Pink Predilection

Manicured fingernails tapped the screen on the pink Torchwood to close the article. Hove had really screwed up this time and she was going to let him know that he did. There was going to be none of his fast talk or back peddling this time. If she didn’t recover the two neo humans, Demiourgos would lose billions in research and development as well as the prototype clones. She knew what they could do, what they could cause. She would have to either set up a team from Demiourgos to recover them or recruit external assets from outside the corporation. Neither of the choices she ran through was suitable for her.

It would have been best if her Project Manager had worked with the Head of Research and Development instead of creating a hostile work environment with Lucas Fir causing one of her most brilliant assets to turn into a liability. Still, there was a possibility in turning her former Head of Research into a different kind of asset. She’d have to spin the sales pitch to the damaged Lucas Fir after he had recovered from the implant surgery.

She quickly tapped on the Torchwood and brought up the medical chart on Lucas Fir. His eyes and tongue were removed when the neo humans were set free by the infiltrator. The spine was tore up and sliced effectively turning the body that housed Lucas Fir’s brilliant mind into nothing more than a meat sack. The man was crippled and from the bottom line, it was going to cost more than the proverbial six million to put him back together into a usable asset. Even if Fir’s consciousness were downloaded into a virtual brain box, the cost was going to exceed ten million. It would be better for Demiourgos to have him walking around again though. It was better for morale.

A frown passed through her face causing her lips to pout slightly. Hitting another icon on the Torchwood, the screen coalesced into a chromed mirror. Angling the mirror up, she checked her lips, as pink as the Torchwood’s cover. They were full and looked moist. That worked for her. It was a powerful and subtle tool that she used to her advantage.

The pink frames on her glasses stood out against her face giving her an academic, almost businesslike look. This worked for her as well because most of her underlings who though with their dicks wanted the fantasy of the sex kitten hidden deep within the folds of the bookish number crunching geektress that she appeared to be. She also found that it had an equally disturbing effect on her female underlings as well. Some took her for granted; others just wanted to take her.

A custom piece of code that the woman had embedded in the Demiourgos chat feeds delivered the various feeds directly to her Torchwood. The woman thumbed the matriphone again and launched the code. The feed was instantly pushed to her without the knowledge of the two users.

2318-00091023 DGReyLinC: She’s got real DSL’s

1902-00400529 InvDia623: Yeah, she sure does. And Holy Jeebus, huge tracts of land!

2318-00091023 DGReyLinC: ZoZo’s got nothing on her, man.

1902-00400529 InvDia623: [WO]man, actually.

2318-00091023 DGReyLinC: Oh. Sorry

1902-00400529 InvDia623: Hakuna Matata M8. GNDN, you know?

2318-00091023 DGReyLinC: Yeah, cool. Thx.

1902-00400529 InvDia623: We all gotta eat, right?

Instinctively, the frown on the woman’s face increased. She brought up another app on the Torchwood and pulled up the chatter’s profiles. DGReyLinC served under her as a minor programmer in the Lexicon Grid. He was a resource that was easy to come by and not a great asset. His performance reviews hadn’t shown anything promising in the last quarter. DGReyLinC was right though, her lips were gorgeous; she had engineered them herself.

InvDia623 was another console cowgirl who was responsible for routing the traffic and incoming calls for the Plaza Level where the Corporate Apartments were. She was also declining in her productivity and could easily be replaced by a CGI subroutine.

The woman brought up a new app on the Torchwood and rifled off several memos. She knew that within minutes DGReyLinC would have to explain why suddenly his and his wife’s credit had been revoked, IRA holdings and Stock Options that they had worked so hard for after the last decade had suddenly vanished off the face of the Earth, and how it truly wasn’t him in the digital stills partying with the latest iteration of the ZoZo Bubblegum Girls that was sent to his wife’s message box.

Much the same was in store for InvDia623. Except that for her life partner, a series of warrants were put out for InvDia623 with suspicion of intent to distribute as well as several secured emails and transactions documenting her money laundering and embezzlement from Demiourgos for the past five years.

The woman smiled as she sent the last of her instructions. In the span of 15 minutes, she had cut a total of $150,000 from the bottom line for this quarter. It was really a pittance in the grand scheme of things, but every last dollar counted when trying to keep certain projects from leaking out to the competitors.

