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HALLOWEEN WRITIG COMP VOTING THREAD

Started by Bad City Blue, 29 November, 2018, 01:29:10 PM

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Bad City Blue

As per usual, vote for your TOP THREE!

the winner will get a 2000AD graphic novel courtesy of Rebellion!

Cheers

BCB

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EAMONN CLARKE

Pepper's Ghost


The boy looked spooked by the holding cell as Crain walked in with the social worker.

"Toady, Judge Crain wants to ask you some questions. Like we talked about."

"OK." The juve looked anything but OK to Crain.

"Alright, Toady," he began "tell me what happened to your friends."

"He killed them, and he wants to kill me. He's after me too."

"Who?"

"The Boogieman."

"The Boogieman??"

"See I told you he wouldn't believe. Nobody believes me!" The boy was near to tears.

"Be calm. Tell me what you saw."

"Go on, Toady. Tell him."

The boy dropped his head, "Me and Chip and Bailey, we went round old Pepper's place. We didn't mean any harm, we was going to prank him, that's all. He gets real mad when we ring and run."

"Is that what you did tonight, ring and run?"

The boy sniffed, "Didn't have time to run. He was waiting for us, opened the door straight away and there he was."

"Citizen Pepper?"

"Looked like him but the face was wrong, like someone was wearing it as a mask. Wasn't Pepper, was the Boogieman." The boy sniffed and wiped at his face with his sleeve, "He lifted Chip and Bailey off their feet like they was nothing and yelled at me."

The boy was shaking with silent sobs.

"What did he say?"

"He ... said he'd been watching me, watching from my closet in my room, and he ... he ... he asked if Mom was still putting the plastic under-sheet on my bed. No one knows about that. It was only a few weeks, after Dad left, no one knows that ... no one except the Boogieman."

Toady tried to pull himself together as he dragged another silver smear across his sleeve, "Then he pulled them inside and slammed the door. Heard 'em screaming as I ran. The Boogieman took my friends and I ran. Ran and hid like a baby."

"We searched the hab and didn't find Chip or Bailey. We found Pepper's body though, looks like natural causes. No sign of your friends."

"No Boogieman?"

"There is no Boogieman, Toady. Your friends are missing, and we've got a body, but that's it. Just another night in the block."

"He knew stuff about me. Wasn't Pepper, it was the Boogieman."

The social worker put her arm round the sobbing child and spoke to Crain.

"He needs a break now, Judge. You can question him later." Without waiting for an answer she led Toady from the room.

"You'll be ok now. The Judge will find your friends, you'll see."

"He won't" sobbed the boy. "Wait, where are you going?"

"I left my bag, I won't be a minute."

She strode back to the door and walked straight in.

"Judge ..."

The Boogieman held the Crain skin mask in one dripping hand. As he turned towards her the ragged hole in his face twisted into a ghastly parody of a smile which then spoke wetly,

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NAPALM KEV

The Excavation.


PSI Judge May pulled into the underground parking lot of the 'Donald Trump Civic Centre' and ghosted slowly toward the senior duty judge. It was Mullet.

"How you doing, Mullet? She asked, dismounting her Lawmaster.

"No time for pleasantry, May. We've got a real problem here." He gestured towards a hole in the ground and the ten dead bodies that lay around it. "Poor Drokkers, found something in that hole. At least that's what we're assuming." Mulllet scratched his chin. "No signs of radiation poisoning. No visible signs of injury. That's why we called you PSI guys in."

"Guys? As in plural?" As soon as the question left her mouth she heard two voices in her head. May turned around "Janus, Patel. Good to see you." May half-lied. Patel was ok but Janus was a massive Drokking headache. This thought was kept well hidden.

"Greetings, Judge May." Patel almost shouted. "Forgive me. My ears are blocked"

"Hey, May. Woah, I'm like totally a poet and didn't kn-" Janus began coughing violently.

May closed her eyes and rubbed them gently. They were starting to ache. Jovus wept!' She thought to herself, 'The three wise PSI's; See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil'. "Ok, let's go."

The Judges walked toward the hole, stopping well short of where the dead lay. About 35 metres Mullet reckoned. May in the middle with Patel to her right and Janus to her left. They joined hands...

...walking a path made of broken bones through a forest of burning trees they finally came upon a clearing. In the middle was a withered corpse sat on a throne of black stone. Eyes, ears and mouth all sewn shut.

"Drokk me. This is some wholly weird Stomm! What do you thi-" Janus began coughing again.

"Patel. Are you getting anything from that thing? Janus are you ok?" The light was starting to fade and May's eyes were throbbing. How did we bring our afflictions into the psychic realm?' she thought.

"H-help...me....Like.." Janus coughed her tongue onto the floor. "Uh-Hhn-Uhh..." She fell to the floor unconscious.

"Patel, give me a hand...Patel. PATEL!" she prodded him on the shoulder. Nothing. And then a voice spoke.

"Ahhhh, too long have I been unable to speak. Too long denied the pleasures of Earthly creatures."

May looked in horror at the corpse on the throne. The stitches were gone from his mouth and ears and he was moving as he spoke. Gesturing, as if to a crowd of loyal followers. May decided to cut and run. Escape this nightmare realm and find out what the drokk is going on.

"Nooo! You are not going anywhere!"

