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Posted By: Magus Dec 21, 2004 - 11:12 am

Hello again. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to read many stories here as of late. I've been busy what with Christmas and all. So I hope it doesn't seem rude f to me post another one of my stories after contributing so little lately. But I will do my best to get back on track as soon as I can.

This is a story that I wrote during my spread out down time at school. It was meant to be really short, but is actuall 1,606 words long. I hope you enjoy it. As always, all honest comments are welcome and appreciated.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The door to Louie’s Grab ‘n’ Go Diner slammed open, shattering its mostly-glass body. Cold wind and snow whipped in the eatery. Roger Hall flew out as quickly as his legs would take him.

The sky was pitch black. It was a cloudy night, all but the waning crescent moon was hidden in its celestial canvas. Soft white snow fell into the roaring winds that whipped it west.

The December air was frigidly cold, numbing the thief’s very soul, it seemed. His breath came out in quick puffs as he bolted for his car, a rusty old ford pick-up.

He slid across a track of thin ice to the door of his truck. He yanked the door open, stuffed in his duffel bag and started the engine.

As he began to pull out a fat Italian man, presumably Louie of Louie’s Grab ‘n’ Go Diner, in a stained cooking-smock. AT his side was a shotgun. He cocked it and brought it up so as to look through the sights.

Roger slammed on the gas pedal. He steered and took aim at that stupid, bloated man.

Louie fired two shots. Roger hit him dead on.

Louie was crushed under the car. Eight of his ribs had been broken, as well as his both of his legs and most of his right arm. His left lung had been deflated and his kidneys had ruptured. As a consequence he had just wet himself.

He struggled to breathe the burning cold air. He lay face up in the parking lot, not able to see all of his blood that had begun to pool around him. He would fight on, struggling for breath and consciousness, until he died eight minutes later.

Roger was only slightly better off then Louie had been. He did not die. But that was little improvement.

His chest had been mauled by the shotgun’s blasts. His lungs had both been shredded and mangled, along with everything else in his chest. Pieces of broken glass from the windshield had lodge itself in right half of his face. He couldn’t see anything out of his right eye and his left eye showed little more then a blur.

He fought against the pain. He knew that he would have to get to a hospital if he had any chance to survive. He knew that there was a hospital near here, but it was a good twenty-five, thirty miles away.

He made a wild right turn and gunned the engine. He was bleeding badly now. It had begun to flow in a fairly steady stream and was showing little sign of slowing down. The crimson had stained the seats and clung to what remained of his clothing. The sour stink of it had polluted the truck and threatened to knock him out almost as much as the pain or loss of blood did.

He tried to keep as well to this dark, lonely stretch of road as he could. But time was against him. Slowly he began to swerve, first a little to the right, then further to the left. He wildly staggered to the right, turned sharply to the left and then spun wildly into a ditch to the right of the road.

His head slammed down o the dashboard. The glass lodged itself further in his skull and his wounds opened even further. His blood painted the cab of his truck. Roger was lost to the dark as he fell into unconsciousness.

* * * *

Slowly Roger began coming to. He pried open his heavy eyes and looked around him dizzily.

He was still in his trusty Ford. The engine had died. The seats of the cab and its floor were drenched and sticky with his blood.

The money from the robbery was still in the bag, he noted. But he was unsure of how he was going to be able to get to a hospital so as to live long enough to have joy of it.

He groped weakly for his hand, searching for the door handle. He found it and fumbled it in his tired grasp.

He was so very tired. He didn’t want to do anything more then to lie down and sleep. But he knew that this was one nap that he may never wake up from.

He somehow managed to flounder the door open. But as it did open he found that he had supported all of his weight on it. He fell down with a dull thud onto the cold snow-covered ground as more snow softly fell from above.

He tried pushing himself up. But he lacked the strength now that he had lost so much blood. He got less the one third of the way up before his arms quivered and gave in.

He tried getting up again, but found that he couldn’t even do that much. He was far too weak, far to tired to attempt to lift himself.
He didn’t feel the cold anymore. All he felt was tired. He closed his eyes and let sleep take him.

* * * *

Roger blinked once, then twice. He opened his eyes fully now and looked out of them.

He pushed himself off of the ground and was amazed at how easily the action came to him. He felt regenerated, refreshed. He had now idea how, but he felt like a million bucks.

He had been passed out for God knows how long, lying there in the snow. But, no, it wasn’t snow. It wasn’t snow anymore, at least. Now he had no idea what it was.

It fell like snow. It fell in small flakes like snow. But it was red, a deep crimson color. It was sticky, too, like syrup. But, most confusing of all, it was hot.

The night, however, and it still as night, was freezing cold, even worse then what it had been. Looking up at the sky he couldn’t even see the moon in its thin crescent shape anymore.
It was at this time when he found that he could, at last, take an accurate inventory of the damages.

