Grueberfest: Breaker (Late but worth it!) (1063 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.85 on 34 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Anthony Locascio (View user info) at 2007-11-19 07:45:35 EST
After royally mucking up my entry into Grueberfest, I was sort of pissed because I had good plans for the title I'd been given. Someone urged me in the comment section that I should write it anyway. They were right. I did. And I think it turned out damn good. Enjoy, my brothers.
------------------
He checked the peephole twice and didn't see anything. After waiting a few moments, the sound came again, almost a knock but not quite. After a few moments he hesitantly opened the door, leaving the chain on. The bald face peering up at him immediately sent him the warning signal that he shouldn't have opened the door.
"Greetings, Kent!" The writer, a full ten inches shorter and a good bit wider than him, peered out at him from behind a stack of books. Greasy strands of hair were combed across his shiny balding pate in a pathetic attempt at coverage. The occupant of the apartment, six foot four and two hundred and thirty pounds of solid muscle, was suddenly somewhat nervous. "I come bearing gifts!"
"Mister Reynolds," he stuttered, trying to find an excuse not to let him in. "I don't think I have an open appointment today, but you can tell Stacey that I'll be by..."
"Oh, you misunderstand me, Mister Reynolds! I haven't come for any personal training. When a man reaches my girth, he realizes that there is a journey back to physical fitness that is too long and too expensive in terms of time. I'm a busy man, you understand, which is why I didn't lightly take my afternoon off to come by to bring you these. Can't you spare a few moments for one of your faithful customers?"
Kent cleared his throat nervously. "Um....sure....why don't you...." He fumbled with the chain. "Why don't you come in, then?"
"Why thank you!" The inflection of his voice made it sound as though he had no expectation of being invited in, and yet there was a subtle undercurrent of sarcasm in it. He remembered the words Stacey had told him. "He's used to total control, in his books, in his work, in everything. When he talks, you'll feel you have no choice but to listen."
As the shorter, corpulent man wobbled past him with the stack of books, he realized she had been dead on.
Glenn Reynolds, a man who usually didn't make his way into the part of town were Kent lived, dropped the books down on the scratched and poorly-finished living room table with a heavy WHAP! He deftly spun the stack around so the spines showed. The personal trainer swallowed and realized he hadn't moved from his place by the door. "There you have it my friend! My entire collection, twenty-six books in all. Each lovingly autographed and signed by me. I'll have you know, it wasn't that easy to get these. My publishing house has been so overwhelmed with demand they were loathe to even give me these courtesy copies, but I said it was for a friend and simply had to be done."
Kent stood silent for several moments before finding the words. "Um...thanks. Thanks very much."
Glenn cocked his head questioningly, then looked around at the décor. The cheap walkup was the best Kent could afford, haphazardly staffed with mismatched furniture from big box stores. Personal training was a far more cutthroat business than he had ever imagined, and as his dreams of touring a professional bodybuilding circuit had receded over the years, and rent money, a leering and grinning beast with dollar signs for eyes, had been his constant and dreaded monthly visitor for a long time.
"Funny. I would think that you could afford something better than this on what I pay you, Kent. I mean, I take good care of the people that work for me. I write about horror, but there're few things to rival horror as a bill in hand and a big zero in the bank account."
"I have a lot of debt," Kent said brusquely, and was instantly sorry that he had said anything.
"You're telling me," Reynolds shot back. He strolled leisurely into the kitchen, nonchalantly opening the fridge and rummaging around in it. "Poor taste in beer, too. But it'll have to do," He straightened with a Miller Lite and twisted the top off of it, thowing the cap on the linoleum.
Kent thought again back to Stacey's words. "He'll happily walk all over you if you let him. Once he has his foot in the door, he'll assume total control of you if you don't watch him every second."
He cleared his throat again. "Mister Reynolds, I appreciate the gift but this is my day off and this is my private household." The words sounded as fake as the courage behind them. He felt anger somewhere down in his gut - he outweighed, outmuscled the man easily, and yet the adrenaline rush from the nervousness was making his hands tremble slightly. "I'm afraid I am going to have to ask you to excuse me, as I'm quite busy,"
The writer strolled back into the living room, gesturing with the beer bottle. "Kent, my friend! I mean, we are friends, aren't we? That's why I brought you my entire collection, not something I do for just anybody, but only a friend. And friends share, right? That's why I'm asking you to share a little of your time with me."
