Post by Purple on Jun 28, 2011 20:22:49 GMT -5
This is a short story I did for Creative Writing 1 last year. I've been wanting to rewrite it, but I want to get some feedback on how it is right now before I do, so please comment guys. Also please tell me if you think the beginning is strong enough, if it draws you in.
It’s an interesting feeling, murder. Anyone will tell you that there’s nothing like it, killing someone. Anyone who’s done it, that is. Some feel bad. They get so terribly guilty afterwards. Those are the crazy ones, the ones who do it without much reason to. If you have a purpose in mind, you can’t get tied down in remorse.
If the rustling of my skirts didn’t alert him of my presence, the creaking of the door, so loud in the near-deserted station, certainly must have. Perhaps he knew; perhaps he suspected what was going on. Perhaps he had some idea of who killed the others, of who was coming for him now. If there was indeed any doubt in is mind, as I imagine there must have been, it was destroyed when the cold barrel of the revolver touched the skin of his forehead. Shock and fear mingled in those watery brown eyes. He was hoping this was just a nightmare, that he’d wake up and this would all go away. I knew it wouldn’t. I’d been hoping the same for months now.
“Have you ever watched a loved one die? Watched his blood pour out onto the street?” I asked as I had four times before. My voice was as calm as it might have been receiving guests in my parlor. It hadn’t shaken since Jennings. I’d come a long way since then.
“No,” the man before me finally choked out. The struggle to appear calm was obvious and thereby failing. I might have pitied him, in another life, another time, but it was far too late for pity now. Maybe if I woke up I’d feel bad. Maybe if it turned out this was all one long nightmare, then I would let myself feel sorry. Right now I couldn’t.
“Have you ever had something denied you because of money?” I asked now. I noticed he had his eyes closed, as if not looking at me would make me go away.
“Yes.” He was sticking to one-word answers, it seemed. Less chance of his voice breaking.
“Was that thing justice?”
“No.”
I pressed the revolver harder to his forehead and caused him to lean away from the desk more, trying to get away from death. His eyes didn’t open. They didn’t need to. He knew my face was just inches away from his.
“You see, Mr. Wilson, this is because justice should not be for sale, and I dare say that in most places it is not,” I said, “But there are five men, four of which are now dead, who don’t seem to agree with that precept.”
“What about Kent? He started the whole thing!” Mr. Wilson protested. I only smiled at him indulgently. He was just scrambling, trying to find something, anything, to save his own life.
“Don’t worry, Sir. Mr. Kent will be dealt with,” I replied simply. Of course he would be among those to die. He killed my husband, or at any rate he arranged the business. I wonder sometimes if his opium dealings were worth his life. Clearly they were worth Charles’. It was here I chanced to look down. Why I’m not exactly certain, but the paper sitting in front of him caught my eyes. It was a report. My report. My fingers itched to pick it up almost as much as my eyes yearned to read it, but my curiosity was not so great as to make me lower my gun while he still had his.
I pulled his weapon free from its holster and stepped away from him slowly, turning my back on him as I flipped open the loading chamber and slipped the bullets into the leather purse hanging from my belt. The revolver made a dull thunk as it hit the opposite wall and bounced off onto the floor. I turned back to him. He hadn’t moved. I might have called him smart for it, but I knew it was terror rather than wits that had his ample behind fast to the seat.
“One by one, they all died,” I began, feeling as though I was talking more to myself than to him. This was my revenge, my nightmare, not his. Don’t ask me why I chose him to explain it all to, why he was the one to have the best understanding of my plans. I couldn’t tell you for sure. Maybe I knew that when Kent’s time came around I would be too eager to get it over with to tell the whole thing out. Maybe it was simply because I was at the most leisure to here in the deserted station where no one was likely to come by till morning. Maybe I just liked scaring him the most.
“Jennings was just out on patrol late at night. It wasn’t difficult. He never saw it coming. But I was a tad nervous then, as it was the first time after all, so I’ll admit that made it a bit more difficult. The way I got Carter I think was rather ingenious on my part. I lured him into an alley, you see, by screaming like a woman being attacked as he was walking past on his way home from the station. Hawthorn was simply patrolling the bridge. I liked that spot; so easy to just toss him over the rail. That’s why they haven’t found him yet, you know. Andrews I had to get a little closer. I suppose after hearing of the deaths of three of his friends he wasn’t prone to go anywhere by himself if it could be avoided. I had to wait for weeks for him to come out to use the outhouse at the right time.
