N.V. Bruno's Blog
May 2, 2018
The Scarlet Blade
It's been a while since my knife tasted blood. The last one wasn't even intentional. I told her to shut up and she didn't listen. I'm not proud of it. I did what I had to do. It had become a habit, instinctive, like muscle reflex. But I lost my appetite for killin' that night. I guess killin' an innocent defenseless woman brought me to my senses!
I left Kansas that night. An old friend of mine, my only friend, was on his way to Kentucky to claim his inheritance of a motel along highway 751. His father had thrown him out of the house when he was a young boy. Somehow the old man had a change of heart on his deathbed and left Ronnie everythin' he owned, the motel and a warm little cabin next to it. He invited me to come along and stay with him.
Ronnie knew who I was and where I came from. He's been the closest thing I've had to a friend for a very long time. We hustled on the streets together before we found us decent jobs.
My baby sister and I grew up on the streets where our father abandoned us. Our mother left us when we were kids. I guess she couldn't put up with the shit our father put her through, so much that she didn't think about us before leaving. Helen and I had no one but ourselves for each other. We were homeless and we considered ourselves orphans. Ronnie and I took up odd jobs at supermarkets and pizza joints to make a livin'. Helen danced at the local theater. We lived in a small house, the three of us, each chippin' in a share of the rent. Ronnie cared for Helen just the way I did. We were like family. We didn't have a lot, but we were happy.
But life never let me stay clean for long. 21st street was run by the Knucklebrass gang, a bunch of thievin' bastards out every night sellin' drugs and breakin' into houses. Their idea of entertainment? Arson and battery! Vincent Braga, the 'Alpha-Wolf', was untouchable. No one dared to lay a finger on him. Anyone who tried didn't live to see the mornin' sun. Even the Sheriff pissed himself before Vincent.
But he should have kept his filthy hands off my sister. She choked on a piece of dirty old rag stuffed in her mouth as Vincent had his way with her. She came home that night, in torn clothes, with deep cuts and bruises over her body, bitterly in tears. She didn't wanna see a doctor. She just wanted to be alone that night. I shouldn't have left her side. I opened the door of her bedroom in the mornin' and found her lyin' dead on her bed, her wrist slit open with a blade. The sheets had turned crimson with her blood.
What did I do then? You must have guessed it already! I grabbed the sharpest knife I could find in the kitchen and paid Vincent a visit that night. Found him makin' out with some tramp in a back alley. He didn't say anything, neither did I. One clean sweep and his neck was slit by the edge of my knife. I gave him no chance, no opportunity to open his arrogant filthy little shithole to say a word. I avenged Helen's death. I killed him. Even I died that night, and I was born again, by the blade.
The gush of blood from Vincent's throat and the sight of the scarlet blade of my knife changed me that night. I knew there was no going back. One after another, I took out all his gang-bangers, all except for one - Eddie. He made me famous. He got the sheriff and his pack of dogs on my tail. They were not lookin' for Tommy the store clerk, they were looking for Cut-Throat Tommy, a fancy little name that Knucklebrass piece of shit and the cops in town gave me. I was runnin' and hidin' for days until Ronnie found me and offered me a place to hide in the back of his truck on the way to Kentucky.
I woke up this mornin' in the cabin next to Ronnie's motel. The sun was already halfway up. The glare from a broken window glass hit me right in the eyes. Ronnie walked in and threw a copy of the local newspaper on the bed. I turned my eyes to it and saw the front page news. One of the headlines caught my attention. "Teenage Girl from Tennessee Murders 2 Boys and Her Own Father in Cold Blood."
I picked up the paper and read the full article. The girl apparently slit all their throats with a kitchen knife. She reminded me of someone - myself - the part of me I left behind. She was only just as old as Helen was. I broke out in a cold sweat.
Amanda! Who was she? A copycat? Looks like! An admirer? Highly unlikely! What are the odds? I think I gotta find her! Or what if this is a message she's sendin' me? What if she's out there tryin' to find me? I hope I'm not at the wrong side of the knife this time!
I left Kansas that night. An old friend of mine, my only friend, was on his way to Kentucky to claim his inheritance of a motel along highway 751. His father had thrown him out of the house when he was a young boy. Somehow the old man had a change of heart on his deathbed and left Ronnie everythin' he owned, the motel and a warm little cabin next to it. He invited me to come along and stay with him.
