The Sentence Story and Contest

[Heresy 1st MRB]

[H. Stone 1st MRB]

Scammer alert

[Heresy 1st MRB]

[Mullaney]

Haha just give up guys... its not going to happen. >.<

[Heresy 1st MRB]

[K. Lloyd]

[Heresy 1st MRB]

[Candy 1st MRB]

*Sigh*

*Facepalm*

You guys, we all know Brown will get back to us....maybe this will help....

[Gardner2]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole.

With the chambers dry I ditched my empty rounds in my pocket and reloaded in what I thought to be record time, then I kicked in the door to find 2 bodies slumped together with Ivan barely alive crawling towards the desk. The blood lust screamed in my ears louder than it ever had before, I pulled my knife and walked over to Ivan placing the blade against his neck, I then whispered in is ear "you lucky prick, you don't deserve to go this easy." and with that I let the son of a bitch bleed; I frantically ruffle through the desk looking for any information I can, someone definitely heard those shots and will be here any second.

Sure enough I can hear the Sirens in the distance already, "beep beeep beep". "What the Hell?" I mutter those are some weird sirens "beep beeeep beep", when all of sudden I sit up straight and blink my eyes rapidly "beep beeeep beep", I look around my bedroom and slap the alarm clock off. Could that all have been a dream? It was so real, so vivid, my bed sheets are drenched with sweat, my room looks as though it has been hit by a tornado. I was obviously trashing around in my sleep.... but was it all a dream? Have I completed my mission I planned to set out to do already, or do I still have the removal and disposal of my clients problem to take care of.......

I looked around my heap of an apartment with many different scenarios playing through in my fucked up brain, they told me it would be like this after my last tour, PTS is a real bitch they said. Glancing next to me I saw Marlene's perfect form, her long blonde hair and realized upon further inspection that she didn't have a scratch, she was as perfect as the day she was born, my whole paranoid fantasy about the Bull was just a lie.

I got out of bed and pulled on my cleanest dirty shirt, I then walked out to the kitchen to grab myself a beer and a smoke, flip through the stations for a little while. I was just about to light up my smoke when I hear a loud crash come from out on the street, the sounds of screams and twisting metal, I sprint for the window.

As I panned across the length of the windows before me, a scene of utter chaos unfolded, a painful memory of days past began to take form, one I had kept buried deep in my subconscious. A guy in a pickup truck had run the light, struck several cars and then ran directly into a power transformer across the road, resulting in an explosion that was all too familiar in my mind, a similar scene long ago when I first experienced these strange dreams.

These dreams of times past, and times not yet past..... The strangeness which keeps me searching for the end result. As I gaze out the window a flicker of a memory sparks as I look upon the face of the man from the pick-up truck exits his vehicle and runs into the building across from mine carrying a silver briefcase, who is he?

What the Fuck! Its raining cats and sloths!! They are everywhere and attacking anything that moves like it is a fat mouse to be played with then eventually half eaten!! Time to get my guns its going to be one hell of a day!!

30,000 9mm, 100,000 12gauge shotgun slugs, 8 grenades later I am holed up in a secured mini mart a couple blocks from my apartment. Myself and a couple other lucky survivors have barricaded and boarded off all the air vents to prevent the killer cats and sloths from crawling in. We are still on high alert for signs of rescue from this madness, luckily the store was not raided before we took control of it and have ample supplies to keep us going. Through the front windows we can see several bodies picked clean to the bone by these filthy creatures, sporadic reports on the radio announce the military has had some success releasing their K-9 units to attack and clear out the cat/sloth invasion. Hopefully something good comes out of this what has been dubbed the "Brownapocalypse".

Edited January 24, 2014 by Gardner 1st MRB

[Heresy 1st MRB]

[Candy 1st MRB]

What the Fuck! Its raining cats and sloths!! They are everywhere and attacking anything that moves like it is a fat mouse to be played with then eventually half eaten!! Time to get my guns its going to be one hell of a day!!

30,000 9mm, 100,000 12gauge shotgun slugs, 8 grenades later I am holed up in a secured mini mart a couple blocks from my apartment. Myself and a couple other lucky survivors have barricaded and boarded off all the air vents to prevent the killer cats and sloths from crawling in. We are still on high alert for signs of rescue from this madness, luckily the store was not raided before we took control of it and have ample supplies to keep us going. Through the front windows we can see several bodies picked clean to the bone by these filthy creatures, sporadic reports on the radio announce the military has had some success releasing their K-9 units to attack and clear out the cat/sloth invasion. Hopefully something good comes out of this what has been dubbed the "Brownapocalypse".

