Chad A. Clark's Blog, page 22
May 6, 2016
Baked Scribe Flashback : First Impressions
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Mario braced himself against the seat in front of him as the bus hit another crater-sized hole in the road. Half of the other kids on the bus screamed and hollered, the trip somehow becoming both the entertaining and terrifying. Coach stood up, trying to pretend that he wasn’t bothered by the abrupt motions of the bus. After a few moments, he broke down and reached up to take hold of one of the side rails.
“Look you guys, I don’t think this should be this big of a deal,” he said as he barely kept himself from toppling over backwards. “You all just need to shut up during the diving portion of the meet. All your noise is distracting him, and it makes us all look bad.”
There was snickering all over the bus as Mark, the diver, sat with his back turned, sullenly, to all of them. Mario thought the whole thing was being blown out of proportion. If the guy couldn’t perform because of a little distraction, maybe he shouldn’t be doing it. They weren’t serving tea and biscuits here.
“Did you see that creeper guy in the stands?” Brody asked, as the bus jumped and they bumped into each other again.
“What guy?”
“Up in the top row, behind their team. I’m pretty sure he was there alone. I couldn’t see his face with that hood pulled up over his head, but who just sits there alone, watching a swim meet?”
“A parent?”
“If someone here was his kid, you’d never guess he gave a shit about any of them.”
The bus drove out onto Mason’s Bridge. Mario glanced out of the window, and down at the river at the bottom of the deep valley below. It was at least a hundred feet, and the bridge anymore looked like a stiff breeze might take it apart.
“I mean, who does that?” Brody was still going on about the guy in the stands. How was Mario supposed to know. Maybe the guy’s kid just sucked.
The bus dipped and rocked to the side. Mario placed a hand against the window to brace himself, and it took a few moments for him to realize that he had been holding his breath, clenching his body as he had been bracing for some catastrophic impact.
“Jesus, you are such a baby!” Brody sneered at him. “Would you try and relax?”
The wind picked up as he said this, and hit the bus so hard that it felt like something had actually landed on the roof. They swerved to the left, and for an elongated moment, Mario feared that they were about to start fishtailing. Then, the bus seemed to lift up slightly, and the vibrations from the tires abruptly ceased. He felt a sudden sickness in his stomach at the familiar sensation.
It was what it felt like when an airplane took off.
He looked out the window again, in time to see the ground now dropping away from them, before vanishing into the dark. The driver was screaming, and everyone seemed overly slow to figure out what had just happened, until the bus was savagely jerked and turned until it was completely upright.
Mario fell back against his seat, rolled up and over it and down to the next one behind him. He flipped over, and looked over the back of the seat, at the rear emergency exit that was now directly below him. Before he could get a better grip on the vinyl cover, the bus jerked again, and he slid off, drifting across the aisle to bounce off the next row of seats, dropping down and tumbling over, before he crashed onto the rear door. He kept enough of his senses to roll out of the way and behind the rear bench, knowing that other kids must be falling towards him as well.
From the outside, he heard the sound of a shriek, loud and animal-like, and only barely drowning out the cries from the inside of the bus. He heard a scream of tearing metal, and looked up to see giant, elongated talons now penetrating through the roof and squeezing, pulling more of the bus apart as it shook them mercilessly.
“Do you hear that?” Brody asked. Mario thought the question idiotic as firs,t but then he thought he might have understood what Brody was referring to. It seemed like a second cry, another creature like this one. The bus was shaken even harder than before, lifted up briefly before dropping back down, hitting the ground with a deafening crash and skidding to a halt.
After what felt like an hour, Mario pushed himself up into a crouched position. He reached out to push the emergency exit open and, one by one, they staggered out. He felt pain shoot up his leg and blood dripping down his neck as the others joined him, all staring up into the sky.
The thing that had attacked them looked like some kind of reptile, or bird of prey, big enough that it might have been able to pick up an entire house, let alone the bus. Mario blinked at the sight of the thing, wondering why it had let them go when he spotted the second one, nearly identical to the first, swooping down from the darkness above, teeth and claws bared in full attack mode. The two things collided, and the force of their bodies impacting caused him to stagger back, even from such a great distance. They grappled with each other and swiped out with their claws as their wings beat the air, keeping them aloft, high above them.
