Proximity Muse

Mike takes Althea and attempts to flee, but James and Sam cut him off. Mike releases Althea and hides in the shadows. Still under the control of the shadows, she attempts to stab James, but he stuns her with a Taser. While James is busy subduing her, Mike pops out of the shadows and attacks Sam, seriously injuring him. James is forced to shoot Mike to save Sam, but Mike isn’t killed by the shot. James tells Sam to take Althea and leave, which Sam does.

James and Mike fight among the shadows. Initially, Mike has the upper hand, seriously injuring his brother, but James eventually forces the shadows to possess him, draining them from the room and leaving Mike revealed in stark, colorless light. Even without the advantage, Mike attempts to attack James and James shoots him in the knee. Although his brother urges him to give up, Mike continues with his efforts to kill James and is killed himself when SWAT bursts into the room and guns him down. As Mike dies, the shadows abandon him and drain from James as well, returning color and darkness to the room, much to the surprise of the SWAT team.

Finally, James and Althea are seen exiting a courthouse on a sunny day. Leahy and Sam are waiting for them. James relates that all the charges against him have been dropped and our heroes walk off into the sunset, shadows stretching out behind them.

_____________________________________________________________________________

And that’s that. I’ll start posting more random thoughts soon. Finals are over on the 15th.

James advances further into the basement and finds most of the backup emergency lights have been smashed. Near the body of a uniformed cop, he finds a Maglite. Eugene attacks James with a crowbar. Eugene is at least partially under the control of the shadows, and is totally insane. He appears to think James is one of the nursing home residents. James and Eugene fight and James is eventually forced to shoot him.

In a parallel sequence, Mike shows up at James’ apartment. He attacks Althea and she clocks him with a desk drawer. Eventually he manages to overcome and abducts her.

Meanwhile, back at the police station, James meets back up with Sam. James attempts to call Althea, but only gets her voice mail, which is a recording of the whispers and laughter of the shadows. James and Sam boogie back to James’ apartment only to find it empty. James walks around his apartment, turning off lights until only one remains on. He cautions Sam to stay in the light, then calls out to the shadows. The shadows reply, taunting him about losing both Mike and Althea. The shadows eventually reveal their goal of breeding humans they can use as hosts. James mocks them, angering the shadows and tricks them into possessing him. He manages to retain control of his body and forces them into showing him where Mike and Althea are.

Mike has holed up at Sal’s mansion and has his thugs patrolling the grounds with SMGs. James calls Leahy for backup. While Sam and James wait for the backup, James explains a bit more about the shadows. He tells Sam that he’s figured out the shadows are basically powerless unless given a purpose, and wonders aloud if his brother has figured that out. SWAT backup arrives and engages Mike’s thugs in a gun battle. James and Sam use the distraction to sneak into the mansion.

Upstairs in the mansion, Althea and Mike lie asleep in bed, entwined like lovers. The gunfire from the battle between the thugs and the SWAT team wakes them and we can see Althea’s has have gone the solid gray of someone possessed by shadows. The shadows tell Mike that James is in the mansion and Mike decides to beat it.

Back downstairs, the shadows distract James while Danny tries to shoot him. Danny misses, but Sam shoots and kills Danny. James forces the shadows to tell him where Mike and Althea are and he and Sam go looking for them.

James and Sam go to see Julio, who lives in a warehouse that is being renovated into apartments. The parking lot of the warehouse is full, but the place seems oddly deserted. James and Sam find Julio’s apartment – the only finished apartment in the building. The apartment door is unlocked and slightly ajar. Inside the men find a corpse they assume is Julio. The dead man has had his throat sliced. James steps forward (turning on a lamp to make more light) and the corpse turns to look at him. The shadows have animated Julio. He attempts to shoot and kill James and Sam. He manages to shoot Sam, but Sam has a Kevlar vest. James shoots out Julio’s kneecaps and drags Sam out of the apartment. The two men attempt to escape the warehouse when the shadow-animated bodies of murdered construction workers attack them. James notices that one of the workers is using a cutting torch for a weapon and shoots the gas canister it’s attached too, starting a fire and freaking out the shadows. This give James and Sam a chance to scoot and they take it. Outside, they block off the exit, trapping the dead workers and the shadows flee from the light and fire.

Back in their unmarked police car, Sam asks for an explanation for what he just saw. James explains about the shadows as best he can. He tells Sam that the shadows have no real will of their own and require someone to give them a purpose before they can do anything other than whisper. Rickles calls James and tells him to come into the station. Kelly’s body has been found and James and Sam are under suspicion for murdering her.