Uh...you went a little over the 2 sentence requirement Sir...heh

[Gardner2]

What the Fuck! Its raining cats and sloths!! They are everywhere and attacking anything that moves like it is a fat mouse to be played with then eventually half eaten!! Time to get my guns its going to be one hell of a day!!

30,000 9mm, 100,000 12gauge shotgun slugs, 8 grenades later I am holed up in a secured mini mart a couple blocks from my apartment. Myself and a couple other lucky survivors have barricaded and boarded off all the air vents to prevent the killer cats and sloths from crawling in. We are still on high alert for signs of rescue from this madness, luckily the store was not raided before we took control of it and have ample supplies to keep us going. Through the front windows we can see several bodies picked clean to the bone by these filthy creatures, sporadic reports on the radio announce the military has had some success releasing their K-9 units to attack and clear out the cat/sloth invasion. Hopefully something good comes out of this what has been dubbed the "Brownapocalypse".

Uh...you went a little over the 2 sentence requirement Sir...heh

So did several other people while the contest was running! And you quoted two different posts!!! so

[Candy 1st MRB]

I didn't.

Me either....

[T. Brown 1st MRB]

ohmygod I had to go handle some business on the West Coast the past week, and I come back to cats. I'm ok with this.

Let me get myself settled tonight and tomorrow morning Ill post winners! TWELVE MORE HOURS. THAT'S IT.

(meaning when i'm not drunk. i am drunk now. shuttup)

(post more cats)

I'll deliver balls on your face, that's what I'll deliver.

[Gardner2]

I didn't.

Me either....

A sentence with 3+ commas is more then one sentence.......... someone's post had 5+

Anyhow's the contest was over I was just adding more to the structure to poke fun at the delays in the final tally's

Way to have sticks up the butt and no fun.

[T. Brown 1st MRB]

I didn't.

Me either....

A sentence with 3+ commas is more then one sentence.......... someone's post had 5+

Anyhow's the contest was over I was just adding more to the structure to poke fun at the delays in the final tally's

Way to have sticks up the butt and no fun.

HEY

NO RULES NOW

DO WHAT YOU WANT.

unless you want sticks up your butt...then...well, ok do that, but don't tell us about it

[Candy 1st MRB]

LOL Welcome back Brown!

I wasn't being a stick in the mud! I found your last paragraphs quite funny! heh

Edited January 25, 2014 by Candy 1st MRB

[T. Brown 1st MRB]

OK LETS DO THIS. I'm sober, albeit hungover, never drinking again. Until tonight.

FIRST, here is how the scoring worked. We used THREE criteria to grade each paragraph.

• The Flow - 5
• The Content - 10
• The Creativity - 5

The Flow was based on how well each addition worked with the rest of the story. Doing something like this requires a great deal of teamwork; people can't just take the story where they want to all the time, they have to make it blend together with all the other work. AS YOU CAN SEE, not all of us did that, even me....although mine was kind of on purpose : P Total of FIVE points.

The Content was based on ...just that...the content. Did it add to the story? Did it take it somewhere, or resolve conflict? Or was it just a masturbatory self-stimulating exercise meant to appease oneself and not the reader. Sometimes the latter is the best kind of writing, sometimes it isn't. Also any grammar or spelling errors would fall in this category and take off from the total score, as well as using more than 2 sentences. Lots of people lost points here for going over the 2-sentence limit or having spelling/grammar errors. Total of TEN points.

The Creativity was how well new ideas were introduced and flexed. Want Russians to get involved? Gotta work towards that. Want a talking dog? Does it fit in the world? If not, did you do it anyways? Ass. No one reads books about talking dogs anymore. Total of FIVE points.

In the end, out of a total of 20 points times three (three of us reading), so 60, whoever got the most won. If there was a tie, we were going to figure that out as we crossed the bridge, but there wasn't.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the story in its entirety, with each score totaled next to the respective paragraph (excluding my own).

