Today is Anne Riley’s Murder Scene Blogfest. And tomorrow is Tara Fout’s Bar Scene Blogfest. I don’t post on Sundays, so I figured I would just put them both up today, but then I realized my murder scene is a bar scene…um, kinda at least. So I get to kill to birds with one stone here (or cheat…however you wanna look at it) and use the same scene for both.
Here you go. This is a scene from Glass.* It is pretty rough**, but I don’t want to get into an editing round right now (and if I spent too much time cleaning this up, I know I would end up editing the whole manuscript), so I am leaving it rough. 
“Miss, are you alright?” The warm hand burned on my cold skin and pulled me back to reality.
Shit.
I have only three rules for my job: 1. Show no mercy. There is no such thing as a good vampire. They do not exist. 2. Never, ever think of my mortal life. It is over and wasting my energy on it makes me weak. 3. Never draw any human attention.
One-hundred-fifty-two years of flawless service. Never before had I broken my rules. Until tonight. Now, I had a decision to make: do I clean up my mess, or leave the man living and hope he will forget me?
I scrutinized his face. He had just stepped out of the bar and was rip-roaring drunk. The sheen on his lower lip and chin showed the remnants of his last few drinks.
He leaned closer, the smell of vomit wafting from him; “Hey! Miss, why don’t you let me take you home? You look like you could use a man to comfort you tonight.”
With every word that left his lips, my resolve to leave no witnesses grew stronger. I listened to the sounds of the bar making their way through the bricks, loud enough to mask any noise the he could possibly make. A drunk college girl was wailing an off-key rendition of Shania Twain. The volume of the crowd cheering her on told me she was hot. Or slutty. No way they were cheering for her vocals.
My head hit the brick as the drunkard pressed himself against me. He forced his tongue into my mouth, bringing with it a bitter blend of alcohol and stomach acid. In that split second, I made up my mind. Never before had I willingly hurt a human, but I would make an exception for this one.
After all, it is only safe to cover my tracks.
I let his hand cup my breast before making my move — if this was going to be his last moment, I might as well give him one to enjoy, if only briefly.
In a flash, our positions had reversed. I held him against the wall, his feet just grazing the ground. His eyes bulged in terror and he raised his hands up next to his shoulders.
I raised my hand to his throat, wrapped my fingers around his burning flesh.
For all his big talk and sexual bravado, he was quite weak in the end, never fighting back as I squeezed the life out of him. I lowered his body to the ground and stepped over it, rolling his face to the wall with my foot before leaving the alley.
*This is a continuation of the scene I put up as a Teaser way back when…
**And by rough I mean: this is just pretty bad. But hey, that’s what happens when I write 70,000 words in a month. They are bad words that need a lot of editing. Such is life.
19 Comments
Uh, eww to him. And I already like her. She’s a good MC and I would definitely like to follow her story.
Good! Someday her story will be readable….right now it is, uh, not so much!
You painted the alley so well; her decision as inevitable as a rolling stone. Well done.
Hey thanks!
Wow. I really like this. Already, I’m curious about the main character. What is she? She’s someone I can see wanting to read about, at the very least. Nice how she lets him cop a feel before killing him. Nice touch.
Great post for both blogfests.
I am glad you like it! I can’t giveaway too much about the main character, but I can say this: she is immortal by force, bitchy vampire slayer by choice.
I like this. It’s certainly entertaining. In the interests of critique (which I’m told these blogfest things are about) three thoughts for when you rework it:
1- It took a couple of reads to get a real sense of the location. At first, I thought they were in the bar, which confused me.
2- The section with the three rules needs to be just a touch punchier, or possibly link in more strongly to the shame of having broken one.
3- You possibly let her off just a touch easily on the moral choice front by making the victim so unpleasant. That might well be what you want, though, to set up a harder choice later.
Thanks! I will definitely keep those in mind when I get around to editing this.
This wasn’t a moral choice for her at all though, so I probably won’t be changing how the victim acts. His actions are what pushes her to do it.
Great description and I really like your MC. I’d like to read more of this.
I like your mc’s gutsiness. She also has a mantra or code and that makes her more likely to break it. Interesting post.
I agree with Stu that the opening setting wasn’t clear in this excerpt, but I suspect it’s made clear in the pieces that come earlier, so I wasn’t all that concerned! I think for something “rough” this is quite well done! Don’t discount yourself
Hey thanks! I guess that old adage about being our own worst critic is true.
I’m intrigued! You have wonderful descriptions, the sounds, smells, the way he tastes. Eww! I like this MC and wonder how she has lived so long as a vampire and never willingly hurt a human before now.
Thanks! I am glad you liked the descriptions. I had fun with this one. She hasn’t hurt humans before because she isn’t *fully* a vampire (too long an explanation for a comment)…but she does hunt them.
(I edited your address on this post, so it should link back to your page now!)
I like her! This really drew me in, made me want more. I didn’t think it needed a whole lotta cleaning – minor stuff really. Nice job.
Thanks! I am glad to see the enthusiasm for this…it makes me more excited to go back and revise!
I really like the internal debate your MC had about whether to hurt the man or not and only decided his fate after he forced himself on her. Nice conflict and this will come into play throughout no doubt. Love this line: ” I lowered his body to the ground and stepped over it, rolling his face to the wall with my foot before leaving the alley.” Not too remorseful about her actions is she?
Yeah, really not remorseful at all. I’m not gonna lie: she is kinda a bitter bitch. But still likable (um, I hope so at least).
Hi Rachel! Thank you for sharing this with us! I really like your writing. It feel so real. I’m glad she showed him a thing or or two!