Caricatures - Writers Forum

Wyndstar · 10-10-2005, 01:12 PM

Hi!
This was inspired by a few spooky stories here by semtecks, lost and eggo. Enjoy...

CARICATURES

Terri was sitting on her stoop, a small light and a bowl of candy on the table by her chair. Every once in a while she’d look up from the book she was writing in to hand children sweets.

It was Halloween in the little town of Jack’s Stone Corner, named so because a man named Jack laid the first stone in the corner of a small hill that became the town.

Terri Carpenter hadn’t been a resident for very long, only about two years, but that didn’t mean no one knew her. After all, she and the notebook she wrote in had made the rounds running errands and doing what everyone else did that lived there.

The woman was friendly enough, seemed harmless, but there were some unpleasant stories about her. While few of the towns folk knew precisely what those stories were about, the fact that they existed were enough to cast doubt.

Besides, Terri was a Wiccan, and an outsider.

So, when she was pelted later that evening with rotten eggs, none of the neighbors made much of it, except Nettie Smith and Abigail Pritchard, who sat in the back of Nettie’s house, sipping tea, and ignoring the trick or treaters that raced by the front yard.

“That little failure won’t be writing any of her idiot stories in that notebook anytime soon.” Abigail commented nastily, heartily enjoying the show. “Worthless city trash.”

Not that these women could claim a status higher than they would permit for Terri. Abigail moved there after stealing another woman’s husband, and using her children as cheap labor. Nettie bullied the town council, stole land from neighbors on both sides of her, and put a music studio up in that same residential area.

By psychological standards, both would be considered mildly sociopathic. They were several brain cells short of managing considerably more damaging acts that would have made them actual concerns to most of their neighbors.

A younger woman joined the two after having stared her fill of egg and humiliation. Her name was DeeDee Danbridge. She was a mean spirited parasite who enjoyed suffering as much the others who were bonded by one single factor; Terri.

Terri was Abigail’s stepdaughter in law, Nettie’s neighbor, and DeeDee’s sister in law.

The three could think of thousands of reasons why they had started nasty rumors, threatened to have Terri evicted out into the street, and thrown in jail, but the reality was that these were the reactions of caricatures in response to their proximity to someone more like the Venus De Milo.

So, they spent their night assuaging themselves with tales of suffering they had caused the woman, while noises buzzed background-like around them. But though it was an engaging subject that they were able to ignore everything else for, the noises just became too much.

“You left the porch unlatched.” Nettie accused DeeDee harshly, as the sound of it grew louder and faster by the minute. “Some kids got in here—I’ll sue their goddamn parents!

“You always want to sue someone.” DeeDee dismissed Nettie with a wave “And besides, it doesn’t sound like a door.” She thought for a moment “It sounds like—typing.”

“It’s probably Terri next door,” Was Abigail’s guess “Just call the cops.”

“Still sounds like my door.”

“And so you are all correct.” A familiar voice declared knowingly “It’s the policemen and firefighters going in and out, while the authors of fate are deciding yours.”

And then, the source of the voice moved out of the shadows.

For a moment, the trio stared at the figure in the black hooded cape with a book in one hand, a strange pole with a curved knife in it in the other. They were unable to speak. It was as if they had suddenly become detached from physical reality, floating adrift, though never moving.

“You’re in Transition now.” Said the voice, answering a question that really didn’t answer it “It’s the scythe. Normally, it cuts clean, but it really needs a sharp---“

“Terri, you insipid little embarrassment!”

“No, the Angel of Death.” Terri corrected Netti, gesturing to the gear. “It’s actually my cousin Connor, but he had such a load tonight, and I really didn’t have much to do after my Book of Benevolences was ruined with rotten eggs. I just can’t write without my own notebook.”

“You’re such a retard and a coward, Terri.” DeeDee taunted her with a judgmental shake of the head “You walk around town all the time with that stupid smile on your face, incapable of showing any balls---you’ve finally lost it. Gimmee that notebook,” the woman commanded “So we can use it to show that you need professional help.”

