"Curve" - A Novel (PG-13)

[Nighthavok]

Hey all.  Thought I'd share a novel I'm writing in my free time.  It's also my first free-write, free association novel and I want to use you all as guinea pigs.   Feedback is most appreciated.


Curve

Prologue



   Late night infomercials saved my life.
   3 a.m. must be the peak hours where Bob and Sally Joe American can buy the most worthless crap and trick themselves into thinking that the Ab-Squasher collecting dust in their closet was a solid health investment.
   But I didn't need to make weight to join the team.
   I needed Oxy-Bright.  Or CleanGlo.  Anything to get this fucking blood out of the carpet.  This being the actual first time I ever had to clean up a crime scene, let alone a hemmorraging nightmare, I started to remember all those stupid, mundane details your mother screamed at you when you did chores.
   Don't rub it around.
   Don't grind it into the carpet.
   Murphy's Law dictated that we had to get new carpet in by the fifteenth, otherwise it wouldn't be on sale.
   It was white.
   Who the fuck buys white carpet?
   I look at the clock.  A half-hour before the wife comes home and sees her newly ruined carpet.  And then I'll be the one trying to explain why my dead boss made an awful arterial mess on the confines of our livingroom floor.
   Clean-n-Bright.  That's what it's called.
   I tear through oak cabinets picked out of catalogs I can't pronounce.  Filled with dishes I would never use.  It just turns out that one time we have company, they end up dead.  That's not irony, it's a sick joke.
   We've lived in this gated community for a year and not once did anyone come over.    Never threw a party.  Never introduced myself other than “Dave.”  It's surprising no one's ever asked me for my last name. 
   I'm thinking today's the day the neighborhood decides to throw us a Happy Moving-In Day Anniversary party.  The look on their faces permanently etched into my mind as I stand over a bloody mess of a human, with an arm full of cleaning supplies.  Slack jawed; in horror.
   We're all out of Clean-n-Bright.
   I can't blot this up with a paper towel.  Brawny is not going to soak this shit up.  Not even the internet can help.  I can Google how to make a homemade rifle.  I can't find anything on how to remove blood stains without being a chemist.
   Bleach.  Ammonia.  Let's try both.
   I empty the contents of the bleach on the floor, praying that some molecular reaction might make the entire crimson lake disappear.  It dried whiter than the carpet.  Great.
   And now he's moving.
   I suppose using the fireplace poker was bad form, seeing as how we've never actually used the fireplace.  I should've gone with something more natural.  Cliché.  Like a carving knife.  Or a frozen leg of lamb that I could eat later as evidence. 
   I start beating him with a shoe.  No use using the poker to splatter blood everywhere.    It would wreck everything.
   The newly painted Victorian columns that really opened the room up.
   Freshly matted stucco walls with Roman reliefs carved into them.
   The marble floor that shined in brilliant sunlight.
   This man was becoming the worst guest I had ever let in my house.
   More specifically because the shoe isn't working.  The carpet is completely ruined.  His handprints are soaking into sofa.  Linda is going to be pissed.  I tighten the grip on his tie to choke him out.
   This day wasn't really going as I had hoped.  For either of us.  No one wakes up in the morning with the desire to kill.  Nor do they think that they're going to die that day.  There's a lot of things I don't remember.  Not since the car accident.  But I never remember wanting to outright hurt anyone unprovoked.  Apart of me wanted to feel remorse―a small glint of guilt that skated over my conscience.  But I couldn't.  Not for him.
   I couldn't tell you why he was there or why he told me he “knew everything.”
   I couldn't tell you what set me off or even if I had a button to push.
   I couldn't tell you about what he said.  Not with his air supply being cut off by this pink Armani Exchange yuppie bullshit tie.
   All I can tell you is how it started.  And you'd better have been rolling this whole time.  Walk and talk with me.  We need to find a wheelbarrow.

[Tink]

bleach and ammonia make chlorine gas, and will knock you out, if not kill you. Peroxide gets out blood stains. Other than that, it's a good start.

[Turjan]

Plenty of hooks in there to encourage the reader to follow you with that wheelbarrow, yes indeed

And it's interesting to find out that Tink knows not only how to remove bloodstains from a carpet, but also has knowledge of what gases are liberated should you use the wrong materials.
Hmm...
Remind me never to stand next to her on a carpet

[Tink]

Plenty of hooks in there to encourage the reader to follow you with that wheelbarrow, yes indeed

And it's interesting to find out that Tink knows not only how to remove bloodstains from a carpet, but also has knowledge of what gases are liberated should you use the wrong materials.
Hmm...
Remind me never to stand next to her on a carpet

You should know by now that I'm intelligent enough to put plastic down first. It's easier to roll up the body that way. *giggles*

Just so you know... I learned about peroxide when my ex husband cut off his finger tips in the snowblower, and the ER doctor told me how to get the blood out of my white wool coat.
I learned about the gas the hard way when I was much younger and didn't know any better.

[Hoopy Frood]

bleach and ammonia make chlorine gas, and will knock you out, if not kill you.

It can make other toxic compounds as well. I once found a website that went into all the gory details of what physically happens to your insides should you breathe in the various compunds that can arise from the mix.

The link here spares the goriness, but lists the compounds:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A795611

[Nighthavok]

I'm glad you picked up on the bleach/ammonia combo.  Notice how "Dave" doesn't use it.  Not because he doesn't know that it makes chlorine gas, but resolves himself not to ruin the carpet further...until his boss starts to flail around. 

[Doombot]

bleach and ammonia make chlorine gas, and will knock you out, if not kill you. Peroxide gets out blood stains. Other than that, it's a good start.

Suppose you killed somebody...    How would you dispose of the body without getting caught?

Look at the highlighted text at the link. I apologize in advance if anyone goes to trial for murder and this shows up in the case against you.

[Nighthavok]

O HAI.  CAN I BE OF SOME SERVICE?

[Doombot]

O HAI.  CAN I BE OF SOME SERVICE?

LOL. That was a great movie.

Brick Top: You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together.

Sol: Would someone mind telling me, who are you?

Brick Top: And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig ----, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig."

[Tink]

   I empty the contents of the bleach on the floor, praying that some molecular reaction might make the entire crimson lake disappear.  It dried whiter than the carpet.  Great.
   

ah....but he did use it. I re-read it twice thinking I was losing it.
Still a good read, continue the friggin story will ya!