Post by kinkyclawz on Jun 17, 2009 17:08:10 GMT
This is a short story of my own, unpublished. I'm just looking for opinions and advice on it, really.
By the way, D. K. Earnshaw is my chosen pen name for as and when I ever do get published.
KC
The Clan Chronicles Prequel 1.1: Melissa Kane
Danny And The Lady by D. K. Earnshaw
Daniel Parker sat there in his little serving booth and stared out through the bulletproof glass at the sparse traffic passing by in the darkness. He hated the night shift at the petrol station. It was soooo boring! He was a nineteen-year-old man! He was in his prime! He shouldn't be spending his Saturday nights in a lonely little booth in an out-of-the-way petrol station doing absolutely nothing!!
He drew his eyes from the still, silent tarmac road just beyond the garage forecourt and looked at the little red LED clock by his right hand. The red dividing dots blinked at him, counting off the second to the next change. 23:23 it flashed at him. Blink. Blink. Blink. Then, in an unhurried movement, the LED changed to 23:24. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Yeah. He'd been so bored last night that he'd actually set his mind to working out what all the flashing was about on the travel clock. And now he knew, everything just seemed all the more monotonous. Blink. Blink. Danny sighed and scratched at the slight acne on his left cheek before resting that cheek in his palm dejectedly. He finally figured out that 2am was never going to arrive. At the rate tonight was going at, it couldn't possibly happen.
He would have gotten up and walked around the shop for a while, but he had that pesky weight problem and was on a strict diet. Nothing even remotely fatty could pass his lips. Walking around the shop would have put him very near the tempting chocolate bars and crisps and things, so here he sat, feeling his brain shrinking by the ever-blinking second.
Danny raised his head as he detected a pale yellow glare drawing closer from behind where he sat. He could only see the palest end of the glare as he turned because the curve of the road and the high-grown hedge obscured any clear view of anything on both sides. All Danny could see was the road and the church opposite. Yes, a rural church and graveyard opposite a petrol station. Despondently, Danny replaced his chin in his palm. They'd likely as not drive right past and off into the darkness of the country road. Sometimes, like now, he wondered why they even bothered having night staff on. But, he also knew the answer. About half a mile down the road was a medium sized village that frequently had visitors from out of town. It had been the birthplace of some crinkly old poet and many came to see the house in which he'd been born and spent most of his youth. They mostly stayed overnight as the quaint little village was pretty to explore, too. So he'd heard. Tourists meant cars, especially at weekends. And cars meant that petrol would be required.
Danny sighed again. Then, he noticed the headlights were getting brighter. They turned from pale to sunflower yellow. They weren't coming at any great speed, although on winding, unfamiliar country roads, most people didn't drive too fast anyway. But as they grew brighter still, they slowed even more. Maybe he was going to get a customer after all. And, sure enough, a Land Rover Discovery drifted silently around the tight curve and pulled up in front of pump 3 in the corner of the forecourt nearest to Danny. The driver was female. Young and female. He watched as the pretty twenty-something woman opened the door, her shoulder-length blonde hair was illuminated by the interior light but her face remained in shadow. She stepped out of the Discovery on his side, revealing perfectly shaped legs clad in tight denim jeans. Danny felt his black pants tighten around his crotch and he flushed with embarrassment, as if she could see below the line of the window. The door shut with a click, faint through the toughened glass.
As if reading his thoughts, she turned and smiled knowingly at him, pulling her brown suede jacket tighter around her body. It was chilly out tonight, he knew, but the movement wasn't from the cold, at least not wholly. It had flapped upwards in the growing wind, which Danny hadn't actually realised had been rising until now. Her skin was made of ivory, her lips ruby and her eyes, he noticed, were a pale yet piercing blue, like a cloudless summer sky. His pants tightened even further.
She broke the connection and turned away, walking confidently around the front of the Discovery to the opposite side to open the petrol cap. She bent down as she did this, so Danny couldn't see her any more. Then, the machine beside his elbow began bleeping. She'd removed the nozzle from the pump and was waiting patiently for him to press the button and release the petrol. He did this hesitantly. He didn't want her to leave. She was easily the best thing to come onto this forecourt for a long time and he wanted to prolong the visit. Then, his rebellious index finger hit the button and the insistent bleeping stopped.