Projects being leaked out brought her back to thinking about Joseph Hove and his supreme ineptitude. The press team he put together did a decent job, but the Salicur City Police Department wasn’t going to buy the story for long. People were going to start talking. It was only going to be a matter of time before Alexander Samson was going to start finding the trail back to Demiourgos.

Hove needed to take point on this operation, but she felt that he had already lost his power. She was going to have to take it over and spin the release of information into a skein that could be both believable and removed Demiourgos from the investigation. She had a connection, that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that Judas Blue was insane.

Semper Fidelis

The knife was sharp. He made sure it was sharp. His father had taught him how to make the blade sharp. Gunnery Sergeant Greene wouldn’t have had it any other way. There was no other way. It was his way or the highway.

“John, never give your enemy any mercy,” he could hear his father’s gravelly voice in his ear, intoxicating his mind, punctuated with the Gunny’s fists.

Today was different. Gunny had taught him to make the knife sharp. Gunny had trained him to show no mercy. John stared at the knife in his father’s chest.

It was done.

Dak Kodak

George Eastman watched his friends leave with a bit of sadness in his heart. He knew it was going to be the last time he saw them. They were good workers, businessmen and confidants. George was going to miss them all. Without them, he knew that the entire world would have already succumbed to the Dak. Very few actually knew about the species let alone see them in their natural form. George kept that secret to himself and a scant few within his company that was founded so long ago.

He only became aware of the Dak by accident. It was during the planning of the trip to Santo Domingo. The enormous amount of devices that he was trying to pack for the trip leaked into his spare clothes and toiletries. It was too late for George to not be affected by the chemicals that had already soaked into the silk pocket-square. With eyes burning from the combination of chemicals, George Eastman’s quickly and surprisingly came into focus.

The beings seemed to shimmer into an existence without the knowledge of everyone else around them. George looked up and down the street and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Between the men and women carrying about their business throughout the day were the unspeakable things that flickered in and out of reality. Strange pops and sizzles came from them.

All together too many of the beings seemed to group together communicating in a series of flashing lights from orbs circulating around their misshapen and lumpy heads. What George took as their faces were little more than a bristly series of insect-like antennae that absorbed the light from the circulating orbs. The bristles radiated colored sparks all along the misshapen head and then arced to another of the alien’s lumpy and bristled heads to start the process all over again.

Three of the things were in tow surrounding Roland Jenkins, one of his mother’s boarders. The man was bedraggled as the sparks passed through him from one Dak to another. Jenkins’ eyes were puffy and dark circles lined his eyes as if he were punched in the nose.

“Dak skzzzzzzzzzat.”

“Dikdak,”

“Dakdak stzkozat dek-DAK.”

As he approached the house, George could see the strain on Jenkins’ face. He often complained of headaches and now George could see the cause of them. The Dak were passing their lightning through his body and soul.

It was then that George Eastman knew God’s plan for him. More pops and sizzles sounded off from further down the street. Everywhere that George looked, there were more Dak slithering in that impossible gate near people passing their lighting to each other through the men and women walking about Rochester.

Divine Providence gave him the power to see the unholy monstrosities and he knew that God would give him the tools and knowledge to somehow destroy them. George didn’t know what else to do but try to get a picture of the beasts.

As quickly as humanly possible, George Eastman began to set up the bulky mass that he was to bring to Santo Domingo with his mother. The task was important, he had to capture the image on the glass plate and get the image developed. Others had to know that these creatures, these Dak were in the world. His destiny unfolded before him within colored snaps and pops from an alien race. Colors flooded his mind as he ran. Soon, he began to understand them.

“He’szh dak-shtzzzzzztak.”

“Kidakdek shzee us!”

George prepared the plate and slid it into the wooden frame and opened the aperture to illuminate the coated glass. Immediately he regretted it. The noise on the other side of the curtain was terrible and loathsome as the Dak seemed to stop in place. High pitched screams mixed with equally loud pops and sizzles began to fill the air.

“Kodak! Kodak!”

Slowly George came out from underneath the curtain as the image burned itself into the silver salts that were coating the glass plate. He let the aperture of the camera close as many of the Dak came to a halt in the street. The color faded from their orbs and the lightning passing between them ceased. The tentacled, deformed bodies did not move as the wind took their particulate like smoke from a stack.

