Art thread (sort of): Vakanai

[Vakanai]

Well, writing is an artform. Plus I was kind of getting uncomfortable with all the amazing art threads here and me seeming to be...untalented. So I'm going to periodically post scraps here for you to critique. I'm going to try doing it in attachments, but I only have Microsoft Works Word Processor so I don't know if it will work. If not I'll just cut and paste. God I'm nervous. Plus I might actually finish a story for once if people are expecting it. Be warned, I write more horrorish action stuff which may contain small amounts of violence. I don't know if it matters though, this is a forum for a horror action comic, so...Enjoy. All work is property of Vakanai Inc. All rights reserved. Always wanted to say that.

[Vakanai]

Darn it, it didn't work.
...............................................
Ch.1
How would we handle it, this thing we’ve unleashed?
Labs, everything happens in a lab. You could remake the universe in a lab.
It was the third try.
Smoke billowed out of the container. Cold smoke, it frosted the glass and made the men shiver in their long, white coats. The wind from it was strange, smelling of vinegar and baking soda. A man stood there, idly brushing the dust off of his white lab coat, a hint of his glee showing in his eyes. This would be their triumph. A few mistakes had been made, but that was to be expected. This wasn’t a simple drug experiment like they were used to. This was real science, not a placebo for bladder control. The experiment was a rather bold attempt at something no one had ever tried before
It was done. They congratulated each other. A breath is taken, a new creature enters the world. The chemicals were off by only 0.0029%. The theory was sound. All precautions had been taken. It was a disaster.
Nature is a strange thing. Life is made only to die again. But cruel are the men who make a desperate attempt to save their creature. Wires are brought out, electric currents begin to flow. New life breathes once again, followed by an inhuman scream. Blood squirts out of the wretched thing. The blood is black and slightly acidic, it smells like sulfur. There are more screams from the thing, followed by screams of the men. The creature’s abdomen splits in the middle, showing the ribcage. Strange organs move about, pumping and oozing. The rank smell becomes infinitely worse, the blood more acidic, the men start to melt.
Yet the creature doesn’t die. Tentacles writhe, moving like strands of hair on a madman in his cell. Then comes the teeth, rending and shredding as the beast attacks in pain-driven madness. The men’s blood adds to the gore gathering on the floor. Claws flash, a man’s head is loped off.
The beast bashes upon the clear plastic wall, the few who had watched the horror play out got up from their chairs and ran. Security came, men with guns.
“What were you thinking?” The shout is barely heard above the gunfire.
The man just stood there, calmly smoking a cigarette. He should have been dead, killed like the rest. His partner was upset, and he had reason to be. The system just didn’t work. The other two tries had been different. This time they had created life. And at least all the electrical equipment hadn’t fried.
The corpse was taken out hurriedly to be frozen for study. Calls would have to be made, lives were lost, this would be hard to cover up. But it wasn’t the first disaster. They were prepared.
Ch.2
Autopsy, this was what he was used to. Things were still, cells were easy to find. He was used to dead specimens, it was like college.
The dead thing had been placed in his care. The responsibility was his, the failure was his.
He held the scalpel delicately in his left hand. Had college turned out differently, he would have been a surgeon, but he was happy with his career.

[dogboy443]

Not bad V.
Very discriptive with still enough room for the readers own imagination. I liked the mood and it's a wonderful start. Please continue posting.

Thanks for the read,
Mark

[Vakanai]

I am having technical difficulties. Turns out most my ideas for this story were just scenes for ch. 1. I got more stuff, but it'll take a lot more space.

[Vakanai]

Ch.2
Some things are hard to explain in the light of day. We all know this, that a ghost story doesn’t feel the same in a brightly lit room. Its easy to forget and suppose the dark things aren’t there, that the stories are just stories.
The creator stood over its dead creation, the bright, glaring lights showing the beasts in detail. Scalpel in hand, the man begins his grisly work, sawing through the remains of what was once the head. The man felt relaxed, more so than he had in years. Autopsy, this was what he was used to. Things were still, like it was in college.
The dead thing had been placed in his care, for the failure had been his.
Still wearing his stained lab coat from earlier, he held the scalpel delicately in his left hand. He removed tissues and muscles, bits of bone, unknown organs. He was careful with the glands, still dripping with a dark, searing acid. He searched for any problems, any hints why the damned thing wouldn’t live, and he kept his findings on a stained sheet of yellowed paper.
This work was not as sanitary as it should have been, but work like this was not a public service. The man emerged from his work with cuts and burns, scars and scrapes, but this was his punishment for the sin he had committed, the sin of failure. Sweat ran down his brow, and he gave a great sigh. The next time would be a success, the next time he would be redeemed. Then the money would come in, and he would be happy.
........................
Let me know what you think, anything wrong with style, pacing, etc.?

