Family Values: Book 1 - Chapter 1
#1 of Family Values - Book One
Hey, look, I write, too! This is just the first draft, so there are a lot of...really bad mistakes, but fuck the mistakes, the story is what's important.
In 2006, I was working at a Denny's in Palm Bay, Florida, trying to think of some new way to vent my creativity. One day, I walked into work to find that I was no longer on the schedule. After a quick and terse conversation with the manager, I found that it was not a mistake, I had lost my job. Resigned to spend a while in misery due to a poor economy, I decided to stop in a park on my bike ride home. I often visited this park with my friends, but never went there by myself. As I sat at one of the picnic tables, I heard a family playing near me. A mother, father and daughter were playing hide and seek.
The father ran up to a tree near me to hide and quietly said to himself, "They'll never find me here..."
I flipped to the last page of my sketchbook and wrote down those words, not even understanding why. As I wrote them, I fell into the hole in the paper and found myself lost in a back alley watching a man hide behind a dumpster, quaking in fear and sweat. He quietly whispered to himself, "They'll never find me here..."
I stood over him as he turned to look at the mouth of the alley, not seeing the curdled milk on the ground until his knee landed in it. I listened to him cursing to himself, saying something about a $300 jacket, then screaming like a child as a minotaur walked into the alley saying, "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"
The story had yet to reveal itself to me, but I knew that these words needed to be written. I had no idea who the man was and I had no idea he would eventually evolve into the first of many antagonists in what would be my first novel.
The first chapter of the book was eventually scrapped. It was not something on which I wanted my name displayed. It was dirty, it was cruel, it was disgusting. I'm not just saying that the writing was bad. No, while the writing was indeed atrocious, the subject was also terrible, and I'll never write anything like that again. It was a rape scene. The only reason I continued to write when I realized where the story was going was because I knew that there was more to that world, and I wanted to find out what that entailed.
I found out what that world entailed, and still find more and more every day. I love this world, it is my child, and I sincerely hope you'll come to love it, too.
** 1 ** ** **
The room was dirty, dingy and best of all, dark. The rough cement walls were green and black with mould and mildew. The door, steel, riveted and heavy, flew open and screeched with rust that snowed down onto the moist, concrete floor. A Minotaur named Beowrok walked in, casually smoking a cigarette with a man held over his shoulder. Ducking through the door, his dark hair fell in front of his eyes, one red and the other silver. He reached up with the hand that was not holding his prisoner and brushed the hair away, his dark brown fur gleaming in what little light the room had. Pausing and looking around the room, he had to squint to see the two chairs he was looking for. The man on his shoulder was unconscious. As if he could tell what was about to take place, he awoke with as jolt as Beowrok prepared to put him down. The first chair was just a regular, wooden fold up seat. The second, where the man was now sitting, had chains hanging from the arms and legs.
"Play nice," Beowrok said in a deep, growling gruff as the man struggled against him, "If you don't play nice, I might not let you go."
"Where am I? What do you want?" The man trembled as Beowrok chained him.
From somewhere near the nape of his neck, Beowrok whispered, "I want to know what you did with him."
The man gave a shudder and the heavy chains quietly sang him a song of his capture. He could smell a fiery musk coming from the Minotaur as it leaned over him. He closed his eyes and tried to turn his head away.
Beowrok chuckled softly and asked, "Does it scare you having my teeth this close to your throat?"
The man did not respond. After a minute of suffocating silence while the beast stood behind him, he asked again, "What do you want?"
Beowrok came around to his front and slapped him in the face. He felt blood run down his cheek where the demon's claws raked him. When he did not respond, Beowrok leaned close to his face and whispered, "I told you already, asshole, I want to know what the fuck you DID WITH HIM!"
He screamed these last words into the man's face. As he screamed, his eyes, or so the man thought, seemed to glow their respective colours. The Minotaur's breath was rank and smelled of sulphur, causing his throat to clutch.
He began to weep. As he did so, he tried to say something that Beowrok did not understand. He moved behind the man the whispered into his ear again, "I don't think you're playing very nicely...now tell me what I want to know, or else..." he nipped the man's neck with his canines. More blood flowed from his neck as those teeth gently broke skin.