The second one continued circling around its opponent, darting in for quick attacks, and Mario could hear the frustration in the cries from the first. They all stood there, in awe of the battle unfolding above.
It ended so quickly, he almost didn’t have time to register it. The second beast, who he had somehow already dubbed as their protector, flew in to take hold of the other thing’s throat, ripping and pulling flesh and bone with it. The thing didn’t even cry out as it fell, plummeting down somewhere, off in the woods.
Mario watched as the giant bird took several lazy orbits before starting to descend. He wondered vaguely if they were going to be attacked again but in a swirling mass of shadows and light, the thing shrunk, like a retreating shadow collapsing in on itself and, as it touched down on hard pavement, he found himself looking at nothing but the figure of a man, standing alone in the middle of the road.
He heard Brody take in a sharp breath behind him as he started jabbing Mario in the back.
“That’s him!” he hissed. “The guy at the meet, that’s the guy!”
Mario gazed at the man, mouth slackening open at the thought of what he had just transformed from. From the distance of his vantage point, the man seemed to smirk, maybe waving at them as he pulled his overcoat more tightly around himself He turned to leave, retreating away on foot, until he was lost within the dense cover of night.
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May 5, 2016
Baked Scribe Special Announcement
Hey everybody, I just wanted to touch base and let you know about some changes that will be going into effect with the blog in terms of content and when you will be seeing what.Since we went live in 2013, I have been posting new stories, every Wednesday. Starting now, I will be backing down from that schedule and new stories will now be posted on a bi-weekly basis.
I hope that this news doesn’t come as too much of a disappointment for anyone. The reason why I am doing this is because of the demands of other projects I have up in the air at any given time, along with the priority of making sure my wife and my sons are getting as much of my time as possible, I need to scale things down a little. I also want to make sure stories aren’t being rushed and that the attention to quality remains strong.
The good news is that since its inception, the blog has expanded to include a ton of new content and those will be remaining. Flashback Saturdays and Sundays have proven to be popular and they will be carrying on. I have also had three separate series of essays ongoing, my reviews of Stephen King’s books in order of publication, essays on the craft of writing as well as my spotlights on favorite books I have read as of late. These pieces will be appearing on the blog regularly, every Monday and will rotate from week to week.
That’s it. I hope that you all are having a great day and thanks again for all of your fantastic support.
May 3, 2016
Issue #151 : On The Trail
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Joey glared up the length of the rural road and wondered again why he bothered staying with the campaign. He glared down at the frayed pieces of literature, the edges fluttering in the warm breeze. It was like devoting your life to accomplishing nothing. The election was still so far off, it was getting harder to really see the point of any of it.
Every house ended up being a slight variation of the same conversation, regardless the specific issues. No sir. My candidate actually agrees with you. Ma’am, believe me when I say that will almost certainly be a central piece to my candidates platform. You don’t have to be worried about us. We are on your side.
Insert thumbs up here
It was the same bullshit, every two years, regardless of what campaign he happened to to talk his way into. If it weren’t for the fact that he needed a job, there would be no way he would ever sign himself up for this kind of abuse. No one wanted to listen to him, he was the personification of everything that was wrong, or things that were going to be wrong. His only friends on trips like this were the upraised palm and the slammed screen door.
He took a long drink of water and looked again at the small house. He had been watching it for the past 20 minutes as he approached on foot, at what felt like less than a snail’s pace. Maybe this one would be different. The absurdity of the notion made him laugh. The only thing that ever changed was how close anyone came from straight out telling him to fuck off.
Stepping up onto the tidy porch, he pressed his finger to the doorbell, listening to the beautiful sound of chimes within as they resonated throughout with symphonic purity
The sound went on for so long that he didn’t hear the steps approaching, but as the door was pulled open, the young woman standing within made him immediately feel a fluttering in his stomach. He realized that he was already almost stammering on the inside.