James and Sam go to the police station. On the way in they pass a cluster of uniformed cops struggling with a skinny man in a pink bathrobe. Rickles talks to another cop about the man in the pink bathrobe and we discover the fellow’s name is Eugene and he’s responsible for the slaughter of nursing home residents. Captain Leahy and Sgt. Rickles interrogate James and Sam about Kelly’s murder (Rickles is present as James’ union rep). The interrogation is interrupted by a report about an escaped prisoner (Eugene). The power dies in the building. Leahy locks James and Sam’s guns and badges in his desk, and tells them to stay put until the situation is over and the interrogation can resume. James tells Sam he suspects the shadows are behind the prisoner’s escape and they go looking for him.

James and Sam head downstairs to the basement and hear gunfire. In the basement they find the seriously wounded body of Rickles. James has Sam take Rickles to safety and, after taking Rickles’ sidearm, goes after the escaped prisoner alone.

I missed a day, didn’t I? Sorry!

A switch in narrative focus shows us three thugs (Danny, Fab and Unzio) hanging out in an alley, talking quietly and looking nervous about something. Shortly, the leader of the thugs, Sal, shows up and beats up Danny for interrupting him while he was chasing tail. The thugs report to Sal that a dirty cop (Mike) is attempting to poach some of Sal’s people. The cop is holding a meeting, right this second, at a nearby chop shop. Enraged by this revelation, Sal takes the three thugs in tow and goes to confront Mike.

The meet is actually a setup. Sal steps into the chop shop, gun leveled at Mike and Danny stuns Sal from behind with a Taser. While Sal is unconscious, Mike ties him up with chains before hoisting him to the ceiling. Using an auto lift to raise a semi truck engine block high above the floor, Mike attaches a chain from the engine block to Sal’s legs. Mike tells Sal he brought this all on him self by being such a douche bag and Danny pulls a lever, releasing the auto lift. The weight of the engine block tears Sal in half. With Sal dead, Mike takes over the gang. Saying he has a girl he wants to impress, Mike asks Danny to help him move into Sal’s mansion.

Back at James’ apartment, James, Althea and Sam are going over the IA files Sam brought over looking for leads. With an assist from the shadows, James turns up the name “Kelly” and an apartment number for her.

James and Sam go to visit Kelly, who is a high priced call girl, with a black eye. She tells the men that Mike was her part-time pimp and full-time police protection. Sam asks when the last time she saw Mike was and she tells him it was when he stopped by for his cut. Kelly says that Mike beat her and hints that he raped her when she didn’t give him as much cash as he wanted. With some prompting, Kelly tells James that she thinks Mike has holed up with a dealer named Julio and gives him an address. James and Sam leave the apartment, cautioning her to stay home and lock the doors. Seconds later Mike kind of oozes out of the shadows behind her. Mike and Kelly talk and it becomes clear she told James what exactly what Mike wanted her to. Mike backs Kelly into a corner as they talk and then kills her with a knife.

If you are just tuning in for the first time, I’m posting a page of my treatment each day. This helps me out during my end of semester antics, and hopefully people will comment!

At Mike’s apartment (which is lit up nearly as much as James’), James first attempts to figure out where his brother has gone through conventional means. He searches the apartment for clues and compares pictures of the scene from a police file to the actual scene itself. Oddly, the pictures show Mike’s closet and dresser as both overflowing with clothes, but now all the clothes are missing. James calls the police station, but they haven’t entered Mike’s clothing into evidence. Frustrated at the lack of clues, James gives in and contacts the shadows, who once again refuse to answer questions about his brother. Desperate, James allows them to possess him to show him what happened to Mike. After the shadows have finished flowing into him, James’ blue eyes turn solid gray.

In a series of flashbacks, James watches his brother on the night Mike disappeared through the eyes of the shadows as a sort of detached observer. Mike receives a phone call from a man named Neil, asking Mike for help. Pulling a .45 from where it was taped under the couch and sliding a pair of wicked looking knives into his boots, Mike leaves the apartment. He drives to a strip club and goes inside. The doorman and bouncers at the club seem to know Mike, nodding to him as he passes and heads for a door marked employees only. Still an unseen spectator, James spots Sam at the club, and his new partner seems to be watching Mike. Passing through the door and climbing a set of stairs, Mike meets up with Neil, who owns the club, in a tiny apartment.