The man continued to cry and said nothing. He stopped, however, when Beowrok wove his fingers through his hair and pulled his head back with such force that he heard the man's neck crack. He stopped weeping and gasped, "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"BULLSHIT YOU DON'T KNOW!" Beowrok roared, bringing his face down so he was almost eye-to-eye with his prisoner. "I saw you glaring at him as you walked past us yesterday! I saw the building you went into! I know for a fucking FACT that the owner of that place hunts down people like me! People like my fucking brother! TELL ME WHAT YOU DID WITH HIM!" Beowrok ripped out the handful of hair he was holding onto and threw it to the floor as he rushed to the front of him. He pressed his forehead against the man's and growled, "And if you even DARE to refuse, I will show you the worst pain and the worst suffering you have ever known."
The man shrank as low as he could in the chair to which bound him and trembled, "Okay! Okay! I'll tell! I'll tell! Just, please, don't kill me!"
Beowrok stood up and moved over to the other chair. Turning the chair around backward, he sat casually, facing him.
The man looked down at his lap, now thoroughly soaked in his own urine. Beowrok grew steadily more impatient as the seconds ticked by in silence. He stomped his cloven hoof and shouted for the man to hurry the fuck up or he was going to get a face full of foot.
"Okay, okay! I...I don't like...your kind! Your fucking bastard kind! Monsters! Every last one of you!" with each word, his courage grew. "This situation right here is NOT destroying that image, either! I don't like you fuckers here, and I want you GONE! DESTROYED! All of you! I went to Mr. Richards and made a deal with him. He would hunt down that one that looked at us wrong, and hold him for ransom. Then, when his brothers in arms came to rescue him, they would all die!" He broke off into hysterical laughter.
Beowrok, instead of angry, looked morose, perplexed even. He calmly asked, "So what did you do for him?"
The empty expression on the Minotaur's face and the growing shadows behind his eyes silenced his laughter.
"A small favour..." he said quietly, beginning to tremble again.
In the blink of an eye, Beowrok charged across the room toward the chained man, the chair he was in now poised above his head. With all his strength, Beowrok brought the chair across his captive's head. The cracking of the wood echoed through the room as splinters scattered to the floor joined by the bound figure, unconscious and bleeding. The chains on his wrists held his arms in the air, making him look like he was diving into a pool.
Beowrok stormed out of the room, rumbling curses under his breath and stepping over bits of wooden debris, his hooves echoing in the chamber.
When the man awoke, he had no idea how much time had passed. He was only aware that the beast had another chair, and was once again sitting backward in it. The remains of the other chair were still strewn around his feet.
Again, Beowrok asked, "So, my friend, what did you do for him?"
"I-" the man coughed and spat out a wad of phlegm flecked with blood. "I agreed to let-" he coughed again, spat again, "to let myself get caught and..."
After a moment of silence, Beowrok grabbed the back of his chair and the man tried to shrink back into his own again.
"...And what?" Beowrok asked softly.
The man started to chuckle as he said, "I agreed to let myself get caught and lure you away from your precious leader!" The man began to shake with laughter, "What was his name again? Diablo or something fucking stupid like that?"
Beowrok rushed toward the man and grabbed his throat as he hissed, "His name is Lukiber, and you will speak of him respectfully. Now, WHERE IS MY FUCKING BROTHER?"
When the man did not speak, Beowrok tightened his grip on his throat. The man choked and said that he did not know.
"Ri-...Richards didn't...didn't tell me...wh-where he was ta-...taking him. Don't...kill me...p...pl...ease...." he pleaded.
Beowrok let go with a roar of curses. As soon as he let go, he began to cough again. Once his fit died, he closed his eyes. Before he did so, he saw Beowrok standing by his own wooden chair, his back to the man, his hands clasped together behind his back.
"I said I would let you go if you played nice." Beowrok said softly, his voice echoing around the dim and dirty room, "You played nice...."
The man opened his eyes hopefully. He screamed when he saw that Beowrok's face was only a few inches from his own. The smell of him was sulphur and brimstone, his eyes were fire, and his expression was everything of which fear is made.
