Sea,
It was strange digging into my box of manuscripts and taking the second-to-the-last one out to read. It finally feels like we're going to make it. This rivals my first marathon in terms of the sense of accomplishment. Holy shit, I just saw a mouse and almost had a heart attack. That's the first mouse I've ever seen in my studio. I think he or she came out when I turned the radio off to write, thinking it was safe to come nibble on some tubes of Prussian blue paint. Because both my parents leaped onto furniture whenever they saw a mouse, I'm forever scarred...and scared. I've never been able to shake my fear. Seeing your brawny father nearly wet his pants at the sight of a helpless golf ball-size rodent will change a man, you know?
So Rowan is cowering in the putrid mushroom bed when her foot slips out from under her. Trying to free herself she digs into the muck and finds a badly decayed human foot. So that's macabre. This causes Rowan to scream, which gives her location away. Within seconds she's surrounded by flashlights. The thugs drag her, still retching, into a room where Cater is being held captive. He has welts on his head and cigarette burns up his arm. For such a stylized and generally inert buildup, the details of torture and death have been quite convincing. Maybe Ms. Lamb has a sadistic side that she needed to let loose.
Apparently the jellied body parts are Ah Sing's, the "laid-off" greenhouse employee. I'll say. I wonder if he qualifies for unemployment. They are Communists after all. He should at least get a state funeral. The group then conducts what played out in my head as a clichéd prisoner/captor exchange, where a pointed gun and an inexcusably long explanation of the crook's motive lasts just long enough for the captors to escape...Cater suddenly looked like harmonica-era Bruce Willis to me. Only, our captors haven't escaped...yet. Wow, though, the blood thirst of Lucy. She seems REALLY anti-social now. All the words wasted by Lamb on her inner-psyche are now out the window; she's turned from disturbed, complex, reluctant crime syndicate leader to Jeff Daumer. I think she might make a pate out of Sing's foot. I'm surprised she doesn't have cats; people that crazy HAVE to have cats. Anyway, as she's waxing sadistic with Rowan and Matt, she admits to shooting and killing Reshevksy...so that's official. Our first real loss so far. I kinda liked that guy.
In an attempt to extract information from Matt, Lucy approaches Rowan to start the torture session. It seems they don't actually believe Rowan knows anything, but are using the couple's mutual love as leverage. This actually redeems the story a bit, because there was really no good reason for the network to be hatin' on Rowan.
Just as Lucy is about to tee off on Rowan, my section ends. I don't know if it was seeing the mouse or reading the story, but my blood's flowing.
Tell me more, Cee.
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