[Fiction] Friday Challenge #179 for Oct 29nd, 2010

[Fiction] Friday Challenge #179 for Oct 29nd, 2010
In most parts of the world, Halloween is celebrated – in some form or another – this weekend. Your challenge this week is to write a horror scene (or something horrific) using a wet noodle, a styrofoam cup and a feather.

jax@theinceptionofchaos- Continued from challenge #178, Jax finds herself in a bit of a pickle...

*first draft

*jax excerpts may or may not appear in chronological order and may or may not make the final cut.

***

Wow, it worked fast. Jax woke up under what smelled like a damp pile of feathers, her vision blurred and her head throbbing where the handle of the gun connected with her temple. The last thing she could remember was the look on Agnes’s face when Jax bit her hand in a futile attempt to break free.

A sane human would have reacted in pain— Jax had even hoped for Agnes to loosen her grip providing her with the chance to inflict more damage—no such luck. Agnes, it seemed, was beyond normal human reactions. With a sinister laugh Agnes eyes glinted with evil and without flinching she plunged the needle deep into Jax’s neck. Jax crumpled like a wet noodle.

Once her eyes adjusted to the light in the room her surroundings surprised her. The pile of damp feathers were actually sumptuous soft linen’s, the dampness caused by her own body heat rather than something grungier. A soft lamp glowed in the corner and a fan lazily circled over head. The humidity in the air hung like a wet blanket and through the wooden blinds she could see palm trees dropping their fronds onto a sandy beach.

Jax shook her head sure she must be caught up in a dream, or an illusion of denial in the least. Agnes did not seem in the mood to treat Jax to a little holiday up north. No, Jax was sure what Agnes had in mind was permanent residence somewhere much further south. As in six foot under.

A noise outside the room made her jump. The door opened and a man Jax had never seen before walked in. Jax pulled the covers up to her shoulders and tried to appear nonchalant. Never show fear, the first lesson her mother had taught her when being confronted with a dangerous situation. Sure her mother had been talking about large stray dogs but the same rule surely applied to large strange men?

‘Good-morning. Did you sleep well?’ He pulled a service trolley into the room behind him and began setting up what looked like a breakfast tray.

Feigning aloofness Jax did not reply, but her stomach rumbled, giving away her weakness. She could smell freshly brewed coffee and could detect a hint of some type of cooked meat. Her mouth watered involuntarily and her stomach growled again. The man smiled good naturedly, ‘Good, glad to see you have your appetite back. You are wasting away under those bed clothes.’

Jax did a double take. ‘What do you mean you’re glad I have my appetite back? There’s nothing wrong with my appetite!’

He pushed the cart ahead of him and came to the side of the bed, ‘Well that’s not the impression I got yesterday.’

‘Yesterday?’ Jax panicked, ‘How long have I been here?’

‘Oh miss, I couldn’t tell you exactly, but I have been here two weeks and you have not eaten a morsel in all that time.’ The man smiled again but Jax picked up a sinister edge to his comment.

Two weeks! The bed head pressed hard into her back and Jax realised she had pressed herself as far away from the stranger as she physically could. Her head felt cloudy and the room swam in her vision as she tried to focus.

The smell of coffee became overpowering, and a metallic taste filled her mouth. The silver platter on the service cart was one of those fancy ones you see in posh restaurants, with a domed silver cover. What she thought was breakfast turned out to be a long row of medicinal vials and a very large syringe. There were no mugs or coffee percolators in sight. Jax tried to form words, to ask what was under the silver lid but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

He offered her a styrofoam cup of liquid, ‘Here, the humidity in these rooms can be terrible. You must be thirsty.’

Jax sniffed at the contents of the cup. Relieved to smell only water she emptied the cup in a desperate gulp.

‘Now, if you stay still miss, this won’t hurt a bit.’ Her waiter slash captor lifted the silver lid revealing her “breakfast”. Jax took one look at the severed head on the plate and fainted.

***

How To Play:


1. Check this page for the weekly challenge.

2. Write for a minimum of 5 minutes… AND THEN KEEP GOING!

3. NO editing.

4. On Friday, post it to your blog.

5. Come back to Write Anything and leave the link to your post using the Link generator.

6. Visit other’s posts and leave constructive comments.

7. Use Twitter (with our hashtag of #fictionfriday) or Facebook etc to tell your network about the stories posted up.

8. Come back again next week!

[Fiction] Friday Challenge #178 for Oct 22nd, 2010

Include this theme in your story… After a long night, a hunter sees something he/she cannot believe

[Fiction] Friday Challenge #178 for Oct 22nd, 2010

another addition for 'Jax@theInceptionofchaos'

*first draft

**jax excerpts may or may not appear in chronological order and may or may not make the final cut.

***

'And now the gun.' Gregor held out his hand expectantly.