He watched the figures begin counting up as the vision of loveliness pumped petrol into her tank. £4.37, up and up. £5.00, up and up. He turned to try to see her as she filled up, but the high side of the Land Rover obscured her from view. He returned his gaze to the figures which scrolled past at speed. She stopped filling when the reading came to £15.50. He heard the nozzle being slipped back into the cradle and waited with baited breath for the woman to stand up. She did so a moment or two later and strode purposefully around the front of the Discovery again and opened the driver's door. The interior light came on again and showed her stretching across to the passenger seat. She snagged something with one hand and withdrew from the light again, this time without looking at Danny. The door closed and the woman approached the hatch in the window beside him. The vent hole lined up with her perfect lips and she opened her mouth to speak.
Had Danny not been so mesmerised with the woman, he might have seen the shadowy figure creeping alongside the hedges and running the short distance between them and the Discovery's rear end. The figure peered around the vehicle and watched the woman approaching the window. He took his chance and dived at her. The woman gasped in surprise as the man wrapped one arm around her middle, hugging her tightly to his body while bringing his other hand into play. In it he held a large, lethally sharp kitchen knife which he pressed to the ivory skin of the woman's throat.
Danny jerked backward in his seat, eyes widening with horror. His heart began thundering in his chest. The most beautiful creature he'd ever seen was under attack, he was the only one who could save her and he sat there, helpless.
"Give me all the money in the till or I'll kill her." The man growled, punctuating his threat by pressing harder with the blade of the knife.The woman, quite rightly, did not move or cry out. In fact, Danny thought she looked almost serene. As calm as could be with a maniac holding a knife to her throat. 'What a lady!?' Danny thought admiringly, in spite of himself as she turned toward the till. As he turned slowly on the rotating chair to the till, he allowed his left hand to drift below the desk and caress the Police Alert button with sat there. As his right hand pressed to open the till, his left applied pressure to the Panic button and triggered the silent alarm. The drawer of the till popped open revealing a pitiful amount of copper coins and even fewer notes. Fives, tens and twenties totalled less that £80. There was less than £90 in total, but he was going to give the man the money to save his damsel in distress. He rummaged through the drawer and pulled all the paper money out first.
It was then that he heard the high, piercing, agonised scream. "I'm getting your money! You don't have to......!"
Danny swivelled in the chair quickly, expecting to see the horrific sight of his ladylove sinking to her knees with both hands clutched to her ravaged throat. It wasn't what he saw.
The robber was backing away from the woman, screaming and clutching one hand with the other. Blood poured through his fingers and splattered all over everywhere. The woman was advancing on the robber, pausing only to spit out something red and dripping to the ground. He had an inkling of what it was but he didn't want to dwell too much on it. Without warning, she pounced on the man, forcibly burying her fingers into his shoulders up to her knuckles. Danny's eyes widened even more and his heart began trip-hammering so hard that his whole body was vibrating.
She dragged her hands back quickly bringing flesh and blood with them, splattering the glass with gore, most of which dropped off, leaving the rest to slither slowly down like disgusting red slugs. Danny tried to swallow but found he had no saliva left. Some of the rest of the events were obscured by the gore, but not all. Not by a long way.
The woman plunged her head toward the man's exposed throat as he threw his head back to scream. She ripped his vocal cords out with her teeth. 'Very long teeth', the few still functioning parts of Danny's mind amended.
He continued to watch as the man's scream became a low, liquid gurgle which eventually died away to silence as he dropped to the ground. The woman looked up briefly as she lowered the corpse to the ground, meeting Danny's terrified stare with a pair of feral, yellow eyes. The exchange lasted only a few seconds before she dropped down below the line of the window to the body. In the silence, he could hear the meaty ripping sounds as the woman apparently shredded the body, scattering pieces all over the forecourt. The vision of the cause of the ripping, licking and slurping sounds were mercifully denied him.
Danny's mind was incapable of comprehending most of the event by now. The shock ran too deeply. However, he had more than enough awareness to twitch back in his seat when the woman, all fangs, glowing eyes and blood smears, suddenly stood up inches from the window. Before his eyes, her eyes faded from yellow back to blue and her teeth shrank to normal size again. She picked up her handbag and drew a tissue from it to wipe her face and hands clean. "Right. where was I before that rude interrruption? Oh yes." She purred in a soft local accent, as if the massacre had been as inconsequential as a cheeky child running around her feet. "Pump number three, a packet of chewing gum, Juicy Fruit if you please. And, um... oh yes, a can of coke, please."