"Mister Reynolds..."
"Please, please, Kent, the formalities, call me Glenn!"
"MISTER Reynolds, you are my employer, but I don't think we really know each other well enough to call each other friends. The last time we spoke was over a year ago when you first hired me as your wife's personal trainer. I don't think we've shared so much as a 'hello' since then."
Glenn gestured with the bottle again. "Very true, and point taken, but like I said, friends share, and the two of us have been sharing my wife for almost ten months, so we must be friends, right? After all, if we weren't, what would we be?"
He froze, unsure of what to do. Stacey had told him that he would be able to do that. Was he asserting that he knew for certain, or was it all a bluff to draw him out? He got his answer soon enough.
"I mean, maybe 'sharing' is the wrong word for it. I mean, she hasn't shared my bed in quite awhile. But you, Kent, you and she have been quite busy. In your bed and mine. In the house of the man that paid you and recommended you to others. The man who's money bought your food and kept a roof over your head."
"It wasn't something we had planned," Kent protested. He closed the door and locked it. It was obvious he wouldn't be getting rid of the writer as soon as he had hoped. "It just...happened."
"Sure, of course! I write about it all the time!" Reynold's took another knock on the beer. "You come in, the floors are waxed, you're in your socks, you slip, lose your balance, and insert your penis into my wife's vagina! Probably my fault for putting in terrazzo instead of hardwood flooring. I agonized over that, don't you know, but I didn't think about..."
"What do you care?" Kent suddenly snapped. If he was going to seize control of this situation, he figured, it would be best to do it before things got out of control. He clenched one of his fists. It wouldn't come to that. He wouldn't let it come to that, he told himself. If worse came to worse, he'd be more than happy to throw the sanctimonious prick out on his ear. He could do it easily enough to three hundred pounds of iron plates, no reason he couldn't do it to an overweight, balding man fifteen years his senior.
Glenn dipped his head and took on a wry grin. "What do I care?"
"Yeah, that's right. If you ever loved her, whatever you think love is, you don't now. She told me about you, told me how you go into your office and don't come out for days. You have Chinese delivered to your side door and ignore her when she cooks a whole dinner for you. And I know that you hit her. At least the one time, but once is enough. You spend your days thinking of this," he rapped his knuckles on the stack of books. "This is sick, you understand?" He flipped the top book over. The cover was solidly black, with droplets of blood over the crimson block-print title, The Bloody Blades. "This is sick and you're sick for having thought it up, you understand? Everything you write is vile, perverse and disgusting."
"Vile, perverse, disgusting, AND number two on the New York Times bestseller list, Kent," Glenn countered sarcastically.
"I don't give a good goddamn!"
Glenn shrugged. "Me either. After twenty-three books at number one, number two is a bit of a let down." He seemed unconcerned at the ragings of the much larger man.
"I don't care if you and your legion of sick Fangoria assholes fall off the earth. And I don't care about your money, or your job, or whatever. Stacey and I are in love. I wanted to tell you, but she's afraid of you. Why, I don't know. You're just..."
"Go on, say it, Kent. No need to worry about hurt feelings now, right? I'm just..."
"You're just a little man. A little man with a sick brain." He looked directly into Reynold's eyes when he said it. It felt good to have turned the tables, to be on offense against someone who clearly was unused to being on defense. Glenn looked nonplussed.
"Maybe so, a sick little man. Balding, yes. Overweight, no question. But you forget two things. First, Stacey is mine. She swore an oath between herself and God, whatever or whoever He is, and I intend to see that she honors it. You hopeless romantics forget that you exist in a world where obligation and duty piss on love on a daily basis. That's number one. And number two is that, sick little man that I may be, I'm also rich. Very rich, and I as such I have some power to do some very unpleasant things."
"You don't scare me, Reynolds, and I think I've had enough of your threats. I could do some unpleasant things to your face right now, but I'll settle for throwing you out on your ass."
"You're never going to see her again."
