Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20180927210140

So this is the first chapter of my next series, and it'll be a while before I finish the series, but was wondering if anybody has any criticisms of the style/writing so far.

The Book of Agony

 

Volume I

Preface:

''The accounts presented within this initial volume is a series of events that I witnessed happening to Benjamin Ross under circumstances that, if I were to explain here, within the preface, would be so bizarre and lacking in context that they would make little—If any—sense. Thus, I feel that it is imperative that I start here, as though it is a piece of a grander grotesque puzzle that I did not obtain until much later in events occurring long after Benjamin’s story ends, I choose to begin here, with the occurrences surrounding him that took place from the fall of 2003 and into the winter of February 2004.''

                With morose sincerity,

                                Daniel Chanthavong

=Chapter I=

Benjamin Ross only wanted for the party to end. He had accustomed himself to isolating himself outside of school, and only paying any real—even if distant—attention to his two friends, Thomas and Jay. But a full-blown birthday party was… simply too much for Ben to handle. Especially since the only one he truly wanted to be there would never be able to make it.

“Hey-a, sport,” Ben’s father, a lanky dark-haired man by the name of Dave Ross, chuckled, “what’s with the long face? It’s your birthday! Let loose a little, quit bein’ such a sour-pus.” He was wearing his usual white button-up shirt and tie, as if he was a caricature of a stereotypical suburban dad from the fifties.

Ben forced a slight upwards motion from the corners of his lips and glanced down awkwardly. He did not want Dave to go on about his mood again.

“What, did you not like your presents? Lemme guess, we got you the wrong Harry Potter book. Damnit, I knew Penny was wrong about it being The Prisoner of Casket-ban or whatever it is. Should’ve gone with the Wizard’s Stone.

Ben’s mother, Penny, peeped her head out from behind Dave’s back and gave him a disapproving look before returning to her conversation with Ben’s uncle Larry, who was a local deputy.

“No, sir,” Ben mumbled, “It’s the right one. A-and I like it a lot, I liked all the presents. It’s just….”

“What?”

“I… I wish Mohamed could be here.”

Ben noticed that Mohammed’s mother, Isha, shot a sad glance towards him.

“Ah, well, he can’t, sport,” Dave continued. “And the sooner you get over it, the better. Won’t help you any to keep mopin’ around all the time.”

“Um, excuse me,” Isha spoke, her brown eyes seeming to be blazing. “But what happened to my son was a tragedy, and Ben is going through grief, and so are myself, my family, and everyone who knew him. I would expect a little more respect from you.”

Dave shuffled his feet and said, “Well, yeah. I mean, it’s sad and all. He was a good kid. But really, what use is it to be letting it all get to you? Out of sight, out of mind, eh?”

Isha was about to slap him across the face but thought better of it. And not wishing to get caught up in the middle of the altercation—as his father commonly tried to involve Ben whenever he was nearby—Ben quickly snuck away and went over to the kitchen to get another bowl of ice cream.

Only a few weeks prior, the body of an eleven-year old Arabic boy was found in their town of Woodgrove, a suburb south of Nashville and slightly north of Maysburg. The discovery of the boy’s body was shocking, and the local law enforcement suspected it to be a hate crime, as it had been discovered in a field on September 11 by a passerby who mistook it for litter, and it didn’t help that his parents were prominent members of the Woodgrove Islamic Center.

That boy was Mohamed Bacchus and was Ben’s best friend out of their group of four. The news had hit hard, and nothing had been the same quite since. Ben had withdrawn from his previously thriving social life and chose instead to read books in the small closet attached to his playroom. Even at school, his relationship with his other two friends, Jay and Thomas, had grown distant and they got along more like acquaintances than good friends.

“Hey, what was your dad saying to you back there?” It was Ben’s cousin Mike, though he wasn’t exactly sure how they were related.

“Oh, um…. That I need to get over stuff.”

He wiped off his glasses and pushed back his long, thick brown hair. Mike was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his early twenties with a plethora of tattoos and baggy eyes. He was wearing a shirt that ben that looked cool, with the word “Ministry” printed on it and a dark silhouette of an angel. Ben could feel a sense of anger coming from him.

“Jackass. Was about to say something to him, but I guess that’s taken care of for me.”

He nodded towards the front of the living room, where Dave was trying to sneak his way out the front door to escape the wrath of two furious parents with a deceased child.