Neil is revealed to be a pimp and drug dealer that’s supposed to be under Mike’s protection. Shortly after Mike shows up, two thugs arrive at the apartment. They accuse Neil of being a police informant and threaten to kill him. As the thugs move to attack Neil, pulling out guns, Mike intervenes, pulling out the .45. The thugs easily disarm and defeat Mike, and turn their guns on him. Behind the thugs, the shadows are bouncing and boiling, agitated beyond anything we’ve yet seen. Faced with death, Mike calls on the shadows to protect him and they swoop in, possessing him. Bolstered by the shadows, Mike pulls the knives from his boots and kills the thugs, and then Neil for good measure. Before fleeing from the murder scene, Mike seems to turn and look directly at James. Mike smiles and laughs the creepy laughter of the shadows. His eyes are gray.

Back in the present, James accuses the shadows of stealing his brother and they laugh, telling him he should be grateful they saved Mike’s life. The shadows try to hijack James as well, threatening to visit Althea while in control of his body. Unable to drive the shadows from his body by force of will, James pulls the magnesium flare he threatened them with earlier from his pocket and holds it up in front of his own face before lighting it. The sudden brilliance forces them out, screaming in rage and James flees the apartment.

James goes to Sam’s house. Sam answers the door wearing a hockey mask, a Maple Leaf’s jersey and carrying a hockey stick. Seeming unfazed by this spectacle, James asks if he can come in. Sam admits him and the two men drink beer and watch the end of the hockey game. Game over, James asks Sam if he was investigating Mike. Sam eventually admits he used to be IA and that he was at the strip club on the night Mike was there. James tells Sam he knows about the murders and asks Sam to help him find his brother. Sam tells James that, no doubt, Mike was a dirty cop. He tells James that even if they find his brother, the best Mike can hope for is a long jail sentence. James agrees that is the best possible outcome, but still wants to find his brother. After some wrangling, James convinces Sam to hand over the IA files on Mike and to help find his brother before more people get hurt.

Still out in the hallway, Sam attempts to enter the crime scene and is stopped by Rickles. Sam orders Rickles to get out of the way, but Rickles refuses. Rickles tells Sam that James likes to view a scene alone, at least for a minute. He asks Sam how many cases Sam has solved. Sam doesn’t immediately answer and Rickles tells him it doesn’t matter. No matter how many cases he’s solved, James has solved more. In fact, James has the best record in the precinct for solving crimes. Unhappy, but willing to give James a minute, Sam agrees to wait.

Alone in the apartment, we find James standing in the brightest spot in the room, a sunbeam coming through a window. This begins a motif. James will always attempt to stand, sit or linger in the brightest spot in a scene. If no bright spot is apparent, he’ll attempt to create one before continuing with other activities. So, standing in the light, James views the body of the murder victim. The corpse is of a large, black man wearing pink flip-flops that was shot in the chest several times. The shadows are whispering in the background, stirring the gloom with their movements. Addressing the shadows directly for the first time, James asks if they know who was responsible. The shadows say no and so James tells them to find out.

Oozing out of corners, from under furniture and through cracks in the walls, the shadows pool around the dead body. As they gather in one place, they seem to drain the color from the room, leaving it lit a stark gray. Pouring in through the corpse’s eyes, mouth and nose, the shadows possess the body, turning its milky brown eyes, gray. Partially animated, the dead man speaks to James, his voice that of the dead man in life, mixed with the whisper of the shadows. From inside the body, the shadows are able to tell James the name of the murderer. As soon as he’s heard the name he’s after, James orders the shadows to get out of the corpse. Initially, they refuse, offering instead to make the corpse dance. James threatens the shadows with a magnesium flare and, displeased, the shadows exit the body. James asks the shadows about his missing brother, but they don’t answer.

About that time, the door to the apartment slams open as Sam struggles his way past Rickles and into the room. Sam and James have a minor altercation over James’ antics, that ends with James promising to be more cooperative in the future. As James walks Sam through what he’s learned, the two men hear raised voices in the hallway and James goes to investigate. Rickles and the Hispanic building super are having an argument about the crime scene and just as James enters the hallway, Rickles loses his temper and slams the super against the wall. James tells Rickles to take a hike and, prompted by information gained from the shadows, James confronts the tenement super with allegations of child abuse. Cowed, the super backs down, but James tells him to expect a visit from child services.

Back at home that evening, James and Althea argue over his refusal to push the shadows to tell him where Mike has gone. James tells her that the shadows won’t tell him about Mike and Althea suggests he should make them show him. James is hesitant about this course of action, expressing concern over what the shadows might do if he lets them inside to show him past events. Eventually Althea convinces him to give it a shot and he leaves.