She stared back at him patiently, the spaghetti straps of her sun-dress threatening to slip off of one shoulder. He found himself torn between wanting to reach out to rescue it and still remaining respectful.
Finally she laughed, a light sound that filled him with a warmth that he hadn’t known before. “You do know that you haven’t asked me anything yet, right?”
“Uh…” Her accent threw him off, more Southern than anyone he had met on this trip so far. “Sorry, what?” It was all he could think of to articulate his question.
She nodded at his bag which had already slipped his mind. “I’m assuming you want to talk to me about your candidate?”
He had forgotten what candidates even were. All he could think about were those curves, lifting that dress up over her head and laying her down onto the couch to explore that body.
“Is everything okay?”
He heard the sing-song in her voice, saw the inviting glow of her skin but couldn’t even remember how to manipulate his mouth into speech. How was he supposed to tell her how he really felt? Would she accept him? Would she return his feelings?
“I’m sorry.” He finally found his voice. “Sorry, I guess I’ve just been out walking in the sun for too long. I was wondering if you’ve given any thought to the upcoming—”
“Oh, well you should come inside then, cool off for a minute.” She said this as she opened the door for him to come in. It was hard to deny or resist the cool breeze that wafted out from the house, carrying with a just a touch of her perfume. He was a slave to those sensations as he allowed her to lead him in, sensing the stupid grin on his face. He watched the thin fabric of her dress as it slid up her thighs and felt her smirk as she glanced back at him. It was a look of such invitation that he knew could lead nowhere good.
Time slipped away.
He saw her, losing himself in those eyes and within her. The softness of her body was on him and in him, the weight of her breath on his ear as it became more frantic, rushing towards the edge of the release they both desired.
Joey blinked and realized that he was seated on an ornate glider, the back and forth motion already starting to make him feel sleepy. She was walking in from the other room, buttoning up her shirt. He caught himself watching as the shirt pulled tight around her, the quick glimpse of the curve of her breasts before they vanished behind the buttons and the shirt slackened around her.
When he looked up, she was staring into his eyes with the biggest trouble-maker grin he had ever seen. Before he could stand up, she placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down, kissing him softly at first, the pressure from her lips increasing as she took hold of one of his hands and brought it up to what he had just been gaping at moments earlier. Her breath caught as she he squeezed and broke the kiss. He began to wonder how long he had been there.
“I’ll be right back,” she said as she walked off towards the kitchen.
This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening. He didn’t even know her name. Frantically he pulled the list from his bag and began scanning down with one finger.
Her address wasn’t there.
She probably just wasn’t registered as a voter. Taking out his phone, he looked up the address. It didn’t take long to find it. What took longer was his ability to accept what he was seeing, to realize where he was sitting. His entire body went numb as he read through the articles.
The fire had happened nearly fifty years ago.
No one knew what had started it, but reports were that the wife had been having an affair and that the husband discovered the two of them. Joey’s breath stopped as he gaped at the thumbnail pictures in the story. The husband looked like a bruiser, someone who could take a person apart with his bare hands. Then the picture of the wife. It was grainy, but even in black-and-white was easily identifiable.
It was the woman who was now in the kitchen .
Joey made to stand up but she was suddenly in front of him, her hand was on his shoulder, pushing him back down. There was now a smell of rot in the air, the skin on her hand and arm black and blistered from being burned, like some kind of alien skin. He heard her true voice as she spoke.
“Welcome home darling.”
It was a voice of mockery, daring him to do his worst, to put him to the test. He started to respond but quickly realized that she hadn’t been speaking to him, but was rather hoisting him up as a prize for the person who had just arrived. The floor trembled underneath them as the door was thrown open in a howling wind of fury and rage.
The husband had come home.
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May 1, 2016
Top Picks : Salvage, by Duncan Ralston
There come stories where, as you read them you feel pulled in two directions. On one hand you love the story and the writing and the concept and on the other, you feel jealous that you didn’t get to be the one who had the idea in the first place.