“And now we’re back to you. I won’t get a chance to describe your death to anyone, or Kent’s for that matter, so I’ll give you a sort of prediction. You’ll be found sitting at this desk, right here. They’ll think you were just writing up reports all night and fell asleep at your work, but then they’ll see the blood, and they’ll know that whoever killed the other four policemen wasn’t finished with Andrews like they’d been hoping oh so tenuously. But I’ll walk away from this place without anyone suspecting me of anything more than loneliness. Then Mr. Kent will receive a visitor early tomorrow morning. She won’t give her name. She’ll just ask to see him on urgent business. When he enters the parlor she’ll greet him with a smile. Then she’ll hold a gun to his head, and ask him the question she’s asked five men before him, but she won’t wait for his answer to pull the trigger.
“When the housekeeper comes in to see what on earth is going on this mysterious visitor will have vanished. She’ll be riding the road out of town as fast as her horse will carry her, half hoping they won’t catch up, half hoping they will.
“You’re mad!” he exclaimed suddenly, looking all the more scared for it. I only smiled.
“Don’t go making judgments before you’ve heard the end of my story,” I scolded, “You see, when I began this venture I had thirteen bullets. Why Charles had thirteen just lying around the house and no more I can’t imagine, but there were thirteen. I began to think to myself, if I got away with all six steps of my revenge, what would I do with myself? I have very little desire to live, not while Charles is gone and there’s no purpose for me anymore. So I concluded that these thirteen bullets would be the measure of my life. Each one of them would take a life, and the last would be my own. So you see, there isn’t much reason to worry. Only six more creatures shall die after your affair is finished, and at the end of it all the one who caused so much pain will be herself dead.
“Now would you care to comment?” I asked. He didn’t say a word. His eyes were open now. I’m not sure if he wanted to look death in the face when it came or if he was just resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t melt away like mist before a rising sun.
It was then that I remembered the report which had so captured my attention before. It rustled as I lifted it from its bed of fellow papers, crinkling slightly as I held it under the lamp and began to read. It was rather fictionalized, as I had suspected it must be, but a few words stood out. “Refused to cooperate.” “No suspects.” “No leads of any kind.” “Case dropped.”
“I’d like you to hold this to your head, right here,” I said, tapping the place on his forehead where I’d been holding the revolver. When paper was pressed to skin metal followed on the other side. “We’re almost finished, I believe.”
“Please—”
“Don’t,” I snapped, “I’ve come too far for mercy.”
“What about my wife?” I believe he was crying or very close to it, but not for the thought of his wife all alone. He cried for himself. He cared for himself, if not solely, at least the most.
“She shouldn’t have married a greedy, spineless bastard,” I growled in response.
The gunshot echoed about the empty room, shattering the quiet like thunder on a still evening. I stepped away quickly to avoid the blood now spurting from the man’s head as he slumped forward onto the desk. The dark liquid began slowly spreading out from the corpse, staining the dead man’s work. I didn’t stay long. There was still work to be done.
* * *
I pushed my mare harder and harder as I neared the edge of town. They were on my tail and gaining fast. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t rest, not even for a moment. For all that I told Wilson, and even Kent just now, I didn’t care for my own life or freedom, with every foot of road I traveled I became more and more sure that this had been a lie. I chanced a look over my shoulder, justifying it by coupling a bullet to it. They were getting closer, but another shot and another glance told me that there was now one less in their party. Two less if my last shot had been good. I didn’t’ dare turn to find out.
I was breathing almost as hard as my horse as I came upon an inn that looked as if it had been deserted for many years. I pulled Cinna to a stop and led her inside. I couldn’t outrun them, not forever. I could either give in or make a stand. I wasn’t ready to give in just yet. After making sure Cinna was safe in a back room I crouched behind the bar and waited for them to catch up. I had one chance at this.
A shot whizzed through the broken window at the first sound of hooves outside the door. I couldn’t tell if one of them had gone down, but I heard a horse scream in either pain or terror. I waited for the return shot before firing another. Another scream, human this time. Now I fired without waiting, not giving them a chance to retaliate. Another man’s scream. I could just barely hear my own ragged breathing over the blood pounding in my veins. I fired another shot. No sound this time. I tried to fire again but received only a dull click in response.
Frantic, I scrambled to draw another bullet from the leather pouch at my hip. When finally I had it in my fingers I froze. This was the last one. Number thirteen. I drew in two long deep breaths and loaded the gun. This was the one to end my life. I raised the gun and fired another shot through the window, not waiting for any sound before retrieving Cinna from the back room and tearing out of the inn through a rear door.