Ronnie knew who I was and where I came from. He's been the closest thing I've had to a friend for a very long time. We hustled on the streets together before we found us decent jobs.
My baby sister and I grew up on the streets where our father abandoned us. Our mother left us when we were kids. I guess she couldn't put up with the shit our father put her through, so much that she didn't think about us before leaving. Helen and I had no one but ourselves for each other. We were homeless and we considered ourselves orphans. Ronnie and I took up odd jobs at supermarkets and pizza joints to make a livin'. Helen danced at the local theater. We lived in a small house, the three of us, each chippin' in a share of the rent. Ronnie cared for Helen just the way I did. We were like family. We didn't have a lot, but we were happy.
But life never let me stay clean for long. 21st street was run by the Knucklebrass gang, a bunch of thievin' bastards out every night sellin' drugs and breakin' into houses. Their idea of entertainment? Arson and battery! Vincent Braga, the 'Alpha-Wolf', was untouchable. No one dared to lay a finger on him. Anyone who tried didn't live to see the mornin' sun. Even the Sheriff pissed himself before Vincent.
But he should have kept his filthy hands off my sister. She choked on a piece of dirty old rag stuffed in her mouth as Vincent had his way with her. She came home that night, in torn clothes, with deep cuts and bruises over her body, bitterly in tears. She didn't wanna see a doctor. She just wanted to be alone that night. I shouldn't have left her side. I opened the door of her bedroom in the mornin' and found her lyin' dead on her bed, her wrist slit open with a blade. The sheets had turned crimson with her blood.
What did I do then? You must have guessed it already! I grabbed the sharpest knife I could find in the kitchen and paid Vincent a visit that night. Found him makin' out with some tramp in a back alley. He didn't say anything, neither did I. One clean sweep and his neck was slit by the edge of my knife. I gave him no chance, no opportunity to open his arrogant filthy little shithole to say a word. I avenged Helen's death. I killed him. Even I died that night, and I was born again, by the blade.
The gush of blood from Vincent's throat and the sight of the scarlet blade of my knife changed me that night. I knew there was no going back. One after another, I took out all his gang-bangers, all except for one - Eddie. He made me famous. He got the sheriff and his pack of dogs on my tail. They were not lookin' for Tommy the store clerk, they were looking for Cut-Throat Tommy, a fancy little name that Knucklebrass piece of shit and the cops in town gave me. I was runnin' and hidin' for days until Ronnie found me and offered me a place to hide in the back of his truck on the way to Kentucky.
I woke up this mornin' in the cabin next to Ronnie's motel. The sun was already halfway up. The glare from a broken window glass hit me right in the eyes. Ronnie walked in and threw a copy of the local newspaper on the bed. I turned my eyes to it and saw the front page news. One of the headlines caught my attention. "Teenage Girl from Tennessee Murders 2 Boys and Her Own Father in Cold Blood."
I picked up the paper and read the full article. The girl apparently slit all their throats with a kitchen knife. She reminded me of someone - myself - the part of me I left behind. She was only just as old as Helen was. I broke out in a cold sweat.
Amanda! Who was she? A copycat? Looks like! An admirer? Highly unlikely! What are the odds? I think I gotta find her! Or what if this is a message she's sendin' me? What if she's out there tryin' to find me? I hope I'm not at the wrong side of the knife this time!
Published on May 02, 2018 07:19
•
Tags:
crime, fiction, first-person, murder, mystery, perspective, short-story, suspense, thriller
April 15, 2018
The Test Subject
Detective Ron McPherson was at his desk, going through the case he had closed earlier that evening. It was already 8:30 PM. A slice of pepperoni pizza and an open can of soda sat on his desk, next to an old ashtray with a lit cigarette resting on it. Ron was too immersed in admiring how shrewdly he had solved the mysterious kidnapping case to pay attention to anything else around him.
After a while, he proudly kept the file aside and reached out for his cigarette when Detective Phil walked over with a bunch of files and dumped them on his desk. “What’s this?” Ron asked.
“Brutal serial killings downtown. Late night murders, all of them between midnight and 3 AM. Same M.O. Might remind you of the strange case that had your old precinct on a wild goose chase for months. Chief wants you to take this case! Hope you find something!” Phil replied.