“Tzzzze meat hazzzt kodak uzzt!”

The sickly voice came from behind George. Turning, he faced the Dak and stared. The imprint of the alien visage burned into his mind. The Dak squelched and popped ambers and reds at George. He could only smile at the feeble attempt at the attack. He could live with a headache.

It would only take three years of experimentation for George to perfect the next stage. He, Henry Strong, and the others that were brought into the fold fought the Dak at every turn – with every picture. The secret war began in earnest in 1888 when the Kodak Camera was given to the public for only $25.00.

George looked to the window and smiled at the light shining through it. It only took five decades to defeat the Dak in the United States. Still, there was much work to be done. Every amateur and professional photographer or shutterbug was destroying the Dak with every click of the shutter. Yes, they pressed the button, Kodak did the rest.

Pain lanced George’s hands as he grabbed a pen and wrote out the note for his friends and loved ones. The scrawl simply read, “My work is done. Why wait?” George knew that some wouldn’t understand the action he was about to take. His loyal soldiers would know too well. They knew the threat the world faced.

George had to concentrate to keep his hands steady as he opened a drawer in the writing table and withdrew the pistol. The fight would go on, but it would have to go on without him. George smiled again at the light, pointed the pistol at his heart and pulled the trigger.

Running the Numbers

Running an analysis and finding patterns.

Based on the visits, here's what my readers are finding interesting based on their entry pages:

53 %	The Beast Inside: Introduction
16 %	Gary E. Weller: Fiction Repository
13 %	Bad JuJu
04 %	Buzzards in the Sun
04 %	Then and Now: Part I
03 %	Two Grave Robbers and a Swordsman
03 %	Unknown or Other
02 %	Mackinlay’s Samba
01 %	Halloween Knight
01 %	The Beast Inside: Vigilance

These are interesting results. I'm not sure what to make of the data at this point, but it gives me a good idea on what folks are actually interested in reading. Take a look around at what others have seen and drop me a line.

Thanks for dropping by.

XIII

Skeletal towers stood in testament to what was left. The twisted metal was just as scarred and malformed as the surrounding land. Concrete held onto the superstructures loosely like necrotic skin that was waiting to fall off. The once great civilization of cooperation and peace was a now wasteland of corruption and pestilence. The only cure would be time itself just as time was the disease that caused the entropy and decay.

The once fragrant field that held the rapture of kings, queens, courtiers, and commoners alike now had a different aroma. Sickness enveloped the land in the effort to push progress to its limits and beyond. Cosmic bands that held pieces of the universe together were pressed and stretched until there was no other option but to snap allowing much more than the conservation of energy to be proven yet again.

A lone figure walked the contaminated world analyzing what changes were taking place. Remnants of inhabitation still existed if one knew where to look. There were smaller pieces of non-malicious technology strewn about. Brittle and delicate now after the many turns around the sun, but they were there hidden and protected in milky plastic. Decaying flesh had long been eaten by the new owners of the world. Bleached and broken bones littered the streets, corners and precarious causeways between the now twisted and bent skyscrapers that were left in the wake of what was heralded as, ‘The Greatest Discovery of All Time!’

The population truly didn’t know what the scholars and magi were doing or what they were unleashing. They weren’t ready for what was to come of their tinkering. They couldn’t have been. As usual, they were pushing the envelope to see what new discoveries could be made instead of trying to truly understand the knowledge that they had already unlocked. Mankind was its own destruction across too many worlds.

If anyone were still around, they may have seen the lone figure stop on a bridge that was barely attached to two of the giant skyscrapers and look to the heavens from underneath the black cloak that he always wore. A hollow wind brushed against the bridge causing it and its rider to sway. The black cloak billowed out like a great shadow under the power of the wind.

The implement at his side was more for protection against the change that now roamed the surface of the world rather than reaping a harvest. It was a tool, nothing more. The technology that was housed within the implement was beyond what many cognizant beings could conceive and they could only see the thing as what it looked like, not what it was.

He too, was often misconstrued as the agent of destruction, the killer of men, women, and all of life itself. In truth, he and his brethren were often the only witnesses to what was left behind. Collectively they knew it was their duty to encourage the change. Maintaining the change throughout the occurring entropy was more important than preventing belief in a mythos that was created long ago. His clan didn’t have the power to bring about the change. The Chaos Energy belonged to others within the Arcana. Mankind had yet to understand that simple fact. It didn’t truly matter in the grand scheme. Few things actually did.