Elizabeth Jamison was dead, so the last bullet had done its job. My life as it had been was over. I had done things that I could never take back, that I could never make up for. I couldn’t go back. I wouldn’t give up. Not yet.
Thirteen Bullets
It’s an interesting feeling, murder. Anyone will tell you that there’s nothing like it, killing someone. Anyone who’s done it, that is. Some feel bad. They get so terribly guilty afterwards. Those are the crazy ones, the ones who do it without much reason to. If you have a purpose in mind, you can’t get tied down in remorse.
If the rustling of my skirts didn’t alert him of my presence, the creaking of the door, so loud in the near-deserted station, certainly must have. Perhaps he knew; perhaps he suspected what was going on. Perhaps he had some idea of who killed the others, of who was coming for him now. If there was indeed any doubt in is mind, as I imagine there must have been, it was destroyed when the cold barrel of the revolver touched the skin of his forehead. Shock and fear mingled in those watery brown eyes. He was hoping this was just a nightmare, that he’d wake up and this would all go away. I knew it wouldn’t. I’d been hoping the same for months now.
“Have you ever watched a loved one die? Watched his blood pour out onto the street?” I asked as I had four times before. My voice was as calm as it might have been receiving guests in my parlor. It hadn’t shaken since Jennings. I’d come a long way since then.
“No,” the man before me finally choked out. The struggle to appear calm was obvious and thereby failing. I might have pitied him, in another life, another time, but it was far too late for pity now. Maybe if I woke up I’d feel bad. Maybe if it turned out this was all one long nightmare, then I would let myself feel sorry. Right now I couldn’t.
“Have you ever had something denied you because of money?” I asked now. I noticed he had his eyes closed, as if not looking at me would make me go away.
“Yes.” He was sticking to one-word answers, it seemed. Less chance of his voice breaking.
“Was that thing justice?”
“No.”
I pressed the revolver harder to his forehead and caused him to lean away from the desk more, trying to get away from death. His eyes didn’t open. They didn’t need to. He knew my face was just inches away from his.
“You see, Mr. Wilson, this is because justice should not be for sale, and I dare say that in most places it is not,” I said, “But there are five men, four of which are now dead, who don’t seem to agree with that precept.”
“What about Kent? He started the whole thing!” Mr. Wilson protested. I only smiled at him indulgently. He was just scrambling, trying to find something, anything, to save his own life.
“Don’t worry, Sir. Mr. Kent will be dealt with,” I replied simply. Of course he would be among those to die. He killed my husband, or at any rate he arranged the business. I wonder sometimes if his opium dealings were worth his life. Clearly they were worth Charles’. It was here I chanced to look down. Why I’m not exactly certain, but the paper sitting in front of him caught my eyes. It was a report. My report. My fingers itched to pick it up almost as much as my eyes yearned to read it, but my curiosity was not so great as to make me lower my gun while he still had his.
I pulled his weapon free from its holster and stepped away from him slowly, turning my back on him as I flipped open the loading chamber and slipped the bullets into the leather purse hanging from my belt. The revolver made a dull thunk as it hit the opposite wall and bounced off onto the floor. I turned back to him. He hadn’t moved. I might have called him smart for it, but I knew it was terror rather than wits that had his ample behind fast to the seat.
“One by one, they all died,” I began, feeling as though I was talking more to myself than to him. This was my revenge, my nightmare, not his. Don’t ask me why I chose him to explain it all to, why he was the one to have the best understanding of my plans. I couldn’t tell you for sure. Maybe I knew that when Kent’s time came around I would be too eager to get it over with to tell the whole thing out. Maybe it was simply because I was at the most leisure to here in the deserted station where no one was likely to come by till morning. Maybe I just liked scaring him the most.
“Jennings was just out on patrol late at night. It wasn’t difficult. He never saw it coming. But I was a tad nervous then, as it was the first time after all, so I’ll admit that made it a bit more difficult. The way I got Carter I think was rather ingenious on my part. I lured him into an alley, you see, by screaming like a woman being attacked as he was walking past on his way home from the station. Hawthorn was simply patrolling the bridge. I liked that spot; so easy to just toss him over the rail. That’s why they haven’t found him yet, you know. Andrews I had to get a little closer. I suppose after hearing of the deaths of three of his friends he wasn’t prone to go anywhere by himself if it could be avoided. I had to wait for weeks for him to come out to use the outhouse at the right time.