The premise behind Salvage is one that’s right in my wheelhouse. I have always preferred the darker leaning supernatural horror genre and when I read the description of this book, I knew pretty much right away that this was one that I would have to read. I love the idea of an entire town lying submerged at the bottom of a lake, having been vacated for the purposes of building a new dam. Scuba diving is something that I think is incredibly evocative of the horror genre. The other worldly and isolated quality of everything puts the character into a situation where literally every moment is of life and death. Add to that the inherently terrifying image of the ghost of a town lurking down in the dark waters below made it an amazing book before I even started reading it.
One aspect that I really enjoyed and appreciated about the book was in the area of technical information, more specifically when it comes to the subject of diving, which holds a central part of the story. Books generally tend to fall between two extremes when it comes to tackling this issue. Some writers will clearly have no idea what they are really talking about and are just throwing out some random jargon in the hopes that their thin veneer of know-how will hold up. Then you have the other side, the Dan Brown treatment, as I like to call it. In this scenario, the entire narrative of the story comes to a screeching halt as the author inserts as much of their research as possible. Also, there may or may not be a flashback used to anecdotally make a point or explain a concept that has very little, if anything to do with the story itself.
This book is an example of the ones who do it right. Ralston makes me believe that he knows what he is talking about. The technical information about the equipment of diving as well as the experience of being underwater is smoothly passed along to the reader. I don’t know the first thing about diving but while reading this book, I feel like the information I need is given to me. And more importantly, I don’t feel like the pace of the story is affected or nfeel like he is dumbing down the information and spoon feeding it to me like a toddler.
This book is a fantastic mix of elements of horror and mystery as the main character attempts to learn more about the circumstances of his sister’s death. This blossoms into the mystery of the town itself buried at the bottom of the lake as well as the extremist religious group that lived there. And throughout all of this is his gradual realization of how little he knows about his own history. Keeping that many narrative strands organized and moving in the same direction is not an easy task and Ralston pulls it off nicely.
The characters in the book are well crafted and presented in a way that I think is most effective in any kind of fiction, in that everyone seems like they are just a little bit broken. Not that they are bad people necessarily, but that they aren’t the shining knights of virtue that the protagonists of many books seem to be. It gives them an air of believability and authenticity that I think is important to a book. It’s a big part of what keeps you hanging with the narrative, it’s what makes you care about them in the first place. The characters all feel like they have a story and a part in this book. It’s efficient and effective storytelling.
Also, it isn’t as if Spielberg hasn’t put me off on open waters enough, but the addition of Ralston’s book certainly makes me feel that much more apprehensive about the idea of swimming at all, let alone diving in a lake. Who knows what might be lurking down underneath, down in the darkness that we can’t see? Some of the scenes involving diving and the exploration of the remains of the town had me crawling on the inside from claustrophobia. I think the book could have almost been just about diving in an underwater town and it could have been scary enough for me.
Salvage is a perfect example of what it looks like when an author takes a simple, potent premise and weaves it into a heavy-hitting narrative. It is sublimely paced and layered. Up until this point, all I had read from Ralston was his collection of short stories, Gristle & Bone. I certainly enjoyed it, but Salvage has served to put me firmly into his camp and I will be looking forward to future releases.
Follow the links below to purchase your own copies of Ralston’s work.
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April 30, 2016
Baked Scribe Flashback : As It Seems
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“Come on, stop feeding me this bullshit,” Dominic said.
“No bullshit, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Darius responded.
“Come on.”
“What?”
“How long have we been working together?”
“Going on ten years now.”
“And how long have we been meeting for drinks like this?”
Darius frowned and looked down at his hands, trying to remember. “At least five years. Pizza and beer, every Wednesday.”
“And after all of that, you still can’t bring yourself to trust me? Is that really what you’re saying?”
“It’s got nothing to do with trust, I don’t know—”
“Darius.”
“Seriously, I don’t know—”
“Darius!”
They had reached the point where each was starting to realize that the argument was actually more serious than it had seemed at first. Dominic has started it almost as a joke, but Darius’ reaction was clearly making him upset.
“Okay,” Darius said as he placed the pint glass down on the table. “Just explain what’s bothering you.”