Knowing that he didn’t cause this particular change didn’t make him feel any better. An entire civilization was lost. Their love was decimated. Their culture was thrown away. Their children would never know the sunlight or fresh flowers or the simple pleasure of sitting in a field of tall grass, pondering the existence of fireflies on a summer wind. It would be a tragically long time before that joyous and exuberant laughter would be carried along the wind. This world’s children were already taken by the chaos that their parents had called to them.

That was the real tragedy. The only comfort was that the children were no longer crying or in pain. That time had passed long ago. The true suffering of a child was the most excruciating piece of helping to manage the change throughout the universe. The wielders of the Chaos Energy did not have the emotional range necessary to know what they were doing. It is not their destiny to understand, just to implement the change.

Standing on the bridge high up in the air, the figure bowed his head and shook it back and forth in disappointment. So much promise was lost on pushing too hard and too quickly. The innate curiosity to understand was built into the genetic models. The science behind the magic always had to be discovered, to be known, to be exploited.

Such was the way of most of the worlds he had to come to visit. The lives that were so insistent on understanding didn’t yield to the one primal piece of knowledge and wisdom that was common throughout the universe. They couldn’t see that by seeking the ‘truth’ through means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it.

The figure looked out on what was a great city as the sun dipped down towards the horizon. Orange and crimson streaks lanced outwards into the azure sky that was deepening to indigo. Lifeless mundane structures reached for the sky in an effort to hold onto the life that they once had. The crippled fingers of the cityscape only served to bolster the resolve of the cloaked figure on the bridge.

He knew he had to carry on and be the agent of change for this world and countless others. He and his brethren would carry on the traditions and practices that were necessary to give another chance to the beings that would take the world as their own. On a planetary scale, it would be a brief instant to bring them back until the next epoch where they brought the wielders of the Chaos Energy.

Still, he would be waiting. Death always does.

Bad Juju

Bergeron didn’t want to go back to New Orleans. Somehow as the world evolved into the shadowed neon culture that had grown out of the global economic shutdown that had provided private conglomerates to basically buy out several governments around the world, the Big Easy had remained remarkably Cajun.

There were bits and pieces of more modernization along the riverfronts and throughout the delta, but for the most part, the denizens stuck to their roots and traditions. The money may have been coming out of Shanghai, but for those Cajun down in the Town, it was still, ‘laissez les bons temps rouler,’ rather than, ‘yǒu yuán qiānlǐ lái xiānghuì.’ Still, destiny was a funny thing.

He didn’t have a choice but to accept the job. Francis Bergeron knew it was going to be clustered seven ways from Sunday because it was New Orleans, but he couldn’t get by the picture. She had a winning smile and a fair complexion. It wasn’t the fact that she was a girl or the fact that she was cute. More than anything else, he took the job because of who she was.

The crest on the sweatshirt was unmistakable. Black and red backgrounds peeked from the middle of the teal and blank. Bergeron knew it was the Seal of Tulane before he saw the castles and the moons. Non Sibi Sen Suis, the words came back to him as if he had just walked out from his graduation ceremony. They were ingrained into what he did now – not for oneself, but for one’s own. Her name was Sheila Thibodaux, but Bergeron already knew that. Sheila was his cousin.

Tracking Sheila down wasn’t the issue, Bergeron had found here easy enough. He knew who to talk to and how to negotiate passage through the bayous and bogs. It came with knowing the area. The chrome in his body and the ocular implants just made it much easier to negotiate the price. It was still hard to believe that most of the folks in the Parishes throughout Louisiana were still frightened of the technology that was in use today.

Many of the folks he had to use to find her were sorely in need both a barber and a dentist. The undereducated and superstitious lot would often drop a broom over their doorstep when he left them or drew veve on the ground in ash and salt like he was some sort of Loa in flesh. Bergeron had no patience for their ignorance.