Ron opened one of the files and skimmed through the case details. “Wasn’t Marcus from Homicide working on this one? Why me now?”
“Yeah he was! Until the sight of those mangled bodies every morning made him sick! Take a look at this Jane Doe we found near Fashion District,” Phil pulled out a photograph of one of the corpses and held it before Ron’s eyes. “We have a lead this time. A couple of eyewitnesses say this was done by some deranged woman. Dressed up in torn clothes, messed up hair, filthy stench around her. But the bodies look like they were torn up by some animal! How can one human possibly cause that kind of damage?”
Ron looked at the photographs from the rest of the files and studied them. “Alright! I guess I’ll dig into these first thing in the morning! I’m gonna go home now and grab a drink before I hit the sack! I’m done for today!” he said and put the files aside. He got up from his chair and put on his jacket.
“Alright Ron, I’ll see you tomorrow morning then!” Phil said. “Hey can I ask you something?”
“Yeah! Go ahead!”
“What are you doing here?” Phil asked.
Ron was puzzled, “What do you mean?”
“I saw your YouTube channel Ron! You doing that stuff with all those chemicals! Experimenting and all! Pretty cool stuff! You should have been a college professor or something! Why a cop? Why not make a career out of that?”
“Coz I don’t wanna make it a boring routine Phil! I love experimenting! It’s my hobby… And I wanna keep it that way! Besides, I’m only improvising on what I learnt back in high school! I don’t have the degree needed for that kind of a job!”
“Whatever…” Phil sighed, leaning back on the chair. “You know I’ve been wondering… The girl from the coffee place we’ve been going to lately… She has her eyes on you… And I know you’ve been checking her out too… I can see real sparks flying here! Why don’t you ask her out? It’s been what, a year since you lost your wife?”
Ron sat on the corner of his desk and looked at Phil. He thought for a moment and said, “That’s right Phil… It’s been more than a year… But…”
“But?” Phil interrupted, “You knew she had cancer and you knew she wouldn’t make it! Why haven’t you moved on yet? I thought getting transferred here would help you bury the past!”
“I don’t know Phil… It just feels like Judith is still a part of my life! It’s like she never left! I can’t bring another woman into my life as long as I feel her around me!” Ron replied.
“You know what! I think you should go home and get that drink you’ve been craving for! Go get some sleep!” Phil said in dismay and left.
Ron left from the precinct and drove back home. He opened the door of his empty house and turned the lights on. He then threw his jacket onto a chair and his keys on the table and walked over to a shelf by the television. He pulled out a bottle of vodka and a bunch of keys that he had kept beside the bottle in the shelf. He took a sip off the bottle and headed for the basement door. He opened it and walked down the stairs, flicking the lights on as he descended.
“Sorry for showing up so late! Had a long day at work! Closed a big case today! And then Chief Mitchell handed me another one! Strange things happen around here and we’re supposed to go clean up!” Ron complained as he placed the bottle of vodka on a table and looked at the horrendous creature chained to a wall in front of him. It appeared ghastly. It was clothed in a torn and bloodstained teal t-shirt and a pair of old ragged jeans. Its hair was long, dry, filthy and entangled all over. Its face was in scars, its lips were torn and its teeth were stained in blood. Its fingernails were long and sharp and had little chunks of flesh stuck under them. It reeked of rotting flesh and the stench filled up the basement. The creature growled violently at Ron while trying to break free from its chains. “Ready for your midnight snack?” Ron asked.
He unlocked and opened the cellar door of the basement and proceeded to unlock the creature’s chains. “Once again, I want you to know that I’m sorry for ruining your appetite! But we had no choice! I told you I won’t let you die! I hope you’ll always remember that! I promise I’ll find a cure for this! I love you… Judith!”
After a while, he proudly kept the file aside and reached out for his cigarette when Detective Phil walked over with a bunch of files and dumped them on his desk. “What’s this?” Ron asked.
“Brutal serial killings downtown. Late night murders, all of them between midnight and 3 AM. Same M.O. Might remind you of the strange case that had your old precinct on a wild goose chase for months. Chief wants you to take this case! Hope you find something!” Phil replied.