Danny's body, suddenly unable to do anything but her will, fetched the items from around the shop and returned with them to the hatch. He was walking on straight, disjointed legs which only bent when he felt she was telling him to sit down. She fed her credit card through the slot under the hatch and he processed it automatically. He printed out and slid the stub back under the hatch with a pen - the new Chip-and-Pin system was surprisingly ineffective on the nightshift since the customer needed to be near the machine to type in their number. As she slid her signed slip back, Danny gave her her purchases and card back through the larger serving hatch beside the first. Then, he just watched her put the coke and gum in her bag and walk back to the Discovery. She opened the door and threw her bag into the passenger seat before entering and starting the engine. It purred softly, roaring once or twice before pulling slowly out of the forecourt, artfully avoiding the gory mess which was once a man. Headlights once again glared into the night, leaving Danny in the artificial glow of the stations' nightlights.
Slowly, Danny turned and fixed an unseeing gaze on the LED clock by his right hand. His heart thudded dully in his chest, but he was as unaware of that as he was of everything else around him. He didn't know how long he sat there for. It could have been a matter of seconds. A few blinks of the LED lights on his travel clock. Or it may have been hours. Danny knew nothing but those red flashing dots until another flashing light broke into his consciousness.
This one was blue. It entered the haze of his thoughts like a cold bucket of water, bringing him to reality once more. Danny jerked his head toward the lights and watched the police climb out of their car. The looked as dazed and confused as he felt. Danny blinked hard, trying to clear his head. Everything was fuzzy in his head and he was unable to see what they were seeing. A red haze obscured his sight but he knew they weren't looking at something nice. He couldn't remember what, however. He stood up, surprised to find that his legs were shaking. They couldn't hold him and he dropped back into his seat. From there he saw one of the officers scurry off to one side and vomit loudly into the hedgerow. It was something very bad indeed, then. The other hurried back to the white car with a yellow checked side, presumably to radio for help.
The radio cop then approached the window where Danny gazed blindly out into the night. "What happened, son?" The policeman asked. Danny didn't answer, but not because he didn't hear him.
He honestly didn't know.
By the way, D. K. Earnshaw is my chosen pen name for as and when I ever do get published.
KC
The Clan Chronicles Prequel 1.1: Melissa Kane
Danny And The Lady by D. K. Earnshaw
Daniel Parker sat there in his little serving booth and stared out through the bulletproof glass at the sparse traffic passing by in the darkness. He hated the night shift at the petrol station. It was soooo boring! He was a nineteen-year-old man! He was in his prime! He shouldn't be spending his Saturday nights in a lonely little booth in an out-of-the-way petrol station doing absolutely nothing!!
He drew his eyes from the still, silent tarmac road just beyond the garage forecourt and looked at the little red LED clock by his right hand. The red dividing dots blinked at him, counting off the second to the next change. 23:23 it flashed at him. Blink. Blink. Blink. Then, in an unhurried movement, the LED changed to 23:24. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Yeah. He'd been so bored last night that he'd actually set his mind to working out what all the flashing was about on the travel clock. And now he knew, everything just seemed all the more monotonous. Blink. Blink. Danny sighed and scratched at the slight acne on his left cheek before resting that cheek in his palm dejectedly. He finally figured out that 2am was never going to arrive. At the rate tonight was going at, it couldn't possibly happen.
He would have gotten up and walked around the shop for a while, but he had that pesky weight problem and was on a strict diet. Nothing even remotely fatty could pass his lips. Walking around the shop would have put him very near the tempting chocolate bars and crisps and things, so here he sat, feeling his brain shrinking by the ever-blinking second.
Danny raised his head as he detected a pale yellow glare drawing closer from behind where he sat. He could only see the palest end of the glare as he turned because the curve of the road and the high-grown hedge obscured any clear view of anything on both sides. All Danny could see was the road and the church opposite. Yes, a rural church and graveyard opposite a petrol station. Despondently, Danny replaced his chin in his palm. They'd likely as not drive right past and off into the darkness of the country road. Sometimes, like now, he wondered why they even bothered having night staff on. But, he also knew the answer. About half a mile down the road was a medium sized village that frequently had visitors from out of town. It had been the birthplace of some crinkly old poet and many came to see the house in which he'd been born and spent most of his youth. They mostly stayed overnight as the quaint little village was pretty to explore, too. So he'd heard. Tourists meant cars, especially at weekends. And cars meant that petrol would be required.
