RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Finish this story and win . . .

co-author credit on my site!

Here's the story:

Body Bag

The big blue duffle was right where I’d been told it would be. As soon as I’d finished wiping up the blood (wearing gloves so I wouldn’t leave fingerprints), I dumped all the stuff out of the bag and crammed the body in. Had to practically break his legs to do it—guy was sure tall—but I figured he wouldn’t mind now.
It was a short walk to the subway station. All the way I kept my head down, trying not to look people in the eye. But trying not to look like I was trying not to look, if you know what I mean.
I had a bad moment inside the station when a transit cop called out, and I froze. The bag almost slipped off my shoulder, and I was terrified that it would fall to the ground and the zipper would come undone.
Turned out his target was some kid who’d jumped the turnstile.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I hurried down the steps just in time to miss my train.

Take the D train to Parkwood station, the voice on the phone had told me last night, and then the Bank Street exit. A cab will be waiting for you at street level.
Sounds easy enough. Sure. Get on the subway with a dead body in your duffle bag, and stand for four stops. The bag was so big it kept bumping people. I got a lot of dirty looks, but at least no one looked suspicious.
When I got to Parkwood, I was the only one getting off. I couldn’t find the Bank Street exit. Three separate exits, and not one was the one I needed.
Then I saw the sign, way down the other end of the platform. I prayed that one, there was a working escalator, and two, the guy in the cab was patient.

The cab was waiting for me right at the station exit. I shoved the bag in before me.
“Mr. Robinson?” the cabbie asked. I nodded.
“You got the . . . package?”
“Of course I do.”
“Fine, fine, just checking.” He pulled away without turning on the meter. I wondered if he was a real cab driver or someone who worked for the man I was going to see.
Could be both—maybe he’d gotten in the same kind of mess I had. Maybe bringing me here was the favor he had to do.
Wish I was that lucky.
“D’you mind the radio?” he asked. He had it tuned to one of the talk stations.
“No, that’s fine.” Anything to distract me from thinking about what I had done, or worse, what would become of me.

The whole way there, I couldn’t stop thinking that this might be the last few moments of my life. Once I got to where I was going, the guy would probably kill me. Why not? He didn’t need me anymore. Besides, if he left me alive, I might testify against him at some point. Why take that chance?
The bag kept bumping against my leg. I had put it on the floor of the cab instead of the trunk, just so I wouldn’t forget it. As if I could.
Finally the cab pulled into a driveway, and stopped.
“Do I owe you any money?” I asked.
“Nope,” said the cabbie. “All taken care of.”
As soon as I got out, dragging the bag along with me, he drove off.
Terrific. How was I gonna get home?
Then a scary thought hit me. Maybe I wasn’t going home. Maybe the guy had brought me here to have me killed, and the only ride home I’d need would be a hearse to the funeral home.
The house looked like . . . a house. I don't know what I was expecting. Something out of a movie, maybe. One of those gangster things where the don lives in a huge mansion with lots of big men in dark suits around him. This looked like any house on my block. Not like the abode of a man who had given orders to kill eight people.
I knocked on the door.
After a moment, it opened.

The man who opened the door for me seemed to have been expecting me. Without a word, he ushered me inside.
Once inside, I looked around a bit. The entry hall was green and gold—green carpet, gold-patterned wallpaper. I could see stairs off to the right in the same green/gold color scheme,
“Mr. Stanton will see you in the kitchen,” the man said, showing me through a white swinging door. There in front of me, seated at an ordinary-looking table, was the individual rumored to be behind more than a dozen local deaths or disappearances, most of them cops.
John “The Hammer” Stanton—I’m sure you’ve heard of him. As dirty as they say he is, no one was ever able to dig up solid evidence connecting him to any crime.
I realized I was holding the bag in front of me, and put it down on the floor. Then I worried about blood leaking onto the clean tiles, and picked it up again.
Stanton looked up. “Sit down, Joey.”
I sat.
He nodded to the man behind me, who left us alone.
“It’s done?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I held the bag out to him, but he waved it away.
“I’ll take care of that later.” He was closing up a checkbook, and I wondered if it was the famous checkbook with which he’d supposedly tried to buy off the D. A. six years ago.