Ron opened one of the files and skimmed through the case details. “Wasn’t Marcus from Homicide working on this one? Why me now?”
“Yeah he was! Until the sight of those mangled bodies every morning made him sick! Take a look at this Jane Doe we found near Fashion District,” Phil pulled out a photograph of one of the corpses and held it before Ron’s eyes. “We have a lead this time. A couple of eyewitnesses say this was done by some deranged woman. Dressed up in torn clothes, messed up hair, filthy stench around her. But the bodies look like they were torn up by some animal! How can one human possibly cause that kind of damage?”
Ron looked at the photographs from the rest of the files and studied them. “Alright! I guess I’ll dig into these first thing in the morning! I’m gonna go home now and grab a drink before I hit the sack! I’m done for today!” he said and put the files aside. He got up from his chair and put on his jacket.
“Alright Ron, I’ll see you tomorrow morning then!” Phil said. “Hey can I ask you something?”
“Yeah! Go ahead!”
“What are you doing here?” Phil asked.
Ron was puzzled, “What do you mean?”
“I saw your YouTube channel Ron! You doing that stuff with all those chemicals! Experimenting and all! Pretty cool stuff! You should have been a college professor or something! Why a cop? Why not make a career out of that?”
“Coz I don’t wanna make it a boring routine Phil! I love experimenting! It’s my hobby… And I wanna keep it that way! Besides, I’m only improvising on what I learnt back in high school! I don’t have the degree needed for that kind of a job!”
“Whatever…” Phil sighed, leaning back on the chair. “You know I’ve been wondering… The girl from the coffee place we’ve been going to lately… She has her eyes on you… And I know you’ve been checking her out too… I can see real sparks flying here! Why don’t you ask her out? It’s been what, a year since you lost your wife?”
Ron sat on the corner of his desk and looked at Phil. He thought for a moment and said, “That’s right Phil… It’s been more than a year… But…”
“But?” Phil interrupted, “You knew she had cancer and you knew she wouldn’t make it! Why haven’t you moved on yet? I thought getting transferred here would help you bury the past!”
“I don’t know Phil… It just feels like Judith is still a part of my life! It’s like she never left! I can’t bring another woman into my life as long as I feel her around me!” Ron replied.
“You know what! I think you should go home and get that drink you’ve been craving for! Go get some sleep!” Phil said in dismay and left.
Ron left from the precinct and drove back home. He opened the door of his empty house and turned the lights on. He then threw his jacket onto a chair and his keys on the table and walked over to a shelf by the television. He pulled out a bottle of vodka and a bunch of keys that he had kept beside the bottle in the shelf. He took a sip off the bottle and headed for the basement door. He opened it and walked down the stairs, flicking the lights on as he descended.
“Sorry for showing up so late! Had a long day at work! Closed a big case today! And then Chief Mitchell handed me another one! Strange things happen around here and we’re supposed to go clean up!” Ron complained as he placed the bottle of vodka on a table and looked at the horrendous creature chained to a wall in front of him. It appeared ghastly. It was clothed in a torn and bloodstained teal t-shirt and a pair of old ragged jeans. Its hair was long, dry, filthy and entangled all over. Its face was in scars, its lips were torn and its teeth were stained in blood. Its fingernails were long and sharp and had little chunks of flesh stuck under them. It reeked of rotting flesh and the stench filled up the basement. The creature growled violently at Ron while trying to break free from its chains. “Ready for your midnight snack?” Ron asked.
He unlocked and opened the cellar door of the basement and proceeded to unlock the creature’s chains. “Once again, I want you to know that I’m sorry for ruining your appetite! But we had no choice! I told you I won’t let you die! I hope you’ll always remember that! I promise I’ll find a cure for this! I love you… Judith!”
Published on April 15, 2018 09:07
•
Tags:
murder, mystery, short-story, suspense, thriller
April 9, 2018
And Then She Never Looked Back…
Amanda was an average teenage girl from Tennessee. Silky blonde hair that danced with the wind, a slender physique, blemishes of adolescence on her delicate white skin and blue eyes that mocked the beauty of the oceans.
The shy and timid little girl had moved in from Kansas a few months ago with her father, who wanted to leave the place where his wife died. He wanted to leave everything that reminded him of her behind and start a new life.