Danny sighed again. Then, he noticed the headlights were getting brighter. They turned from pale to sunflower yellow. They weren't coming at any great speed, although on winding, unfamiliar country roads, most people didn't drive too fast anyway. But as they grew brighter still, they slowed even more. Maybe he was going to get a customer after all. And, sure enough, a Land Rover Discovery drifted silently around the tight curve and pulled up in front of pump 3 in the corner of the forecourt nearest to Danny. The driver was female. Young and female. He watched as the pretty twenty-something woman opened the door, her shoulder-length blonde hair was illuminated by the interior light but her face remained in shadow. She stepped out of the Discovery on his side, revealing perfectly shaped legs clad in tight denim jeans. Danny felt his black pants tighten around his crotch and he flushed with embarrassment, as if she could see below the line of the window. The door shut with a click, faint through the toughened glass.
As if reading his thoughts, she turned and smiled knowingly at him, pulling her brown suede jacket tighter around her body. It was chilly out tonight, he knew, but the movement wasn't from the cold, at least not wholly. It had flapped upwards in the growing wind, which Danny hadn't actually realised had been rising until now. Her skin was made of ivory, her lips ruby and her eyes, he noticed, were a pale yet piercing blue, like a cloudless summer sky. His pants tightened even further.
She broke the connection and turned away, walking confidently around the front of the Discovery to the opposite side to open the petrol cap. She bent down as she did this, so Danny couldn't see her any more. Then, the machine beside his elbow began bleeping. She'd removed the nozzle from the pump and was waiting patiently for him to press the button and release the petrol. He did this hesitantly. He didn't want her to leave. She was easily the best thing to come onto this forecourt for a long time and he wanted to prolong the visit. Then, his rebellious index finger hit the button and the insistent bleeping stopped.
He watched the figures begin counting up as the vision of loveliness pumped petrol into her tank. £4.37, up and up. £5.00, up and up. He turned to try to see her as she filled up, but the high side of the Land Rover obscured her from view. He returned his gaze to the figures which scrolled past at speed. She stopped filling when the reading came to £15.50. He heard the nozzle being slipped back into the cradle and waited with baited breath for the woman to stand up. She did so a moment or two later and strode purposefully around the front of the Discovery again and opened the driver's door. The interior light came on again and showed her stretching across to the passenger seat. She snagged something with one hand and withdrew from the light again, this time without looking at Danny. The door closed and the woman approached the hatch in the window beside him. The vent hole lined up with her perfect lips and she opened her mouth to speak.
Had Danny not been so mesmerised with the woman, he might have seen the shadowy figure creeping alongside the hedges and running the short distance between them and the Discovery's rear end. The figure peered around the vehicle and watched the woman approaching the window. He took his chance and dived at her. The woman gasped in surprise as the man wrapped one arm around her middle, hugging her tightly to his body while bringing his other hand into play. In it he held a large, lethally sharp kitchen knife which he pressed to the ivory skin of the woman's throat.
Danny jerked backward in his seat, eyes widening with horror. His heart began thundering in his chest. The most beautiful creature he'd ever seen was under attack, he was the only one who could save her and he sat there, helpless.
"Give me all the money in the till or I'll kill her." The man growled, punctuating his threat by pressing harder with the blade of the knife.The woman, quite rightly, did not move or cry out. In fact, Danny thought she looked almost serene. As calm as could be with a maniac holding a knife to her throat. 'What a lady!?' Danny thought admiringly, in spite of himself as she turned toward the till. As he turned slowly on the rotating chair to the till, he allowed his left hand to drift below the desk and caress the Police Alert button with sat there. As his right hand pressed to open the till, his left applied pressure to the Panic button and triggered the silent alarm. The drawer of the till popped open revealing a pitiful amount of copper coins and even fewer notes. Fives, tens and twenties totalled less that £80. There was less than £90 in total, but he was going to give the man the money to save his damsel in distress. He rummaged through the drawer and pulled all the paper money out first.
It was then that he heard the high, piercing, agonised scream. "I'm getting your money! You don't have to......!"
