THE BEAST WITHIN
EXCERPT:
CHAPTER
ONE
A
loud crack of thunder startled the driver as he quickly swerved into the
hospital parking lot. His truck, an old, rusted late-1980s black Ford F150, pulled
a thick fog of exhaust fumes behind it. The heavy rainfall made it impossible
to see, yet he still hid behind his ballcap and dark black sunglasses, fearful
of potential onlookers and traffic cameras.
It
was just past 2:00 in the morning when he pulled up to the Emergency Room
entrance. He stopped, considered what would happen if anyone saw him getting
out of the truck, then quickly hit the gas and drove past the door. He parked
behind the cover of a large blue dumpster that sat overflowing, ready for the
early morning pickup.
He
got out of the truck and quickly made his way to the passenger side door. As he
pulled the door open, he deftly caught her falling body. She was
limp—unconscious—and covered in blood.
“Not sure why
you’re bringing her here, they can’t help her,” the memory of his
father’s voice spoke in his head.
“Shut
up,” he said, hissing the words over his shoulder to no one. “They can save
her.”
“Then what? She
knows who you are. What do you think will happen when she wakes up?” his father asked.
“She
doesn’t know,” he snapped, hoping he was right.
After
days of struggling with the decision of what to do with her, he decided he
couldn’t kill her. Not like the others. He fed on her, that much he had been
willing to do. That much he had to do, but he had gone too far—caused damage he
wasn’t entirely sure could be fixed. “They can save her,” he said again, trying
to convince himself or maybe just pushing back the growing feeling of guilt and
regret. He had to believe they could fix her—make her whole again. He had made
a mistake, a terrible mistake, but his father was right, she had known who he
was and could have easily turned him in. Although he wasn’t prepared to risk
his own life to save hers, he still wasn’t willing to kill her.
He
didn’t want to let her die.
Not
her.
Not
without at least trying to save her first.
He
did what he had to do. He wiped her memory clean just like he had learned to
do. Yet he still took extra precautions; drug induced alterations to her
prefrontal cortex. It’s amazing what you can learn online—the amount of invaluable
information and resources is astounding.
He
lifted her easily out of the truck and carried her comatose body around the
back side of the dumpster. He laid her down on the cold cement slab, pulling
her shirt down over the pale skin of her exposed stomach. A thin gold necklace
dangled from her neck and he thought about taking it but decided against it—it
was hers and he wanted her to keep it. He hid her there, surrounded by trash,
knowing she wouldn’t be found until the early morning hours.
She
was different from the others. He didn’t want her to die. He knew her. She knew
him, or had known him. He loved her, as much as a monster could love a
mortal. But she knew too much and he had to protect himself, even if it meant
letting her go. It was the first rule he had learned; never get too close,
always be willing to walk away, and when it comes down to you or them, always
protect yourself.
A
single leg, barefoot and bloody, he left purposefully exposed to the sidewalk
that passed in front of the dumpster. He was sure someone would find her in the
morning after the sun came up, but by then he would be long gone.
He
turned away and headed back to his truck.
“You’re just going
to leave her there in the rain? I thought you wanted to save her. She’ll freeze
to death before they find her.”
“She’ll
be fine,” he said. He looked back at her leg, already starting to turn blue,
and wondered if he was wrong. “She’ll be fine,” he said again, then climbed in
his truck and sped out of the parking lot and down the road.
CHAPTER TWO
By
7:00, the sun was already high in the sky. The parking lot was beginning to
fill up with hospital employees and patients trying to beat the early morning
rush. The woman’s body still lay motionless in its garbage-scented nest behind
the dumpster, as people hurried past without so much as a glance in her
direction.
“Mommy,”
a young girl said, as she pulled on the sleeve of her mother’s jacket. “Mommy,
why is that woman sleeping in the trash?” she asked, curious. She couldn’t have
been older than ten-years old. She had curly blonde shoulder-length hair that
bounced as she walked.
“I
don’t know, sweetie,” her mother said, rushing toward the door, not bothering
to look back.
“Mommy?”
“She’s
probably homeless, sweetheart,” her mother quickly said, knowing that if she
didn’t give her daughter an answer, she would begin the morning with a game of
fifty questions. “Now come on, we have to hurry. We’re already running late.”
She was wearing a black pencil skirt and a flowing white blouse. Her golden
blonde hair, curly like her daughter’s, was pulled into a loose bun at the back
of her head and her heels clicked against the concrete like tiny explosions. She didn’t give her daughter’s question a
second thought—at least, not until her daughter’s small hand slipped away.
