Blog

The brakes of the train screamed as the conductor pressed forward on the valve turning on the air brakes. He pressed against the side of the metal cab as the friction from the brakes attempted to hold the train from moving forward. His presence in this world solidified by his effort to stop the train. Above his head and swinging wildly was a thin leather strap attached to the train whistle. The conductor captured the strap and pulled. From above the train the whistle whined loudly. The 130 decibel alarm clock shook the engineer sitting within his car. The chains restraining the sunken man, head down upon his chest, clanged loudly as they expanded to fill the floor of the car. Two large reptilian wings burst from behind him only to be restrained by the small width of the car. A tail grew from beneath him and mingled with the chains as the engineer looked up. His eyes red as flames and his face straining to hold off the conversion. Scales began to slip from his skin and fold upon each other till no resemblance of human skin remained. He then screamed as the pain overcame him and his face and head extended forward and back. When it was finished the engineer pushed out a ball of flame which engulfed the top corner of the car. He then stood, his height increased three-fold. His elongated neck and shoulders pressed against the top of the car. Another breath and the rear ceiling of the car was cindered oak strips. The engineer crawled forward on his new formed reptilian legs and jumped upward through the weakened ceiling strips into the darkness of the world above.

The darkness pressed upon the stranger as he stared upward at the thin strips of light from the moon. The train car rattled loudly and chills danced from the tips of his fingers to the back of his shoulders. The stranger listened to whispers that passed through his ears. The whispers spoke of love lost, love found and life taken but the stranger could see nothing. The physical necessity to his sense of sight and hearing was missing. That was until something thumped upon the top of the car. The light skittered around several objects which began to move above. Then within seconds a large hole was torn from the top of the car. The moonlight fell through to the car floor. Silver forms appeared but quickly disappeared into the darkness. The chill from the strangers shoulders fell downward covering his back, arms and hands. He was paralyzed with fear from the overwhelming invasion of his senses. From the roof of the car the hole was ripped wider till it was wide enough for two men to jump through but it wasn’t a man that sank into the car. From the moonlight the stranger could trace the framework of a large bird. It’s two large feet curled with several large knuckles on three toes. Upon the toes were large triangular claws.

— leaving it here so I have somewhere to start from later. I don’t know what it is about this site but it makes me write awesome stuff.. 🙂

You know about the Train, and the Engineer but inside the wooden train cars, within the think film of the spirits of the dead lay the living. Being alive in the Netherworld is not supposed to happen but it does. On the living world it was compared to a ‘dime a dozen’. In this world it is an advantage and a curse. The floor of the train car is slick with ethereal goo. The large wooden sliding doors are closed leaving only bars of early evening light. The stranger lays unconscious on the wooden floor of the train car. The thin film from the floor covering his face, arm and shoulders. It hides the dark uniform with the red sewed badges on his long arms. His attractive features, the sculpted chin and the military hair cut. Above his chin and past his sharp nose hides two beautiful blue eyes, hidden behind heavy lids.

The netherworld has no cows so the train has no cow catcher. The large outward grill of an earthly steam-powered train is absent but the tall round-edge box on wheels rolls past slowly as the Narcissus’s forest approaches. Above the train and into the night shoots a tall cylinder of white smoke. Behind the smoke stack sits a taller box. Within that box sits the operator. The operator stands half in and half out of this world. A faint flicker of life trapped within a steel prison. Unlike the earthly steam-powered machine this black train runs on the essence of life.  This molecular essence of every living being on the train is collected within a steel-walled tender or coal car.  This car had a set of ledges, one on top and the second two feet above the train wheels.  The ledge on the top was merely decorative but the one on the bottom was two foot wide, barely enough room to walk across.  To help the engineer aluminum hand holds were placed at body length along both sides of the car.  In the center of the car, painted on both sides, was ‘Spirit of the Dead’.  The engineer stayed in the next car, a passenger car.  The car was black, with windows gray from soot from the engine chimney.  The soot contains the remains of the evil in men’s heart.  These remains forever pushed into the atmosphere of the netherworld.  Within the gray windows and inside the passenger car sits a steel chair and upon the chair is chained the engineer.  Like Charles Dickens fabled protagonist the chairs bind the engineer to his earthly sins till his penance is paid.   Following behind the engine was hundreds of caged cars. The cars wooden planks shake in small metal slots as the train moves forward over its iron track.

Charlie was 5 foot short with brown hair down past his ears. “A haircut is what you need,” his father would of said, if he was alive. Charlie stood, his hands chilled, on a small wooden dock. Next to a man who was smiling like a woodchuck with walnuts in his mouth. This strange man’s cheeks puffed out but there was nothing in his mouth. Charlie could see between the smile. “Are you ready?” said the strange man. Charlie jumped out if his black polished dress shoes. He had prepared for this day for two years and nine months but he was nervous as all get out. His hands clammy, his knees weak but Charlie was ready to get married.

Right off the cuff… There was a forest behind a large pole barn. The barn belonged to my grandparents. Their house was a small one-story cottage across the street. The trees stood on the side of the street near the pole barn. My four sisters and me would spent hours out in those woods while the adults talked, watched TV or whatever adults did when children played.

I once took my sisters out as far as I could go into those woods. To us it seemed like a 5 miles but in reality it was likely 300 yards. We dodged the trees, leapt over the broken ones and saw the edge of the forest. The light shown through the trees. We were like prisoners trekking out toward freedom. The sun got brighter as we got closer and when the tree line stood beside us we could see out across a vast field of golden corn drying in the sun. We all rushed outward from our wooded prison into the field of corn to play tag till we tired and head back through the woods, passed the pole barn, passed the cottage, crossed the front yard and dived into the lake until it was dark.

The forest behind the pole barn was always a place to go till a frightful summer when my cousin tripped over a nest of bees within a stump. After the stories of that day I never really returned to the forest.

Here is the thing. I am stuck. This story is just stuck in the mud. I wrote the crap out of it.. It so did not take the path I intended. I also publish at webook.com and I just re-wrote the beginning as several snippets of some of this crap I wrote. I am really not happy because I had set out an outline of events.. I did everything I was suppose to do to write a book and it fell apart because what my fingers wanted and my head wanted were two different things. I want to do two different things here. Write a story, within a new deadly world which includes some of my favorite old mythology monsters and also tell a story about a guy who lost his love and has to fight to get it back. Now I have a new problem.. well maybe not. I was going to make my character a cop but maybe I can tweak that. They are in the middle of a war with the flying creatures.. ie Banshees, Flying Icarus-winged creatures that I call angels and whatever else I can think of that may fly.. vampires? So what is this character is a soldier who is in a battle and see’s this woman that looks familiar to him. He dreams of her but is not convinced that he knows her. Maybe its because he has seen her a couple times. The complication comes it when trying to figure out how they meet… My initial idea being that this ‘cop’ investigates incidences within this strange new world and somehow runs into her. I guess it can work too because life moves on whether at war or not. I just wish it was as easy as that one story I wrote.. which by the way is sitting doing nothing.. note to self… That was like a steam train and I completed that in 30+ days.

Ok, brain fart.. New way forward..new thought.. I have completed the objective for the first part of my novel.  I am now stuck at the end of that.  My new plan is to start this new section from scratch.  The beginning being ‘burst from under ground into a new world’ and the end being ‘almost reaching your lost wife before she is taken away my your worse enemy’