Danny swivelled in the chair quickly, expecting to see the horrific sight of his ladylove sinking to her knees with both hands clutched to her ravaged throat. It wasn't what he saw.
The robber was backing away from the woman, screaming and clutching one hand with the other. Blood poured through his fingers and splattered all over everywhere. The woman was advancing on the robber, pausing only to spit out something red and dripping to the ground. He had an inkling of what it was but he didn't want to dwell too much on it. Without warning, she pounced on the man, forcibly burying her fingers into his shoulders up to her knuckles. Danny's eyes widened even more and his heart began trip-hammering so hard that his whole body was vibrating.
She dragged her hands back quickly bringing flesh and blood with them, splattering the glass with gore, most of which dropped off, leaving the rest to slither slowly down like disgusting red slugs. Danny tried to swallow but found he had no saliva left. Some of the rest of the events were obscured by the gore, but not all. Not by a long way.
The woman plunged her head toward the man's exposed throat as he threw his head back to scream. She ripped his vocal cords out with her teeth. 'Very long teeth', the few still functioning parts of Danny's mind amended.
He continued to watch as the man's scream became a low, liquid gurgle which eventually died away to silence as he dropped to the ground. The woman looked up briefly as she lowered the corpse to the ground, meeting Danny's terrified stare with a pair of feral, yellow eyes. The exchange lasted only a few seconds before she dropped down below the line of the window to the body. In the silence, he could hear the meaty ripping sounds as the woman apparently shredded the body, scattering pieces all over the forecourt. The vision of the cause of the ripping, licking and slurping sounds were mercifully denied him.
Danny's mind was incapable of comprehending most of the event by now. The shock ran too deeply. However, he had more than enough awareness to twitch back in his seat when the woman, all fangs, glowing eyes and blood smears, suddenly stood up inches from the window. Before his eyes, her eyes faded from yellow back to blue and her teeth shrank to normal size again. She picked up her handbag and drew a tissue from it to wipe her face and hands clean. "Right. where was I before that rude interrruption? Oh yes." She purred in a soft local accent, as if the massacre had been as inconsequential as a cheeky child running around her feet. "Pump number three, a packet of chewing gum, Juicy Fruit if you please. And, um... oh yes, a can of coke, please."
Danny's body, suddenly unable to do anything but her will, fetched the items from around the shop and returned with them to the hatch. He was walking on straight, disjointed legs which only bent when he felt she was telling him to sit down. She fed her credit card through the slot under the hatch and he processed it automatically. He printed out and slid the stub back under the hatch with a pen - the new Chip-and-Pin system was surprisingly ineffective on the nightshift since the customer needed to be near the machine to type in their number. As she slid her signed slip back, Danny gave her her purchases and card back through the larger serving hatch beside the first. Then, he just watched her put the coke and gum in her bag and walk back to the Discovery. She opened the door and threw her bag into the passenger seat before entering and starting the engine. It purred softly, roaring once or twice before pulling slowly out of the forecourt, artfully avoiding the gory mess which was once a man. Headlights once again glared into the night, leaving Danny in the artificial glow of the stations' nightlights.
Slowly, Danny turned and fixed an unseeing gaze on the LED clock by his right hand. His heart thudded dully in his chest, but he was as unaware of that as he was of everything else around him. He didn't know how long he sat there for. It could have been a matter of seconds. A few blinks of the LED lights on his travel clock. Or it may have been hours. Danny knew nothing but those red flashing dots until another flashing light broke into his consciousness.
This one was blue. It entered the haze of his thoughts like a cold bucket of water, bringing him to reality once more. Danny jerked his head toward the lights and watched the police climb out of their car. The looked as dazed and confused as he felt. Danny blinked hard, trying to clear his head. Everything was fuzzy in his head and he was unable to see what they were seeing. A red haze obscured his sight but he knew they weren't looking at something nice. He couldn't remember what, however. He stood up, surprised to find that his legs were shaking. They couldn't hold him and he dropped back into his seat. From there he saw one of the officers scurry off to one side and vomit loudly into the hedgerow. It was something very bad indeed, then. The other hurried back to the white car with a yellow checked side, presumably to radio for help.
The radio cop then approached the window where Danny gazed blindly out into the night. "What happened, son?" The policeman asked. Danny didn't answer, but not because he didn't hear him.
He honestly didn't know.