The Hand Strikes

Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language, violence, and mature content.

The Hand Strikes

Since all of written history and before, there was always a force which never failed to destroy everything in its path. This force. A constant in all things physical and beyond which withers and consumes powers capable of rivalling even creation. Although existing as a necessity to all things. This unfathomable power succumbs to a fate which all in reality faces. Consciousness

San Quentin State Prison (10th December 2015)

"Sammy Brook," I mutter under my breath, the winter cold sending chills through my bones as a shut my car door, my shoes crunching against the layer of snow formed on the perimeter parking lot of SQ state prison. I adjust my hat, your typical 1940s style Journalist fedora along with my matching trench coat which provides minimal protection against the gentle cascade of frost and snow. To think all I have to heal my numbed fingers were fingerless wool gloves gave me a form of ironic solace to the events that were to transpire. I begin to walk, a cloud of condensed air exiting my dried lips with each breath, a sign of the cold borrowing itself into my core.

They wouldn't let me through the main gate without an escort, meaning I had to be transported in the back of a school bus style prisoner transport truck I see parked just past the main entrance. I make my way to the booth, just a few yards down from my car. I pace as quickly as I can retreating into the collar of my coat as I walk in a futile attempt at preserving my warmth. As I arrive an officer awaits my arrival. Emitting from behind the thick glass separating us was a warm welcoming glow. In stark contrast to the dark exterior. He smiles. "just through here, I hear you're here to interview Sammy, not every day you get to meet a real-life monster". I gesture with a small nod, unwilling to partake in small talk I hope the cold serves as enough of an excuse for my silence, the gate creaks as its two halves separate. I once again pace towards the second officer, this one far more stern in appearance, I assume a side effect of transporting prisoners for a living. No words are exchanged, moves into the driver seat of the truck and starts the engine. I make my way to the closest bench to the door and remove my notepad, cigarettes and lighter. I hear the engine rev and we make a start to the visitor block.

Sammy Brook, I did extensive research as to find the worse criminal I could, he's the newest addition to my list. A psychopath, paedophile, rapist, murderer. A disturbing amalgamation of the worst a human can be and in 20 or so minute I'll be face to face with it. He has a catalogue of victims ranging from male to female from child to adult. He holds no prejudice against anyone, just sees them all as meat.

I light my cigarette, the light of my lighters flame already warming my numb fingers. I inhale and let the smoke and nicotine warm my body, as I begin to relax I'm jolted by a sudden stop. Without so much as a direction, the doors slide open and I quickly stuff my pockets, My lips clinging to the end of my cigarette as I walk back into the cold.

The visitor block is a small extension to the main prison, a grey rectangle off the side of a large complex. Housing similar monsters to Sammy, tall fences armed with barbed wire cut me off from entering venturing beyond my agreed destination.

I'm met by an unnamed guard outside the entrance who offers me a chance to finish my cigarette and as I do, opens the door to an empty seating area. I'm walked past empty chairs, painted an unpleasant yellow. In fact, although being physically warm the atmosphere inside has stopped any pleasant feeling from reaching me. As I acclimatise to my surroundings I am brought into what resembles an airport security check.

"remove all items on you that including coats and electrical equipment" the voice of my prior silent companion was stern and void of emotion. A note of fatigue can be heard. This demeanour seems to be a common factor in all prisons I've visited. I comply. I'm patted down, sent through a metal detector and retrieve my belongings after their journey through the x-ray machine.

"just this way" the guard gestures towards a row of sectioned off rooms "room B, you'll have a guard accompany you in the room for protection". I walk to the metal door, footsteps now noticeably louder on the concrete floor. I open the door revealing a plain room, one CCTV security camera, a metal table with two metal lawn chairs. One of which now serves as a throne for Mr. Brook. Years of practice have taught me how to keep a poker face, though hiding my disgust towards things like Sammy always prove a challenge. The main part of my disgust stems from how normal Sammy appears, as I pull back my chair and sit, placing my note pad and pen in front of me he greets me with a simple, "hey", so innocent yet behind its handsome exterior lies something so putrid. "hello, and hello to you too officer" the officer which I failed to acknowledge previously replies "keep it quick, we need this one back in isolation"

"So what are we starting with today?" announces Sammy, with a jolly tone none the less. His smile etched on his face. "My name is Charles Wood and of course I know who you are, how about we start with some simple questions "I smile back, Sammy obviously taken aback by this. "sure" he responds, far more reserved than before. "would you say you regretted the acts which landed you here?"

"of course not, I savoured moment of what I did!" he smiles once again in his patronising tone

this man never ceases to amaze me with how horrible a human can be "you hold no remorse?"I continue

"Nada"

"would you say if you were confronted by God you would repent?"

"I don't believe God to exist so can we stop with the stupid questions" his obvious irritation brings a smile to my face

"if forgiven, would you apologise?"

Now visibly angry Sammy raises from his chair though bound by his chains he's unable to reach me, "what the fuck is with these questions! Isn't it obvious I don't give a shit?!" he flinches expecting a beating.