The words sent an icy spasm through his guts. He held his composure, but only just barely. "We'll let Stacey decide on that. Between you and me, if you want a divorce, she'll be happy to take it, no strings. That's how bad she wants to be rid of you. You're leaving now." He grabbed the shoulder of Reynold's expensive camel-hair coat and began literally dragging him towards the door. It was hardly difficult, and Kent found he enjoyed exercising his own brand of power over the little jerk.
"She doesn't have much to say about anything these days, Kent."
He turned and lifted the writer off the floor, the cords straining in his neck. "What have you done, you sick little creep? Where is she?"
"You might have saved her, Kent. Up until our little meeting, I thought it was me, my fault. I know who I am, not an easy man to live with, not an easy personality to deal with. I thought to myself, maybe it was I who was wrong. Maybe I wasn't really meant to be married, and perhaps I could afford to just cut my losses. But your attitude has confirmed what I suspected. This is hardly a Shakespearean love affair, but two rutting animals unable to control their genitals. I hardly think I'm going to take a back seat to something like that."
"What the hell have you done with her, you sick fuck!" Kent's hands flexed, catching a fold of flesh in Glenn's armpit. He winced. "I'm calling the police right now!"
He threw Reynold's out of his way and stormed towards the kitchen. The words drifted over his shoulder as he picked up the phone and dialed.
"Officer, I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. My wife is in Europe for a month. I'll be joining her next week."
Kent looked back at Reynold's, his eyes smoking. The 911 operator answered loudly enough for both men to hear.
"By the time they find her, she'll be rotten down to the bone."
There was a hesitant moment of silence. The operator repeated her request for the nature of the emergency. Numbly, Kent mumbled that he had made a mistake, wrong number, hung the phone up, then smashed the receiver into the writer's grinning face. He felt a wet crunch that was probably a tooth breaking. The cheap plastic phone crumbled from the force of the strike, sending buttons and a green circuit board tumbling onto the linoleum. Strings of blood flew into the air as Reynolds went down in a heap. He hauled the limp man back to his feet and drove the breath out of him with a fist in the gut, dropping him back to the floor.
"Where is she, you bastard. Where?" He screamed. Glenn coughed and spat a gob of blood onto the floor.
"I can't tell you where she is, but I can tell you what she's doing. Dying." Kent kicked him, snapping his head back. He seized him by the collar and dragged him to his feet, putting him in a chokehold from behind. His forearm flexed against the gasping writer's throat.
"If she's dead, so are you, asshole. I'll snap your neck like a twig. I'm going to let you get a little air. When I do, you'd better tell me where she is, or you're a dead man."
He slackened his grip, only a little. It was several moments of coughing before Reynolds was able to gasp out the words "Okay, okay," Kent let him drop to the floor.
"Where, Reynolds? Tell me now."
"My lake house. I'll take you."
Kent fished around in Reynolds pockets and came up with a set of silver keys. "Why don't we take your car?"
The trainer shoved the writer out his front door and down the stairs. "Go ahead and run, Reynolds," he taunted. "I have a feeling I can catch you, and when I do, I'll make sure you never run anywhere again." He gestured at the injured man with the knife he had taken from his kitchen. Cheap Chinese-made crap, but good enough to cut the tendons behind the knee if he tried to run. Never needs sharpening! the package had proudly proclaimed.
Glenn Reynolds was indeed a rich man, Kent found out. He had never seen the insignia before - two wings spreading outward with a large Copperplate "B" in the center. He had dimly wondered if it was a Buick of some sort, but the large and vaguely menacing black car he came to was anything but.
"Bentley GT," Reynolds grinned up at Kent, blood ringing his mouth. "Really no better way to get through downtown LA."
"Shut up," Kent said tersely. He stripped the belt out of Glenn's trench coat and used it to firmly tie his hands behind his back. "If you struggle, I swear I'll break both your arms."
He shoved the writer into the passenger seat, intentionally knocking the side of his head against the window frame as he did so.
