Home » Writer's Blogs » Ken-McCreless

The Inner Voice

Ken McCreless ^(1,693) Bronze Level Author

Ken McCreless

http://www.kenmccreless.com

Doin' the Chest Pain Shuffle!

Posted Tuesday, November 03, 2009 (4 days 23 hours ago.) Viewed 1,378 times.

Greetings Fellow Travelers ...

Yes, indeed.

Once again I am sitting in the ED, waiting. This is the second time in as many weeks that I have started my shift as usual, and ended up here- with chest pain and a ridiculously high blood pressure.

And, once again, I am dealing with a Nitro headache.

In between ED visits I have seen a doctor, gotten back on meds for BP, picked up a new script for anxiety, and had a treadmill stress test.

As yet I have no real answer. So, I am doing the one thing that always makes me feel better.

Writing.

It's a little weird. I am using my Blackberry, which I have used before to submit articles, even with "Wall-to-Wall.". This is my first time writing with wires attached to me, however.

Why "Chest Pain Shuffle?"

Why not? Right now I can't think of a better phrase to describe what I'm going through. And, at this moment, I don't know what is yet to come.

The nitro patch is doing its job- my BP is down. Still waiting for the Dr.

Was it the Little River Band that sang "Time for a Cool Change?"

"I know that's it's time for a cool change.".

Indeed, it is.

More later.

Permalink Comments (37)

Wall-to-Wall

Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 (10 days 3 hours ago.) Viewed 251 times.

"This is too easy," he said.

His notation was simple. John M, followed by two small x's.

"Outcome: done."

Tap, tap, tap. "Share."

Moments later, a response.

"Yes, I would love to meet you. Anywhere you like and I'll bring the beer!".

Tap, tap, tap. "Share.".

"Done. See you there!"

Cracking his girlfriends password was also too easy. She used the same one for most everything.

Six hours later and he was at it again. The morning would bring a snow storm and horrific media attention to his heinous and seemingly random kills.

It would not take them too long to make the Facebook connection, but, when they did, he would be three states away, spending her cash.

She would be with him too, just in case he needed a hostage; gone now but back in the morning with her stuff and her money- unless ...

Naaahhh!! She would never think him clever enough to get past her internet security.

"Bing!" New notification. Doug Saunders? Wants to be friends?

"Sure, Doug-ee, we'll be GREAT friends. I'll line you up right next to John Morgan. I've got just enough room in the trunk for you, Mister man!"

Bing!

Bing!

Bing!

He was beginning to feel overwhelmed. It was not easy to admit, but, she was much more popular than he had feared.

He wanted to be the only man in her life by the time the two of them struck out in the morning. However, his grand plan was hatched when he thought there was three others, at most.

Bing!

Bing!

Bing!

When would it end?

Bing!

Bing!

Bing!

He could take no more. As the bings kept coming, he turned off the computer, grabbed his pistol and went through the kitchen door to the garage, took his place next to John Morgan, then joined him in eternity.

The pizza guy just kept ringing the door bell.

Bing!

Bing!

Bing!

Permalink Comments (39)

Thread- part III

Posted Sunday, October 18, 2009 (20 days 12 hours ago.) Viewed 354 times.

III

There was never any hound dog with a keener sense of smell than what Jack enjoyed. It was a matter of minutes before he was back on her trail.

She was home now. Her parents had died years ago, leaving her to raise herself. That was how she had come to find the cloth.

When the EMS crew carried her parents away they had been dead for over six weeks. It was their advanced state of decay that had prompted the disposal of the very cloth she now wore.

Jack stood outside her door, arrogant and clueless. She knew he was there, and why he was there. She also knew that his time was over.

With a wave of his hand the door blew apart and he entered. She stood silent as he approached her, her calmness causing him to pause.

A surge of familiarity coursed through his body, weakening his knees so that he stumbled backwards trying to stay on his feet. In the single most undignified moment in his centuries of living, Jack fell, landed on his butt and stayed there.

Jack was in trouble. Who was she? How did such a wilting flower become so powerful?