Nothing

I smile "don't worry Sammy no one can hurt you here"

Ignoring me Sammy waves, obviously distressed at the motionless guard, appearing to only be a statue, before turning to me face filled with anger "what the fuck!? What's going on?!"

with an even wider smile sprawled across my face, I reveal "my name isn't actually Charles, in fact, I don't have a name by which I would seriously refer to myself as-" I'm cut off

"look here I don't know what spooky shit you're trying to pull off but stop!"

I sigh "ill leave you here for a while, till I see fit, they say isolation is the ultimate form of torture so I thought leaving you here for a couple hundred years would be enough to drive you insane. I'll let you die and rot over and over. Don't worry you'll wake up this morning like nothing ever happened and then it's your choice on what to do with yourself" I stand up.

"what the actual fuck! Ill fucking kill you!"

"you can call me father time if you want, the Greeks used to call me Chronos"

The screams eventually turned to distant shouts, as I stole whatever potential time he had left on this earth the loop sped up, he grew old, he rotted, he was born, he grew old, he rotted. Each iteration flashing by in a millisecond. I may be weak but no matter how old humanity grows they'll always be telling each other that eventually time. will catch up with them.

"Sammy Brook" I mutter under my breath, then step back into the relative warmth of my car.

Later that day Sammy brook was pronounced dead, the details of his suicide not released to the public, all that is known is that that morning the isolation block was awoken to blood-curdling shrieks

THE END

Comments

Points: 31500
Reviews: 561

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Sun Nov 26, 2017 9:10 am

Atticus wrote a review...

Hey there! MJ stopping by for a review

This force. A constant in all things physical and beyond which withers and consumes powers capable of rivalling even creation.

This should be one sentence ("This force, a constant..."

This unfathomable power succumbs to a fate which all in reality faces. Consciousness

It should read like "a fate which all in reality faces: consciousness."

As I arrive, an officer awaits my arrival.

There were a lot of places like this where you were missing commas. I'll go into more detail on that a little bit later, but for now it will suffice to say that it would be wise of you to look through and make sure you have a comma everywhere you need one.

My overall opinion of this is that you do a wonderful job using good descriptions to really paint the scenes, describe what's going on, give the reader enough information without really overwhelming them. However, you did have a lot of trouble making your sentences flow well, and your grammar was fairly poor. The good news is that grammar is one of the easiest things to improve about writing, at least in my opinion, and I've attached a guide to proper comma usage here: http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/comma.html. It's pretty long, so if you just skim it, you should be able to get the general idea

As a side note, you oftentimes have awkward paragraph breaks, so maybe the acronym TiP ToP would help you. It gives you a guide for when to make a new paragraph (when the TIme, Place, TOpic, Person).

The plot twist at the end was pretty extreme, and I think it would be a lot more dramatic if you gave a bit more descriptions of how everyone responded as things were going on. There was a brief description of Sammy's panic, or explain the metamorphasis a little bit more in depth.

I think it would also make the plot twist feel a bit more natural if you added some foreshadowing, like maybe an obsession with schedules, two watches on each wrist, the guards thinkiing he looked a little strange, him refusing to take off his watch, something like that to try and hint a little bit that he's not just an ordinary detective.

Hopefully this review was helpful, and if you need anything, just let me know and I'll get back to you and try to help out however I can! Have a good day, and good luck with future writing

Best wishes,
MJ

Points: 13307
Reviews: 350

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Sat Nov 11, 2017 9:59 pm

Jenthura wrote a review...

Nice. A little wordy. Definitely a twist ending, but a little unexpected in a bad way. I believe that a good twist ending has some foreshadowing and hints that let the reader look back and say, "Wow, the hints were there all along!".

That being said, I think your premise is great. A mass murderer is confronted by God himself and given a chance to repent, but for some reason of his own he refuses.

I want to ask you why you chose to write this story from the perspective of the journalist. Since the main character here really is Sammy (his choices are the ones that drive the story, and the conflict of choosing to repent is his) I would have gotten so much more from his perspective. Even if you don't agree, try writing a very short bit from Sammy's POV as he is taken from his cell to talk to the journalist. Why Sammy doesn't believe in God. Why he wouldn't repent.

It's far too easy to say that Sammy is a monster that murders people in cold blood. What you need to understand is that even mass-murderers are still human, with human reasons for what they do. Those reasons might be that the fairies in their brains told them to kill, or that killing helps them deal with their psychosis, or that they kill out of fear, but in the end, there is a reason.

With that in mind, try to come up with Sammy's reasoning and thoughts. What might he be thinking when he is confronted by a journalist asking questions he wasn't expecting?

Anyway, now on to the to next issue. Wordiness. Here's an example:

"Sammy Brook," I mutter under my breath, the winter cold sending chills through my bones as a shut my car door, my shoes crunching against the layer of snow formed on the perimeter parking lot of SQ state prison. I adjust my hat, your typical 1940s style Journalist fedora along with my matching trench coat which provides minimal protection against the gentle cascade of frost and snow.

Too much, especially for your first paragraph. If I picked up a book in a store and that was the first bit, I'd set it down right away.

