same time, I remember a college assignment for a washing machine program I wrote in 29 lines of Forth.

Anyway, the link being I might have the opportunity to revamp some of my old efforts. The most ambitious being a Warehouse Game, where you try to fulfil orders using a pick-up truck to load lorries against the clock, while making delivery request, which you then have to unload to maintain Warehouse stocks. The other idea was control of an Atomic Power Station, dealing with simple problems of demand all the way through to a terrorist attack and a potential environmental disaster.

Thanks again for reading and all your encouraging and/or helpful comments.

QDOS

the story itself has potential. the narrative is clean and, for the most part, well structured but for the issues already cited. the main problems i have with this are

1) the dialogue is not believable and at times seems very forced and, frankly, quite flaky. i have issues with actually imagining these people. on the one hand you have what appears to be a cockney (or other british) accent with lines like “See I always comes this way in the morn’in, goes to fetch me paper and fags.” you then have the other characters who seem to speak in an almost robotic fashion - “Well in that case I’d say she died around midnight. That’s give or take an hour or so. I won’t be able to give you a more precise time. Not until I have completed the Post Mortem analysis of the stomach contents.” The dialogue involving the old man is much more convincing because at least it is written with a character in mind, albeit quite a cliched cockney type. the other characters seem underdeveloped and lazy.

2) the language used comes across as rather contrived and derivative. For instance, the paragraph "Detective Harrison flashed his identification and spoke to the constable. The barrier was moved allowing both men into the alleyway. At the far end, the path opened on to waste ground. The strip of land lay between the back gardens of the terraced houses and the old canal. Inspector Lingam made a cursory glance to both right and left. The body lay over on the left close to a section of broken down fencing. Someone had fetched a blanket and thrown it over the corpse. The Inspector noted that it still left the legs below the knees exposed. Nearby a woman constable was taking notes while conversing with an old man. He was dressed in a drab and heavy looking grey overcoat." I'm sorry, but this kind of narrative, while not awful, is completely unimaginative and unoriginal. It could literally be from a thousand different stories. It's not that you need to turn the noir/detective genre completely on its head to stand out, but for gods sake tell it in a different way. don't tell us detective harrison 'flashed his identification and spoke to the constable'. that is so obvious it borders on irksome. if you must have that line then at least tell us HOW he flashed his identification - was it in a casual or arrogant fashion? what kind of identification was it? what was the reaction of the constable to meeting harrison? - and don't say 'spoke to the constable', tell us what he said to the constable. it must have been something interesting! and, if it wasn't, then leave it out. it's boring and unneccessary.

this needs serious work. but note it's not the story that's flawed, its the way you tell it. you manage to make a story involving a dead body the most boring thing imaginable, that takes some doing.

The truth be told, I tried very hard to like this. As luckyscars says, it's not the story, it's the telling of it that's at fault.

First there is an excess of words. You use too many words to convey too little information. A problem I have in reading is to stop and mentally edit flawed sentences rather than passing on to the next. Thus when I come to a wordy sentence my impulse is to stop, rewrite it, perhaps consider two or three different ways the information could have been delivered with fewer words, and in the process I lose the thread of the story. This makes the narrative sections almost impossible to read. Of course this is a holdover from my own style, which is based on the two words 'precise' and 'concise'. Say exactly what you want to say, and say it with the fewest words possible.

Second, the dialogue. Again it is with lucky scars opinion that I must concur. Character is most easily created through dialogue, and there's not a character here that I recognise as a human, not even the Cockney who sounds like a stage comedian and a bad one at that.

A serious rewrite is in order, sad to say.

Hi
luckyscars , garza -thanks for your posts, I value any comments.

This was all part of diversion for me and in my defence the dialogue is cheesy and the characters are meant to be flat, two dimensional. The over emphasis on description was the point as I was trying to display, as the characters and events are a simulation, being part of a computer game.

QDOS

Ah, well, not being conversant with computer games I did not recognise the style.

Carry on.