Body Jump Prologue

Well here it is, the Body Jump Prologue. This is an adult story so you have been warned. This is to set the scene and lead the reader into the story and not too gently I might add. Please enjoy and feel free to comment on this Prologue. I must give a special thanks to Maggie Anderson for her wonderful support and encouragement with this prologue, thanks Maggs.

Body Jump Prologue
By K.E.Vee 2010 ©

It’s the smell. It hits like a fist in the face. The pungent stench of death is overwhelming.
Susan Claw braces herself. She’d mastered the stomach clenching phase a few years ago, but the sickening smell is the thing that gives a sharp jolt and warns her of what she's about to witness. A uniformed cop leads Susan with hesitant steps to the room where Jim Bryce is waiting for her.

Bryce was still at the office when the call came in, Susan on the other hand had already left; She had a date and was ready for a night of passionless, animalistic sex.

Susan had just opened a bottle of Shiraz and was about to step into a long, hot bubble bath when the call came through. She stared at the phone willing it to stop ringing. The caller ID displayed “Bryce,” and she knew she had to answer it and what it would mean. Susan could sense the desperation in the ring tone. Sighing heavily and wrinkling up her nose, she snatched up her phone.

‘What have you got for me Jim?’ She tilts her head back and closes her eyes as he gives her news she has been dreading. ‘Shit! I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

This memory plays out in her mind as she steps through the bedroom doorway. The bizarre sadomasochistic room screams depravity—one wall lined with sex toys and whips, while chains with a neck cuff and shackles hang from the ceiling.

Bryce is hunched over the body shaking his head. His eyes wander unsure of where they should rest. The rotting corpse of a young woman is tied to the bed like an X. Under his breath he mutters, ‘how could you let this happen to you?’ Several flies take flight as he leans closer to examine the mutilation. Their buzzing around the body is a real violation as far as Bryce is concerned. It sickens him. He looks over the disturbing scene and sighs heavily.

Movement catches his eye. Her top lip is twitching. He narrows his eyes in disbelief and stares at her mouth, which is encrusted with dried blood and saliva. A fly squeezes through her parted lips and zips away. Fuck! Bryce thinks to himself, as if this poor girl hasn’t been through enough.

Susan approaches her partner. ‘Good God, Jim,’
‘I know. It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?’ He exhales deeply. ‘Why would you ever have a need to flay someone…alive?’
‘Do we know that for certain?’
‘Forensics haven’t arrived yet, but that’s what it looks like to me. Look at her bindings where she’s been tied to the bed, she’s pulled at them so hard that the silk has embedded into her skin. He’s removed her hands and feet for what I can only assume as trophies. I’m hoping at this point she was dead. Lack of blood seems to suggest this or it could just be that the bindings acted as tourniquets.’
Susan looks intently, ‘it’s possible, but I sure as hell hope not’
‘Is this our guy? I mean it sort of looks like his MO, but there haven’t been any past victims that have been flayed before. Body parts missing, yeah, but certainly not flayed.’
Susan is consumed with what she sees and doesn’t look up when she answers. ‘Not sure, Jim it could be.’
‘Shit, Sue…it looks like he’s used a saw to take off her hands and feet.’
‘Yeah she says, taking a closer look. ‘I’d go with a hacksaw. What was her name?’
‘Elizabeth Paula Jenkins, but everyone called her Liz, she was 32.’

Visions flash through Jim Bryce’s mind. The frantic scenes rush at him, blindsiding him— Liz struggling, pulling at the red silk, restraining her to the wooden four poster bed. The glint of steel plunged repeatedly into her convulsing body. Bryce can only imagine this woman’s suffering. Thank God we can’t feel her pain. His thoughts return to the blood splatter around the walls and what forensics would make of it all. It wasn’t the same knife that opened her up, he notes. A long blade would have caught the internal organs. It was a short bladed knife, something more akin to a builder’s utility knife, the kind that has a disposable blade. That means the killer came prepared and it was premeditated.

Bryce hopes she was dead before she was cut open and hacked up. He could only imagine the thought of her being alive while the knife sliced through the skin and muscle of her stomach, cutting a trail to her sternum where it temporarily got stuck in the bone. He winces, drawing air through his teeth as he tries to rid himself of that thought. Then he hears it, starting at the back of his mind and working its way forward, demanding his attention. He can hear the grating of a saw drawn back and forth through bone. He wants to cover his ears but it wouldn’t make any difference, the teeth-jarring sound won’t stop until the hands and feet drop off. It’s a horrible mutilation, one of the worst Bryce has ever seen and he’s seen a lot of them.

There’s no sign of the knives or hacksaw anywhere. Both cops are trying to come to terms with the gruesome scene. They can see this is a young woman, but with no hands, feet or eyes it is hard to register that right now.

‘How long do you think it would take to remove the hands and feet?’
Susan looks up not really wanting to. ‘Not long. Have you ever used a hack saw?’
‘No....I’m not what you’d call a handy man.’
‘A few years ago, I was on a similar case. It turned out to be a hacksaw job. The coroner cut through a pig’s foreleg to get an idea of how long it would take’
‘I was invited along to watch the test. It took less than a minute to make four complete cuts through flesh and bone. I tried it myself, it was unnerving how fast the hacksaw blade ripped through the bones, in fact it was sickeningly quick.
‘Less than a minute? You’re shitting me.’
Susan nodded ‘I know, scary isn’t it. To think a body could be cut up in less than twenty minutes.’