It was a fine Sunday morning. The weather was nice and warm. Amanda had gone looking for her father’s tools in the barn when she found her step-mother‘s corpse lying inside. Her throat was slit and the hay-stack on which her body lay was drenched in her blood.
Amanda’s shrill, bone-chilling scream caught her father’s attention right before he was about to crank start the harvester behind the barn. He ran inside and found his daughter lying unconscious at the foot of his murdered wife, her skin moist with sweat. Cops arrived at the scene with their canines to investigate and track the murderer.
Months passed by, the killer was still at large, no one knew who he was and why he killed Jenna. Wally could no longer deal with her death and began losing his sanity. For she was the one who stood by him during his worst times. She was his strength when his first wife deserted him while Amanda was still an infant.
He would come home drunk each night and behave erratically with his daughter. Scenes from that fateful morning would come back to haunt him every other day and kill him from within, bit by bit, every single time. His bedroom door would often open to shards of broken glass, shattered bottles of whiskey and partly smoked cigarettes lying on the wooden floor. His blood stained the floor whenever he stepped on one of the shards in his drunken stupor.
This continued until the local priest advised him one day to leave town and start afresh. He chose to speak to Wally when he was most sober and with a good amount of effort, managed to coax him to follow his advice.
Amanda found it difficult to blend in with the others at her new school. Not a single day passed by without feeling alienated. The other kids took ample advantage of her calm and shy demeanor and spared no opportunity to bully her. In all the months she spent in the Tennessee public school, she did not make a single friend. Much like back in Kansas, she was all alone here as well. Often cornered, bullied, jeered and sneered.
But back in Kansas, her father was there to comfort her and stand up for her. Her step-mother was not quite interested in being the mother Amanda needed. Her father, however, always played his part.
But that part of him was lost somewhere in that barn where his wife was found dead. It’s true that he now began gaining control over his alcoholism and was slowly walking towards sobriety. But it was a long and slow journey, a rocky road full of sharp turns and blind corners. He kept walking, struggling, falling and rising.
But Amanda never got the comfort that she needed from him, all she got was far fetched advice on standing her ground and giving those bullies a piece of her mind.
One evening, Amanda was back home earlier than usual. Her father saw something had changed. She was not as depressed as she usually was when she got back. She looked as if a great burden was off her shoulders. She looked happy, she looked liberated. He could see it in her eyes. He was intrigued. “Well someone looks happy today, for a change!” he remarked.
Amanda took a can of soda from the refrigerator, sat beside her father on the couch, looked at him and smiled. Wally was more surprised now. “Now that’s something new! I’ve never seen you so happy before, especially after school! What changed?” he asked.
“You know Max and his friend Donny tried to corner me today, again!” She said.
“Those bullies?”
“Yeah! Don’t know what kind of fun they get by doing that! Anyways, so they tried to do what they always do. And I stopped them!”
“Look at you! Standing your ground against a bunch of bullies!” Wally exclaimed.
“Well I just gave them a piece of my mind, just like you always told me to!” Amanda said, with a wicked smile across a face as she opened the can of soda. “Now I’ll never hear from them again!” she proudly said.
Wally was now curious about what his daughter did that silenced the bullies for good. “What did you do Amanda…?” He asked.
She looked at him briefly. “I’ll show you!” she said and reached out for her bag.
Later that night, a woman in her late 50’s driving along Highway 41A in her 1956 Chevy pickup spotted a young girl with a backpack walking along the road near Bedford County. The dim light from the truck’s headlamps caught the girl’s attention. She turned around and gestured for a lift. The old woman pulled up close to the girl. “I’m lost. I was on a bus to Kentucky with my friends. I went to use the ladies room and the bus left without me. Can you take me to Kentucky?” the girl asked the woman. “Sure my dear! You’re lucky I’m on my way to Kentucky too! Hop in! I’ll take you there!” the woman said as she gladly opened the door of her truck.
Bodies of two teenage boys were found in the detention room of the school that Amanda went to. Their throats were slit with a sharp knife. CCTV footage showed a young slender blonde girl getting cornered by the two boys before she went on a rampage, pulling out a knife from her bag and killing the boys with one sweep of her arm. She briefly looked at the camera before she turned around and wiped the blood off the knife on one of the boys’ shirt and walked out of the room.