So here’s the first bit of my treatment. I don’t think it’s too horrible to read. Feedback welcome on all of it, of course.

We begin in the past with a child version of our protagonist, James Voight, learning how to deal with the malign sentience of the shadows. The shadows desire human hosts to experience the pains and pleasures of the flesh, but they can only possess those that agree to serve them. To that end, they whisper ugly secrets and dark stories to James in an attempt to corrupt him. This plan backfires after the shadows tell him about his father’s extramarital adventures, and James discovers how to temporarily block the whispers out.

James’ communication with the shadows sets him apart from other kids his age, as seen by James playing alone on the playground at school. James learns the power of the shadows to incite aggression in the people that hear their whispers when he’s attacked by a pair of bullies. Alone and afraid, James sees the shadows moving behind the bullies and asks them to help him. The shadows respond by pushing him to answer violence with violence. He bites one bully on the leg and prepares to stab the other with a pencil when he’s saved from doing any serious harm to the bullies by the appearance of his brother, Mike. Seeming to enjoy himself, Mike chases the bullies off with mild physical and verbal attacks.  Later the same day, we learn that Mike claims not to believe in the shadows. He tells James that only crazy people hear voices. That night, though, we see Mike alone in his room, hiding from the whispers of the shadows by turning up the volume on his stereo headphones.

Here we flash 20 years forward to the present and find James asleep in bed with a woman. The apartment is lit up like the Fourth of July, in an apparent effort to keep the shadows at bay. The woman is introduced as Althea, his lover. Sitting down over breakfast with Althea, James talks briefly about his job, revealing the fact he is now a police detective, and looks at a newspaper. The paper is running a story about a missing police detective named Mike Voight. Althea presses James on Mike’s disappearance, and James’ flees the apartment, rather than talk about it, citing a need to meet up with his new partner. Althea is less than pleased with his behavior and reacts coldly as he goes.

James arrives at a rundown tenement building with his new partner, Sam Thompson, in tow. James and Sam are at the building to investigate a murder. In the hallway outside the murder scene James introduces Sam to Sgt. Rickles, a beat cop James is friendly with. Rickles points out Sam’s maple leaf tiepin, jokingly asking if Sam is Canadian. Sam replies that he’s a hockey fan and the pin represents his favorite team. As the three men are talking, forensics technicians begin leaving the crime scene and the last one out is Althea. In addition to being a tech, we also learn that Althea is the daughter of police Captain Leahy, James’ boss. James is called into the crime scene by Althea, who tells him that forensics hasn’t been able to find anything that might help solve the murder. She gives him a peck on the cheek and leaves.

Last month was the devil.

First I quit smoking. Yep, still not smoking. 1.5 months, zero cigarettes, no fatalities. I took Chantix to help me quit and it worked. It worked, but it made me crazy. I couldn’t concentrate for shit. One day it took me two hours to write a two page outline. No, that isn’t because I suck at outlines either, Mr. Smartypants. I just couldn’t concentrate. One of my professors actually asked me if I was on drugs. I told him yes. Apart from being twitchy and slightly irritable as part of the whole withdrawal thing, I also made the mistake of taking one of the pills on an empty stomach. Within an hour I felt like ass. I only did that once. So, after a week of the pill and not smoking, I was feeling a little odd. Then I started coughing.

I didn’t stop coughing for two weeks. A certain blackhearted Irishman gave me the Hamthrax. I was basically in a coma for four days. I’d wake up, move around (and whine) for about three hours, then be exhausted enough to sleep for another 10 hours. It was, as they say, the suck. Said swiney malady also put me behind in all my classes by a week and I’ve spent the last week and a half getting more or less caught up. Mostly. I still have around 50 pages of Nietzsche I need to read and a term paper to finish by the middle of next week.

But! I wanted to get back to posting, so here I am. And I have a plan.

I’ve decided that I’m going to post a page of my treatment a day for general perusal. Those folks what look at this site may comment on it if they choose. Serial content incoming!

My posting has slacked a bit since I stopped with the smoking. Part of that is because the stop smoking pills make me slightly nauseous 24-7. I figure I can put up with it for a month. A month of nausea is easier to tolerate than cancer treatment, eh? To make up for my absence, here is a small bit of fiction.

Passing

You can see her in the distance, walking sprightly down the street through the falling ran. Her dress is matted to her skin and her bare feet splash through puddles. You can’t see if she’s smiling or not, but you guess she might be. With one hand she pushes her hair out of her face and in the other she carries, almost negligently, a white plastic bucket. Her steps quicken as she patters down the hill between well-tended houses, the bucket swinging in her hand as though it is somehow dodging raindrops.

