This is the second episode of The River of Crawling Death. Click this line if you haven’t read Episode I!

“Why am I here? On business, I’m afraid – as usual. The University museum is looking for antiquities, and your President is eager to meet with me. I’m particularly intrigued by artefacts from the pre-European period, although I may be interested in sampling some more recent aspects of your culture as well…so perhaps I may be able to mix business with pleasure after all.”

She smiled, almost against her will – I had the nerve to smile underneath that toppling barrage of pomposity, to show her just how much I believed in my own importance.

Not a jot.

“I can’t wait to get to my hotel room actually, to settle down with a stiff gin and tonic and see out the afternoon. As soon as you’ve finished your work here, of course. I’m spent.”

Slowly she rifled through the new clothes the University had insisted I bring, to impress El Presidente and his cohorts. If the relics he had enticed the University with had indeed fallen into his possession I would need to look my best. Certainly there were rumours swirling about the campus that there were other museums circling, like sharks in the water. My tact and diplomacy leave a little to be desired. Turning up the collars of every suit jacket, far too hot to be wearing in the tropics, but in the latest style, she checked through pockets and linings.

“What is this?” she asked, pulling out a collection of brass pipes and a small brazier. “And these, Doctor?”

She didn’t leave me time to reply, lifting out more of my devices onto the benchtop. “You do realise that steam-powered contraptions won’t work in the jungle, don’t you? It’s far too damp for the coal to catch alight.”

“Now just you wait a moment!” I almost shouted at her. She had found my sketchbook and was studying the pages – too bright for her own good, I thought, as she began to trace the delicate filigreed designs. She was about to reach my more personal drawings. Studies of the human form, and rather good, I thought, but too intimate to show to a stranger – my self-portraits in particular - even though I sought to make more of our acquaintance.

The breeze picked up outside, howling as it cut its way through the haze, carrying with it the shrieks and howls of the labyrinthine jungle looming just beyond the cracked and overgrown colonial-era fencing. 

Unsettling, unnerving.

Exhilarating.

There was a cough from behind my shoulder, and a look of terror shuddered across her features, replaced almost instantly by an artificial smile.

A member of the Security Forces, then, come to escort me safely to my hotel.

For this post I used three of this week’s BeKindRewrite prompts (Spent, New Clothes and Cutting Through the Haze.) I also used some Trifecta words (topple, underneath and nerve) as well as the Friday Fictioneers photo prompt – although this story counts for neither because it’s far too long. Also, I think I’ll be updating these stories twice a week, so 3 days of voting!

STAY TUNED FOR MORE ADVENTURE! 

The plane shuddered as it hit the runway, bouncing, leaping upward. Trying to get back off the ground. A reminder of that old pilots’ maxim – each landing is just another controlled crash. A heat-mirage danced above the tarmac, obscuring the jungle that pressed tight against the airport, pierced by jagged-toothed mountains – it was seductive, like a broken dreamscape, like the promise of adventure.

Or a warning.

And I’ve never been one to heed a warning.

Stifling heat rushed to meet us as the doors opened into the tropics, stifling heat and the droning buzz of the jungle. The canvas walls of the Immigration and Customs tent bowed and sagged beneath the weight of the sky, as steam poured from the heavy bronze engines, stitching and entwining itself into the blanket of heat already overwhelming.

I scowled. The amatuer beuracracy of the Glorious People’s Republic of Val Verde was skilled in only one thing – corruption. This was going to take some time, I knew, as I mentally compiled an itinerary of those items I’d be happy to part with in order to escape to my hotel.

Then I saw her. Tall, without being lanky, brunette and curvaceous – just how I like my women. I cocked my hat, and put my best half-smile on. I wouldn’t mind the wait with her inspecting my luggage, let her deliberate over each and every contraption – after all, foreign girls make the best lovers. “Are you visiting the Glorious People’s Republic of Val Verde on business or for pleasure, sir?” she asked, in perfect English, the hint of a British boarding school underlining the obvious sarcasm as she mentioned the Communist government’s latest name for the country – it would change again within the year. I was tempted to answer with my usual ultimatum: Perhaps a mixture of both, if you’d be so kind, my dear, but she cut me off, interrupting. “Or are you here to aid with the further destruction of our history and culture, Dr Grady?”