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline. [CANDY - 47]

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that. [GARDNER - 39]

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target. [DRUKEN - 43]

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop. [CANDY - 48]

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal. [MARTIN - 43]

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered. [bARRY - 29]

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come. [CANDY - 45]

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself. [DRUKEN - 45]

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment. [MCDOWEL - 47]

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek. [CANDY - 41]

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .." [MCDOWEL - 42]

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards. [CANDY - 47]

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years.. [MCDOWEL - 49]

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut. [MCDOWEL - 48]

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door. [DRUKEN - 34]

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket. [CANDY - 51]

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?" [DRUKEN - 37]

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.” [CANDY - 40]

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?". [DRUKEN - 39]

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning." [CANDY - 33]

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg. [DRUKEN - 39]

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife. [CANDY - 48]

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special. [DRUKEN - 31]

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard. [CANDY - 50]

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene. [MCDOWEL - 40]

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him. [CANDY - 44]

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body. [MCDOWEL - 43]

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die. [CANDY - 38]

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there. [DRUKEN - 41]

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole. [CANDY - 38]

With the chambers dry I ditched my empty rounds in my pocket and reloaded in what I thought to be record time, then I kicked in the door to find 2 bodies slumped together with Ivan barely alive crawling towards the desk. The blood lust screamed in my ears louder than it ever had before, I pulled my knife and walked over to Ivan placing the blade against his neck, I then whispered in is ear "you lucky prick, you don't deserve to go this easy." and with that I let the son of a bitch bleed; I frantically ruffle through the desk looking for any information I can, someone definitely heard those shots and will be here any second. [DRUKEN - 35]

Sure enough I can hear the Sirens in the distance already, "beep beeep beep". "What the Hell?" I mutter those are some weird sirens "beep beeeep beep", when all of sudden I sit up straight and blink my eyes rapidly "beep beeeep beep", I look around my bedroom and slap the alarm clock off. Could that all have been a dream? It was so real, so vivid, my bed sheets are drenched with sweat, my room looks as though it has been hit by a tornado. I was obviously trashing around in my sleep.... but was it all a dream? Have I completed my mission I planned to set out to do already, or do I still have the removal and disposal of my clients problem to take care of....... [GARDNER - 29]

I looked around my heap of an apartment with many different scenarios playing through in my fucked up brain, they told me it would be like this after my last tour, PTS is a real bitch they said. Glancing next to me I saw Marlene's perfect form, her long blonde hair and realized upon further inspection that she didn't have a scratch, she was as perfect as the day she was born, my whole paranoid fantasy about the Bull was just a lie. [CANDY - 41]

I got out of bed and pulled on my cleanest dirty shirt, I then walked out to the kitchen to grab myself a beer and a smoke, flip through the stations for a little while. I was just about to light up my smoke when I hear a loud crash come from out on the street, the sounds of screams and twisting metal, I sprint for the window. [DRUKEN - 42]

As I panned across the length of the windows before me, a scene of utter chaos unfolded, a painful memory of days past began to take form, one I had kept buried deep in my subconscious. A guy in a pickup truck had run the light, struck several cars and then ran directly into a power transformer across the road, resulting in an explosion that was all too familiar in my mind, a similar scene long ago when I first experienced these strange dreams. [CANDY - 40]

These dreams of times past, and times not yet past..... The strangeness which keeps me searching for the end result. As I gaze out the window a flicker of a memory sparks as I look upon the face of the man from the pick-up truck exits his vehicle and runs into the building across from mine carrying a silver briefcase, who is he? [GARDNER - 49]

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THE WINNER IS CANDY , FOR THE FOLLOWING SELECTION WITH A TOTAL OF 51 POINTS.

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I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

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This paragraph helped push the story forward excellently while keeping the noir tone of the story intact. It was a bit of a run-on sentence, but that was to be expected so not many points were deducted for this. This was unanimously agreed upon by all of us to be the clear victor, although there were 2 or 3 that came close (which I believe were Candy again, Mcdowell, and Gardner with 50, 49, and 49 points respectively).

SO CONGRATS CANDY. And sorry for taking so long to put this up! You can either message me on forums, or just on steam, and I'll give you this code thing to the gift card. WOOOOOoOooooOo

Edited January 25, 2014 by T. Brown 1st MRB
aword

[Heresy 1st MRB]

Congrats Candy, nice work!

[Candy 1st MRB]

Thanks Brown! It was a fun contest and everyone contributed some great work!

[Arsenault 1st MRB]

Congrats Candy!

[Druken]

Congratulations Candy!

[Guest]

Congrats Candy! Brown was just making you all wait so the tension would build up. Don't post cats, it just encourages him.