Cops who went looking for the girl found her father lying lifeless on the couch in the living room. His throat was also cut the same way and his terrified eyes were still open when the cops found his body.
The girl was missing. Medicines prescribed for Dissociative Identity Disorder were found in her dresser drawer, none of them had a broken seal. The murder weapon was nowhere around. The cops swung their flashlights around, gazing across the vast farmland, wondering where the little girl might have ran off to.
The shy and timid little girl had moved in from Kansas a few months ago with her father, who wanted to leave the place where his wife died. He wanted to leave everything that reminded him of her behind and start a new life.
It was a fine Sunday morning. The weather was nice and warm. Amanda had gone looking for her father’s tools in the barn when she found her step-mother‘s corpse lying inside. Her throat was slit and the hay-stack on which her body lay was drenched in her blood.
Amanda’s shrill, bone-chilling scream caught her father’s attention right before he was about to crank start the harvester behind the barn. He ran inside and found his daughter lying unconscious at the foot of his murdered wife, her skin moist with sweat. Cops arrived at the scene with their canines to investigate and track the murderer.
Months passed by, the killer was still at large, no one knew who he was and why he killed Jenna. Wally could no longer deal with her death and began losing his sanity. For she was the one who stood by him during his worst times. She was his strength when his first wife deserted him while Amanda was still an infant.
He would come home drunk each night and behave erratically with his daughter. Scenes from that fateful morning would come back to haunt him every other day and kill him from within, bit by bit, every single time. His bedroom door would often open to shards of broken glass, shattered bottles of whiskey and partly smoked cigarettes lying on the wooden floor. His blood stained the floor whenever he stepped on one of the shards in his drunken stupor.
This continued until the local priest advised him one day to leave town and start afresh. He chose to speak to Wally when he was most sober and with a good amount of effort, managed to coax him to follow his advice.
Amanda found it difficult to blend in with the others at her new school. Not a single day passed by without feeling alienated. The other kids took ample advantage of her calm and shy demeanor and spared no opportunity to bully her. In all the months she spent in the Tennessee public school, she did not make a single friend. Much like back in Kansas, she was all alone here as well. Often cornered, bullied, jeered and sneered.
But back in Kansas, her father was there to comfort her and stand up for her. Her step-mother was not quite interested in being the mother Amanda needed. Her father, however, always played his part.
But that part of him was lost somewhere in that barn where his wife was found dead. It’s true that he now began gaining control over his alcoholism and was slowly walking towards sobriety. But it was a long and slow journey, a rocky road full of sharp turns and blind corners. He kept walking, struggling, falling and rising.
But Amanda never got the comfort that she needed from him, all she got was far fetched advice on standing her ground and giving those bullies a piece of her mind.
One evening, Amanda was back home earlier than usual. Her father saw something had changed. She was not as depressed as she usually was when she got back. She looked as if a great burden was off her shoulders. She looked happy, she looked liberated. He could see it in her eyes. He was intrigued. “Well someone looks happy today, for a change!” he remarked.
Amanda took a can of soda from the refrigerator, sat beside her father on the couch, looked at him and smiled. Wally was more surprised now. “Now that’s something new! I’ve never seen you so happy before, especially after school! What changed?” he asked.
“You know Max and his friend Donny tried to corner me today, again!” She said.
“Those bullies?”
“Yeah! Don’t know what kind of fun they get by doing that! Anyways, so they tried to do what they always do. And I stopped them!”
“Look at you! Standing your ground against a bunch of bullies!” Wally exclaimed.
“Well I just gave them a piece of my mind, just like you always told me to!” Amanda said, with a wicked smile across a face as she opened the can of soda. “Now I’ll never hear from them again!” she proudly said.
Wally was now curious about what his daughter did that silenced the bullies for good. “What did you do Amanda…?” He asked.
She looked at him briefly. “I’ll show you!” she said and reached out for her bag.
Later that night, a woman in her late 50’s driving along Highway 41A in her 1956 Chevy pickup spotted a young girl with a backpack walking along the road near Bedford County. The dim light from the truck’s headlamps caught the girl’s attention. She turned around and gestured for a lift. The old woman pulled up close to the girl. “I’m lost. I was on a bus to Kentucky with my friends. I went to use the ladies room and the bus left without me. Can you take me to Kentucky?” the girl asked the woman. “Sure my dear! You’re lucky I’m on my way to Kentucky too! Hop in! I’ll take you there!” the woman said as she gladly opened the door of her truck.