You lose sight of her as she approaches the railroad bridge, and when you can see her again she’s slowed down. She looks up uncertainly as a train thunders over her head, shaking the ground with its passing. When she comes out from under the bridge she doesn’t look quite as happy as you had first thought. The ground ahead of her slopes up, promising tougher going and the neighborhood is nowhere near as fine as that she’s left. Raindrops fall heavier and colder, and the bucket she carries becomes heavier with the weight of collected water. It stops swinging in her hands and you can see the grimace on her face as she takes a firmer grasp on it before starting up the hill.

With each step she takes, her face becomes clearer. You can see the frown lines of concentration on her forehead as she struggles to maintain her balance on the slippery slope and still manage the increasing weight of the bucket. Before long you can see her makeup is running down her face, forming smudges and streaks. She steps gingerly over cracks in the pavement, her bare feet tender from the scraping of the road. The rain begins to come down harder still, and she pauses halfway up the hill, taking the weight of the bucket in both hands before continuing on.

Step by faltering step, she reaches the top of the hill, bent over almost in two from the weight of the rain collected in the bucket. The last of her makeup is gone, revealing every wrinkle and imperfection of naked skin. Dim light reflected from the water, overflowing her bucket, bleaches her hair giving it a dull, grey appearance. With one last burst of energy, she reaches the top of the hill and you begin to lose sight of her as the rain pours down. Dimly you hear the clunk of a bucket being dropped on the street and when the shower passes, the bucket remains, but she is nowhere to be seen.

It’s true. I know it’s bad for me and everything, but I still like it. I have difficulty picturing myself writing without a cigarette burning away in the ashtray. I have trouble considering any drive over 20 minutes without a full pack in hand. My smokie treats and I have been through a lot together and it’s hard to picture life without ‘em.

But (there’s always a but), I realize smoking is bad for me, really I do. I’m sure non-smokers think they are doing me a favor when they spew out facts and figures about smoking, intended to make me see how bad it is. Honestly, these people just piss me off. Do folks really think I could’ve missed the warning label on every pack? Do they really believe that I’ve somehow tuned out all of the proof of smoking’s ills? I particularly hate the anti-smoking commercials on TV. All they do is make me roll my eyes, and I’m pretty sure that, as their target audience, that isn’t the reaction that crowd was hoping for. Here is the thing. Smokers don’t stop smoking until they want to stop smoking. You can show a smoker pictures of blackened lungs and tumors all day long and that will accomplish nothing.

So, here’s me, loving to smoke, and still realizing how bad it is for me. Not all that long ago my fater died of lung cancer. I know, Holy Shit! right? Maybe you better lay off those coffin nails, Newman! When it happened, I tried to quit. It didn’t work. In fact, I’ve tried to quit a number of times since then. It just hasn’t taken. I’ve had people suggest to me that quitting smoking is nothing. That it’s easy. They’ve compared it to quitting drinking coffee. Fuck off, with that. Seriously, you have no idea what you are talking about. I managed to stop smoking for two weeks once, then backslid as soon as I was around other smokers. It isn’t easy.

Last week I went to the doctor. I told him how badly I sucked at quitting by myself and he gave me a prescription for some stop smoking drugs. While he was at it, he prescribed some drugs to counteract the side-effects of the stop smoking drugs. Pesky little side-effects like suicidal tendencies, severe depression or chronic insomnia. This for a habit that some folks have derided as “easy” to overcome. I have a finger here I’d like to hold up for those people right now. I’m sure you can guess which one it is.

I’m not asking for sympathy and I’m certainly not going to be in any mood for more lectures. You want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for my wife. The doctor suggested she wait to try and kick the habit until spring, because of her seasonal depression and anxiety issues. You know what that means? That means she’ll be smoking outside, and, by golly, it’s just about to get mighty cold here in Ohio. What I am looking for is reinforcement. I have never announced my intention to quit smoking in a public manner. I’m gonna tell everyone I meet, so they can ask me how it’s going. I want reminding that this is something I’m doing for myself.

I went and picked up my drugs today. In the time it’s taken me to write this, I’ve smoked the very last  of my cigarettes before I turn to the pills. I’ll be throwing away ashtrays, chucking lighters and generally trying to ditch anything that reminds me I’m not smoking. My father was only about 20 years older than me when he died and I don’t fancy having an expiration date.