The harder part for Bergeron was the fact that when he found Sheila, she had seemed to leave a vacancy in her mind. Stage makeup and mud was smeared all over her face creating a skull emblem .Somehow she had either found or lugged a pseudo-silk top hat and matching suit out to the old plantation. It hung on her loosely, as if it were meant for someone else. Chromed mirrorshades were planted on her face and a long pipe stuck in her teeth slowly let aromatic grey smoke drift up.

“Sheila?” Bergeron knelt beside the slowly dying fire she had laid out. He stared hard at her seeing his frown in the mirrorshades straddling her nose.

“Passe’!” the word was almost spat out. Her voice was not her own. Bergeron readjusted his hand on the grip of the assault rifle he was carrying. She took another draw on the pipe and blew it in his face.

“Look Sheila,” Bergeron ignored the insult, “a lot of people are worried about you. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Our Sheila, she mal pris, her,” a smile came across her face, twisting the skull makeup into a grotesque mockery of what it should have been. “I in here now, me. All she wan do is fay dodo with tings she don unnastan, her. Fooyay, fooyay.” She took another long draw on the pipe and let the smoke out spill out of her mouth.

Bergeron felt the itch to end the conversation and get her to a hospital. It was obvious that whatever she had gotten into was pulling on some serious brain cells. The hallucination alone narrowed down the list of drugs that Bergeron could attribute to her condition.

“Ain no chem gris gris that do it, ma Grand Tahyo, you.” Another wicked smile crossed her face. “Mon Cherie, she tied fo true, but weren no chem, only voodoo.”

“All right,” Bergeron scowled, “enough of this ‘Boo Radley’ crap!” He reached up and pulled off the mirrorshades to check her eyes. Bergeron was no stranger to the multiple adversities and maladies of the human condition. As a bounty hunter and former soldier he had seen too many corpses in all states of condition.

Sheila’s eyes were glazed over. The green that was so vibrant were now milky and grey. Bergeron drew back and threw the shades down and raised his assault rifle. The dead eyes looked at him as the face smiled and bellowed out a great laugh that seemed to echo throughout the former plantation.

The body stood up from the place it was sitting and drew on the long pipe again. A twisted and decrepit smile flashed across what was Sheila’s face and then the corpse blew him a kiss, letting the pipe smoke out in a long stream.

“Now what you tink?” the thing asked Bergeron as it began to walk towards him. Bergeron opened fire. Flesh and bits of bone along with the suite and hat spat out from behind Sheila’s body as the former soldier followed his training. Still the thing kept walking towards him.

“How we gonna play Madame now, you?” a scowl crossed what was left of Sheila’s face. “Be cam now, you. We gonna go fay dodo now.” Bergeron remembered firing until he was out of ammo and then the sudden calm.

“Das right now, you,” the voice was his own, but not. “You jus listen to Baron Samedi now. Laissez les bons temps rouler, bebette.”

The Beast Inside: Vigilance

I still have to monitor the beast in my blood. There isn't a cure for my condition, yet. Various science teams around the globe are working on finding the cure for my ailment. It will take time for the world to receive that gift that they're developing, too much time.

The beast still cries out in many of us. No, I'm not alone. There are many like me, millions within the United States alone are affected with the malady. They hunger just like I do. Their own beasts call out to them as mine does to me.

Every battle is personal. Every achievement is epic. Every failure is devastating. Control is the key. Self-discipline is a must. There is no other choice if we want to live. The beast is fatal if left unchecked.

I am in you.

Change is the challenge in most cases. In my case, it is a constant battle. I have to remember what I'm fighting for. I have to keep what's important in my mind. I cannot let my wife down. This is what drives me. I have to be strong for her because she is strong for me.

The beast isn't content to just take me. If I let it run as it wants to run, it will taint others with its blackness. It will create emotional holes in my loved ones that they would be hard-pressed to fill.

I cannot let its entropy overtake my family and friends. I have to be the strong one in order to stop it in its tracks. But I can't do it alone. I have to focus to keep strong.

Hehehehe.


Between the medication and the meditation, I can keep the beast somewhat dormant. It's not an easy task because I do have to be vigilant with it. One slip and I have to start from the beginning again. It is a powerful thing to try to keep reigned in, but others have been successful. I have to follow their path.

The concepts of control that I was taught are not difficult. The difficulty, as I've stated already, is the lack of focus or willpower. If someone like myself doesn’t have anything to fight for, then their battle is already lost before it has begun.