The taunt was a weak one, uncertain.

DeeDee could suddenly smell smoke, and found that despite wanting to badly, she could not rise and take the book that most assuredly proved Terri’s madness for herself.

“It’s the bad wiring.” Terri mentioned, noticing the expression on DeeDee’s face “All three of you died because of a bad wiring job—that’s because you were too cheap to hire contractors who wouldn’t cheat the laws governing permits Nettie.” She added with a sigh “It blew the second floor and crushed the three of you to death.”

They could hear the voices now; feel the vibrations of stomping feet, even though the room around them never changed. And all they could see beyond themselves was perpetual darkness.

The reality was slowly dawning on them, despite the desire to deny it.

“So what then?” Nettie, who was always the most realistic of the three, baited Terri smoothly “You’re wiccan. Your kind doesn’t believe in Hell. You’re a goddamn artsy fartsy liberal, a writer for Christ’s sake. So even if this ISN’T an elaborate joke,” She glanced at Abigail and DeeDee triumphantly “It’s not likely you could take us there.”

“See? You’re just a stupid bitch with no common sense.” Abigail declared, and all three women laughed, “You can’t even get dying right.”

Suddenly, the typing got louder.

“No, you’re right about that,” Terri agreed with a smile “Hell just isn’t practical. It takes up a lot of space and beliefs vary, so—we use writers instead.”

A cold suddenly crept up their spines.

“You see, human writers need characters for their stories, I mean, they get ideas,” Terri admitted with a sigh “But actually putting themselves in their own stories – though that’s what they believe – would diminish them spiritually. So instead, we provide them with folks like you; I mean, it isn’t as if you three really have enough personality or depth to make you recyclable humans.” Terri added with a familiar callousness, as the trio began to protest “Now,” She flipped through some pages in the book that all three noticed wasn’t her usual. “I’ve a writer doing a thing on pumpkin fertilizer, one working on an analogy on porcelain, another who needs vampire fodder—though I really like his thing on the Satan-assisted suicide---“

“You can’t do it!” DeeDee cried desperately, as she began to feel herself drain into the small of gasoline and sweat and careless youth “That isn’t your regular notebook, remember?”

“Well, if I was doing my usual job, I wouldn’t.” The entity conceded sadly “MY book, the one I’ve been working on for the two years that recorded the more positive checks of your lives, was destroyed by the boys Abigail incited to pelt me with rotten eggs. All I have to use now is Connor’s book.”

“Wait—your usual job?” Nettie questioned, as she heard the sound of bones breaking and pain began slowly splintering it’s way past her state of denial.

“Yes.” Terri nodded, completing her annotations “Well, someone has to be the Angel of Mercy, don’t they?” She looked up “Good bye ladies…”

She slammed the book shut, the sound as lost in the din of fire fighters and ambulance sirens rushing around the intense blaze across from Terri’s lawn—as the three souls who had perished in it…!

eggo · 10-10-2005, 01:53 PM

Hey Wyndstar,

Funny twist on the subject of fate. I loved the way you painted these ladies as the ruthless in-laws. Each were derserving of their fate. It was a nice peice of irony that she was the one that had protected them, even though they stabbed her in the back.

A few crits,

Quote:

Had they been consciously aware of ways to pull off many of the things they wanted to do without getting caught, they would have been called something else.

A little cumbersome.

Quote:

threatened to have Terri thrown in jail, evicted and thrown into the street,

Seems out of order,

threatened to have Terri evicted and thrown into the street or worse, thrown in jail. Maybe?

Quote:

Wait—your usual job?” Nettie questioned, as she heard the sound of bones breaking and pain began slowly splintering it’s way past her state of denial.

nice simile

A good solid story, thanks for the read.