Jax stared at him aghast, 'I'm not giving you my gun. You gave it to me, it was a gift. You can't take back, that's Indian giving!'

'Seriously?'Gregor was suitably disbelieving.

Jax enjoyed his puzzled expression, it made him look like a defenceless meer cat. If he would twitch his nose and scurry away Jax could get on with the job.

'Jax, hand it over. I'm not kidding.'
He tried to be threatening but it was hard to take him seriously now she had compared him to a meer cat.
'Jax!'
'No Gregor.' It was time to get serious, 'You are not getting my gun and you are not going to sabotage this mission. I don't care what you think; Frank believes this guy is the leader of the Opposition and I'm going to do my job.'

The neighbourhood waited in silence, she could hear every peep and squeak in the surrounding area as she walked away from his frustrated twitching face and tried not to laugh out loud. A meer cat, why did she not see it before?
As she expected he quietly came after her, although not as quiet as she might have hoped. 'Shh!'she held her fingers to her lips and gave him a fierce look. He shrugged. Clearly he decided to make the mission as hard as possible without completely giving them away-- and possibly getting them killed in the process. Why he didn't just wrestle the gun off her, tie her up and throw her over his shoulder and be done with it.

That might be a nice way to go actually, she paused to enjoy the thought as Gregor rounded the corner. Completely blind in the dark he crashed straight into her, killing the fantasy.They tumbled to the ground, landing in an awkward although equally pleasing fantasy kind of position.  Jax landed flat on her back and Gregor fell in a heap on top of her. She shivered at the thrill of his groin pressing into her as he quickly scrambled off. She really should remember that not everyone could see as well in the dark as she. Much to her delight Gregor was blushing furiously and abruptly turned his back-- not before she caught sight of a pleasantly large bulge in the front of his trousers.

'Why don't you wait here and give your self a minute?'she whispered cheekily before taking the chance to escape. Gregor spun around to grab her but she managed to slip through his clasp and melt away in the dark before he could try again.
'Jax,' he hissed, 'Jax!'

The sound of him crashing about made her giggled. By the sounds of it she would have no trouble on her approach, Gregor was the perfect decoy. He would come in handy lost out there, if the motion detectors were set off the dogs would go for him first and leave her free to finish the job.

A line of trees and a low wall blocked her path. Without hesitation she slipped through and over. She underestimated the wall and dropped into the senator's garden, twisting her ankle on the landing. Fuck, fuck fuckity fuck. Pain shot up her leg but she didn't have time to waste on being soft, her watch read 3am, perfect timing. Anyone inside the house would be at their weakest, drowsiest point and reflexes would be delayed. It was now or get into one hell of a messy tangle with a pissed off crooked politician. Looking around she noted the familiar landscape, Triton had done a brilliant job in his description, everything was exactly as he said. After a few seconds of careful observation she located all of the security devices.

The senator was in the house alone, his family conveniently away on vacation. She focused hard on the surrounding noises and tuned into the house, the only sounds coming from within were the whir of electrical appliances on standby and a gentle snoring coming from the second floor. Jax made her move.

'Jax!' Gregor appeared at her side and roughly took her arm.
'Shit!' Where did he come from? She had had about enough of these games, 'I have a job to do, once upon a time, so did you!'
Gregor took a deep breathe and exhaled long and hard. Jax had learnt that this was a sign he was at the end of his patience. A small thrill caused her to shiver, he was too damn sexy for her to be mad for long.

'Look...' she started to speak as a hand clamped over her mouth and she felt a gun in the small of her back. Gregor's eyes popped out of his head in shock, 'Mum wait.'
Mum?Jax  thought as she spun around to face her assailant. It was Jax's turn to stare in shock, Agnes looked completely different to last time they meet. Gone was the perfectly presented elegant blonde sleuth. In her place was a crazed eyed, wild haired one armed demon holding a gun that aimed directly at her temple. Jax swallowed hard, OK maybe Gregor did have her best interests at heart.

'We can't wait any longer for you to get over your schoolboy crush Greg.' Agnes said gruffly.'Now Jax, why don't we go for a little drive?'

'Mum?' Jax looked to Gregor for an explaination.

He shrugged meekly and followed behind without the hint of protest. Caught on this detail Jax barely registered the fact that she was being kidnapped and dragged away by a mad woman who had chopped her own arm off. Mum?

***

How To Play:
1. Check this page for the weekly challenge.

2. Write for a minimum of 5 minutes… AND THEN KEEP GOING!

3. NO editing.

4. On Friday, post it to your blog.

5. Come back to Write Anything and leave the link to your post using the Link generator.

6. Visit other’s posts and leave constructive comments.

7. Use Twitter (with our hashtag of #fictionfriday) or Facebook etc to tell your network about the stories posted up.

8. Come back again next week!

Kate Grenville - The Writing Book -exercise 1.2 Self Portrait

The act of putting words on the page is by no means a controlled activity. From idea to text, these words have a mind of their own.

