It has begun!

NaNoWriMo + @freewritehouse = #freewritemadness.

Me and 16 others are gathering at the @freewritehouse to write 50000 words in one month! I am using @mariannewest’s #freewrite prompt (https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-376-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-tiny) and @mydivathings' #365daysofwriting picture prompt (https://steemit.com/fiction/@mydivathings/day-317-365-days-of-writing-challenge) to help write my story.

Today’s prompts are: tiny and a Photo by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash

As usual I started with the freewrite prompt and used themostdangerouswritingapp.com to write the first five minutes:

And now... for the story
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The many torments of Tiny Earl (temporary title) - part one

Tiny found the blood a long time before he found the body it came from. There was a lot of it - blood, that is.

The house - his home - was supposed to be secure.

No one got in without his knowledge - or rather the knowledge of his surveillance team. He didn't get this far, and stay this alive by being casual about security. So how was it, then, that when he opened the door of his bedroom he found the walls covered in a fine red spray? The mattress on the reproduction 18th century bed (Tiny liked reproductions, he liked new things. There was no fucking way he was sleeping in a bed that some old dead guy used to screw his old hag of a wife) was soaked in blood.

Tiny knew it was blood.

He could smell it. He had experience of blood. He knew what it looked like, how it sprayed up the walls when you cut an artery just so. And he also knew how much trouble it could get you in if it happened to be found by the police.

The first thing he didn’t do was panic. Tiny had been alive a long time, and he knew a lot of people who would have still been alive too if they had only kept their heads. Standing perfectly still, he took a deep breath and made sure he took in every detail. The blood spray pattern that had ruined his very expensive wallpaper, the still neatly made bed now swimming in thickening arterial fluid and how the rest of the room seemed undisturbed. There did not appear to have been a struggle - the bed looked as it had been left (Tiny was obsessive about ensuring his bed was just so. He hated getting into a crumpled bed), aside from the three or four pints of blood. All the furniature appeared to be where he left it (there is a place for everything and everything in its place, Tiny’s mother used to say). It looked as though a murder had been faked. Very convincingly - those splatter patterns reminded Tiny of his youth. When he had been more actively involved in punishing those that needed punishing. The blood on the bed looked just as it had that time in Little Hockton. What was that kid’s name? Freddy? Jack? Tiny shook his head. He always was rubbish at remembering people’s names. Janet - his first wife - said that was because he had too many of his own to remember. Anyway, the blood on the bed reminded Tiny of that kid. He remember laughing and telling the kid’s mother on the way out the house that she might need to get a new matteris.

Tiny was forgetful when it came to names, for sure. But he always remembered the details of a murder. He rememered how much the kid had struggled before he plunged the knife in. He remembered how much the kid had writhed and twitched when he had pulled it free, too. He remember he hadn’t left the room looking neat and tidy.

Looking at the floor - to make sure he didn’t step in any blood - he carefully walked to the otherside of the room. Everything looked as it should. Nothing had been disturbed. He carefully took down the large framed photograph of his mother that hung above the stone fireplace and set it gently against the dark wood paneling at the side. The safe looked as it should. He looked over his shoulder to check he was unobserved - another habit that had served him well - before turning back to the safe and pressing his thumb against the digital reader. There was a pause and then a small click and the door swung open. Tiny took a deep breath and looked in.

Everything was as it should be.

It was still there.

Tiny closed the safe door, and made sure it was locked. He checked one more time before lifting his mother’s photograph and hanging it carefully. He made sure it was straight. Then he walked back to the door and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Ahh,” he said. “Glenn. I’m glad it’s you. Yes, yes, I’m fine. I wonder, could you confirm you did a thorough sweep of the house before I arrived home… yes, yes… and what time was that?” Tiny checked his watch. “Okay, so half an hour ago,” he looked at the congealing blood on his bed, the splatters up the wall. “And you checked my bedroom, did you? Good, good. And did you notice anything unusual? No? Something specific? Well, yes, Glenn, now you come to mention it I was wondering if you had noticed something specific. Perhaps you could be so kind as to pop up and take a look. Thank you.”

Tiny waited patiently by the door. Less than a minute went by before he heard the front door open and the thud-thud-thud of Glenn’s boots as he climbed the stairs at a run. The door opened and Tiny greeted his chief of security with a smile.

“Glenn,” he said. “Wonderful for you to join me. I wonder if you could cast a little light on this,” with one hand he gestured to the blood soaked bed and the splattered walls. He watched Glenn’s face. His experession changed from concern to disbelief to anxiety to control in less than three seconds. His gun appeared in his hand and he gestured for Tiny to get behind him.

“A little late, for that, Glenn, don’t you think?” Tiny said. “If there was someone in the room who wanted to to do,” he gestured again at the blood. “That to me. I think he would have already done it whilst you were wanking off to internet porn in the guard room.”

Glenn didn’t answer, but moved with the professionalism Tiny had hired him for. Tiny watched as he checked under the bed, in the various wardrobes, and cupboards, and of course the en-suite bathroom, all the while barking orders into a small hand held communication device. Once he was assured there were no dangers in the room, Glenn instructed Tiny to stay were he was, and left the room.