This is the first part of The River of Crawling Death, a serial that I’ve just decided to start (and it’s a choose your own adventure story!) I started writing it for Chuck Wendig’s latest Terrible Minds challenge, which was a genre smasher…I got Men’s Adventure and Steampunk. I also used this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge word deliberate. Comments and criticism always welcome, and TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR MORE ADVENTURE! 

The sunlight scattered, defused and weakened after forcing a sluggish path through the rich atmosphere, after pushing down, deep into the bottom of this gravity well. The ship’s computers worked on overdrive, frantically compiling data sets, building profiles of the planet’s known intelligences, scrubbing the artefacts of its flaming descent from computer memory banks. Concealing itself, protecting its crew from the depredations of the natives, from any potential threats. A hive of von Neumann probes flow outward (swarming, swirling, learning.)

They will make themselves known, when the time is right.

Welcome to the Second Great Expansion, the second wave of explorers to leave their planet on pillars of fire, the first to leave their solar system. They know nothing of the Matrioshka hives surrounding their parent star (coiling, embracing, octopoid.) Ordering the destruction of the inner system, to increase computing power.

They know nothing of the vast distances they have traversed, nothing about the aeons they have spent frozen within the ship’s icy hull. They do not know they are waking, this crew, all of the same blood. Do not know they are stirring.

Hermetically sealed, the ship rouses its crew, decanting their foetuses into growth accelerators, forcing them through hormone courses and into their artificial wombs. The computer meanders through its database, artfully shuffling and recombining – compensating for the lesser gravity, for the poisonous atmosphere, for the inevitable microbial assault.

They will be born shortly.

Shadows dance across the thin, metal cylinder lying half-buried in the topsoil, the flickering of torchlight ranging across its bows, curious, examining this strange, scorched offering from the heavens.

The stench of ammonia and boiling methane – they are hatched and rapidly ageing.

Baits were laid, traps set, fingers set ready on triggers.

It walked inside the spaceship and then it sat down.

Its DNA was harvested, added to the horde.

“Human DNA acquired…”

Michael was released, back into the wild, high on tranquillisers, high on terror.

He told his tale, but no one really listened…

Written for Chuck Wendig’s Random Sentance Challenge on Terrible Minds (It walked inside the spaceship and then it sat down.) I also used the Trifecta Writing Challenge word o’ the week blood (KINDRED, in this example) and one of this week’s BeKindReWrite prompts, stirring. Good to get back to writing some science fiction after all those monsters, too! I thought I’d try out a Charles Stross style info-dump as well (“Welcome to the Second Great Expansion…”) Let me know what you think, comments and criticism always welcome!

So, the A to Z Challenge, eh? That was fun. It was both easier than I thought it would be, and more difficult. I started out, on April 1st, with stars in my eyes and an angry, berating wife in the background – we were going on holidays, and what made me think that writing thirty stories (well, twenty-six) in thirty days was a good idea for our holidays?

It was the challenge aspect that enticed me – I’d been struggling to write every day, and the prospect of having to do twenty-six stories was both frightening and exciting. Once I’d made that commitment, there was no going back. Originally, the plan was to write a story based on a word, chosen at random from my copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, in any genre, a variety of themes. A smorgasbord of stories, if you will. Hence, A was for Abomination. And then I remembered a post I made in the murky, not-so-distant past (last year some time), a post where I lamented the seemingly endless reappearance of the same monsters. I called out for more stories about the Under-Represented Monsters in the world – here was  a perfect opportunity to explore these critters.

So I took it.

I put down the thesaurus and reached deep into Wikipedia, scouting out a new monster each day of the week, looking for these monsters left to moulder in the imaginations of our ancestors (getting poetic, sorry.) And while some of the monsters I represented seem to still scuttle in and out of our collective conscious (like Bigfoot, or the Tanuki), I still  felt that there were stories to tell, places that hadn’t been explored.

I learnt about new monsters, monsters I’d never heard of, monsters that haven’t had a new story written and published about them in decades – and some of them were awesome. Some were creepy, others pathetic, but there they were, my Under-Represented Monsters.