Your turn.
Oh, and just for the record, I started this long before seeing "The Sopranos", so any similarities are unintentional.

Then I farted.

My writing style's too different from yours to make it resemble that.

If Pariah's writing style is anything like his forum-posting style, it will be virtually incoherent and filled with constant cries for attention!

“Joey,” Stanton rises, opening up a cabinet in the hutch and laying the checkbook on top of a stack of cloth napkins, “how old are you?”

Thoughts start running through Joey’s mind, “what does he care? Does he get off on killing kids? Dude, calm down. We don’t even know what he’s gonna do. Just relax.”
Joey clears his throat and stairs Stanton in the eye, “Twenty-two, sir.”

The words come out quiet and incomprehensible, Joey’s normally harsh tone taking a back seat in the presence of a man who could not only kill him, but also make it so he never existed. “Say that again, son? I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m Twenty-two. Sir.” Joey speaks the words louder, but they’re still drowned out by his pounding heart. Stanton moves toward the living room, sitting down on a brown leather recliner and motioning for Joey to follow him into the living room. Across the oak coffee table sits a similar chair, except this one looks older and discolored. Stanton points his finger toward it and Joey takes his seat, his eyes never leaving Stanton. The fear must be flowing off of him, as Stanton smiles in a way that tells you he owns you.

“You’ve never killed anyone before, have you?” Stanton’s gruff voice is both domineering and oddly comforting.

“No, sir. No I haven’t.” Stanton’s eyes catch my fingers twitching.

“And what did you think of it? Honestly.” Stanton leans over, anxiously anticipating what Joey is going to say.

Joey stares at Stanton’s unchanging face, trying to play a confidence game that he’s losing badly. He takes a huge gulp of air and considers whether or not he should tell him how badly he hated it. How he puked over and again as he cut off the appendages and shoved them in the duffle bag. How he cried and prayed to God that he would be forgiven, and that it would be over soon.

“C’mon, son. Answer me. And be honest. I can tell if you lie, it’s all in the eyes.”

“I hated it.” Joey murmurs rubbing his fingers over the arms of the chair.

“What’s that? Lets go, boy. Speak up!” Stanton’s tone grows more demanding, his comforting tone melting to animosity.

“I fucking hated it! I fucking hated killing the guy who I didn’t know what he did or who he was! I puked like five fucking times when I was cutting off the arms and legs! Do you know it’s like to cut through a bone!? Fucking…” Stanton laughs at Joey’s eruption. It’s the first time the boy’s had any balls since Stanton called Joey and told him he knew it was him that did it. He never even told Joey any details of what he did, but his voice, and the way he told him he knew, was enough for Joey to wet his pants

Stanton crosses his legs and fold his arms under each other. “That guy you killed? I have no idea who he was. He did nothing to me; he was nothing to me. Just some guy.” Joey freezes, his jaw drops slightly with the look of confusion enveloping his features. “But I made you kill him. You thought you got one over on me, but I made you kill somebody for the shear hell of it. Do you see what kind of person I am, what kind of person I can be?” Stanton walks into the kitchen and grabs the duffel bag. Joey sits up out of his seat in shock of what he just heard. He killed a man for no reason, in cold blood. He’s a twenty-two year old murderer. Stanton fingers for Joey to follow him out of the kitchen, taking Joey through the hallway toward the front door.

No words are spoken; the only sound is the uncontrolled breathing of a shell-shocked young man. Stanton opens the door and holds out the duffel bag for Joey to take with him. “Consider this, Mr. Robinson, a difficult lesson learned.” Stanton closes the door, leaving Joey with the remains of what was once a man.

“FREEZE! DON’T MOVE!” The voice yells out as Joey turns around the corner to see a small fleet of police cars waiting for him. Joey drops the bag and puts his hands behind his head. Several SWAT officers storm him, taking him down hard and breaking his nose. One of them takes the duffel bag and opens it, yelling to the others that it’s the body. They cuff him and read him his rights, blood streaming down his chin and into his mouth. One of the cops enters the house and exits almost immediately with a small rectangular piece of paper in hand. It was a difficult lesson indeed, one that Joseph Robinson will be paying for for the rest of his life.

So do I win???

Well . . . it's good, but I'd need to change it to first person for it to fit in with my opening. I'll try it and see what happens.