The Bentley growled fiercely as its five hundred horses came to life. He lurched it out of the space, nearly bashing into the elevator sidewall, then made his way out of the garage. "Okay, Reynolds, this is how it goes. We're going straight to wherever Stacey is. We do not pass go, we do not collect two hundred dollars, we go right there. If wherever you tel me to go is not where Stacey is, I'll assume that you've killed her. You won't like what happens after that. I don't care how much you beg and plead after that. I don't care if she really is alive and you offer to take me to her. I'll make you hurt until you're fucking dead, understand? You have one chance, and only one, to tell me the truth, and you'd better damn well believe I mean it. Now where is she?"
"You insult me, Kent. After all, you came into my house. You betrayed me. You and my wife violated our vows of marriage and crept around like rats in the ship's rotten hull, and now you accuse ME of being a liar?"
"Shut up, Reynolds. I don't care about your bullshit words or excuses."
"It's just like I said, Kent, she's at my lake house. Take the 405. It's about four hours by car. I would advise against speeding. If a cop pulls you over, he's liable to arrest you, what with you driving a stolen car and a kidnapped man in the passenger seat. By the way, Stacey is dying right now."
He began to laugh, a muted, horrible sound that came out all wrong from his broken mouth. Kent silenced him with a fist across the jaw, then sped off towards the freeway.
He pushed the car as fast as he dared. The damn thing seemed to want to go fast, pushing a hundred and ten with barely a whisper. Glenn chuckled under his breath. "Careful there, Kent. You get pulled over, and she'll die for sure. I mean, by the time the police sort everything out, there won't be much to find."
"You're a sick bastard, Glenn. And I wouldn't talk about the police too much if I were you. They're going to be interested to talk with you when this is over."
"Oh, I'm sure they are, Kent. But you forget, I have resources. I have friends. And I have money. Putting me in jail is going to be tougher than you might think, even if I have...oh I don't know....gutted my wife for infidelity and left her entrails in a steaming pile on the floor of my lake house."
"You really are a just...just sick."
"Sick? Me? What you don't get, Kent, is that it's a sick world. Why do you think my books sell so well?"
"Because people are morbid voyeurs."
"Wrong, Kent, just wrong. My books sell because people acknowledge the truth of what it is I write about. They know the horror in the world about them, and they know their own desires and lusts. All I do is give voice to that, and people appreciate it."
"That's bullshit. People buy your books for the same reason they look at a freak in a glass cage. To them, you're a freak, a spectacle, something to gape and gawk at for five minutes before returning to the real world."
Glenn laughed again hoarsely through his battered mouth. "Real world? You think the real world isn't sick? Don't you know that western civilization gave birth to the most horrible instruments of torture ever? Not one, not a single one from the middle east, the far east, Africa, nowhere. Every single one came right out of the good old Christian empires of the west. And most of them were made for the Catholic church. Take the pear, for instance. It's what they used on adulterous women back then. It was basically a set of bronze leaves that closed over a metal spike. I suppose they thought it looked like a pear when it was closed, I don't know. When you turned the wheel on one end of it, the leaves would open and the spike would push forward gradually. The whole thing was basically inserted in the woman's vagina and then opened so the spike would puncture her uterus. Since each turn of the wheel only opened it just a little bit, it took a long time, just a little wider with each turn. And if you were a homosexual, they would put it...."
Kent fisted Glenn across the mouth yet again. The car weaved dangerously at the high speed, forcing him to turn his attention back to the road.
"Shut up. I have your game finally. You're just trying to bait me. You don't have a point."
"I do have a point," Glenn coughed out, spitting blood again. Kent had loosened a few more of his teeth with that hit. "The point is the pear was an intricate and carefully constructed device. A craftsman would charge a fortune to make one and would have to have years of skill, all to make an instrument of torture. And you call me sick? This is what our society evolved from, but you think I'm sick? You're the one dodging the truth."
"And what truth is that?" Kent asked absently. He was scanning the road ahead for the turn off that he was supposed to take, not really listening anymore.
"The truth is I AM western civilization. Or I should say, representative of it. Cruel, brutal, unflinching. You want to call it sick, but you're neck deep in it. There's nothing sick about what I write. Now, if I wanted to really get sick, I would have to go to something more primitive. The wheel, for instance. Turn here."
Kent braked hard. The Bentley's excellent handling made the sharp turn down the gravel road that snaked among the trees. As reluctant as he was to do so, Kent slowed to a maddeningly slow thirty-five.