Bryce reckons he could do without that sort of knowledge, but understands why the research is needed. These days it appears to be more the norm, mutilated corpses stuffed into every corner and crevice. What the hell happened to the days when murders were clean for Gods sake, thinks Bryce as he surveys the annihilatory scene beneath him. The worst has to be the blank eye sockets. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then where is her soul now? Jim Bryce and Susan Claw heave a collective sigh.
Susan turns to Bryce and says. ‘Where the hell do we start?’

Bloody Punctuation & Spelling

Regular followers of my blog will have noticed that I'm not the best with punctuation and spelling. Well I'm here to tell you that from this day forward, I'm not going to change.

Sorry, but to be honest, I can't promise something I just can't deliver on. My grasp of the English language is very weak and I'm painfully aware of that sad fact, it's pointed out to me on a regular bases. I'm no scholar and I've never professed to be. What I am is a trier, I try my best with everything. I excel at some things in my life but unfortunately fall short with others, punctuation and spelling are two that I fall down on.

So if after 47 yrs I have failed to understand it, I really don't think it's going to click into place anytime soon, much to the frustration of my family and friends. Now if they're frustrated then how do they think I feel about it?

What I can do is put together a great plot, with some wonderful characters thrown in the mix. So I can bake the cake but I can't do the icing, that I have to leave in the capable hands of others, thank goodness there are people in my life I can trust to do that. As for those of you I frustrate with my bad punctuation well I guess you had best not follow my blog, because it won't be changing any time soon. For those of you willing to stay, please enjoy the ride. I will be posting the edited prologue for Body Jump at my next blog post so keep a critical eye open for it.

Good News

I was mucking around on my iPad the other day when an email came in. Nothing too significant really, emails come in at all times of the day, but I don't normally hear them come in. When I looked, the email was titled, "Bad & Good." So I read on, it was from a guy I submitted three pieces of Flash Fiction to back in the early part of this year.

The email was to say that two of the three flash pieces had been selected and they were going into an anthology, along with the works of other Australian authors. I was overjoyed at this news, because as any other author will tell you, we rarely get acceptance letters. The letters we do receive are normally always rejections or just the normal bills from everyday life. I had even received conformation earlier in the year that the three pieces I'd sent were short listed and even this failed to move me towards excitement.

I guess after all this time I'm a bit jaded, because each time in the past I've gotten excited, the anti excitement police would bust down my front door and take no prisoners. Leaving me, to feel hollow once again. Ha! Not this time I can actually enjoy this moment and give myself a well deserved pat on the Back, all the while saying, it's about bloody time.

Three Questions

Today I'm posing three questions. I never meant too, but after putting these questions to a writing group and receiving so many varied answers, I just thought it would be interesting to post these questions on my blog.

Q1. What do you think is the colour of the wind?

Q2. What is the colour of your heart?

Q3. What is the colour of your tears?

Think about it and those of you that want to can post your answers in the comments.

Tax & Reflection

I have been sitting down today doing my personal taxes plus the taxes for the book; I have an appointment with the accountant tomorrow. When I did the tallying I found that as expected there were no profits and far more expenditure than I thought. I went around to visit my ailing mother after crunching the numbers and we discussed this, she said to me that I may not have banked a fortune or had broken even, but I have never seen you so happy.

God she's right! Just crunching numbers and doing the figures can be tough and depressing, but when I look back over the last year and think about the friendships I have made and the fun Anthony and I have had, the dollars spent mean nothing. What price happiness indeed. I would never have met some of the most wonderful people that are in my life now, had it not been for this book and for that, I'm truly grateful.

To Leigh, Maggie, Debbie, Kelly, Karen, Helen, Robin, Penny, & of course Anthony. Priceless!!!!

Critique

I have recently joined a writers group. For the first 14 yrs I had done and been alone with my writing. So being around a group of writers was a daunting prospect. I was really nervous about submitting a piece for critiquing as I had this vision of people looking over the top of their glasses, all shaking their heads with extreme disapproval at what they had just read. It's what school was like for me, so that's what I was expecting when my turn came for submission.

What I did find was a group of dedicated people who really care about the other people sitting at the table. None of them were condescending, or put themselves above the others. Basically we are all the same so that's how we are all treated. I submitted a piece of flash fiction it's a piece I posted here around Christmas time, called 'Long Haul' originally titled 'Why' also posted here. I got so much helpful feedback that once I got the time, I sat down and sorted through the comments.

I felt like I was opening a Christmas present it was that good. I sorted through all the comments and tweaked the story once again pulling it tighter together. I'm lucky, the writers group I belong to is generous and caring, but I have heard horror stories about other writing groups. So thanks to Andrew,Jan,Kelly,Maggie,Deb,Robin and our group leader Karen. I'm glad to be part of the team.

Trials

Once again it's been a while since my last post. I try to get back here as often as possible, but life gets in the way. Since my last post I have changed jobs, my mother was taken seriously I'll and I had to train to get my forklift licence. All things that have caused me stress in one way or another. At my darkest point I found writing to be a comfort. I have used my words as a healing agent since I started writing, but while waiting for my mother to come out of her latest surgery, I used thoughts and memories of beauty to help me through the darkness.

It helped, I had something I could keep reading that helped me deal with situations out of my control. It's hard when life snatches the controls out of you hands and your flying on a wing and a prayer. I guess at times like these we all need comfort and understanding. It also shows us who we really are, I know that I went through a lot of stress and found it hard at times to deal with. But I got up every day and went to work as well as to the hospital and carried on as best as I could. Surly it's all we can do.

Everyone goes through this at one time or another, please don't be afraid to talk about it to your friends or family, they will support you and be there for you. I know this for a fact. I would like to thank everyone that has been there for me in the last two weeks, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart, if you ever need me I will be there for you as well.