[lerochelle]

You have a very interesting style of writing. Almost on the verge of stating facts, with enough desriptions and the fluidity of words allows the reader to move easily instead of jumping from sentence to sentence.

Good work, I expect to read more soon.

[Vakanai]

You have a very interesting style of writing. Almost on the verge of stating facts, with enough desriptions and the fluidity of words allows the reader to move easily instead of jumping from sentence to sentence.

Good work, I expect to read more soon.

Thanks. I don't think I really have a style yet, just trying out a few things, trying to find my niche.

[Vakanai]

Ch.3
He awoke to rain and fire. He could barely remember what had happened to him. Actually, he couldn’t. He wasn’t in the lab, he was in his car. His hands were bleeding profusely, and the world didn’t quite want to stay still. He was numb from adrenaline and fear.
He began to crawl out the car window, the glass cutting him lightly on the arms and legs. He fell with a thud, began stumbling away from the car in case it exploded. He looked back, shivered in the cold.
Had he fallen asleep at the wheel? Had he swerved on the wet road? All he could tell was he had ran right into a tree, an old oak. He stood in the middle of the road, hoping for help. All of a sudden it felt like his left arm was on fire.
He didn’t have a cell phone, didn’t believe in them. There were no streetlights, he could only see clearly during a few lightning flashes. The wind began to pick up when he saw headlights in the distance.
He waved an arm, using the other to support himself. The car pulled over, and a woman stepped out. She was worried, asked if the man was ok, he told her no. He was bleeding badly. She told him it would be alright, helped him in the car. They sped off.
He rested his head against the window, his arm throbbing, his breathing shallow.
“What’s your name?”
He tried to answer her, mumbled his name as best he could, but it came out all bubbly and disturbing. She drove faster.
It was unbearably hot inside the car, or perhaps it was him. He didn’t look good. The rain on the roof played counterpoint to the throbbing of his head and arm. The wind whistled as they flew down the road. He had almost made it to the hospital.

[Mist the Soul-Gatherer]

It's getting there. In Ch 3 you didn't switch your tenses back and forth from past to present to past again. That makes it a bit of a hard read. Ch 3 not only held your interest but flowed smoothly and harmoniously from thought to thought as your plot unfolds. Looking forward to more!
H

[Vakanai]

Still trying to get Ch. 4 right. Here's what I got.
......................
Ch.4
Tell me, what is anger?
Gunfire, gunfire! It broke the glass, the rear right tire went flat. Buckshot tore through them.
It was the second time he had been in a wreck. He found himself on the hood of the car, he hadn’t worn a seatbelt. With his good hand he grabbed the tree, began to pull himself off the hood. He fell on the ground, wanted to cry out in agony. But he stayed silent, mouthing yelling and screaming, staying silent. Whoever had shot him was still there.
He rolled down the hill, hoping the crunch of leaves was muffled by the falling rain. He prayed the dark of the night and the noise of the rain would keep him protected.
He could hear someone opening the door of the wrecked car, then shouting. “You shot the wrong car, it’s some girl!” He could only see headlights, and moments later they were gone. That was when he gave in and screamed for all he could.
The steady beat of the cold rain laid blow upon blow on him, and still he screamed. Then his throat went sore, and he lost his voice.

[Vakanai]

I'm about to put up some stuff from a much larger story I'm working on. Maybe I'll get it all published some day. I am kind of nervous posting it, since it is part of my BIG story, but I figure I might as well see how good I am. It is a big chunk, so I'll make two posts for it. Might be easier to read that way.