This is a fact I am well aware of, most of my writing surprises the hell out of me. This is one of the reason's I am so enamoured with writing, when I sit down at the computer I often experience the same thrill as sitting down with a new novel by a much loved author (yes, I do love my work, I do think I am brilliant, and I do get excited about what I will write next and no, I will not apologise!).

Generally I have some idea of where I am going with a particular piece of writing but more often than not the story takes twists and turns that I do not expect.


This very thing happened when I sat down to tackle  Kate Grenville's The Writing Book exercise 1.2 - Self Portrait.

I fully intended to write a self portrait of my self, that is what the exercise instructed and really, if not a portrait

 of my self, then it would not be a self portrait no would it?

Other than the name--which was added after the exercise took on a life of it's own--what follows does indeed start of as reflective of what my mirror tells me most mornings...

@jax #theinceptionofchaos

*first draft

**jax excerpts may or may not appear in chronological order and may or may not make the final cut.

 

Self-Portrait

If someone asked you to describe Jax, the first thing you would say is ‘Oh you know, she’s average looking.’ And she wouldn’t mind because it’s true. Jax is of average height, if a little on the short side, 162cm, not tiny but not tall. Slim but not skinny nor chunky, light brown hair bleached by the sun. Her mum calls it honey blond when she’s trying to lift her spirits, Jax appreciates the effort. Her eyes are sometimes green, sometimes grey and sometimes blue, depending on her mood and the time of day. She has straight-ish teeth, a few freckles, a normal sized nose, average smile, and an average figure. The second thing you would say is ‘Be careful what you say around her, she hears and see’s everything.’ She’s not nosy, you would reassure your listener, no not at all, in fact she tries her hardest not to pay attention— she just can’t help it. You see she has 20-20 vision and 100% hearing accuracy, acute attention to detail and a memory to boot. And if those things don’t make her stand out in the crowd, then her smart mouth and quick wit certainly make you take notice. In a strange twist, she actually enjoys her talents but hates the attention people pay to them. For the most part she wishes everyone would leave her alone – people rarely do. Kids in school flocked to her, parents love her, teachers tried to tame her, and the government has their sights set on her.
copyright 2010, Tanya Bell

Happy writing!

Kate Grenville - The Writing Book - exercise 1.4 Take a single word...

The thing I love about writing prompts is how they magically turn into stories in their own right.

Over the last few months, as I have slowly made my way through 'The Writing Book' I have been thrilled to find a new character developing. 'Jax' made her debut in exercise 1.13 and slowly but surely she has left her mark upon my imagination.

I have decided to stick with Jax and apply her to all of Grenville's exercises in future. I have plotted a path for her in a tricky new world and I find myself once again at the beginning of a love affair.

 @jax #theinceptionofchaos

*first draft

**jax excerpts may or may not appear in chronological order and may or may not make the final cut.

Jax is my new heroine.

I will not give away the plot as I hope to turn these exercises in to a action/adventure YA sometime in the not so distant future but I will share the first draft of each exercise from now on in.

Buckle your seat belts, you are in for a wild political ass kicking ride.

Grenville (p.14)  - Exercise 1.4 - Write a single word at top of page and write for 60 seconds

iPad

Jax raced through the school halls as the bell shrilled for the second time. If she was late again Mr Whatsit would have a pink fit. The door was inching closed as she rushed through and the Whatsit’s face turned purple. Simo moved a book bag from the seat next to her and Jax crashed into it, ‘Cutting it close aren’t you?’

She grinned, ‘Got lost in space’.

Simo rolled her eyes and pulled the iPad from Jax’s bag, ‘What kept you this time?’ She hit the on button and scanned the recent history. As she suspected every page was a news link of some kind, all political party updates. The latest headline appeared to jump from the screen—‘Nation Divided, the three-way split of the new government.’

‘What’s this?’ Simo hissed as Whatsit turned to the interactive white board.

‘Shh!’ Jax nodded to the front of the room, pretending to be enthralled in the lesson. The picture on the whiteboard flickered and a large round head appeared.

Whatsit adjusted the sound and turned to hush the classroom, ‘Now class, this is the last day of career week and for those of you who have yet to settle on a learning pathway,’ he raised his eyes and gave a weary look to Jax. She grinned back. The teacher sighed and turned to the rest of the class, ‘as I was saying, we have a special visitor today, some might say we saved the most interesting career for last, and I would appreciate if you would all listen attentively and save your questions until Minister Rogue has finished speaking.’

‘Good morning class.’ The Senator’s voice crackled over the line. His eyes scanned the room and settled on Jax. ‘Nice to see you made it to class on time Jacqueline’.

Copyright 2010, Tanya Bell