"The wheel, huh? What, roll a huge stone wheel over someone?" Kent asked stupidly. He was focusing more on following the twisting gravel road than the talk.
"More refined than that, Glenn. The wheel is, without a doubt, the only form of tortue I could say is really sick. You basically chain a person to a huge wheel, limbs splayed out in all directions. A person stands with a metal bar next to you and breaks a limb. If you don't repent and confess, you get spun a quarter turn and the next limb gets broken. This is done all the way around the wheel. If you repent before you die, you are struck just under the ribs on the right side. This ruptures the liver and you die. Not so pleasant, but preferable to hanging on the wheel with four broken limbs until you finally expire."
"You think that's worse than that pear thing? It sounds pretty basic, brutal but basic."
"That's because you're a meathead, Kent. No offense," he said quickly when Kent glared at him. "But you can't see that the wheel was used by the Church as well. Used on heretics. But what was it that they did by employing torture like this? They made a human God over another man's life. The one with the bar. The breaker. To the man on the wheel, he was God. The breaker decided whether you lived or died, and how much you suffered. And isn't that precisely what God is supposed to do? And isn't that exactly the reason the Church had a heretic chained to a wheel in the first place? That's the true sickness of it all. Not the brutality. The irony."
"Whatever. It all sounds sick to me."
"I'm not the one that invented it, Kent. The men who were running the world back then, the ones who had more power than any of us do today, the ones who the populace put in charge. They thought it up. It was especially big in Germany. I remember the words one historian wrote about a man he'd seen on the wheel. He described it as a sort of huge screaming puppet writhing in rivulets of blood, a puppet with four tentacles, like a sea monster, of raw, slimy and shapeless flesh mixed up with splinters of smashed bones. You can't imagine the admiration I have for that man, putting together a description like that. It sounds like a punishment suitable for a man who betrays God, no? A man in God's position, doling out God's punishment, one heavy blow at a time."
"I've changed my mind. You're not sick. You're crazy."
Maybe, but when you're a writer like I am, you appreciate it when everything ties together as completely as that. Careful, the road ends here."
The gravel road widened into a larger cul-de-sac that was quite empty. Kent brought the Bentley to a sudden skidding stop.
"Where is she, Reynolds? I told you what would happen if you fuck with me on this."
"We're not at the lake house yet, are we? Take heard, Kent. I am many things, but I'm no liar. The house is down by the stream, maybe two hundred meters down the path there. We'll have to hoof it though, but first open the trunk."
Kent eyed him warily as he got out of the car. He dragged the limp writer out by his shoulder and shoved him towards the trunk. He had a sneaking feeling that it had all been a ruse, a sick joke, and that when he opened the trunk, he would find Stacey's body had been in there all along. It was empty though, only a tire iron and spare tire on an expensive alloy rim. Glenn gestured with his bloodied chin. "You'll need the tire iron if you want to force the front door. I didn't bring my keys."
Kent snatched the tire iron up, then used it to prod the writer along. "Get moving, Glenn. The sooner we find Stacey, the sooner we find out if I beat you to death, or just turn you over to the cops." He shoved Glenn towards the path with a kick to the rear end. The writer went as fast as his bonds and poor balance allowed him to.
"You know I love this house. It's on a stream. A family lived out here during California gold rush days. Back then the stream must have yielded up enough gold for someone to settle down here permanently. I kept as much of the original structure as I could, including the paddle wheel. The stream had a lot more water volume before someone upstream built the dams, but in those days it was enough to turn the wheel as a source of mechanical power. It's been decades since that, I think the axle has been frozen solid for over a decade. It would have been easier if I could turn it by hand, but I managed.
They emerged into the clearing. The paddle wheel was the most prominent feature of the stone lake house, towering twenty feet up in the air. Once over half of its height would have been immersed in a moderately deep river. Now the bottom of the wheel hung two feet above what was little more than a babbling brook flowing over the stones. Hanging from the wheels center, nude, bound and gagged, was Stacey Reynolds. The bruises to her arms and legs were hardly the most horrific thing about what had been done with her. He felt vomit rising in his throat at the unnatural way her legs bent inward, a sure sign that her femurs had been crushed somehow. One of her arms bent at an impossible angle, the sure sign of a dislocated shoulder. Glenn grinned up at him.