“Yeah, I heard about what happened. Larry told me. How do you feel about your dad?”

Ben looked around awkwardly, hoping that his mother wasn’t nearby to witness such a direct question.

“I dunno. I don’t really… know him that well.”

“Hmph. You know, he reminds me a bit of my grandad. He acted nice, but deep down, he was an idiot. And I’m sorry about what happened, man. If you ever need to talk about anything, I’m here for you. You know, I lost a friend once, too. I was about fourteen, I think. So, I know how it feels. Your mom should have my number.”

Ben’s shoulder was suddenly grasped by a firm fist, and he looked up to see the tan grey-haired face of his grandpa Charlie looking cheerfully at him and Mike.

“You’re not trying to teach the boy physics again, are ya Mike?” Charlie chuckled.

“Nah, just makin’ sure he’s okay.”

“Oh,” Charlie said, taking his hand off of Ben’s shoulder. “Right. A real shame. An even bigger shame that our son is over there making a big fool of himself. This is a party, we’re here to forget about our problems just for a little bit. Oh, Helen, could you get me a scoop of ice cream? Yeah, the chocolate one.”

“Can you get me some, too?” Ben asked of his grandma Helen.

She nodded and poured them both large bowls of ice cream, giving ben a smile that seemed to provide the warmth to his heart that his parents could never give.

“Say, where are your friends, Ben?” she asked.

“I think Granny Helga is showing them pictures of mom as a kid,” Ben replied as he shoveled a scoop of ice cream into his mouth.

Mike twirled his finger by his temple and ambled out onto the back porch, where Ben saw him light a cigarette. He thought Mike looked sad for a moment but tried not to think about it.

Eventually, Penny managed to calm down Mohamed’s parents, after which was left an air of tension behind everyone’s eyes. Helga fell asleep, and so Ben, Jay, and Thomas were left free to run around their small back yard like the old times, even if it did feel a bit lonely without their fourth member. Dave stayed holed up in the garage for the remainder of the time, not reemerging until everyone except Helga had left around eight o’clock.

“Alright, sport,” he announced as he changed into his dress clothes in the kitchen. “Your mother and I are going out tonight. Helga will stay here to watch you, we probably won’t be back until late. And be in bed by the time we get home. Got that, Helga?”

Grandma Helga nodded her head and ambled over to the couch and turned on the television. Dave sighed and grabbed Penny by the arm and shuffled out the door. Ben walked over to the refrigerator to grab a Sprite, hoping that Helga wouldn’t notice. Fortunately for him, she was already engrossed in her unadmitted obsession with Stargate, which Ben’s father had been so kind as to record on the TiVo for her. This was Ben’s cue to leave the vicinity lest he die of boredom, and already it seemed to him that this episode would be excruciatingly unexciting.

And so, grabbing his sparkling new copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Ben made his way upstairs to his playroom, which was still strewn with the Legos he’d played with until he was ten. The wall on the far side of the door faced the street, and looking at the room from the doorway, on the right wall was a small door that led into a sort of cubby hole with a light in it. It was here that Ben spent most of his time, reading books to escape into fantasies of the wonderful and macabre. For many people, the small space littered with neatly stacked books would have induced a strong sense of claustrophobia, but for Ben it was like a comforting womb, a place where he could both be himself and be protected, and even cry if need be, as he’d done on several occasions.

And ben possessed a lot of books, perhaps even an obscene amount. There was nothing he enjoyed more than living the exciting life of another. But there was nothing he hated more than having to return to his unexciting reality where his parents weren’t to be trusted and his friends were sailing away faster than he could ask for a rope.

Ben was not disappointed. The new harry Potter book was more than he could have possibly hoped for, and before he knew it, two hours had passed, and he was already a third of the way through. Sighing, he reluctantly set it down so that he could get one last bowl of ice cream before bed and watch some reruns of The Joy of Painting while his grandmother snored and drooled in the armchair, as she always inevitably did. Tucking it under his arm, he noticed a book that he’d not seen before sitting atop a stack that had been out of his view. Thinking that perhaps it’d been left as a surprise present, he picked it up and furled his brows in confusion.