He rolled to his left just in time to avoid a direct hit from a woman who not only was not a high school student, but could fly. She crashed into the wall next to the gaping hole where the front door used to be, laughing as studs splintered and wallpaper burst into flames.

" What is this? You forgot me, Jack? Shame on you!" He must have, he had no idea who his "prey" could possibly be.

She was laughing again. It was a sound that made a man sick to his stomach, a man who has been feasting on human flesh for over 400 years, a man whose taste for blood seemed to have no end.

Now he knew what a fish felt like right before hitting the red hot skillet.

Jack managed to stand up, with help from a sturdy roll top desk that had escaped destruction. It took a full minute before his eyes stopped spinning long enough to focus. Then he saw her.

She was about 15 feet away, her feet 6 inches off the floor.

There had never a moment of fear in Jack, but now he seemed to be made of it. It got worse when he saw her shoes.

They were his mothers.

" Who are you, then," he said, trying to regain some sense of dignity, "why are wearing my mothers shoes?"

" Because she gave them to me, when she told me how to destroy you."

Not 2 hours ago he had been looking forward to her torture, dismemberment, and death. Now, Jack just wanted out.

The fire was now eating through the living room, growing by the second. Jack decided to leave any way he could. He found his escape blocked, not by fire, but by the bracelet that had fused his wrist with the desk. The bracelet itself had changed into a solid piece, tight enough to cut circulation from his hand. Then it cut his hand off completely.

Jack screamed as the blood poured from his wrist, but was silenced by the shrinking necklace, one single sharpened tooth tearing into his throat.

He was dying. Jack, the Grand Leader of the BloodLust Group was dying. His substitute, the one who did the killing, was standing in front of him, enjoying every minute.

She was no longer wearing the dress. It had been replaced by an outfit that might be worn by the COO of a large cosmetics company. She chuckled when she saw the dismay on his face.

The dress, the old ragged dress, was finished; burned and tattered. She reached down and pulled a thread loose and held it up for Jack to see.

"Strong thread, right Jack? Strong enough to make a necklace and bracelet with, wouldn't you say?"

Jack felt his necklace tighten in response.

As the fire continued to destroy the house around him, Jack learned how it was her parents he had destroyed to gain house leadership, how his own mother had grieved over the treachery of her son, and how she knew he had to be exterminated. The last words Jack would ever hear, as his head separated from his body, were these:

" And I'll have a beautiful mantle built, just for your ugly head!"

Six months later, She walked into the Group headquarters and smiled.

" Hello Jack! Had another great party tonight, you should have been there!"

Jack had no response whatsoever.

Permalink Comments (16)

Thread- part II

Posted Sunday, October 18, 2009 (20 days 12 hours ago.) Viewed 142 times.

II

She was easy enough to follow, her threadbare dress stood out like a lighthouse on an isolated shore. She had made it herself, several sewing lessons short of mediocre.

Anyone with any fashion sense at all would question her choice of cloth. Even brand new it was a bland, off-white fabric with barely distinguishable streaks of color. It was not new when she made the dress with it, however.

She had found it while searching the alley behind the county morgue. It had been used by the local EMS service as a pitiful shroud for those found dead without any kind of identification. The faint streaks of color had taken a hit from the massive amounts of bleach it took to overcome the blood stains from countless uses.

But she loved it. She felt the power of the human spirits that had gazed down upon the lifeless vehicle they once used to tool around the earth, through the cloth that she now wore.

She felt safe wearing that dress, taking it off only long enough to wash it. Even then, she wore a large swatch of the leftover cloth as a scarf.

The power of the cloth was being tested as she walked along. Something was wrong, some evil was after her, but she dare not look around. Her goal was to get home.

Jack kept pace with her. His knew how things would turn out, that she would be his to use as he saw fit, to drink her life and create jewelry with her dental work.

There would have to be a change, though. He felt a sense of imminent boredom. It was just too easy. Where was the challenge?

She stopped, turning in a slow and deliberate manner, until her eyes locked onto his. That was the only time Jack had felt unsure, and even then it was but a split second, and was dismissed just as quick.