"She was alive when I left, Kent. Shall we see if she's still with us? I understand that it can take days before a person dies on the wheel, usually from dehydration. It's only been one. Think she made it?"
Kent was silent for many seconds. When he finally decided to reply, it was to smash the tire iron against Glenn's chest. He would have dropped, but Kent held him up by the scruff of the neck. "If she's dead, so are you, you bastard."
Kent dragged the gasping man down the embankment to the stream. Anger had doubled his strength, and as he strode through the tall grass, he nearly lifted the writer off of his feet by the wrists, eliciting a grunt of pain. When he got close enough to see that her chest was moving, he nearly cried with relief. The naked skin of her torso stood out in stark contrast to the vicious purple bruising on her arms and legs. Kent thought idly of blood clots that would spring free when she was loosed. He couldn't bear to the thought that one might lodge in her heart, killing her just as help had arrived. The anger of the injustice of it made him sock the writer again, hard in the gut. He let him drop into the shallow water and ran to the base of the wheel. Her head bobbed loosely.
"I'm coming! I'm coming, baby, please, just hold on!" he screamed. It wasn't clear if she understood him. She only shook her head back and forth aimlessly.
Her feet were bound with heavy leather thongs that had been held with metal pins, but her arms were handcuffed. He turned to the limp body of Glenn.
"The key, Reynolds. Now!"
Glenn Reynolds barely found the strength to flop over onto his back. "Of course," he coughed, spitting up glob of blood onto the smooth rocks of the river bed. "The key. But think, for only a moment, Kent. Doesn't she deserve this punishment? Didn't she lie to me, and betray me? Isn't this what she deserves? You can be forgiven, Kent. You never made a promise to me, never swore to me before God your loyalty. She did. Write it off, Kent. Accept my forgiveness. It's what God would want me to do, to forgive you. Accept it. Take the car and just go."
"Oh I'll take the car, Reynolds. And I'm taking Stacey. If you think for a second I'd leave her with a bastard like you, you're even sicker than I ever gave you credit for. And speaking of punishment, you're going to find out what punishment is, because you're taking her place on the wheel when I get her down. Maybe someone will find you, maybe not. Give me the keys and I won't break your limbs once you're up there."
"If that's your choice, then. Here." He produced a pair of small, identical handcuff keys from his inner coat pocket. "Last chance to do right, Kent."
Kent snatched them out of his hand and turned back to the helpless woman, trying to figure out the best way to get her down. Finally he decided he would undo the cuffs first and allow her to drape her body over his. He placed a foot on the bottom of the wheel and boosted himself up to her where he was face to face. Her dark eyes were closed, and the gag in her mouth garbled her mumbled words. He reached one hand around behind her head and undid it. When she spoke, he winced when he saw it was through a mouthful of broken teeth.
"No........no...."she muttered.
"It's okay, baby," he whispered as he smoothed her hair. "It's okay, I'm here now." He maneuvered himself close to her cuffed hand
"No.......no....don't....." Her voice was a shattered croak.
"He won't hurt you any more....I'm just going to get you down from....here....got it!"
The handcuff key clicked at the same instant a groan ran through the structure. For Kent, suddenly the world seemed to turn upside down. Then there was the crushing impact of wood on one side, stone on the other. It was several gasping moments before he realized that the wheel had toppled off of its support and smashed him into the ground, pinning them both beneath it. He struggled enough to turn his head and see if Stacey had survived the fall. He was relieved only momentarily to see that she was moving. Then, to his mounting horror, he saw that the wheel had pinned her face-first in the water. She struggled with whatever strength remained, but there was no room to move under the heavy wood that she had been bound to so intimately for the past many hours. He wanted to scream, but couldn't draw more than a whisper of breath. Then he saw the bloodied mouth of the writer looming over him.
"So simple, really, a couple of support pins, nothing more than metal cotter pins to be sure. Remove them, and everything comes apart under stress. Kind of like a wife's love, if you think about it." The writer sat down in the water, peering at the pinned man through the gaps in the wheel's patterns.