The book’s cover was made of some kind of strange, black, leathery, spongey material. A shiny crimson set of eyes and teeth was stamped onto the cover, the appearance of which unsettled Ben. On the side, stamped in the same shiny crimson was The Book of Agony. Intrigues, Ben opened the book to a random page and saw that the paper was a blotchy grey color, and the left page was covered in miniscule cursive, while the right page was taken up by a brownish-red watercolor painting that smelled of iron. A small moan of shock escaped Ben’s lips as he stared at the painting.

Staring him in the eyes was a grotesquely realistic depiction of an old woman with her jaw split in two with needles stuck carelessly in her eyes. Instinctively, Ben thrust the book at the wall and began to back away towards the door. But he didn’t get out of the cubby hole before he glanced back at it unintentionally and saw that it had landed face up, turned to a page at the end of the book. And he saw for an instant the face of Mohamed Bacchus staring up at the ceiling. Ben didn’t bother to look any further, as he clamped his eyes shut and picked up the book, slammed it shut, and raced to his room, where he threw it under his bed. Why he decided to put it there, ben didn’t know, nor did he think about it.

Thinking of his grandmother, he stumbled back downstairs to try to find some comfort, but he was disappointed to see that her head was thrust back, drool and snores escaping profusely from her mouth. Not wanting to wake her out of innate shyness, he instead went to the kitchen and made himself a large bowl of ice cream and sat down on the couch.

“—family is still missing, though authorities suspect foul play at an abandoned office building at the edge of Woodgrove, where they were reportedly last scene. And to add a disturbing layer to the mystery, authorities found evidence of arson as well as copious amounts of blood, a strange contraption, as well as the remains of what is believed to be some kind of Satanic shrine.”

The TiVo had been turned off at some point while Ben was upstairs, and the evening news was now playing. But the last thing he wanted to see was the footage of the possible murder scene. He scanned the room for the remote, but to his dismay he found it barely sticking out from his grandmother’s ass, and unfortunately the buttons on the TV itself didn’t work. He set down the ice cream and tried to slowly pull it out without her noticing, but she gave a loud snort the second he touched it. He resigned himself to having to suffer through the dismal news, trying to distract himself with his new book.

“—the killer of 15-year-old Sullivan Jones is still at large. The young boy was found murdered last March in the Maysburg Juvenile Detention Center under unknown circumstances. Authorities suspect it may be related to the murder spree we saw last winter, though they have yet to determine if the murder spree is also related to the disappearance of the family in Woodgrove. On a related note, the killer of eleven-year old Mohamed Bacchus has yet to be determined. Here’s Larry Ross of the Woodgrove Police Department on the subject.”

“Yes, it is extremely upsetting to the community, and we are just as disturbed as everyone else about the past year’s murders. But we don’t believe that the same killer is likely responsible for all of them. We likely suspect that the disappearance is unrelated, and that the perpetrator of the Bacchus murder was likely done as a hate crime against the Islamic community in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon two years ago. And rest assured, we are working extremely hard to bring justice to these perpetrators. But in the meantime, exercise caution, especially when alone.”

The news was wrapped up, and after a few minutes of commercials, a documentary about forest fires came on, and Ben was finally able to escape.

*  *     *     *  *

“Hey Mohamed, you wanna climb to the top of the school?” Ben asked as he, Mohamed, Thomas and Jay were aimlessly riding around the summertime streets on their bikes, not a care in the world.

“Shit….” Mohamed said as he gave Ben a disapproving glance. “Why the hell would I do that?”

“What?” Thomas shouted from ahead as the suburban copycat houses flew by, the wind rushing in their ears.

“Ben wants to climb on top of the fucking school!” Mohamed yelled.

“Fuck that,” Thomas exclaimed.

“Well, I say fuck yeah!” Mohamed answered back, smirking at Ben, his dark brown hair seeming to be carried away into nothingness by the wind.

“What’s going on?” jay asked as he came even with Ben and Mohamed.

“We’re gonna climb the school,” Mohamed answered.

“Oh, sweet. Bet there’ll be cool stuff up there.”

They rode on, not stopping until they had reached Woodgrove Elementary, the sun still hanging in the same spot overhead.

“Man, I dunno about this,” Thomas whined as they parked their bikes behind the cafeteria. “There’s a couple of cars parked out front. What if somebody calls the cops?”

“Fuck that,” Mohamed said. “Don’t be a fucking pussy. We’re going up there.”