“I know something isn’t right with you. I’ve seen all of the signs, everything you think no one is noticing because no one is watching.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Dominic rolled his eyes and looked away for a moment. “Don’t make me say it, all right? It makes me sound like a loony. I need to hear you say it.”
“Say what?”
“Darius, for fuck’s sake.”
“I really don’t—”
“All right, I’ll tell you what I’ve been seeing, and you can try to explain it. Last week, I saw you trip and spill an entire pot of hot coffee, all over your arm.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’? I would have screamed my damn head off. You didn’t even make a sound. I thought maybe you just have a high pain tolerance, but your skin didn’t even look burned.”
“Wait, I remember that now, the water wasn’t even—”
“Don’t insult me. I watched you take it off of the burner, right after the brew cycle ended. I could see the steam coming off of it.”
“Okay, I think you’re a little off in your recollection, but okay. What else?”
“Just last week. I saw that forklift—”
“Now hold on.”
“No. I know what you told everyone, that you had gotten out of the way, just in time, but I saw the thing back up over your foot. I watched your foot vanish underneath the wheel, and you acted like you didn’t even notice it.”
Darius was already shaking his head. “You’re imagining things. There’s no way I could have—”
“I know there’s no way you could have done that. That’s kind of my point, though. Where are you from, Darius?”
“What? You know that I’m from Baltimore.”
Dominic shook his head. “Nope. I checked you out”
“You checked me out? What kind of a friend does something like that?”
“I don’t know. What kind of a friend keeps something like this to himself? I did a couple of those Internet background searches. No record of anyone with your name in the greater Baltimore area. No one in Maryland, no one in Vermont. Pretty much the entire east coast. Nothing.”
“And why would you trust the Internet?”
“That’s your defense?”
“I don’t need to defend myself, I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Maybe not yet.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Where do you really come from, Darius?”
The two men stared at each other, not conceding an inch in either direction. Darius tugged at his ear with an irritated air about him, as if he was trying to figure out the fastest way out of this argument.
“What do you expect me to say?” he finally asked.
“The truth would be refreshing.”
“Is that what you really want?”
“Yes!”
“Because I think you just want me to tell you whatever you want to hear and wrap it up in a bow, as if it was the truth.”
“I can’t do anything about that,” Dominic said.
“So what is it that you intend to do?” Darius asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m assuming that this confrontation is some kind of preamble to a threat, or demand of some kind. Can we just skip ahead to that part?”
“I just want you to look me in the eyes and tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
Dominic slammed his glass down on the table and slid his untouched food to the side so that he could lean in closer to speak, hissing the response at Darius. “I don’t think you’re human.”
The proclamation stopped the conversation cold. Darius stared, as his mouth slowly dropped open, so taken aback that even he didn’t know how to respond.
“You…do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it not true.”
“Well, actually it—”
“I actually know for a fact that you aren’t human. In fact, it was the reason why I was sent here.”
Darius frowned, clearly not getting it.
“I’ll give you credit, you’ve stuck to your cover story, but that doesn’t change the gross errors you’ve been making as of late.”
“What the hell are you—”
“Darius, Sector Command received reports that you were being sloppy, putting yourself into a position to be discovered. Naturally, we couldn’t have that so they sent me, and instructed me to use this body, in order to evaluate your performance here.”
Darius’ eyes went so wide at the shock of the revelation that he didn’t even see Dominic lean forward and bring the blade around, into the base of his neck. He stiffened in his seat and after several convulsions, collapsed to the side onto the seat of their booth.
Dominic stood up and bent down to retrieve the knife. He wiped the blade clean with his handkerchief as he looked down at the body.
“They sent me to clean up your mess.”
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COVER REVEAL
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Waving Goodbye To AtoZ
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As April draws to a close,
Big finishes are
Certainly, if not
Downright
Expected.
Far from me to disappoint.
Greatness I’m sure, I’ll
Have to reach.
I can only hope you have enjoyed these,
Just some of my favorite Stephen
King characters, some of which you just
Love to hate. I hope it wasn’t too
Much, although for me there’s
Never too much King.