The truck’s windshield had completely shattered inward. His front right tire had blown out, presumably from the gunshot. His entire front was dented and beaten up, partly from the gun, it seemed, but mostly from the crash.
He saw that the crimson blood the cab of the truck had dried into a bronzy maroon. But the bag was still there. He unzipped it and saw that all of the money was still inside of it too.

He didn’t have any idea how he survived. He didn’t understand how he could be shot at and crash like he did and be able to stand here, better then ever. But, he supposed, all’s well that ends well.

“Some drive, wasn’t it?” An aged hoarse voice asked, not so unlike Paul Newman’s in The Road to Perdition.

Roger spun quickly around to meet the voice’s owner. The man stood about a dozen feet away.
He was an old man, worn looking and ancient. His skin, what he could see of it at any rate, was gnarled looking and almost bronzed over like some Grecian statue. But nearly al of him was covered in a long ebony trench coat. Over his hands he wore black leather gloves and his head was covered in a maroon bowler hat. Under that that he gave a smile from his vermilion lips and exposed his bone white teeth. His piercing blue eyes, his cold blue eyes, judged and toyed with him at the distance.

“Yeah,” Roger said dumbly. His body began losing feeling starting with the tips of his toes. It wasn’t from the cold, though. “Yeah it was, wasn’t it?”

“Looks to me like you only got a mile out of Louie’s before you swerved off here.” As the man spoke, the feeling left his legs.

“Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

“Of course it is, Roger. Of course it is.” Roger now couldn’t feel anything from below the lower half of his torso. But already it had begun to creep up to his chest. Under other circumstances, Roger would surely have asked how this complete stranger had known his name. But, then again, under other circumstances an absolute strangers voice would not cause his body to go numb.

“Yeah. I can hardly believe that I survived it.” He called out, feeling the tips in his arm lose what feeling they had.

The man cracked a wicked smile, showing that his teeth were more like fangs then anything else.
“Indeed, Roger, indeed. And what exactly makes you think that you survived it?”

“I am standing here aren’t I?” He had lost all of the feeling from below his neck. He could barely answer because his mouth had begun to slacken slightly and he found it much more difficult to form the proper words with it.

But he saw the man’s face, saw the sinister humor in it. He saw the malice, the evil , in that man’s grin, in his eyes. He broke his gaze as another crimson flake fell on his unmoving hand.
As it made contact that hot feeling gave him some feeling in his arm. But I was then that he knew what those flakes were.

It was blood! It was his frozen blood!

He found himself thinking ‘How did I survive that crash? How did I survive that shotgun?’

But the Man in Red answered him. “How indeed? Come now, Roger, you mustn’t dawdle. I have a schedule to keep and Louie is most anxious to see you again.”

Posted By: Bmat Dec 21, 2004 - 12:04 pm

First paragraph: I think that you should put Roger's leaving closer to the slamming open of the door. As it is, the reader sees that the door opened, then the snow whipped in, then Roger left.

Second paragraph: Was hidden in its celestial canvas- "its" refers to the sky, but as it is, the word seems to refer to the moon. Soft white snow- if the winds are roaring then the snow wouldn't be soft, it would be lashed around. "that whipped it west" is awkward and maybe not needed? I'm not so sure that the sky would be pitch black- the snow is falling, being whipped around by roaring winds, the crescent moon that we can't even see because it is hidden by the cloud cover is present behind the clouds, but in addition, here anyway in the winter if the sky is cloud-covered at night and there is any moon at all, even hidden by the clouds, the sky is more grayish.

The next two paragraphs have a lot of "he's."
Instead of the shotgun being at his side, perhaps he could just coc k (hmmm- first time the filter has ever caught a word that I used. Heh!) the shotgun that he carried with him, or something like that. How did he know the man was Italian anyway? It was only presumably Louie, yet the following sentences call him Louie for sure.

The two paragraphs beginning with Louie switch POV and is a little confusing. How was such an accurate diagnosis made. Perhaps the parapraphs could be dropped and simply mention made that he died.

If his lungs and everything else in his chest- the heart included are shredded and mangled... he's dead.

Do some tightening.

You have a clever and humorous story here. I love the ending. Very nice!

Posted By: Magus Dec 21, 2004 - 01:08 pm

Thanks Bmat! I appreciate the suggestions. I already know where I'm going to take the revisions thanks to your suggestions. Thanks again!

Yeah, they filtered that word out from me to, but it was a little bit ago. I was talking about a cockfight, and it filtered it out when I had it as two words seperated with a hyphen.

Posted By: Magus Dec 22, 2004 - 07:13 pm

O.K. Here's my new revision. I did as you suggested and tweaked it a little more. It now stands at 1,875 words. I hope that this works better then it did. Oh, by the way, Bmat. What did you meen when you said that the story was humorous? Did you meen ironic, or actually funny?