Bodies of two teenage boys were found in the detention room of the school that Amanda went to. Their throats were slit with a sharp knife. CCTV footage showed a young slender blonde girl getting cornered by the two boys before she went on a rampage, pulling out a knife from her bag and killing the boys with one sweep of her arm. She briefly looked at the camera before she turned around and wiped the blood off the knife on one of the boys’ shirt and walked out of the room.
Cops who went looking for the girl found her father lying lifeless on the couch in the living room. His throat was also cut the same way and his terrified eyes were still open when the cops found his body.
The girl was missing. Medicines prescribed for Dissociative Identity Disorder were found in her dresser drawer, none of them had a broken seal. The murder weapon was nowhere around. The cops swung their flashlights around, gazing across the vast farmland, wondering where the little girl might have ran off to.
She was long gone. She left her timid, sad and shy self behind. She left all those who jeered and sneered. She left the false comfort of her empty house. She left the tender cage she was in. And then she never looked back…
Published on April 09, 2018 06:32
•
Tags:
murder, mystery, short-story, suspense, thriller
April 4, 2018
Note to Aspiring Writers
So you recently had an idea to write a book, perhaps a crime fiction, or a romantic drama, or maybe a book addressing a social cause. But you have a lot of questions storming into your mind. You're nervous, you're worried, you're shy. You're anxious if anyone would want to read it. What if people don't like it? what if people show no interest? What if your book attracts negative reviews?
Questions like these will surely break your will to write. But here's where it all begins. Face your demons. The hardest part is to begin. Thinking of an opening scene or paragraph is the most crucial part. This will be where your readers will begin to decide whether to read on or keep it aside. Face it. It's a challenge. Writing a book itself is a matter of stepping out of a number of comfort zones. Publishing and promoting only add to the laundry list.
But there's something more important. That is, to know what you are going to write. Know how the story will begin and how it will end. Create a framework for the story. List each chapter and what part of the plot will go into it. This will help you keep track of how the book should progress. We'd all be blobs of flesh if we didn't have a skeleton, right? That's how the framework is going to support your story. Set this one up first and you won't have to worry about how to go about with the story.
Now use this framework and construct each chapter. Describe everything that's relevant to the story. Places, people, attires, traditions, objects, paint a picture for everything. Put your heart into the little details. This will make sure your readers imagine exactly what you want them to imagine. Once you are completely immersed in your writing, you will begin to have more ideas. You will begin to experience what your characters should be experiencing in a particular scene. And then you will imagine all the things you would do if you were that character. Let your mind wander, and write down those thoughts in a concise and comprehensive manner.
Make conversations more human. It's okay if your characters stutter and stammer and fiddle with objects in the middle of a conversation. That's how most humans talk. From my perspective, a reader begins to form a connection with a book when he begins to relate to the characters. You cannot always have all characters speak fluent British English without using a slang or two here and there.
Plot twists and shocking revelations add spice to a story. You may not know where you might be able to add one of those when you begin writing. Don't worry. It'll come to you as you write. The curious little child inside you will poke and probe you to explore other options. Give in to that. In the end, you have to give the world something new, something unique, something special, something never seen before.
Now here's another really important part - proofreading. Find another bibliophile friend who would proof read for you. As the author of the book, you will have the story and the flow on the tip of your tongue. Your brain will skim through your content and overlook errors, a lot of embarrassing ones. You will be immune to your own errors. Have a friend point them out for you. Be open to criticism. Remember, criticism is your best friend, not your enemy. Understand another person's perspective on your work and see if it is feasible for you to incorporate those suggestions. Let it not turn into an argument over who owns the story and who's supposed to decide what goes into it.
Finally, once you have completed your book and done ample of proofreading, don't just leave it on your shelf or your hard drive. It deserves to see the light of the day. Find a publisher. Most publishers will charge you up front for signing the deal, which will include promotions and interviews and book fairs, apart from cover design, professional proof reading and ISBN's. This will also be time consuming as the publisher will take his own time to read and decide if he wants to publish your book in the first place. If you think you cannot afford that, you can always be your own publisher. Amazon provides the Kindle Direct Publishing platform for self publishing your books. In a matter of hours your book will hit online marketplaces. Then all you have to do is use social media to promote your book. I'm sure your good friends would love to spread the word for you.
