Day 6 - 10,475

Today was a good day. I have stopped writing in the middle of a story that I am really into with the hopes of having a super-productive day tomorrow. We'll see what the heat has to say, though, about the mental acrobats I intend to partake in.

I guess I will try to fill everybody in on what my novel is about before posting this next excerpt, because I realized that I have never really made it clear to anyone except Scott.

I am writing kind of two stories, on taking place in 1986 one taking place in 2010. The 1986 story is that of young Mark Stanton (my main character) and his childhood friends, Jake (who we meet again in 2010) and Tom. There will probably be others, but for now it is just three. They live in a very small town (less than 1000 people) in Northern Ontario, called Winigo. Scary stuff happens.

The 2010 story is about Mark. He has pushed away the scarring memories of his childhood, especially those of the summer of 1986. He is called to the hospital in the middle of the night to see Jake Cooper, his forgotten childhood best friend. He will eventually have to go back to Winigo, although he does not know this yet.

We are just meeting Tom now, and hearing his back story. Here is an excerpt from Tom's first encounter with the evil that Lurks in Winigo.

He took a moment to work up his nerve, but only felt the tight bundle of his gut weave itself a little tighter. His bladder, conversely, threatened to loosen itself. Nothing for it, he said to himself and moved one leaden leg, then the other until he found himself at the front door. He started to knock on the door, and found it partially open. Perhaps he was thinking that he could sneak inside before anyone knew that anything had happened, perhaps it was just the curiosity of the young taking over, but Tom stepped through that door and into the front entranceway.

The thing that struck him first was that the Wrong-ness he had sensed from the outside had tripled. There was something Wrong, something evil lurking here. It was not the dust, not the elderly-looking furniture, not the darkness or the dankness that was Wrong. It was not the stained, dried and peeling wall paper with what was Tom imagined was supposed to be cheerful daisies. Looking at that wall paper, Tom thought that nothing could ever be cheerful in a place like this. He then realized how hot, how stiflingly hot it was. And the smell. It was a fetid, rotting smell which seemed to permeate every piece of furniture, every wall, every atom of this godforsaken house. He had to get out, and soon, but he was so close to retrieving what he came in for that there was no sense in chickening out now. He turned left, into the room his puck had gone into. He saw it immediately on the floor, in the middle of a large pile of glass. This room was slightly better than the front entrance way, cooler, with fresh air coming in through the window.

He clasped his fingers around the dark, round rubber of the puck and started to move quickly back to the front door. He had almost reached the safety, the sanctuary, of the great outdoors when something very powerful grabbed him. Not physically. Grabbed his mind and tried to wrench control of his body from him. He tried to wrestle with this invisible attacker, wrestle mentally mind you, but it was too strong, too powerful and it had a distinct advantage – it had taken him by surprise

It is not possible to imagine what it feels like to wrestle for control of your own mind and body, unless it has happened to you before. But Tom was giving it all he had, and losing quickly. Tom felt the strong mental hands forcing his mind back, into a jail cell. A cold, dark jail cell. He could not see what the thing was, not with his mind and not with his eyes. He only knew the feeling of the unknown enemy’s hands, and when he felt them no more he could hear the clink of the lock to his psychological jail cell. And this sound almost drove him insane.

Sorry for the long blog today.  But I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time, faithful readers.