May froze and then turned to face the corpse. She could do little else. The world grew dark around her until all that was left was the corpse on the throne.

"You came to see the sights and you found me. But if you look really closely...You will see that I am not really here!"

May stared into the darkness.

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THE LEGENDARY SHARK

Mother


"Justice Department," Dredd barked into the darkened hab, "out, nice an' slow."

Muzzles flared in the shadows, panicky and wild. Dredd's Lawgiver spat twice, standard execution rounds sent instinctively towards the flashes. Two bodies thumped unseen to the floor, cries of pain loud but truncated. A third burst of fire strobed the room and Dredd felt bullets tearing into his back. As he fell, nerves suddenly useless, he fired two heatseekers behind him and heard another body hit the carpeted floor. He tried to speak into his helmet mike but his throat felt cold and dead. His consciousness faded, sucked into a deepening eddy between his eyes, and a female voice promising backup grew tinny and faint. He knew it would end like this, some no-mark creep with a lucky shot. He didn't regret it.

"Easy."

Dredd tried to move but his body was cold and inert. Ink cleared from his vision and the face of a middle-aged blonde woman smiled down at him.

"Who the Hell are you?"

The face breezed into a severe but honest smile. "Carla, I'm your mother."

Dredd scowled, the icy numbness holding him fast. "I got no, mother, Citizen, cut the stomm and..."

She brought a gentle hand to his cheek. Her touch the only warmth in the Universe. "Well, technically, that's true," she said through a frown, ceding an annoying detail. "I'm one of your mothers, anyway. I was the one who edited your genome, polished out the flaws and cemented the strengths."

Dredd scowled and took in what little he could. All about was infinite darkness, the only reality his own inert body cradled in this woman's lap. One of her hands was on his cheek, the other... He grunted. Her other hand was inside his chest, a tiny warmth in an ocean of ice, cradling his heart. "What are you doing?"

She opened her mouth to speak but glanced up suddenly. She smiled. "They're here," she said. She bent and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. "Goodbye, Son. I was always proud of you." Dredd's lips twitched and the darkness intensified until nothing, absolutely nothing, remained.

"Easy."

The Med-Tech pushed on Dredd's chest. "Speed-heal's still got a lot of delicate work to do. You'll be down four or five hours, yet." He looked at a monitor detailing the speed-heal's progress and shook his head. "Incredible," he said. "You should be dead."

"The woman?" Dredd said, his throat still cold and dry.

"Month dead," a familiar female voice said.

Dredd strained to see Anderson leaning in the doorway. "Natural causes, week shy of her hundred and thirtieth birthday. Perps you executed looked to be taking advantage."

Dredd grunted. "Who was she?"

"Carla Estevez," Anderson said, "retired genetic technician. Used to work for Med Division, back in the day."

"I know what you did."

She rested a hand against her chest and raised her eyebrows. "Me? All I did was shout at Control until the med-unit arrived. Thought you'd bought it for sure this time."

Dredd scowled.

"Well," the Med-Tech said, "he should have. I guess it's true what they say, Dredd, you're one tough old mother."

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Thanks to all who entered, if we get enough votes I will also arrange a prize for a random voter, so (as teh Warriors would say) SPREAD THE WORD

BCB

Writer of SENTINEL, the best little indie out there

Eamonn Clarke

1. Mother by TLS
2. The Excavation by Napalm Kev
3. I can't vote for myself?  :-\

NapalmKev

1. Eamonn Clarke

2. The Legendary Shark

3.


Cheers
"Where once you fought to stop the trap from closing...Now you lay the bait!"

The Legendary Shark

#3

dp




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The Legendary Shark


1: Pepper's Ghost, Eamonn Clarke.
2: The Excavation, Napalm Kev.
3: The Writing Comp itself, Bad City Blue.

Disappointing turnout but excellent stories.

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Echidna

I hope this isn't the deciding vote, I couldn't take the pressure! Sorry for the no-show; I need to get back in the writing habit...

1st: Eamonn
2nd: Shark
3rd: NapalmKev

Eamonn's last line has gone missing: "You came back, how simply delicioussss."

Bad City Blue

*sigh*

It looks like trying to encourage writing on here is akin to flogging a dead munceburger.

Guys, thanks for the entries, allof which were great. No casting vote required, although i would have gone with Eamonn myself.

Eamonn - let's get you a prize, so PM me a reminder of your address.

I think I'm done...
Writer of SENTINEL, the best little indie out there

Eamonn Clarke

Thanks, BCB and the voters.

Time to retire gracefully but well done for all of us who kept going.

The Legendary Shark

Well done, Eamonn and many thanks, as always, to everyone involved.

We should keep going, though, in one form or another.

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NapalmKev

Congratulations, Eamonn. And thanks all around to everyone in the Writing comp. Additional thanks to BCB for hosting the competition.


Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 03 December, 2018, 12:19:53 PM
We should keep going, though, in one form or another.

I'm quite happy to keep writing just for fun. Why not?

Cheers
"Where once you fought to stop the trap from closing...Now you lay the bait!"

james newell

1st:  Pepper's Ghost
2nd: The Writing Comp
3rd:  The Excavation

The Legendary Shark


Wow - I came 4th out of 3 - that has to be some kind of record! :D

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Tjm86


The Legendary Shark


A scurrilous lie - I never laid a finger on her...

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