I had a great time, reading about them and trying to write new stories everyday, trying not to recycle the tales I was telling. Changing perspectives and points of view, changing the outcomes, the winners and the losers.

I loved it.

And I love having you guys along for the ride. Hopefully there were plenty of monsters that you had never heard of, monsters that you thought you knew but seen in a new light. As usual, the stories I loved seemed less popular than those that I wrote and posted, uncommited. There’s something to learn there, I’m sure.

Twenty-six monsters, one month.

But the list isn’t exhausted yet.

I think I know what I’m going to do for next year’s A to Z Challenge…

Thanks for stopping by, and for commenting, gang!

Also, a big thank you needs to go out to:

Steph, from BeKindReWrite

&

The Trifectans

for all the wonderful prompts, and to 

Patricia Lynne and The Capillary

for all the Twitter action!

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J

K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T

U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Filed under: fiction, real life Tagged: A to Z Challenge, BeKindRewrite, creative writing, fiction, flash fiction, InMon, monsters, short stories, short story, Speculative Fiction, story, very short story, writing ]]> http://chriswhitewrites.com/2013/05/07/the-a-to-z-challenge-in-review/feed/ 2 chriswhitewrites IMG_6956[1] http://chriswhitewrites.com/2013/05/04/momma/ http://chriswhitewrites.com/2013/05/04/momma/#comments Sat, 04 May 2013 07:01:38 +0000 chriswhitewrites http://chriswhitewrites.com/?p=1790 ]]>

The sky burned crimson, screaming in impotent fury.

Finally.

They had arrived.

We stood and watched the sea, waiting.

“Momma?”

Tick, tock.

One hundred years old. 

Tick, tock.

The teachings of Kūkai state that any object can receive a soul.

Tick, tock.

After one hundred years of service.

Tick, tock.

We opened my grandfather’s pocket watch. The hinges screamed.

Tick, tock.

The clockwork still spun, but nothing lived inside.

Tick, tock.

I threw it away, useless.

The Kūkai was wrong.

Written as the final instalment in my series on Under-Represented Monsters, for the A to Z Challenge. The Zorigami is in the same class as the Jotai (the Tsukumogami) - created to teach esoteric Buddhism to the Japanese peasantry. And no, I don’t know what lesson it teaches, other than that the Japanese seem to be the best in the world at creating monsters. Not just the Gojira and Mosura style “mega-monsters” but also the monsters that inhabit our daily lives. Monsters are still being created in Japan, and being incorporated into the collective conscious there, monsters like the Kuchisake Onna, first recorded in 1978 and still thriving in the imaginations of school children. We don’t seem to do that. We have our urban legends, sure, but ours seem to be about escaped criminals and psychopaths, not the supernatural. So I tried to work that death of imagination into this piece. And I wonder if our culture is weaker for losing the supernatural…

Writhing.

Black as Death’s cloak.

Quick as his blade.

Black, writhing Death.

A field painted in black, avert your eyes from the Gods of the Night Sword.

A curse brought down upon us – the promise of Death, writhing, looping, ever entwined.

Avert your eyes from the Gods of the Night Sword, from these venomous harbingers. Extinguishing entire families, their names erased, farmyards vacant, abandoned, slowly crumbling. Forgotten.

Avert your eyes from the Gods of the Night Sword, the gatekeepers of the shrine to Death, a door into his realm, a window of opportunity. Of misfortune.

I alone stood in the fields before them, in the face of the future – staring down these inch worms ranged against me. Three times I clapped my staff into the ground, three times three, casting them into the shadows.

I was not afraid.

Three times three they fled into the temple, and shaken priests fled from their fangs.

Three times three they fled into the mountains, the Gods of the Night Sword, blunted.