The
little girl, named Stella, let go of her mother’s sleeve and turned back to
stare at the woman’s foot lying delicately on the pavement. Her bright blue
eyes turned gray as she stared down at the woman’s body. She took a single step
forward. “Are you okay?” she asked, but before she could reach down to tap her
leg and wake the sleeping woman from her slumber, she heard her mother
screaming just behind her.
“Oh
my God, don’t touch her, Stella” the mother said, startled by the bruises and
blood covering the pale woman. She grabbed her daughter by the arm and quickly
pulled her down the walkway toward the door.
“Mommy,
wait,” the little girl called as she struggled to free herself from her
mother’s grasp. “We have to help her.”
“We
will, we will,” her mother said, trying to console her daughter, as she scooped
the little girl into her arms and burst into the warmth of the Emergency Room
waiting area. “There’s a woman,” she said, trying not to panic. “Behind the
dumpster….” She had begun to hyperventilate and a nurse, carrying a clipboard
and a brown paper lunch bag, quickly came to assist her.
“Just
breathe,” the nurse said, leading her to a seat close to the door. They sat
down and the nurse, wearing scrubs that were a size to small knelt down in
front of the woman and her daughter. The little girl came face to face with her
exposed cleavage and started giggling. Oblivious,
the nurse handed the woman the small paper bag. “Put this over your mouth and
take slow deep breaths. My name is Mia. Do you think you can tell me your
name?”
Stella’s
mother slapped the bag to the floor, pointed to the door, and pushed the nurse away.
“I’m not the one who needs your help. She’s out there. You have to go help
her.” The guard sitting at the door quickly stood up, ready to assist nurse Mia
if the woman became more violent. There were tears streaming down her face as
her daughter watched in silence, not sure why her mother was so upset about the
sleeping woman. Thankfully, she was still too young to understand. She hadn’t
seen or heard the terrifying news reports of murders happening all across town
over the past several months. As a child, she lived in blissful ignorance, a
state in which her mother hoped to keep her.
“Help
who?” Mia asked, looking back toward the door.
Just
then, Stella saw a man run through the door with the same fearful look on his
face. He was shouting, “I need a doctor. Please, there’s a woman lying on the
ground behind the dumpster. She’s…hurt…I think she’s hurt,” he said, silently
praying she wasn’t actually dead, not sure how else to describe what he had
just seen.
Mia
jumped up from where she had been helping Stella’s mother. “Use this, try to
breathe normally,” she said, as she handed the woman the brown paper bag for
the second time. This time, she took it. Then Mia quickly followed the man back
out the door. “Page Doctor Bennett!” she shouted at the guard. As the door
closed behind her, the little girl heard her call out to the man, “Show me.” Seconds
later, two doctors pushing a gurney ran through the doors leading outside, and
headed in the direction of the dumpster.
It
wasn’t long before the little girl watched them all run back in. The younger of
the two doctors was pushing the gurney. He held a large balloon-like
contraption over the sleeping woman’s face as he pumped air into her lungs.
Nurse Mia had her hands firmly over the woman’s throat as if holding something
in, the little girl thought to herself, wondering what it could have been.
The
laceration across the woman’s throat had clotted and the bleeding had stopped
at some point during the night. However, when the doctors jostled her body, lifting
her onto the gurney, they accidentally reopened the wound. Fresh blood flowed
freely down her neck and soaked into the blanket they had laid across her body.
Doctor
Bennett, the older of the two doctors, was a tall African-American man with
short dark hair that was graying at his temples. He held onto the side of the
gurney, guiding it through the door as he swiftly and thoroughly examined the unconscious
woman. He lifted each of her arms first, one at a time, and then moved to her
legs. He worked calmly among the chaos happening around him.
“Move
out of the way!” the guard shouted at the looky-loos who had already begun
gathering in the hospital lobby, as they ran in. He quickly rushed across the
waiting room and pressed his badge against the panel on the wall next to the
large set of double doors. The lock clicked as it released and the doors began
to slowly open, unveiling the exam rooms hidden behind them and granting the
doctors access. Stella watched with a child’s curiosity as the doors seemed to
crawl open at an unusually slow pace. She wondered if maybe time had actually
slowed down.
“Where
will they take her, Mommy?” she asked, turning back to the woman on the gurney.
“Don’t
look, baby,” the little girl’s mother answered, as they pushed the sleeping
woman quickly past them. The little girl noticed the blood for the first time. An
arm hung off the side of the gurney and blood dripped steadily to the floor at
their feet.
“She’s
bleeding, Mommy.”
“Don’t
look baby. Don’t look.”
“But
Mommy, what do you think happened to her?” the little girl asked, ever
inquisitive. “Why is she bleeding? Was she in an accident, Mommy?”
