Shameless Plugging
Written By DWilliam 2/24/2011 12:03:00 AM
Little Vices
Written By DWilliam 2/20/2011 12:51:00 AM
When Things Get Really Bad, I try to keep myself busy. I pace. Or clean, or go run or train. Anything to keep my mind occupied, to keep the loneliness or whatever flavor of pain I had to deal with at bay for a little longer. Tonight I sat cross-legged on the cold, concrete floor of my dingy apartment arguing with myself of how to not think about what needed to be done. I settled on pulling out my battle-scarred single action Colt .45 out of the cheap cigar box I kept under my rusty bed. I checked the cylinder to make sure it was empty then laid it down on the floor in front of me, convinced that it wouldn't go off unless I wanted it to.Next came out the little cleaning kit I had put together over the years. All it had was some Ronsonal, a small shammy, and assorted rods and cotton swabs stuffed into a nylon toiletries bag, but it had worked well enough so far. From what I had seen, the "official" cleaning kits were little more than that anyway. I took each piece out individually and set it near the revolver, each item finding its own place on the ground.
I picked the handgun back up, the heft of the steel and the sweat soaked wood grip comfortable and familiar. Even though it had been months since I'd had to fire a shot some part of me welcomed back the sturdy weight. It disturbed me a little just how used to using the weapon I had gotten. There was a time when I would have curled my lip in disgust at the though of using the things. I couldn't understand why someone would use them, the cruel machines that only served one purpose, but those feelings were an innocence that I didn't have the luxury of keeping. I knew know that even things such as guns-things that were only used for death-had their place in the world I had to live in. That even though they held dangers and consequences, the price of not using them was too high. Much like my own knowledge and abilities, whatever risks there were I'd face if it meant the safety of another or myself.
So I picked up the oil and some cotton swabs and settled into the silent, meticulous routine of cleaning my dangerous tool, hoping like I always did that I wouldn't have to use it.
A Prelude
Written By DWilliam 2/14/2011 12:03:00 AM
So, in a move completely out of character and totally forced by a writing assignment, I'm actually in the process of writing a short story featuring--you guessed it-- Dean. (I mean seriously, did you expect something else?) That's right! A complete story arc and everything. It'll basically be a prelude, set before any thematic elements enter the young detective's life. Before the bullets, the Slayers. Before Mal and all the extra-natural things in the world. Just Dean Archer, sans jaded sarcasm.
Well some of it anyway.
Here's the first few paragraphs in the typical Dean Archer style, a kind of forward with an extensional look at things. If you've ever read any of my other Archer sinppits you shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, I'll stop rambling and just get to the (not really) good stuff.
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You never forget the first time you smell blood.
It's a harsh smell that spins around your mouth, sharp and coppery . As it shifts up your nose though, it turns musky, and something in your head tells you that the odor is just...wrong. That there is something dangerous near, because if everything was as it should be, that smell would never be diffusing in the air near you. Some primal force, the same that makes us fear the dark when we are young, cringes away, wanting to run as far from the smell as possible. Though at the same time some sick part of us wants to find out where the smell is coming from. Like spectators at the site of a car wreck or crime scene we search the morbid and disturbing out, unsure if what we’ll find, but curious all the same.
I guess it tells a great deal about us as a race; the fascination we seem to have with death and all that surrounds it. I mean, we are so scared by it that when we figure out that someday we will die that we convince ourselves that we’re invincible for about a decade afterward. In yet we sometimes seek it out, whether in knowledge or experience.
The first time that I smelled blood was in a dark warehouse in Tanic, Texas.