***************************************************

Roger Hall grabbed the door to Louie’s Grab ‘n’ Go Diner and slammed it open, shattering its mostly-glass body. Cold wind and snow whipped in the eatery. Roger flew out as quickly as his legs would take him.

The sky was pitch black. It was a cloudy night, all but the waning crescent moon was hidden in the black celestial canvas. Harsh blinding white snow scourged the air and lashed with the wind, causing the cars to rock and the walls of Louie’s establishment to quiver, as if in fear for itself.

It was a cold night, a burning night. It was a white night that seemed to rub existence itself away, turning the page of life blank once more.
The December air was frigidly cold, numbing the thief’s very soul, it seemed. His breath came out in quick puffs as he bolted for his car, a rusty old ford pick-up.

He slid across a track of thin ice to the door of his truck. Roger yanked the door open, stuffed in his duffel bag and started the engine.

As Roger began to pull out a fat Italian man, the Louie of Louie’s Grab ‘n’ Go Diner, in a stained cooking-smock. At good ol’ Louie’s side was a shotgun. He cocked it and brought it up so as to look through the sights.

Roger slammed on the gas pedal. He steered and took aim at that stupid, bloated pig.

Louie fired two shots. Roger hit him dead on.

Louie was crushed under the car. Eight of his ribs had been broken, as well as his both of his legs and most of his right arm. His left lung had been deflated and his kidneys had ruptured. As a consequence he had just wet himself.

Louie struggled to breathe the burning cold air. He lay face up in the parking lot, not able to see all of his blood that had begun to pool around him. He fought on, struggling for breath and consciousness, until he died not one minute later.

Roger was only slightly better off then Louie had been. He did not die. But that was little improvement. His fate was that he would live, and what a terrible wretched fate it was.

His chest had been mauled by the shotgun’s blasts. His left lung had been shredded and mangled, along with everything else in his chest. His right lung had been badly punctured and was beginning to slowly deflate as Roger struggled to draw in breath.

Pieces of broken glass from the windshield had lodge itself in right half of his face. He couldn’t see anything out of his right eye and his left showed little more then a raging white blur. It was a miracle in itself that he had survived at all.

He fought against the pain. He knew that he would have to get to a hospital if he had any chance to survive the night. He knew that there was a hospital near here, but it was a good twenty-five, thirty miles away. He doubted he had that long.

He made a wild right turn and gunned the engine. He was bleeding badly now. It had begun to flow in a fairly steady stream and was showing no sign of slowing down on his account.

The crimson had stained the seats and clung to what remained of his clothing. The sour stink of it had polluted the truck and threatened to knock him out almost as much as the pain or loss of blood did.

He tried to keep as well to this dark, lonely stretch of road as he could. But time was against him. Slowly he began to swerve, first a little to the right, then further to the left. He wildly staggered to the right, turned sharply to the left and then spun wildly into a ditch to the side of the road.

His head slammed down on the dashboard. The glass lodged itself further in his skull and his wounds spread even further. His blood painted the cab of his truck like the work of some macabre Picasso. Roger was lost to the dark as his eyes closed. He fell into unconsciousness as the storm raged outside.

* * * *

Slowly Roger began coming to. He pried open his heavy eyes and looked around dizzily.

He was still in his trusty Ford. The engine had died, the lights as cold and dark as the night. The seats of the cab and its floor were drenched and sticky with his blood.

The money from the robbery was still in the bag, he noted with devilish glee. But he was unsure of how he was going to be able to get to a hospital so as to live long enough to have joy of it.

He groped weakly for his hand, searching for the door handle. He found it and fumbled it in his tired grasp.

He was so very tired. He didn’t want to do anything more then to lie down and sleep. But he knew that this was one nap that he may never wake up from.

He somehow managed to flounder the door open. But as it did open he found that he had supported all of his weight on it. He fell down with a dull thud onto the cold snow-covered ground as more snow whipped this way and that, burning his face with their cold.

He tried pushing himself up. But he lacked the strength now that he had lost so much blood. He got less the one third of the way up before his arms quivered and gave in.

He tried getting up again, but found that he couldn’t even do that much. He was far too weak, far to tired to attempt to lift himself.
Eventually he found that he didn’t feel the cold anymore. All he felt was tired. He closed his eyes and let sleep take him.

* * * *

Roger blinked once, then twice. He opened his eyes fully and looked out of them as if for the first time.

He pushed himself off of the ground and stood up, amazed at how easily the action came to him after the failed ordeal he had gone through earlier. He felt refreshed. Hell to refreshed, he felt reborn! He had no idea how, but there he was, regenerated and refreshed after a crash Evil Knievil could have been proud of.

He had been passed out for God knows how long, lying there in the snow. But, no, it wasn’t snow. It wasn’t snow anymore, at least. Now he had no idea what it was.