[Vakanai]

Ch.
In a darkened room in Breacher Hospital an 80 year old man was sitting on the foot of a hospital bed wondering what he was doing there. He knew why he was there, but he didn’t know why he was there. He was an old man who didn’t have much time left anyway, and he didn’t see the need for it. He was getting surgery for cancer. It was the third time in his life, in recent years, that he had to deal with cancer. His wife, Josephine, had died of heart cancer, and he missed her. All this for another couple of years, he thought.
The man’s name was Rodger Clive. His grandkid, Martin, had talked him into getting surgery. Martin was a good kid, and he felt guilty about dumping the old man into a retirement home for three years. The retirement home wasn’t too bad, once you got over the feeling your own family threw you into some dark, ravenous hellhole. The worst part was the feeling of uselessness.
The feeling came with him when he left.
Ch.
In a room in Breacher Hospital the twelve waited. Glassy-eyed, silent as death they waited. Numb and powerless, they waited. Hungry and asleep they waited. Alone and dead they waited. For the night they waited.
The janitor was busy with school and work, yet still found time to study. He was learning how to speak Russian over at the community college, and had thought it would be a good idea to buy a set of language learning CDs. So he didn’t notice the sound of shuffling feet. He did however notice the flickering lights.
Thinking it was just the lights he began walking to check them out. As he walked his vision began to cloud. He stopped and shook his head, but his vision didn’t change. He couldn’t see the floor. He three more steps and fell. When he hit the ground his vision cleared. He turned to see what had tripped him.
He was startled see a young girl laying on the floor by his feet. He went to her to see what she was doing there and if she was alright. She had chestnut hair with reddish streaks of auburn and of autumn and some hints of apple. She appeared to be asleep or dead. She had little freckles on her cheeks below her eyes, and they ran sprightly, cutely to meet on a small nose.
He began to shake her a little bit, see if he could awaken her. She hung loosely like some rag doll. Her bare arms seemed as if they had a low, white glow about them. His vision grew cloudy again, and he shook his head.
He held the frail girl for a small while longer, then worried about her health he got up to seek help. She was Sleeping Beauty, and he her Prince.
He stood up, his vision cleared once again. There was a man in the room standing five feet away. The janitor Prince made a small sound in his throat that sounded like a hungry kitten and a bird or toy going meep. The new man was small and slender, and wore the strange, backwards robe of a patient. And he had white eyes.
The janitor saw the kid as a horrible reflection of the Beauty. His hair was the color of deadwood and streaked with the color of blood. His arms were pale as bleached bone, and shadows flit about him in the flickering, failing light like doomed moths. But his eyes were never shadowed, never darkened. They never shone, they had not a glint of life or light, dulled and glazed, they stared, and you could see them if blind or if death had taken you. He began to walk, shuffle, towards the Prince by a Beauty Asleep.
The janitor steeled himself, looked to his Beauty for courage. He was surprised to see her awake. She smiled up at him and stared with eyes white and wide as the moon with a warm glow of life twice as bright. Renewed, the Prince ran towards the Dead Man.
It was like a wall. The Dead Man was like a wall. The Prince fought, but the man was still, absorbing the blows with no marks no pain. No sign showed, no blood poured. The man felt cold to the touch. Eternity stretched, stilled, then finally he began to bleed. Blood trickled down his cheek, gathering like water. The Prince was to blind to notice that it was his blood on the Dead Man’s cheek, that his knuckles busted, broke, shattered, his fingers torn and hanging by strips of skin and ligament. The man sighed as he grabbed the Prince in a bear hug. They moved to the window. The man walked slowly to the window, pushing the Prince into the window, slowly pushing. The glass cracked just a little, lines appearing on the smooth surface, then the whistle of wind and the Prince felt cold. He knew he would die in his last second of life. The Prince thought of Beauty, the janitor thought no more.
Ch.
The twelve gathered in the room, feeling much appeased. Faust wiped the blood from his face, began to lick his hands. The Beauty was standing up now, the glow of life was gone from her features. She stood by her brother and stared at the same nothing all of the twelve stared at. They left to continue their work.
A man was found dead outside of Breacher Hospital. The man was identified as a janitor working at Breacher. It is believed he killed several patients by taking them off of life support before jumping out of a 10 story window, killing himself.
- From the Breacher Standard

[Vakanai]