Here are my suggested cuts:

"Sammy Brook," I mutter under my breath.
The winter cold sends chills through my bones. I shut the car door and crunch my way across the layer of snow on the SQ state prison parking lot. I adjust my fedora and trench coat and trudge into the gentle cascade of frost and snow.

Additionally, there are a lot of disjointed ideas in the same sentence that don't work. You have these disparate images in your mind that make up the scene, but you're communicating them poorly. Muttering under your breath does not correlate to the winter cold sending chills through your bones. Shutting your door does not crunch the layer of snow. Do you see what I mean?

Also, about the hat and coat...you could just say hat and coat. There's no reason for your story to identify the hat and coat unless you want that to be a part of your character (and a very cliched journalist character at that). Also, is it the 1940's? If so, why is it necessary to date the hat if it's in its own era? And if it's not, why is he wearing it? Regardless of when this takes place, I don't think it really matters. We've had high-security prisons for several decades, and the exact decade is not important to the story.

Also, also, major nitpick, but why is a trench coat minimal protection against a gentle cascade of snow? Nevermind, not important.

Moving on. Abruptness.

"So what are we starting with today?" announces Sammy, with a jolly tone none the less. His smile etched on his face. "My name is Charles Wood and of course I know who you are, how about we start with some simple questions "I smile back, Sammy obviously taken aback by this. "sure" he responds, far more reserved than before. "would you say you regretted the acts which landed you here?"

The journalist has said nothing that should really take Sammy aback. In fact, I don't think a single question of that interview was enough to cause Sammy alarm. I think you should lead the interview on just a little bit with some normalcy, to give you time to drop little hints that lead up to the reveal.

Here's my take on that scene.

"So what are we starting with today?" Sammy asks, a jolly smile etched on his face.
"My name is Charles Wood," I say. "and of course I know who you are. How about we start with some simple questions?"
"Sure." he responds, in a patronising tone.
"Would you say you regretted the acts which landed you here?"

And then from here a few questions about why he did what he did. This would give you a chance to delve into Sammy's character. There are levels of detail you can play with, because you are writing what Sammy is saying to a journalist, but he could be thinking something entirely different from his words. This can show in how he chooses to explain his reasoning.

Perhaps he believes that there is no God, and therefore he should be allowed to kill as he pleases. However, instead of saying that, he chooses to lie in the interview and say that he did it for sexual pleasure. Why would he lie? What motivation could he have to do that? Maybe he wants to mess with the journalist's interview and rattle him. Maybe he thinks that not believing in God is a concept that not too many people take to very well and wants to smooth out the interview. After all, he's in isolation, any time spent outside of a windowless, emotionless cell has got to be a blessing.

I think I've given you a few good pointers on what to try next. Most of all, you need to understand your characters and their motivations before you can expect to clash them meaningfully at all.

Thanks for the interesting read, and I hope you keep writing.

Points: 664
Reviews: 841

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Sat Nov 04, 2017 11:50 pm

Radrook wrote a review...

I enjoyed this story despite being constantly distracted by the faulty punctuation. The ending was quite a surprise. Not sure whether it is intended to be taken literally. I tend to assume that it is because the guard is described as being immobile while Sammy Brook speaks and the prisoner throws a temper tantrum. Yet we have Sammy Brooks leaving in a human fashion.

Quite a thought-provoking, enigmatic scenario. I came away with the impression that Brook is just as much a criminal as the prisoner. The punishment of eternal torture is all out of proportion to the crime whatever that crime might have been.

Interesting read nevertheless. Great imagination!

Suggestions:

"[E]mitting from behind the...."]
[.... yards down from my car[.]

["In starch contrast to the dark exterior I remained in."] = Sentence fragment.

["In starch contrast...."] "In stark contrast...."

[he smiles. ] He smiles

[....in 20 or so minuets.... ] minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuet

"....ill be face to face...." I'll

"....now audibly louder...." The adverb louder is Redundant. They can't be louder without being audible or hearable.

" ....you two officer." "....you too officer,"

“so what are we starting...." "So what...."

"my name is Charles Wood...." "My name is,...."

The capitalization and other punctuation mistakes continue and are too many to list but if they are corrected will greatly improve readability.

MrAciel says...

thank you, ill defiantly focus on all my mistakes, although i will put partial blame on it being late and me having a slight cold . i will definitely remember to proof read.
oh and in reply to the punishment being far more severe than it should have been i agree . to me the character of time was suppose to seem distant from humans, not one to hold conversation and such and when being brought down to their level though personification gains the emotions that so often cause humans to make illogical decisions . The story being introduced via a narrator describing time being defeated by consciousness was meant to trigger (at the end of the story) that although Time was attempting to commit an act of justice (as many humans do) he ends up bringing himself down to Sammy's level or even lower . creating sympathy towards Sammy (which of course is conflicting since he is a terrible person) as well as leaving the reader with a question of whether the right thing was done.
though if that did not come across i would appreciate some tips on how i could improve that

Radrook says...

Well, it sure came across clear as a bell to me. But as you know by now, not all readers perceive things the way we intend them to. About colds and headaches, yep they will definitely interfere with how we write. Looking forward to reading more of your work. Thanks for sharing.

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The Hand Strikes

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