Understanding the beast inside requires an understanding of my body. I have to learn the signals in its silent language. Every twitch of a muscle, every fleeting thought, every slight twinge of pain might be an indication that the beast is laying in wait just underneath the surface.

I am in you still.

My family had never told me of the possibility that I might be different from everyone else. Family secrets and genealogy were really never discussed. It was either never the appropriate time or they were too dark.

It's possible that both my mother and my father had the genetic predisposition for the beast I carry within me. I truly don't know as my mother and I are estranged and I never had the chance to meet my father. My mother had left him when I was little and didn't bother looking back.

About fifteen years ago my father died. His ashes are scattered in the Pacific Northwest. I never got the chance to learn anything from him about my condition and my mother was about as useful as a bicycle for a fish.

Look at me, I'm inside.

I know it sounds harsh the way I speak about my mother. I think that I feel what would be considered love for her. I'm just not sure that I respect her anymore. There is a long history of baggage that comes along with my mother. I guess that's true for anyone though.

She really doesn't have much to do with my story about my beast other than her genetic donation. But, you see, that's what the beast does. It distracts me with trivial thoughts and tries to move my focus away from it. It pounds on my mental armor with any weapon it can find. It doesn't limit itself to hunger.

Any weak link in my mental fortitude can let it out to cause havoc and pain. It will use the anguish from my past to distract me. It wants to take me whole, but it will settle for pieces, breaking me down in the process.

When I'm weak, it takes over. It rules my body. It tries to destroy my life. I can't let that happen. Always Vigilant! Semper Vigilans!

Listen to me!

When I'm very still, I can hear it try to scrape through my psyche. I feel it coursing through my blood. The tingling sensation runs through my body at times. I can feel it trying to move through my hands and feet. Sometimes the top of my scalp tingles with the sensations from the beast on its way to bash against the walls of its flesh-formed cage. It's tiring at the best of times, debilitating at the worst.

It rushes through me with every heartbeat without pattern or notice. It's up to me to ignore its hunger.

The symbiotic link makes its pain my own. Its hunger is my own its rage is my own. It's up to me to force it back and make it retreat from the light. It may have always been up to me, but at least now I'm aware of the thing living inside, the bastard that it is.

Who didn't know his father?

When it does get bad dealing with the beast, I have to find a distraction that doesn't feed into its hunger or urges. Sleep works, but I can't nap my life away. Sometimes I can bypass it's treachery through jotting down words, other times I focus on the weight of the steel wedding ring on my finger. It helps remind me why I have to resist, why I have to be vigilant.

I'm not in this just for me anymore. I haven't been for quite a while.

All In

Bad Movie Night!

What happens when the mind of an author uses the Seventh Sanctum’s Generators to write about over-the top imaginary action film plots from the blurb of a one-line movie trailer? You get ’Bad Movie Night!’

In a sinful world of deception, five gamblers seek hope and battle a cult of murderers intent on summoning an evil god

The felt lining on the poker table brought Jack an easy feeling. The fuzziness was comforting as he passed his fingers over it. The slick cards slid on the felt perfectly. It was synchronicity in action. It was beautiful. Jack’s deft hands dealt the cards around the table. Soon two cards were in front of him and each of the four others had two cards in the hole.

Jack was more at home at the table than he was in the RV that was parked out in the lot. Like the RV thought, the tables he had seen across the country did eat up hundreds upon hundreds of dollars if he wasn’t careful. Jack had learned long ago to respect the table and the cards. He’d done battle with them for too long not too be respectful of the tools he used to wage battle. The poker table was his arena.

The stone faces around the table revealed nothing about the cards that they held in front of them. It was as Jack expected. He had respect for the four others around the table. They were some of the best card players in the world, but more than that, the four other men and women around the table were the best paranormal investigators that Jack had ever had the honor of working with.

They were gathered for more than the game. The murmurings in the shadows were starting to get serious. More and more people were starting to turn up missing. Local law enforcement as well as FBI trackers couldn’t find the bodies. Jack and the others knew that the law would never find the bodies. They had already been drained and cremated. It was necessary for the ritual to bring It to our dimension.

Cigar smoke filtered up to ceiling and through the vents from the five of them gathered around the green felt-lined table. Jack peeled back the corner of his cards. The Jack of Hearts and the Queen of Clubs peeked back at him.