Btw, Thanks for including a bit of my story. Unfortunatly, received a rejection from the mag I tried in submission. Ah well, try again!

semtecks · 10-10-2005, 04:00 PM

Hey, Wyndstar. I loved this, you should do this more often. Oh, and thanks for the mention, I've been xinged and I like it.

My only suggestion is this:

Quote:

For a moment, the trio stared at the figure in the black hooded cape with a book in one hand, a strange pole with a knife in it in the other.

The undelined part made me stumble, it took me a while to realise it was a scythe. How 'bout: a long pole with a curved blade at the end. Or something like that.

shinbook · 10-10-2005, 10:02 PM

"Not that these women could claim a status higher than they would permit for Terri."
this line just doesn't feel right to me, feels like it needs more, also,

"By psychological standards, both would be considered mildly sociopathic. They were several brain cells short of managing considerably more damaging acts that would have made them actual concerns to most of their neighbors."
-Loved this, just good writing.
Thanks for the read,
Ben

gohn67 · 10-11-2005, 12:43 AM

Hey Wyndstar,
I enjoyed it, and the twist got me, wasn't expecting that to happen at all. They deserved it though.

The second half when you get into the action held my attention really well.

I think the first half needed less backstory, but I know that you needed to set up the characters though or the second half of the story wouldn't have worked as well as it did for me.

Wyndstar · 10-11-2005, 01:09 AM

Hey, those little green dot thingies say I'm on line. Cool...

Anyway, thank you all for reading the story.

eggo - I took your suggestion about that paragraph and the order of events. It does make better sense.

semtecks - gave the 'pole' a bit more definition.
And I'm glad you and eggo caught the references to your stories. I figured since they inspired mine, they should have some sort of honorable mention.

shinbook - not sure how to make that sentence better. I wrestled with that one even before I posted it.

gohn - believe it or not, with the exception of the sentence shinbook mentioned, I sailed through the first part. It was the second part I had trouble with. I didn't quite know how to place any of the 'surprises' that they would have the sort of impact eggo and semtecks' stuff did.

Chris Miller · 10-11-2005, 10:17 PM

Interesting how you’ve managed to capture something of the style of semtecks and eggo. And yourself of course. Impressive how quickly you write these stories.

My favorite part of this one is the way you describe the death of the three antagonists. Kind of made me imagine dying myself there with them. I also like the way Terri moralizes/philosophizes. Wasn’t clear how she came into the scene with the Grim Reaper, or was she him?

It would be even better and more satisfying if you could show examples of their despicability. Don’t just tell me they’re shit, let me judge for myself.

Just as an exercise, try taking out every single adverb, and see what you think. A friend of mine was trying to talk me into scaling a 6600 word story back to 5000 for this Fish competition. He even showed me a lot of stuff I could get rid of. Funny thing was, that even though I didn’t care about the competition (or to blow 40 bucks) I actually liked a lot of the prose better after his omissions. It’s unnatural for us writers to take out perfectly good words—especially our own.

A few specific thoughts:

Quote:

The woman was friendly enough, seemed harmless, but there were some unpleasant stories about her.

How about an example instead?

Quote:

Abigail commented nastily, heartily enjoying the show.

Wow, two adverbs in a row. Take them out and tell me what you think.

Quote:

Abigail moved there after stealing another woman’s husband, and using her children as cheap labor.

Describe how she “stole” the woman’s husband (like he was a TV or something).
Show her using the children as cheap labor (maybe helping skin the puppies she gets from the animal shelter).

Quote:

She was a mean spirited parasite who enjoyed suffering as much the others…

But if you really want me to dislike her, you’re going to have to show me. Is it true she has a special recipe for the puppies she gets for free from the animal shelter?

Chris

Lost · 10-11-2005, 10:25 PM

I am absolutely touched at the mention, thank you.

I think it's actually a pretty good story, I don't usually read too deep into grammar because I'm a bit of a speed-reader, but you portrayed them well as arguing siblings, each accusing one-another of needing psychological help... it was actually quite wonderful.