It diverted his attention long enough for her to slip from his sight.

Frustrated, Jack looked around as if mentally recording every detail of his surroundings.

I am not stealing from you, I am retrieving that which was stolen from me.

Jack shook as the words were whispered into his soul-less spirit. He was even startled by the sound of his bracelet as he spun around, wanting to find the source of this message.

He stood motionless for several minutes, calming himself. He had been close enough to her to get a lock on her blood scent, and he now used that memory to determine the direction of her flight.

There would be no deviation from his original plan. She holds no power over me, he thought aloud.

His confidence was so high he did not notice that his necklace had become shorter in length, that a few of the teeth had fused together.

Permalink Comments (18)

Thread- part I

Posted Sunday, October 18, 2009 (20 days 12 hours ago.) Viewed 128 times.

I

His odor was that of a dumpster in mid-July. His movements were purposeful and silent, except for the clacking of the human teeth that made up his necklace and bracelet. Scratches in a macabre floral design decorated his wrist and chest where the chipped molars and incisors had left their marks.

Still, no one seemed to notice him standing on the corner. Many other young men that actually attended the high school also wore dirty Vans on their feet, tattered and stained blue jeans, with the raggedy tail of their sleeveless camo shirts hanging out.

It was no accident that he went unnoticed, even with the toothy accessories. Jack had been studying the goings on at the high school for the last six weeks, since he had begun to grow bored with his latest victim. It was her cracked molar that had opened up an old scar on his chest, resulting in a tiny rivulet of blood.

Jack ran his index finger over the crimson thread and tasted it. He enjoyed the flavor of it as much as the artsy, swirling stain left behind.

That's why I'm the leader, he told himself.

Everyone else in his "house" would "milk" their victims, bringing their vile concoction on their night to provide refreshments, then leave them in a deserted area to wake up and try to decide if it really happened. But not Jack.

Jack, well, he was an updated version of the old school method- kill your prey by draining them. His underlings, fellow house members, had developed a kinder, gentler protocol, one that involved a narcotic specifically designed to reduce vivid memories into "did that really happen," vague wisps of mental smoke that could be dismissed as bad pepperoni. The drug was undetectable by even the latest forensics.

But Jack grew tired of that nonsense. While the others found fulfillment in pursuits outside the house, he found he needed more interaction with his mice. This initial desire grew into lust, then into a methodology of choice, surveillance, acquisition, harvest and disposal.

Jack enjoyed every step.

Now, it was time to choose.

A car plastered with blotches of bondo and primer passed by, thumping and spewing both music and smoke in an effort to offend as many as possible. When the smoke cleared his heartbeat quickened.

She shuffled along, trying not to be noticed by any of her classmates. With her head down and her arms trying to force her books into her chest, you would think she was fighting for progress against a full-on hurricane. All she wanted was to slip into the library unnoticed.

Jack noticed.

He sat a few tables down, confident in his confidence, not even a book before him; watching her. The campus security guard came over and told him to leave, that he could not be there unless he was a student. Jack allowed himself to be escorted outside.

It might have ended there, if the man had left his hands off Jack. But, since his endless blathering had not won him a hot date with the attractive young librarian, Gus needed to flex his manliness. This would get him some action, for sure.

He drew his baton and pushed Jack along the sidewalk.

" I KNOW I have dealt with you before," he said, loud enough to draw yet another audience, a largely unimpressed group of student council geeks. He wanted them to be impressed.

This did not fit in his plan, so when the baton struck his shoulder, Jack seized it, holding it in place against his clavicle. To the crowd both inside and out, it appeared as if the baton merely fell from the hand of its owner.

To the general public, the massive coronary that killed Gus later that day was the result of a poor diet and exercise regimen. For Jack, it was an opportunity for an up and coming slayer, a protege, to practice his craft, and was good riddance of bad, annoying rubbish.

With the security guard in a near catatonic state, and his prize making her way from all the excitement, Jack resumed the hunt.

Permalink Comments (14)

Archives:

November 2009
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30
« Oct

All Posts by Ken McCreless