The Minotaur grinned, "You didn't play nicely enough!" His grin faded into a dirty scowl and held up a clawed hand.
"THIS IS FOR YOUR INSOLENCE!"
In the last second of his life, the fog of being choked and beaten lifted from his eyes. He saw everything in all its detail. He saw Beowrok as if he were moving in slow motion. The Minotaur's muscles rippled and the dim light gleamed on his claws as he brought them toward the man's throat. As those claws came closer, his grin widened and his tongue lolled out from between his teeth.
His eyes were glowing again.
*2 * ** **
Beowrok sat at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. Lukiber was pacing the room, occasionally glaring at him and growling through his wolfish muzzle. His mind raced with incoherent and unfinished thoughts, trying to articulate some words out of the nonsense. His bone white eyes blazed and burned behind the bangs of the red and black mohawk that sprouted between his horns.
"Luki..." Beowrok started.
Lukiber stopped pacing and walked toward the table, each step seeming to take forever as Beowrok waited for the inevitable explosion from his friend.
"Luki, please..."
Lukiber slammed his fists down onto the table hard enough to send a crack reverberating through the room, said nothing, and simply stared. Beowrok decided that his hooves were very interesting. After returning to his pacing, Lukiber started talking, his words spilling out in a vile rush that made Beowrok feel something akin to fear.
"You killed that man. I told you to let me know when you caught him so I could do the questioning!" Lukiber said. "Did you follow my orders? NO!" he shouted, slamming his fists onto the table again. Another crack sent a shiver down Beowrok's spine.
"Lukiber, listen," he pleaded.
"No, YOU listen!" Lukiber roared, "Instead of following my orders, you decided that your need was greater than mine and ripped out his goddamned throat!"
Beowrok looked as though Lukiber had hit him instead of the table.
"I was just-" Beowrok began.
"Doing what you thought was best, right? Well, I don't fucking care what 'you were just'! The best thing was for you to let me know that you had him, like I told you to!" raged Lukiber. "This is why I don't send you out for me; you get caught up in this crazed blood lust and kill someone, usually someone we need!"
Beowrok stood up. He could feel himself trembling and distantly felt his clawed hands curled into fists at his sides. He looked ready to throttle Lukiber.
"And why do you think that is, eh?" Beowrok screamed. "Why do you think I have this insatiable love for blood and gore? I am a fucking demon, as you well know! We all are! I'm a fucking Minotaur from the very bowels of Hell! And you! A greater demon who could have sent any one of us because you outrank the rest of us!" He looked Lukiber in the eyes and shook his head. "You don't understand us in the lower ranks because you've never fucking been there!"
Lukiber sat down in Beowrok's vacated seat. He took Beowrok's cigarettes and lit one. Staring at the opposite wall, covered in battle wounds from his and Beowrok's previous fights with cracks, holes and burns every few inches, he said, "Do me a favour and just...go away for a while. I need to think." Lukiber snapped.
The Minotaur grabbed his cigarettes back from Lukiber, lit one and laid his head down on the table.
"No," he said, staring at his cloven hooves. "I think I'll wait a bit before going out."
Lukiber stared at him, shocked. "No. You are not going out. No way." he said. "They've just taken Malice and they want the both of us, too. I, personally, am overjoyed that my own brother and Xavier were home the day that those guys noticed your brother!"
This hurt Beowrok. Was Lukiber saying that he would rather they took Malice than Frydae or Xavier? When Beowrok asked, Lukiber took a minute to answer. When he did, he did so slowly, forming the words as he went.
"I'm not saying yes, nor am I saying no. All I will say is that I didn't know Malice very well, Frydae is my brother and Xavier is my boyfriend. It sucks that they took your brother, but I'm still glad it wasn't mine." He looked into the Minotaur's eyes. "Wouldn't you feel the same way?"
Beowrok looked at the wolf demon sitting in front of him, rolling his words around in his head. After a few minutes of thinking, he quietly whispered, "...Yeah."
Lukiber looked slightly happier and said, "Ok, then, let's figure out how to get your brother back."