Remember, if you want to, you can do it! Just put your heart and soul into it. It's not easy, it's time consuming, but the satisfaction of getting your own book published is absolutely unparalleled. So pick up your pen, typewriter, laptop, whatever you prefer, and start writing.
Having said all of that, my first Self-Published Crime-Fantasy Wrathful Wings is out now on Amazon as a Kindle eBook as well as Paperback. Do check it out and leave your reviews. Happy reading!
Love, N.V. Bruno.
Questions like these will surely break your will to write. But here's where it all begins. Face your demons. The hardest part is to begin. Thinking of an opening scene or paragraph is the most crucial part. This will be where your readers will begin to decide whether to read on or keep it aside. Face it. It's a challenge. Writing a book itself is a matter of stepping out of a number of comfort zones. Publishing and promoting only add to the laundry list.
But there's something more important. That is, to know what you are going to write. Know how the story will begin and how it will end. Create a framework for the story. List each chapter and what part of the plot will go into it. This will help you keep track of how the book should progress. We'd all be blobs of flesh if we didn't have a skeleton, right? That's how the framework is going to support your story. Set this one up first and you won't have to worry about how to go about with the story.
Now use this framework and construct each chapter. Describe everything that's relevant to the story. Places, people, attires, traditions, objects, paint a picture for everything. Put your heart into the little details. This will make sure your readers imagine exactly what you want them to imagine. Once you are completely immersed in your writing, you will begin to have more ideas. You will begin to experience what your characters should be experiencing in a particular scene. And then you will imagine all the things you would do if you were that character. Let your mind wander, and write down those thoughts in a concise and comprehensive manner.
Make conversations more human. It's okay if your characters stutter and stammer and fiddle with objects in the middle of a conversation. That's how most humans talk. From my perspective, a reader begins to form a connection with a book when he begins to relate to the characters. You cannot always have all characters speak fluent British English without using a slang or two here and there.
Plot twists and shocking revelations add spice to a story. You may not know where you might be able to add one of those when you begin writing. Don't worry. It'll come to you as you write. The curious little child inside you will poke and probe you to explore other options. Give in to that. In the end, you have to give the world something new, something unique, something special, something never seen before.
Now here's another really important part - proofreading. Find another bibliophile friend who would proof read for you. As the author of the book, you will have the story and the flow on the tip of your tongue. Your brain will skim through your content and overlook errors, a lot of embarrassing ones. You will be immune to your own errors. Have a friend point them out for you. Be open to criticism. Remember, criticism is your best friend, not your enemy. Understand another person's perspective on your work and see if it is feasible for you to incorporate those suggestions. Let it not turn into an argument over who owns the story and who's supposed to decide what goes into it.
Finally, once you have completed your book and done ample of proofreading, don't just leave it on your shelf or your hard drive. It deserves to see the light of the day. Find a publisher. Most publishers will charge you up front for signing the deal, which will include promotions and interviews and book fairs, apart from cover design, professional proof reading and ISBN's. This will also be time consuming as the publisher will take his own time to read and decide if he wants to publish your book in the first place. If you think you cannot afford that, you can always be your own publisher. Amazon provides the Kindle Direct Publishing platform for self publishing your books. In a matter of hours your book will hit online marketplaces. Then all you have to do is use social media to promote your book. I'm sure your good friends would love to spread the word for you.
Remember, if you want to, you can do it! Just put your heart and soul into it. It's not easy, it's time consuming, but the satisfaction of getting your own book published is absolutely unparalleled. So pick up your pen, typewriter, laptop, whatever you prefer, and start writing.
Having said all of that, my first Self-Published Crime-Fantasy Wrathful Wings is out now on Amazon as a Kindle eBook as well as Paperback. Do check it out and leave your reviews. Happy reading!
Love, N.V. Bruno.
Published on April 04, 2018 04:43
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Tags:
aspiring-author, crime-fiction, fantasy, fiction, inspiration, motivation, murder, mystery, supernatural, wander