Written for the A to Z Challenge as a part of my series of Under-Represented Monsters. I didn’t realise that April only has thirty days, not thirty-one…I thought I was up to date (or just a little behind.) Anyway, the Gods of the Night Sword or Yato-no-kami, as they are called in Japanese. I don’t know much about them – and neither does Wikipedia, apparently. So I incorporated elements of Saint Patrick into the peasant who drove them out (the staff banging, three times three, the shaken priests…) Everyone knows Saint Patrick, right? I also managed to incorporate the Trifecta Writing Challenge prompt door (at least I think I got the definition right, today’s is complicated) and two of the BeKindReWrite prompts inch worm and face of the future. One more under-represented monster to go…comments and criticism are always welcome! 

“The amber sunrise glowed softly above the rice paddies

while peasants in straw cloaks

laboured against the cold.”

A man of peace, although I was born to war.

A man of peace, standing eight foot tall, towering above my fellows.

When my Master called, I followed.

To battle.

The guqin called us to war, as once I had taught it to entice the peasants into the fields.

The dizi and the gudi marched alongside us, through trembling mountain passes, quaking beneath the tread of a thousand feet, urging us onward and into the teeth of the enemy.

The fight was fierce, my Master, defeated.

Shadows extinguished the Fire Emperor, sent into exile, deep in the uncivilised south.

Executed, to prevent his return.

So again I marched to war, to follow my Master along the final path, through eternal mountains and into the valley of Death. I called him out, the Yellow Emperor, the new king, the usurper.

He took my head, but still I fight on.

Unvanquished.

Written for the A to Z Challenge, as part of my series on Under-represented Monsters. 

Nearly finished, this month has been exhausting.

I dinnae know where it got started, a misunderstanding by some soft Southerner…I dinae know.

“Wirry cow?”

It’s ‘worry’ not ‘wirry.’ Worry inna ol’ sense o’ tha word – not ‘concerned’, not stressed aboot money, aboot ya hair turnin’ grey or ya woman laying around the town.

“Worry” as in to attack, to make war, to commit atrocities, most vicious.

Rape, pillage, plunder.

And ‘cow?’ It’s ‘cove.’ Cove – a rogue, a monster. In Scots Gaelic it means “‘goblin.’

Not cow. Cowe.

“Wirry-cow?”

Wankers.

Written for the A to Z Challenge, as part of my series on Under-Represented Monsters. He’s basically the traditionally Scottish bogeyman. Hmmmm…X is gonna be hard…

Comments and criticism always welcome!

Black and proud they stood, wallowing in the entrails and remains, feasting on what had once been men, women and children. What had once been human beings, now cast about, smearing thatched roofs and the cobblestone town square. Cast about, in a seemingly haphazard fashion – but spelling out a sinister truth.

The beast had struck.

Devouring one and all, consuming all it could – if we were lucky we would have arrived too late.

The Fates had another idea.

Our footsteps startled the ravens. They took fright, took flight, leaping out in an instant from that carrion field, their harpy’s wings showering us with ichor and filth.

A blood rain, and at the boom of a thousand pairs of wing taking flight we heard it – the grunt, the sharp intake of breath.

It knew of our presence.

It rose from its lair, from the nest it had made for itself, from a nest of cracked and broken human bones. Its hackles sharpened, like quills from its back, ready to pen a new tale of violence, of destruction – Death, incarnate. Death, reaper of souls, scourge of the living.

But we had something of our own to say about that. The clash and thunder of men, brash before battle, the steady beat of your heart as you make your peace with this world and prepare to kill an abomination. The monster’s head was worth a pretty price in Berlin – and a hefty burden he exacted, exalting in the rivers of blood he opened.

He tried to flee, and got caught fast between the poplar trees – I lost five good men that morning. Squealing, screaming terror erupted, and I wasn’t quick to silence him.

I took my time.

His death wasn’t a good one.

Written for the A to Z Challenge as part of my series on Under-represented Monsters. Thought I’d go for something a bit more ‘traditional’ and this Germanic monster seemed to fit the bill quite nicely (also, not a lot of monsters out there starting with V, other than the obvious.) Apparently this wee beastie would eat and eat and eat before lying around for a day or two and then finishing the *ahem* digestive process by squeezing itself between two trees. Didn’t work out for this little guy. The Vielfraß was a misunderstanding about the nature of the Wolverine by Germanic peoples… This is one of my first attempts at writing an ‘icky’ horror story, tell me what you think, comments and criticism always welcome!