Of course I’m biased,
Perhaps too generous in grading the
Quality of his work. We all have the one we
Rate higher than all else, very
Simply the peak of our literary enjoyment.
These books have been some of my favorites
Undisputed and of the
Very highest quality. But
When the time comes to end the song, our
eXamination must end. Tune in next
Year because sky’s the limit. For now, it’s
Ze End
The ABC’s Of Stephen King : Richie ToZier
Yup. The name doesn’t start with the letter Z.
Say sorry.
See my post yesterday on Wendy Torrence for my rationalization/defense on this one.
But really, I think this is a good character to end out the month on. Such a great character from a fantastic book. I am a smart ass by nature so I am usually going to be drawn to characters who share a similar outlook. But what I like about Richie is that while he is clearly a wise acre and has problems with keeping his mouth shut, he is also incredibly devoted to his friends and takes that friendship seriously.
Richie was one of Seth Green’s early performances in the miniseries adaptation of the book. The character actually had two great performance, from Green as the young version and then the great Harry Anderson as the grown up Richie. Personally, I have always thought that Steven Weber would have made a great choice to play Richie as well but I think he may have gotten a little too old, despite the fact that a new adaptation of IT is supposedly in the works.
Richie helps lend an air of authentic period-based rock and roll to the book. I thought his voice and his love of classic monster flicks really gave the book that feeling of what I think of when I think about the 1950’s in this country. Another fine character, crafted by the King.
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So I kind of feel like I should place some kind of a message in here, at this point. We’ve reached the end of another April challenge and if you have been reading my offerings, I hope you have enjoyed them. If these essays have led you to also checking out some of the other content on the blog, you have my sincere thanks and appreciation. All of these words simply blink off into the void if people like you aren’t there at the other end to see them. So even though I don’t say it nearly enough, thank you for being there and for being a part of this crazy addiction of mine.
And finally, my compliments and congratulations to all the other bloggers who have taken this journey with me. You are all awesome in your own regard and bring your own light and creativity to this medium.
Rock it out, writers.
That’s all from me, for now.
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April 29, 2016
Baked Scribe Flashback : Carbon Copy
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The rain was heavy that night, coming down in sheets across the empty street around him. Bryce was out of gas and of course, in one of the worst, most isolated areas, just south of the city. All the buildings he could see were dark, save for one.
It was set back from the road, at least several hundred yards. Despite the parking lot being empty, he could see lights on in several of the windows as well as distorted movement through the frosted glass. They would have a phone he could call for a tow.
He was drenched, even through his clothes, by the time he reached the building. Even over the noise of the storm, he could hear the sounds of heavy equipment coming from inside, but he had to take several laps around the building before he found a door. It was locked, of course, being so late, but as hard as he banged on it, no one came to answer. Either they couldn’t hear him, or just didn’t care
The noise from the equipment seemed louder to his right, and when he walked over to investigate, he discovered that a window was cracked open. It looked like an employee locker room, and seemed empty. He spotted a phone across from him on the wall and begin trying to worm his way through.
He eased himself down onto a couch, and stepped down, beginning to move towards the phone that he now spotted on the far wall. It was just out of his reach and as he inched closer, his breath caught in his throat and he froze as he caught sight, in his periphery of someone, sitting alone at a small table.
Bryce jumped back, too surprised to even yell, and managed to kick a book that had been dropped on the floor, which slid across and clattered against the legs to the table. The man didn’t seem even aware of his presence however, and just sat there, staring blankly into space in front of them. A thin line of drool formed at the corner of his mouth, and was drooping nearly all the way to the table.
As Bryce slowly regained his control. He saw for the first time the unfocused look on the man’s eyes, darting from side to side as if on a timer. After several elongated moments of this, he started to rock forward and back in the chair, moaning slightly as he did so.
Bryce walked past him, to the window that looked out over the factory floor. He cracked open the blinds, peeked through the gap and for the second time felt his chest seizing up, unable to catch his breath.
There were people emerging from the machine, rumbling out on a long conveyor belt.