“Yeah, don’t be a party pooper,” Ben chided.

“Bet you poop yourself whenever you see yourself in the mirror,” Jay commented, heading over to the dumpster with the air vent above it.

“Is that the way up?” Ben asked as Jay mounted the dumpster and put his hand on one of the slats in the vent.

“I think. I dunno.”

“Well, hurry up!” Mohamed cried. I wanna get up there, too!”

“Alright, alright. Just gimme a second.”

Jay swiftly climbed the air vent and pushed his way over the roof, wiping the dirt off his hands and the sweat from his forehead.

“Hey… I really think this is a bad idea. Can we just like go get some snacks or something?”

“Shut up, Thomas the Train. I’m going up there.”

“That’s not cool, man. I’m just trying to look out for you guys.”

“then why don’t you stay down here and keep watch, then?” Ben asked as he went up behind Mohamed in case he fell. “Alright, you got it, Mohamed?”

“Yeah,” he said as he began climbing the air vent. Ben got onto the dumpster.

When Mohammed was about two feet away from the roof, Thomas cried out, “Dude! Cops!”

Ben could see a panic in Mohamed’s eyes as he lost his grip and started falling towards him. Vaguely, Ben could hear Jay yelling something at Thomas, but he was too focused on making sure he could catch Mohamed. But he seemed to be falling in slow-motion, and Ben too seemed to have a slowed, frustrating sense of movement. Too slow to catch Mohamed as his head smacked into the corner of the big metal lid and his body slammed into the concrete. Stumbling, Ben too fell off, his back scraping against the concrete.

“Jesus Christ, there’s blood everywhere!” Jay cried as he raced to Mohamed’s limp body.

“Oh God! Oh, God!”

Ben didn’t move from where he was, but only stared at the splashes of blood surrounding Mohammed.

“I didn’t mean for this! I didn’t mean for this! Christ, I was lying when I said there were cops. I just wanted to get out of here!”

Ben froze as he watched Mohamed raise his face to look at his, his skull broken open on his forehead and one eye popped out of socket.

*  *     *     *  *

Ben awoke to the sound of a car door being slammed shut, with the TV still going, his body cold and sweaty, his eyes full of tears.

“I tried everything! I tried Drano, coat hangers, heroin, legal abortion! Nothing worked!”

Remembering that he was supposed to still be in bed, Ben raced into the kitchen and threw his bowl into the sink.

“Nine out of ten doctors agree that child pregnancy is even worse before puberty. Please call this toll to make a donation today.”

Ben could hear the key in the front door, but he couldn’t get to the stairs quick enough before his father was staring him in the face.

“What the hell are you still doing up? Ma?”

Helga gave a snort and woke up with a kind of flail, her shirt front soaked in drool.

“Mom, did you fall asleep again?”

Helga shook her head violently and noticed that whatever was playing on the TV was something that needed to be changed before Dave noticed. Reaching under her ass to grab the remote, she tried to change the channel, but only succeeded in blasting the volume through the roof.

“AND NOW PLEASE JOIN US AS WE DISCOVER HOW ONE MAN CONTRCTED SYPHILIS BY STICKING HIS WHOLE HEAD UP A—”

Dave had grabbed the remote from Helga and turned it off himself, shooting icy glares towards her and Ben. Ben noticed that his face was unusually red and that he seemed to have trouble standing upright, and the same with his mother.

“What… in God’s holy name… were you two watching?” he slurred.

Helga shook her head witlessly and Ben simply tried to ease his way up the stairs, which were directly in front of the door.

Dave shook his head and sighed. “Ma, we’ve talked about falling asleep every time you watch Ben.”

Helga stared blankly at him for a second before snatching up her purse and photo album of Penny and waddling out the door. His parents stared after him for a moment before Dave simply waved him upstairs and Penny told him to go to bed.

But Ben couldn’t get the image of Mohamed staring at him… his face bloodied, his eye jutting out and staring into his eyes. The reality had been much happier: Thomas had falsely announced that cops were coming, and Ben had caught Mohamed as he fell from above. But the image was so disturbingly alike how Mohamed had looked when he was murdered, that Ben couldn’t seem to shove the final moment of the dream away from his mind. But, at long last, he managed to fall back asleep with tears in his eyes, and he dreamed of red rivers and burning snow. 