So interesting, Kent, really. Sometimes, to purge ourselves, people will seek out punishment. Because they know they deserve it. They know that they've done wrong, and they seek absolution. But for someone like you, Kent, someone like Stacey, punishment has to find you. And I tell you, those kinds of punishment are always the worst. I was her breaker, Kent, because that was my place. But for you, the wheel has decided to be your breaker, your God. And you'll find wood much less merciful than flesh and blood. A human can show mercy, like the mercy I offered you. The wheel, though, offers none. But you wanted none, am I right? You rejected it when I offered it. Which means you must want this punishment. Which means I am interrupting you. Forgive my rudeness."
He got wearily to his feet. Kent tried again to cry out, but only managed a strangled croak. Reynolds looked up at the sky. "Took a lot of really hard shots, I think. Knocked unconscious. Yes, I would say so. For a couple, three hours I think. I'll call the cops when I, ahem, come to, shall we say. Enjoy the wheel, Kent. It's an honor to have the wheel itself as your breaker. There's no better way to purge guilt."
Reynolds limped to the door of the house, producing a small bunch of keys from inside his jacket. Kent tightened his jaws as he watched the writer grin back at him and shrug sheepishly before opening the door and stepping inside without another look. He tried again to scream, but the only sound was the slamming of the door.
--------------------------
"An LA county man was killed today in a freak accident involving the kidnapping of New York Times bestselling author Glenn Reynolds and his wife Stacey. Police investigators say the man, thirty-seven year old Kent Washington of Inglewood abducted both the writer and his wife after carjacking them. Washington was known to both Reynolds and his wife as a former employee that had been fired by Reynolds earlier in the week. Police say they found every book Reynolds had ever written inside of Washington's house, each inscribed with a pleading inscription to leave his family alone. A 911 was made from Washington's house the day of the abduction, but was cut off, leading police to speculate about a timeline for the Renolds' abduction. Also found in Washington's possession was a crowbar that he apparently used on both members of the Reynold's family, beating Stacey Reynolds to death before he was killed. Mister Reynolds was also severely beaten but is expected to survive. Authorities are currently checking out whether these were the actions of a crazed fan or a disgruntled employee. Reporting from...."
He clicked the remote. "Not bad," he mused to himself. "Except it was a tire iron, not a crowbar, but given the state of journalism these days, it will do nicely."
Jolee, the nurse, a young and slight thing of only nineteen, wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "I can't believe how calm you are," she squeaked. "You must still be in shock after what that man did to you."
Glenn waved a hand nonchalantly, then instantly regretted his mistake as the pain welled up. The effects of the beating he'd received had manifested themselves fully some time ago, including the collar bone Kent had broken with the tire iron. "It's all part of God's test. We all have to walk through the fire,"
"But Mister Reynolds!" she argued softly as she adjusted the morphine drip in his IV. "He killed your wife and nearly killed you! I can't possibly think of anything more terrible than that."
Reynolds shifted as much as his sore neck would allow to look up at her.
"You can't, can you? Let me tell you a little story my dear. A little story about a device called the breaking wheel."
User Reviews
Submitted by spyder882001 (user info) at 2008-04-29 15:44:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2008-04-29 15:00:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
this was shit
whoever said it should be a short film is an idiot
it's all talk
two guys talking and giving a long back story leading to a cliched twist that wasn't surprising at all
you'd need an entire feature film to get all this tripe in, and it's been done a million times before
go back and read some decent fiction before you try to write
obama 08
Submitted by TheDoctor (user info) at 2007-11-20 17:09:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by lostnphound (user info) at 2007-11-20 14:59:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Indeed, sir, indeed.
Submitted by sparkle_pink (user info) at 2007-11-20 03:16:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Instead of studying I read this and I'm glad.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-11-19 21:43:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good show. Take back Uber!
Submitted by PhillipTheGreat (user info) at 2007-11-19 21:34:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
woah
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2007-11-19 21:02:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. Just fucking WOW!
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2007-11-19 20:08:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You actually put "worth it" in the title line and it was.
Very well done.
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2007-11-19 20:06:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
very nice!
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2007-11-19 19:25:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by icarus1987 (user info) at 2007-11-19 18:51:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Well written. Solid.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-11-19 18:48:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by triangle_man (user info) at 2007-11-19 16:36:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Read it while I ate my lunch
why do I do that?
