So as I mentioned in the opening of this month, I will be writing a continuous example piece this month because I am not writing an example next month. This also poses quite a challenge to try and make a solid through-line with each of the opening and closing lines that the writers have been given. So without further ado, part 2…
“I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
My fist throbbed from slamming it into the thick skull of the cowboy abomination. Now this really ruins my day, I mean it’s a shitty one to begin with but come on! I wake up a zombie after taking out my target; I find my iPod is also dead; The security guard has been replaced with a six-foot Toby Keith fan and now I’m struggling to come across as cool and heroic in my own fucking short story! I find myself questioning if my psychiatrist was right when he said that life is a half full kinda place.
By now he had regained his footing and was bearing down on me with a look of pure hatred. I don’t know if he was angry with me for his jaw or his employer – probably both – but the post-mortem rage was looking directly at me. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and lifted me to eye level.
“Lishen you little sshhit, I’ve been through hell and back thish morning with the assashination attempt…”
“Assassination,” I cut in. I think the head on the desk behind us proved the attempt was successful. He punched me hard in the stomach, which caught me off guard and so I let him have his little victory.
“Ash I wash shaying, you try to kill my employer which leadsh to me being killed. I wake up with thish acrid tashte in my mouth and shuddenly I’m eating my shecond-in-comma-…” the last part was lost on me as I had placed my foot in his bollocksh; apologies, I couldn’t resist. He dropped me and I sprung back on landing into a roundhouse to his face. His bulk and brute strength gave him an advantage over me but he was slow and heavy which meant in a flurry of hits I had him on the offensive. I continued to throw punch after punch as he tried to block them but he was losing ground.
“She’s dead you boneheaded prick. Why are you still fighting for her?” I chanced between blows, slightly bored with the monotonous drumming against his abdomen.
“There’sh an antidote. Shomewhere in thish room, she hash the formula to bring me back to life.”
I stopped swinging at this. From the brief experience of life after death I had so far endured I was not too pained to continue; however, it’s bloody cold and I can’t really taste much so I wouldn’t mind drinking that formula before going for my post assassination steak. What I wasn’t expecting was this was payback for the groin shot. He swung his fist and caught me right it the side of the head and the room spiralled. I came to about a minute later to see the big bastard bent double.
“Har har har, puny hitman can’t even take little shmack to shide of head!” he howled, beating his hand against his thigh and wiping his eyes with the back of his other. There was a small glass vial in his hand which glowed a neon violet. He lifted the vial to his lips and drank the whole thing in one, letting the last little bit drip into his mouth. He started laughing again, but this time it seemed more maniacal. Smoke started to erupt from his nostrils and his ears but he kept cackling. Purple fumes rose off his skin and he kept on cackling. His skin was going visibly pale and hair a mottled shade of green and he kept laughing. Before we cut hard into the copyright of another comic series and also had to lower ourselves into a place that can’t even remember they don’t have to put Comics after their company name – the C stands for Comics, for gods’ sake – I looked to the heavens.
“What have you done, Steven. What have you started?”
Novel Dreamers 