Her
mother just shook her head “I don’t know, Stella,” she said more firmly this
time. Then she grabbed her daughter and pulled her into her lap.
Stella
struggled free of her mother when she noticed a thin silver bracelet with a
tiny heart charm sitting in a pool of blood on the floor. “Mommy,” she said,
reaching for the bracelet, “that woman, she dropped this.”
As
soon as she grabbed the bloody bracelet, her body went rigid, her eyes glossed
over, and she fell silent.
“Stella?
Stella, baby, what’s wrong?” her mother asked, pulling her back into her lap
and holding her tight. “Baby what is that? Don’t touch that.” She grabbed the
bloody bracelet out of her daughter’s hand and dropped it to the floor. Stella’s
body went limp in her arms and her mother started to cry.
The
doctors, Nurse Mia, and the sleeping woman all disappeared behind the large
doors as Doctor Bennett barked orders. “We need to stop the bleeding from her
throat and hook up two IVs. Pump fluids, start oxygen, get a full panel
screening, insert a urinary catheter and prep her for a CT scan.”
“Yes
doctor,” Mia answered.
“We
need to clean up her wrist and get it stitched up and splinted right away. Do
an EEG and order a lumbar puncture,” he continued. “And get a plastics’ consult
down here right away. The lacerations on her throat are our first priority once
the bleeding is under control and her vitals are stable.”
“Who
would you like assigned to the case?” she asked.
Doctor
Bennett only had to glance down at the poor girl’s mutilated throat for a
second before answering. “Hill. Get Hill.”
“You
want me to call in Dean Hill?” Mia asked, hesitantly.
Bennett
turned, eyes narrowing as he watched Mia’s reaction. “Is there any reason I
shouldn’t call Hill in?”
Doctor
Hill was young. He liked to drink, a lot, but he was painstakingly meticulous
when he worked. If anyone would be able to repair the damage that had been done
to their patient, it was him, and Mia knew it. Although the woman’s wound was
so savage, she wasn’t sure even Dr. Hill was that good.
“No,
no reason,” she answered. The last time she had seen Dr. Hill, he was passed
out drunk at the bar down the road. Mia smiled and nodded to Doctor Bennett.
“I’ll go find his number,” she said, then left the room and headed to the
nurses’ station.
Writing an
Interactive Novel
I’ve been working on The Beast
Within, off and on, for just over 2 years. The first draft was written in one
month, during NaNoWriMo 2018. I always take a few months off after completing a
draft, and when I picked it back up, I realized the lead character, Austin,
wasn’t done telling me his story.
Yes, I’m crazy… my characters talk
to me. It’s a little like hearing voices, but not the kind that put you in the
mental hospital. Trust me, its more common among authors than you might think.
When I started re-writes, I
realized the new storyline contradicted the old one. However, neither the
original story nor the new plotlines were wrong. I found myself conflicted
with what was supposed to happen and where the story was supposed to go. It was
in that moment that I realized the complexity of Austin’s life. I ended up
writing a few different versions of the story and wanted to tell them all.
Finding the method for doing that proved a little more difficult.
As a kid, I loved the choose your
own adventure books. The fact that, as a reader, you could affect the outcome
of the story was fascinating to me. If you haven’t read any… GO DO IT! They are
just as fun as an adult as they are as a child. The problem is, there aren’t a
lot of adult books with this same style. When I realized Austin’s story had
multiple paths, I was excited about the possibility of creating an interactive
novel, like those I had read as a child. (Side note – The Beast Within is NOT a
children’s book. ADULT ONLY CONTENT). Although, I wasn’t prepared for how hard
that process would be.
Like I said, it took me just over
two years from concept to publication to complete the novel, even with the
first draft being completed in just one month. The majority of the work was
spent in editing and formatting. Formatting the novel to ensure all of the
timelines were weaved perfectly together was harder than I had expected.
Editing was also a struggle as it takes a lot longer to edit a novel like this
because editors need to be able to keep track of what storyline they are in,
what has happened in the present timeline, and what happened in previously read
timelines.
I have been asked a few times if I
plan to continue to write interactive novels, and the answer is simple… No. The
process was interesting and I loved seeing all the different sides to my
character. However, it was way more time consuming than any of the other books
I’ve written and I found that the majority of my time was spent on formatting
instead of the creative side of writing. I have to many stories to tell to
spend two years on each novel.
Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t be
happier with the final product. All of the feedback I have received from my
beta readers and my editors has been positive. I can’t wait to hear what my
readers think and to find out if the adventure is as good for them as it was
for me.
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