Ch.
Maybe it was the pain. Maybe it was the drugs. Either way, whatever it was, Rodger was pretty sure the surgery didn’t quite go according to plan.
Maybe it was the drugs, but he could have sworn during a particular lucid moment he noticed that one of those coma-like kids was staring at him. She had mouthed the words, “help me,” he blinked, and she was gone. Damn morphine.
A thought, simple and to the point, began to bubble up to the surface of his dreary mind. How bad did they mess me up. And why the hell ain’t someone telling me.
Greatly pissed off, very, very high, and watching game shows. Not how he was supposed to spend his golden years. He had thought, in the old days, to retire to Bermuda, to a nice Island where it was always summer. It felt like yesterday, yet the vision seemed so foggy now. Where were the flying cars he had been promised?
He looked around the room they stuck him in. He wasn’t alone.
“Hey,” he said as a form of greeting.
“Hey,” she said right back.
She looked to be about as old as he was, and in just as bad health. Not surprising he figured, this hospital sucks. She appeared to be some kind of Asian, but he didn’t feel like asking. Seemed impolite.
He looked a little bit harder at his surroundings, but there wasn’t much too it. Three beds, one empty, curtains, pale blue, and a TV in the corner playing some game show on mute.
He knew he was drugged up, but he still didn’t feel any better. Then the lady said something that made him pay attention.
She said, “Have you seen them? Sometimes they come in here when they think I’m sleeping. The kids, they killed him, the man who was in here before you. They killed him.”
Ch.
Faust was dreaming in some yellow tinted dream world, with his eyes wide open, unblinking. It seemed to resemble a desert, with sand and a owl and a few cactuses. It seemed so bright, yet he could make out stars in the sky, and there was no sun. He smiled, it seemed so long ago since he last felt pain. In truth, he couldn’t even remember it. All he knew was that the wind blew and the little cactus grew. A hawk flew past in a stream like a rainbow. Then he awoke.
The room seemed cold. He longed for his little desert. The voice told him it would come back to him soon. He stood up.
The nurse had been a sleep. It had been such a simple thing. The blood and flesh had slid down his throat so quickly, so willing. There was still much to do. He had to wake the others.
The screams came quickly. The rooms on the thirteenth floor woke to horror. It would never end.
Ch.
Rodger heard the screams. The lady looked scared. Her name was Marikot. She had told him her name was Marikot. The screams were coming from right above them. What was going on?
Rodger stood up. Then he doubled over in pain. What the hell had happened during the surgery?

[Vakanai]

Most of a short story. Working on getting it finished. Tell me what ya think.
........................
Joe Jester
I live next door to a vigilante. The newspapers call him the Jester. It wasn’t always so. I barely even know him. Yet things are funny in how stuff kind of strings together somehow. I remember the day he moved in.
It was a Wednesday. He moved into the apartment adjacent to mine, on the left side. He had only one box. That was it, one box, an entire life, all he would ever need, shoved into one box. And all that was in it, all I saw as he walked into his apartment with that small, open box, was a small TV radio setup with an antenna and some clothes. I said, “Hey,” while waiting for the elevator to close. He nodded in my direction. And it was raining.
I live on the eleventh floor. I like the altitude, the view from my window. The walls are paper thin however. I constantly hear my neighbors on the right side doing it. I know its wrong, and I must be nuts to enjoy it like I do, but it always brings a chuckle when I hear it. The wall around the window leaks a bit. The super says he’ll fix it by next week, but we’ll see.
When I first moved in, this old guy with a small dog lived in the apartment that Joe moved into. That his name, or at least the name he gave me. The old guy died last year, and it took a while before someone else moved in. I never knew the old guy’s name. Never cared. Wouldn’t care about Joe either if things didn’t string together like they do.
Joe is a nice enough guy, keeps to himself. Never would have guessed he was the Jester. I think he’s from Alabama, and that he spent some of his early life in Louisiana, in or near New Orleans. I didn’t see Joe again till the next week, on another Wednesday. That was when I asked him his name. I was out to buy groceries, we met in the hall. We rode down in the elevator together. It was quiet. I’m not much of a talker, not since the incident. I don’t really want to get into that. I have been taking medication, but it doesn’t help much.
Things started to string themselves together about a month later. This stuff doesn’t happen in real life, so I thought. I was listening to my neighbors on the right go at it like rabbits, when the news, which I leave on mute whenever my neighbors go at it, showed something very interesting. It was a guy in jester outfit, with his upper face in a mask, his lower face painted up, and wearing a hat with bells. He was in a alley fighting a mugger who had stolen some lady’s purse. Someone had caught it all on one of those camera phones. I turned the noise back on, but there wasn’t much more information.
I was working in a rundown diner for the better part of two years. It was the day after the news broadcast when Joe came in. He had a bruise the size of a melon on his right arm. He ordered the soup. That was also the day I finally got fed up with my boss and decided to quit. I had been wanting to for months, it was a real crappy situation, and it was good to let off some steam and tell him what’s what.
Unfortunately, right when I was getting to the good part about where he could shove the Saturday special, the place got held up. There I was, all red in the face, looking down the barrel of a gun. He wanted money, and I had no problem in giving it to him. But my ex-boss started to shout and holler like a dumbass, and he got shot. That was the worst moment of my life. Bang and he was dead, and I was partially covered in his blood. I never liked him, but I didn’t wish him dead, and I certainly was never more terrified in my life. That was about the time Joe snuck up and busted his head wide open with a soup bowl.
The cops should up, asked a few questions, got someone to take the body of my former employer, and locked up the murderer. I tried to thank Joe, but he left as soon as he made his statement. I knocked at his door later that night, but he wasn’t at home.
Later in the week, the Jester made another appearance, this time he was caught on security camera taking down an armed robber in a service station. This was when the media started calling him that, the Jester. I still didn’t know it was my quiet neighbor, the man who saved my life, patrolling around in a costume. I still don’t know how he goes about without getting noticed. Kind of hard to miss.
I found another job, in another crappy diner that was just as crappy as the last. My life wasn’t exactly coming together. After the incident, the one I still can’t talk about, life took a nosedive. Not like she had that much power over me, but things just couldn’t work themselves out. My last two dates failed miserably, my career was horrid to say the least, money was tight, and the nightmares still wouldn’t go away.