“You know they’ve already started the sacrifices.” Vijay’s mellow voice brought Jack’s attention up from his own cards. Her pink sunglasses clashed with her mocha colored skin. Jack laid his cards flat on the table.

“Three girls on the east coast alone.” Charles took a long pull on his cigar and let the smoke filter out on its own. His porkpie hat was tilted to the left. Jack could see the bags under his eyes. Charles didn’t like it when it was school kids that were abducted. “Fuckers are really playin’ hardball with us.”

“I burned out a nest in Iowa.” Roland added right before he drained another bottle of beer. Roland let out a belch and placed the empty bottle next to the other three he had already guzzled down. “Sombitches are puttin in the work all right.”

“Bet or fold.” Furlong was the only one of the five who seemed to take the game a little more seriously than the cult. Jack figured that Furlong was so serious because he had to pay for the suits that he was always wearing.

Instinctively, Jack reached for the pile of clay chips at his hand and threw out two black chips into the center of the table. One by one, the rest followed suit. A thousand dollars in chips contrasted against the green felt.

Jack burned the top card and laid out three more for the flop. The Jack of Spades, Ace of Diamonds and the Six of Clubs almost glowed under the smoke-filtered lamplight. Jack looked over to Vijay and nodded.

“Check,” her silky voice almost resonated in the room. “We can’t let them keep winning. We have to keep on taking them out, no matter what the cost.” Jack knew she was right. He looked around the table and saw the others could offer no arguments.

"It’s getting worse!” Roland slammed another empty bottle down on the table. “The Feds don’t even want a part of this, they’re gettin in the way more and more.”

“And they’re not playing nicely either,” Furlong nodded in agreement. “Their bureaucratic bullshit is hindering my operation in Nevada.” The large man frowned as he locked eyes with Jack. “They think I’m running drugs. The DEA has been trailing me for weeks. I can’t get anything done.”

Jack smiled at Furlong. His heart was in the right place after all.

“It could be worse brother.” Jack waited for the rest of them to either check or raise the pot. No more chips came in. Jack put out the turn. Queen of Hearts lit up the table. Jack could feel his heart want to race. Two pair could easily win the pot.

“Another two bills,” Charles sounded tired as he flung two more black chips in. Finding those girls really took the wind from his sails. Jack felt for him. It’s never easy reliving a tragedy. Charles’ own girls were killed by the cult no more than seven years ago. Jack knew the man was only fighting on to honor their memory.

Vijay nodded and slid another two hundred into the pot. Furlong followed. With practiced ease, Jack flipped his own chips into the pot.

“Too rich for me brother.” Roland let out another belch as he folded. Jack saw the glassy-eyed stare all over Roland’s face. He was worn out from the road and taking out the cultists in Iowa. Roland didn’t hide the stress as well as Charles did.

Jack flipped out the river. The Jack of Clubs stared out from the green felt. Jack knew he had the hand. Charles eyed the community cards and tossed in another two hundred.

“Fold.” Vijay slid her cards away. “If the Feds aren’t going to acknowledge what’s going on, what choice do we have?” She pulled off the pink sunglasses and sighed. “We’re all we’ve got.”

“So,” Jack looked over to Charles and Furlong “how we going to do it then?”

“We go all in.” Furlong smiled.

The Beast Inside: An Introduction

I can’t trust my blood. More to the point, I can’t trust what’s in my blood. Inside there’s a beast inside that drives me into fits of mania and depression like a swinging pendulum. It thrives in my blood making its way from deep within my marrow through my veins and arteries and into my brain. It’s a lustful beast that constantly speaks to me.

Feed me, I hunger.

I can always hear its call. It becomes so loud at times that I want to scream! The only way to stop the whispering is to let it feed or to ignore it through high-grade pharmaceuticals. Well, that’s the only way I’ve found that will quiet the beast living inside of me.

When in a full frenzy, there is little that can slow the beast down. It is a vengeful and hungry beast and it truly has no preferences as to what is ingested, just so long as it feeds. Then, after the feeding, it does let me alone for a while to wallow in the guilt that I feel for letting it out.

The chant goes on and on in my head. It truly never ends. It seems as if the beast within will never be sated. It wants to gorge on everything in sight. I think if I let it, the beast would eat the entire world. It would surely try, of that I am certain.