They all looked like the man who was sitting behind him. It was like watching a string of duplicate copies, everything the same, down to the glazed look on their faces. After a few minutes, a buzzer could be heard and now, a female version began to come out of the machine, again all completely identical.
Whatever was going on in here, he needed to get away. Somebody had to be told about this place. He had no idea how he would convince the police to come down, but he had to try. He railed against himself internally, as the drive to do all these things simply wasn’t powerful enough to overwhelm the disgust and awe at what was happening in front of him.
As he pressed closer to the glass, he saw another group of the things climbing one by one, into what looked like large barbers chairs. Equipment lowered down and began working them over, adjusting their appearances. Hair color was changed, glasses were added, the bone structure under the cheeks was actually adjusted like clay, until each thing started looking like a different person. Arms dropped down from the ceiling, attaching different items of clothing, like some kind of life-size doll.
Bryce jumped at the soft moan from behind him. He swiveled his head around to look at the man seated at table, but he still gave no indication of moving. Bryce began to make his way back to the window, where he had crawled in from.
He stepped up onto the couch, and had started to pull himself through, when he heard the door banging open behind him. Someone yelled out, and he heard someone running across the room. He tried to pull harder, but a pair of pants took hold of his legs and pulled him back through. The side of his head knocked against the window frame and he saw darkness.
When Bryce woke up, he thought he had gone blind. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them to make sure that his eyelids hadn’t just been dried shot. All he saw around him was darkness. The sound of his breathing echoed off what he assumed were the walls around him.
His hands had been tied behind him, to the chair in which he was seated. He pulled on them and twisted his hands, but to no avail.
“Hello?” he called out. What had he stumbled into? He was still trying to even reconcile what he had just seen with what he had always thought was even possible. People, being churned out of an assembly line like canned food?
He started to hear sound coming from the darkness around him. He couldn’t identify it at first, but slowly he began to recognize the sound of shuffling footsteps. Bryce strained forward against his restraints but could could not make any headway. Whatever knots were holding him down were not relenting.
He was about to scream out, when bright lights exploded around him and he had just enough time to take in what was going on in the room around him.
All he could see was a small mob of the faceless figures he had seen on the factory floor, still awaiting their final mold. The skin was stretched, grotesquely thin over them as they stumbled towards him. Their moans, which he could now just barely hear, was soon drowned out by his own screams.
All around him, the light retreated to darkness, rendering him once again blind. His shouts became high-pitched shrieks, and the last thing he felt was what seemed like hundreds of different hands grabbing him, and beginning to tear.
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The ABC’s Of Stephen King : WendY Torrence
So I will be completely honest for these last two days of the challenge, I’m going to be stretching the parameters a little bit. I 
would love to have a name that starts with the letter Y, but I would rather have a chance to talk about a character that we all know and are familiar with. And hey, the name Wendy does have the letter Y in it. That’s good enough, isn’t it?
Oh, and if you happen to read my final post tomorrow, you can refer back to this rationalization.
Anyway, as Casey Kasem would say, on with the countdown.
Wendy is probably one of the most interesting characters in the King universe and for the same issues I discussed with Jack Torrence in comparing book to film. In the book, I think that Wendy is a great character. She’s intelligent and she’s strong. She loves her son and devotes herself to him and his safety. While her husband is clearly falling apart, she stands up to him and provides a firm barrier between his craziness and their son. She’s a great character.
Wendy Torrence in the Kubrick film is a horrible character.
She’s a perfect example of what I call the Buttercup syndrome (if you haven’t seen the Princess Bride, fix that immediately). She serves no purpose in the story other than to scream and be in danger.
And to be clear, I don’t blame this necessarily on Shelly Duvall, who played Wendy in the movie. From everything I have heard, Stanley Kubrick wasn’t exactly a dream for women to work with and he was particularly abusive with Duvall. Add to this his reputation for doing ungodly numbers of takes for even mundane filler scenes, and I’m sure her performance was affected.
Regardless of the cause, the effect on the screen is still the same and I will always prefer Wendy as she appears on the page, in the book.
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