“And now we’re back to you. I won’t get a chance to describe your death to anyone, or Kent’s for that matter, so I’ll give you a sort of prediction. You’ll be found sitting at this desk, right here. They’ll think you were just writing up reports all night and fell asleep at your work, but then they’ll see the blood, and they’ll know that whoever killed the other four policemen wasn’t finished with Andrews like they’d been hoping oh so tenuously. But I’ll walk away from this place without anyone suspecting me of anything more than loneliness. Then Mr. Kent will receive a visitor early tomorrow morning. She won’t give her name. She’ll just ask to see him on urgent business. When he enters the parlor she’ll greet him with a smile. Then she’ll hold a gun to his head, and ask him the question she’s asked five men before him, but she won’t wait for his answer to pull the trigger.
“When the housekeeper comes in to see what on earth is going on this mysterious visitor will have vanished. She’ll be riding the road out of town as fast as her horse will carry her, half hoping they won’t catch up, half hoping they will.
“You’re mad!” he exclaimed suddenly, looking all the more scared for it. I only smiled.
“Don’t go making judgments before you’ve heard the end of my story,” I scolded, “You see, when I began this venture I had thirteen bullets. Why Charles had thirteen just lying around the house and no more I can’t imagine, but there were thirteen. I began to think to myself, if I got away with all six steps of my revenge, what would I do with myself? I have very little desire to live, not while Charles is gone and there’s no purpose for me anymore. So I concluded that these thirteen bullets would be the measure of my life. Each one of them would take a life, and the last would be my own. So you see, there isn’t much reason to worry. Only six more creatures shall die after your affair is finished, and at the end of it all the one who caused so much pain will be herself dead.
“Now would you care to comment?” I asked. He didn’t say a word. His eyes were open now. I’m not sure if he wanted to look death in the face when it came or if he was just resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t melt away like mist before a rising sun.
It was then that I remembered the report which had so captured my attention before. It rustled as I lifted it from its bed of fellow papers, crinkling slightly as I held it under the lamp and began to read. It was rather fictionalized, as I had suspected it must be, but a few words stood out. “Refused to cooperate.” “No suspects.” “No leads of any kind.” “Case dropped.”
“I’d like you to hold this to your head, right here,” I said, tapping the place on his forehead where I’d been holding the revolver. When paper was pressed to skin metal followed on the other side. “We’re almost finished, I believe.”
“Please—”
“Don’t,” I snapped, “I’ve come too far for mercy.”
“What about my wife?” I believe he was crying or very close to it, but not for the thought of his wife all alone. He cried for himself. He cared for himself, if not solely, at least the most.
“She shouldn’t have married a greedy, spineless bastard,” I growled in response.
The gunshot echoed about the empty room, shattering the quiet like thunder on a still evening. I stepped away quickly to avoid the blood now spurting from the man’s head as he slumped forward onto the desk. The dark liquid began slowly spreading out from the corpse, staining the dead man’s work. I didn’t stay long. There was still work to be done.
* * *
I pushed my mare harder and harder as I neared the edge of town. They were on my tail and gaining fast. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t rest, not even for a moment. For all that I told Wilson, and even Kent just now, I didn’t care for my own life or freedom, with every foot of road I traveled I became more and more sure that this had been a lie. I chanced a look over my shoulder, justifying it by coupling a bullet to it. They were getting closer, but another shot and another glance told me that there was now one less in their party. Two less if my last shot had been good. I didn’t’ dare turn to find out.
I was breathing almost as hard as my horse as I came upon an inn that looked as if it had been deserted for many years. I pulled Cinna to a stop and led her inside. I couldn’t outrun them, not forever. I could either give in or make a stand. I wasn’t ready to give in just yet. After making sure Cinna was safe in a back room I crouched behind the bar and waited for them to catch up. I had one chance at this.
A shot whizzed through the broken window at the first sound of hooves outside the door. I couldn’t tell if one of them had gone down, but I heard a horse scream in either pain or terror. I waited for the return shot before firing another. Another scream, human this time. Now I fired without waiting, not giving them a chance to retaliate. Another man’s scream. I could just barely hear my own ragged breathing over the blood pounding in my veins. I fired another shot. No sound this time. I tried to fire again but received only a dull click in response.
Frantic, I scrambled to draw another bullet from the leather pouch at my hip. When finally I had it in my fingers I froze. This was the last one. Number thirteen. I drew in two long deep breaths and loaded the gun. This was the one to end my life. I raised the gun and fired another shot through the window, not waiting for any sound before retrieving Cinna from the back room and tearing out of the inn through a rear door.
Elizabeth Jamison was dead, so the last bullet had done its job. My life as it had been was over. I had done things that I could never take back, that I could never make up for. I couldn’t go back. I wouldn’t give up. Not yet.