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2007-11-19 16:03:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2007-11-19 15:53:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
good to see you stop in.
--------
Thanks GC, good to be back. I'll be around a bit more - I intend to finish my book by the end of next year (one of them, I have two going right now). I'll post excerpts here, but one gets done next year, no question.
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2007-11-19 15:54:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Turtle: you can reach me at judoka1978.at.hotmail.com or domenad.at.gmail.com
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2007-11-19 15:53:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
good to see you stop in.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-11-19 15:26:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I will read this later, when I have time.
Submitted by beer-turtle (user info) at 2007-11-19 15:24:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Dude, there are so many stories on uber I would love to turn into short films/movies. All I need is the author's permission and some free time to kick out a few screenplays.
I lack funding and even basic equipment though to produce videos or films any real credibility other than being a writer who could never afford to go to film school.
....
Ya ever have one of those light bulb moments?
I just had a big one...like nova sized...
Let's just say I almost asked you for the screenplay rights but had a better idea.
Gonna work out the details and post something later.
send me your email or get a hold of me through facebook.
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2007-11-19 15:04:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Beer turtle, you may remember Phinch when he was here on Uber, he wanted to do a film on one of my stories. Even if it were just lame and amateur, I still think it would be awesome to see something like that come from something I wrote. It's pretty basic too in terms of what you would need. The only thing you really do need is the setting for the lakehouse, which I took from a restaurant that used to be in my neighborhood that had a huge paddle wheel like that out front.
GLad I can still entertain you, Jack. It's getting on to winter, when I get depressed and brooding usually. That's when I get my better ideas.
Submitted by beer-turtle (user info) at 2007-11-19 14:47:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That cast was me just being sadistic.
Actually if i had a film crew and a low budget I would hunt for some unknowns or really under-rated actors for a short film.
For a feature film, it would be the writer might be a hard cast.
A no name hottie could easily fill the wife role since she is rather limited in her character as being more a plot device than an actual character.
The real story is the psychological game these two men play from inital confortation to climax with the "bad" guy getting away in the end. Then the creep denoument in the hospital....
I could almost write the screenplay for this on the fly if it weren;t for the writer's strike.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2007-11-19 14:32:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You goddamned lucky bastard. If I posted this at least a dozen retards would come in and says 'wft I'm not reading all that!!!'
Anyhow, good tale. Keep writing, man. You're one of the VERY few on this site who can actually entertain me with a story, since you waste time on silly shit like character development and a plot.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-11-19 14:18:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
this was excellent
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-11-19 13:06:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
beer-turtle were you joking with what sounds like the shittest cast in the world?
Submitted by beer-turtle (user info) at 2007-11-19 13:03:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I could see this happening in my head...
Would make a great horror short film.
Get it optioned bro... serious
Even casting it in my head is fun... I picture a fatter Philip Seymour Hoffman as the writer.
I would love to see Kutcher as Washington just so he dies...I would derive pleasure from that.
(not enough to fap)
Maybe Britney Spears as the trophy wife gone a cheating...also because seeing her die, even in a movie would make me gleeful.
(almost enough to fap, definitly chub up some though)
In short, I really liked this piece man.
It is an interesting take on wedding vows for sure.
Submitted by DeathJester (user info) at 2007-11-19 12:21:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
More people like you would make this place better.
Submitted by EatMeCompletely (user info) at 2007-11-19 11:22:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Worth it.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-11-19 10:55:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
DEFINITELY worth the late posting. Excellent work.
Submitted by DudeThatsBOSH (user info) at 2007-11-19 09:33:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by DudeThatsBOSH (user info) at 2007-10-05 12:40:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
post it anyways!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2007-10-05 12:36:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Dammit, I thought I had more time than that. I messed it up. Frig. I had a fantastic story as well.
--
woo!
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2007-11-19 09:05:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Definately worth it.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2007-11-19 08:57:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-11-19 08:44:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fantastic.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-11-19 08:10:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This beat the shit out of my half finished entry by miles! Oddly though, my first idea involved a wheel, since you gave me "Wheelhouse".
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-11-19 08:08:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
WTF i'm not reading all that, etc etc.
Seriously though, this was great.