I’m told it was a genetic predisposition that granted me the beast that squirms through my blood. I was told that it wasn’t anything I had done per se to cause the beast to suddenly come out of its dormancy and rage throughout my system.

I was told, “This just happens sometimes,” with something similar to a shrug.

Afterwards, I was pushed out into the cold stark light of a mid-winter’s morning to deal with the fact that I was now tainted and less of a man. I was something, else. I was vulnerable and small in comparison to the beast that I bore in my blood.

I couldn’t believe what I was told. I wanted them to be wrong. I was suddenly thrust into a cruel rendition of “Punk’d.” Only I wasn’t famous enough for that show. I was a nobody, just a regular guy. Only now, I had a beast within me.

I am so hungry.

The shock and awe left me hollow. The day seemed to be blanched of color and sanity. I didn’t understand why or how the beast came into play. I truly didn’t want to understand, I just wanted it gone. I wanted the joke to be over. I wanted them to be wrong.

I was given tools and techniques on how to try to manage the beast. Yeah, manage the beast, that’s still funny. They had no idea on how to do such a thing. They always go to the hardcore pharmacological routes.

“Take these and see me in two weeks.”

There are counselors and specialists that try to help in containing the beast when it screams, but unless they also have a similar beast roaming through their blood vessels, they do not understand the sheer fortitude and endurance it takes to contain a beast like that. They don’t have a fucking clue.

You see, because it’s all theory. All of it is conjecture because they don’t know why the beast is there in the first place. All they can tell you is that it exists! That’s when your world changes. There is no denying that it changes.

People will try to tell you a great many clichéd and canned responses, “it’s all mind over matter,” “you can still live a normal life,” or my favorite, “be strong.” Right.

The fact of the matter is that with my newfound condition, the mental regimens and tools that I put in place are tested constantly throughout the day. The beast wants out, it wants to roam and play. It wants to chew and eat! It wants to get fat on the sheer love of feeding.

I’m told that in order to control the beast inside of me, I need to regulate its feeding. I need to reduce the amount it feeds upon. I need to change it somehow.

The call is so strong. I can hear it all of the time. It drives me to the very brink and then tips me over the edge for fun. There are times I can feel it pounding through my headspace singing, chanting, demanding of me.

Let me out!

I can feel it pounding through me. No amount of resolve seems to keep my terrible and desperate beast at bay. It seems to only exist to taunt me, matching its constitution with my own. The battle of wills is agonizing. It rushes and recedes and rushes again trying to break through me.

I fight as best as I can, but I have to admit, sometimes I want to let it win. Sometimes I want to let it feed. Sometimes I can remember the ecstasy that it felt like to just let the beast do whatever it wanted.

There are times that the beast does win in spite of my best efforts. It is a strong competitor even through the meditation and medication. It pulls on the need to feed but also seems to tap into the pleasure centers as well. It doesn’t play fair in the least.

You are weak and insignificant. Feed me!

Through time I’ve learned to cope with the urges that the beast sends through my system. I don’t always succeed, but I do always try to keep the beast under control. If I let it run rampant then it will surely kill me. If I let it succeed, then I have given up, and I’m not ready to do that.

Giving up means I give up not only on myself, but my friends and family. It means that they suffer. They don’t deserve that.

Not at all.

Change Happens

I believe that everyone wants the power to change their own destiny. They don’t want to leave it to some random chance hoping that the stars will align in just the right way to release a cosmic flood of energy to kick start a karmic engine.

Independent author Carolyn McCray is shaking her fist at the heavens and demanding attention today. She, along with a great many others are taking part in a movement called ”Best Seller for a Day”, and pushing her novel, 30 Pieces of Silver for just 99 cents!

You have the power to change someone’s destiny for less than what most of us pay for coffee in the morning.

This is going to be a huge opportunity for Carolyn as she may land herself a great agent in the process! In her words:

Because I have done all my leg work. Not only have I written a completely kick-a** thriller (or so NYT Bestseller James Rollins says), but I have lined up an agent who is watching my Amazon numbers very closely today.

If I do well enough, I'm agented by a major NY agent.

Let's make it happen and show that indie authors can be as powerful as any corporate sponsor.