[Vakanai]

I mentioned before my belief that strange the kind of string themselves together, in a odd sort of pattern. While it is to be expected. People see a guy fighting crime in a costume, and someone thinks why the hell can’t I do the same thing, while someone else decides to take an entirely different approach and become a super villain. We now know who the man known as Gunns really was. We know the type, late teens to early twenties, thinks he is the greatest person on Earth because his parents are rich and his friends are rich. Thinks it’s fun to ride around with his buddies and shoot at pedestrians with paint guns. Of course he watched the news, and thought he would be the perfect foil for the world’s first superhero. How college kids get their hands on lightweight bazookas and fully automatics I’ll never know. Mostly because I don’t want to know.
He came to the city with enough firepower to decimate the entire police station. In fact, that’s just what he did. Full body armor, high explosives, armor-piercing rounds. It was on the news weeks after. Last year there was a special tribute to all the officers who died that day. I lost a friend, a bystander, to that monster. I never had any close friends, but Jones was a good man, a family man.
Gunns even took down a copter. How a man like that can go into hiding, it blows the mind. They say once he ran out of ammo, he just dropped all his weapons and armor under the cover of the smoke and ash, and walked away. No one alive was around to ID him. He just went to his hotel room where he had two more suits of body armor and twice as much firepower.
By then I knew enough to know that Joe was nocturnal. The attack happened in full daylight, right when the only superhero thinks the world is safe enough to take a nap. He would have died anyway. The bullet proof vest Joe was using offers no protection against a bazooka. The Jester would have to step up his game.
The evening of the attack, as I was coming back from the hospital for a checkup, my liver’s not so good, before I knew one of my few friends was dead, I saw Joe. I was taking the stairs, the attack had me spooked, and there was no way I was going to go up in an elevator that would get me stuck if some nut job shot at the place and took out the power somehow, and there on the steps to the eleventh floor Joe was holding his head in his hands and crying. At first I thought someone he knew died in that terror around the police station. He was on the third to last step up, right under the light that keeps flickering on and off, a step above that stain where they say old man Cain broke his skull, but I don’t believe that.
I walked Joe to his room. He had been drinking, and was quite heavy, so it wasn’t a good thing, and I was starting to regret taking the stairs. I carried him all the way to his room. I was shocked when he opened the door. Since he moved in, he hadn’t added much in the way of furniture. Besides the TV radio setup, which was on the floor, the only other thing he had was a minifridge, a microwave, and a mat to sleep on. There wasn’t even a pillow on the mat.
Joe passed out on the mat, I went to the bathroom, and that’s how I found his secret. The outfit, that silly hat and all, was on, in, and around the clothes hamper. I suppose if I had ever stayed up late, I would have noticed him dressed up, walking down the fire escape, as pleased as can be. The white makeup he used on his face was on the sink, cheap stuff you find in those small stores where everything comes in a can.