Several minutes later, Glenn appeared. The gun was no longer visible.

“There is no sign of any intruders, sir,” Glenn said, examining the bed. “And this room was not… like this when I checked-” he looked at the smart device on his wrist. “Thirty seven minutes ago. I am having the boys go over the CCTV footage again.” Glenn strode over to the window and drew the curtain, checking the locks for evidence of tampering. The moon was full, Tiny noticed. Shrouded in cloud, but bright.

“The blood - if that is what it is - seems localised, sir. There is no sign of it in any of the other rooms, no smears, no bloody footprints. I am at a loss to explain how this happened, sir. It has been made to look like a murder scene, but the absence of a body, and the undisturbed nature of the furniature and,” he pointed at the bed. “The bed, would lead me to believe that this was staged.”

“Very good, Glenn. At some point you are going to surprise me and remind me why I hired you, perhaps by telling me something I hadn’t already worked out for myself.”

Glenn looked at Tiny.

“You are a clever man, sir. I doubt I can tell you anything you haven’t already worked out for yourself. Not until I have completed a full investigation. Someone wants to scare you, sir. Or set you up. Again, the absence of a body tends to rule out the second option. I suggest we move you to one of our safe houses, sir. I will need to get my team in to do a proper forensic analysis - including checking the origin of that blood, my money is on pig’s blood, it is easy enough to get hold of - and then a full deep clean. We will also, of course, have to review our security arrangements.”

“Of course, Glenn. Of course. Make arrangements for my car to come round, would you.”

“You will need to have someone with you at all times, sir,” Glenn looked Tiny, in the eyes. “Until we have come to the bottom of this. And,” he coughed. “I think we should bring in Mrs Montgomery-Smyth too, sir. She may also be a target. And it would be safer to have you both together.”

Tiny laughed.

“She is probably suspect number one,” he said. “Not that I would credit her with so much imagination as to come up with this little… exhibition. But perhaps you are right. It would be good to know exactly where she is. I am sure I can bear to be in the same house as my wife for a day or so.”

Glenn nodded and spoke rapidly into his communication device once more. Tiny heard the sound of other boots on the stairs. There was a knock on the door, and it opened quickly after Glenn and Tiny simultaniously barked, “Come in!”.

“I’m not sure if you remember Clare,” Glenn said to Tiny. A young woman - Tiny estimated in her late twenties - stood, military-straight, in the doorway. She nodded at Tiny, but did not smile. “My deputy. She will stay with you, whilst I direct operations from here.”

Tiny nodded. Up until now he had literally trusted Glenn with his life. After tonight, well… things might need to be re-evaluated. But only fools made snap decisions. He would wait for the outcome of Glenn’s investigation.

And then he would see about replacing him.

Glenn left them, and Tiny heard his boots run down the stairs again.

The woman - Clare, Tiny thought Glenn had called her - refused to leave him alone in the room. “My job is to keep you safe, sir,” she said. “I can not do that if I can not see you.” Reluctant, as he was to leave it behind, he was not going to open the safe in front of her. He could not risk her seeing it. It would be safer here, anyway. Perhaps, that was what this was all about. To scare him into making a move. To take it out of the house, to take it somewhere where they could get hold of it. Tiny packed a small case. It was unnessary, of course. All his safe houses contained identical wardrobes.

“Your car is here, sir,” Clare said, checking her smart watch, after it bleeped. He let her open the door, and check the corridor before nodding for him to join her. Outside the room, there were two other security officers, one either side of the door. Their hands on their gun holsters, they did not not look at Tiny as he left: their eyes were watching the corridor. Too little, too late, Tiny thought. Someone failed to do their job tonight. That person - or persons - would need to be punished. “Not out the front, sir,” Clare said, as Tiny walked towards the main staircase. “It is safer if you are not seen outside. The car is waiting for you in the garage.”

They went down the other staircase, towards the rear of the property. Tiny couldn’t remember the last time he had been this way. The moon, big and bright, shone through the window at the top of the staircase.

“Can you keep away from the windows, please sir,” Clare said, taking hold of Tiny’s elbow and steering him towards the wall. She spoke with the same rapid professionalism into her communication device, as Glenn. They moved swiftly down the staircase. At the stairway door of each floor, they passed two armed security guards.

As promised, the car was sitting waiting for them, its engine running. Ventilators noisily cleared the exhaust fumes from the underground space. Tiny realised he had never been in the garage before. Tom - one of Tiny’s regular drivers - was behind the wheel. He didn’t get out to open the door, as he would have done normally. Instead it was Clare who opened the door for Tiny, her eyes continually darting around the garage, before running around to the otherside of the car and getting in beside him.

“I hope you don’t mind, sir,” she said. “Glenn said he would prefer it if I sat beside you until we have arrived at the safe house.”

Tiny said nothing in reply. The garage doors opened and the car pulled out into the moonlit night. Tiny noticed the two motorbike escorts that took up position - one out front, one behind - around the car.

But he didn’t see the shadow that broke away from the house, to follow them.

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Today's word count: 2118

Words Remaining: 47,882

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