It fell like snow. It fell in small flakes like snow. But it was red, a deep crimson color. It was sticky, too, like syrup. But, most confusing of all, it was hot.

And, moreover, the wind had changed. No longer did it whip and howl like a banshee. It fell softly and came to embrace him. The snow clung to him and seemed to own him.

The night, however, and it still was night, was freezing cold. If possible, it was even worse then what it had been. Looking up at the sky he couldn’t even see the moon in its thin crescent shape anymore. But clouds did not cover the sky. The canvas itself had been painted black, pure and absolute darkness.

It was now when he found that he could take an accurate inventory of the damages.

The truck’s windshield had completely shattered inward. His front right tire had blown out, presumably from the gunshot. His entire front was dented and beaten up, partly from the gun, it seemed, but mostly from the crash.

The windows had frosted and fogged, giving it an eerily old and weathered look. The red snow stained it and piled on top of itself for nearly a foot.

He saw that the crimson blood the cab of the truck had dried into a bronzy maroon. But the bag was still there. He unzipped it and saw that all of the money was still inside of it too.

He didn’t have any idea how he survived. He didn’t understand how he could be shot at and crash like he did and be able to stand here, just as good as new. Hell, he was better then ever!

‘But’, he supposed, ‘all’s well that ends well.’

“Some drive, wasn’t it?” An aged hoarse voice asked, not so unlike Paul Newman’s in The Road to Perdition.

Roger spun quickly around to meet the voice’s owner. The man stood about a dozen feet away.
He was an old man, worn looking and ancient. His skin, what he could see of it at any rate, was gnarled looking and almost bronzed over like some Grecian statue. But nearly all of him was covered in a long ebony trench coat. Over his hands he wore black leather gloves and his head was covered in a maroon bowler hat. Under that hat he gave a smile from his vermilion lips and exposed his bone white teeth. His piercing blue eyes, his cold blue eyes, judged and toyed with him at the distance.

“Yeah,” Roger said dumbly. His body began losing feeling starting with the tips of his toes. It wasn’t from the cold, though. “Yeah it was, wasn’t it?”

“Looks to me like you only got a mile out of Louie’s before you swerved off here.” As the man spoke, the feeling left his legs.

“Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

“Of course it is, Roger. Of course it is.” Roger now couldn’t feel anything from below the lower half of his torso. But already it had begun to creep up to his chest. Under other circumstances, Roger would surely have asked how this complete stranger had known his name. But, then again, under other circumstances an absolute strangers voice would not cause his body to go numb.

“Yeah. I can hardly believe that I survived it.” He called out, feeling the tips in his arm lose what feeling they had.

The man cracked a wicked smile, showing that his teeth were more like fangs then anything else. “Indeed, Roger, indeed. And what exactly makes you think that you survived it?”

“I am standing here aren’t I?” He had lost all of the feeling from below his neck. He could barely answer because his mouth had begun to slacken slightly and he found it much more difficult to form the proper words with it.

But he saw the man’s face, saw the sinister humor in it. He saw the malice, the evil , in that man’s grin, in his eyes. He broke his gaze as another crimson flake fell on his unmoving hand.
As it made contact that hot feeling gave him some feeling in his arm. But I was then that he knew what those flakes were.

It was blood! It was his frozen blood!

He found himself thinking ‘How did I survive that crash? How did I survive that shotgun?’

But the Man in Red answered him. “How indeed? Come now, Roger, you mustn’t dawdle. I have a schedule to keep and Louie is most anxious to see you again.”

Posted By: Magus Jan 09, 2005 - 10:07 am

I've decided to change the title of the story from "The Longest Mile" to "The Last Mile". It seems to fit better. Besides, I just finished reading The Long Walk yesterday. I know now what the longest mile is like and this isn't it. But this is the last mile, I see that now.

Posted By: Neurolanis Jan 09, 2005 - 04:48 pm

Ok, I have to say that this isn't -- by my opinion -- the best work that I've read of your's here. I agree with all of Bmat's points. And the revision is much better. The early parts features some passive writing. It's better to just say he does this/sees that. Keep it direct.

The money from the robbery was still in the bag, he noted with devilish glee.

I'd get rid of "he noted ... ".

He saw the malice, the evil , in that man’s grin, in his eye soted.

I'd say: He saw the malice. The evil in the man's grin.." the 'in his eye soted' part I don't get.

It's alright, but again -- no offence -- I've seen you do better.

Posted By: Magus Jan 09, 2005 - 06:26 pm

No offense taken. I appreciate the honest feedback. I agree that it isn't my best piece, but it turned out much better then what I thought it was going to be. This was done just to pass time in Driver's Ed.

Yeah, after looking at it I think should take it through another revision for some minor corrections and errors, like the ones you mentioned.