Spin the gun - Critique welcome

[m4dd0g]

Im expermienting with different styles of late.
Flavour of the day is pulp fiction.
Any (positive) critisism welcome
Emotional reaction and lines that throw you out of the scene doubly so.

Sorry its a little long, but hope its worth the read.

Spin the gun

The smell of sweat and humidity reminds me of my hiatus in Florida, its
nightlife overflowing with seedy bars and drug fucked whores.
But that was business; this is personal, very fucking personal.

I spin the heavy revolver on the table, "where she stops nobody knows"
I smile at my own wit, she lets out a whimper.
The air between us turns to ice, I lean toward her slowly, deliberately, "shut ... the fuck ... up!"
She snap freezes, staring at the some invisible point beneath the table, too afraid to blink. The tendrils of raven hair clinging to her face doesnt cover the panic stricken eyes or the blood trickling freely from the pulped mess of her mouth.
I know that look. Stunned. There wont be any more trouble.

I slowly release a lungful of air, the tension drops out of my shoulders and I roll my head. Crack, Crack ... ahhh, thats the shit.
Time for the end game, not that it matters to her, the bitch is a corpse either way.
"You and me are going to have us a little chat", I talk like Im Mr fucking Amicable at a Sunday tea party. The pretence is the only thing keeping in my chair, instead of leaping across the table and smashing out the rest of her teeth.

I lean back, face the ceiling fan and let it cool my temper. Basking in my own sadistic power.
"This is the way we're going to play the game: I ask the questions, you answer them. If I dont like your answer I cut something off, or make something break. Understand?"
I flick a piece of bloodied tooth across the table at her.
She flinches, nods, then starts to shake.
"Im puzzled; no wait, Im 'mystified' as to how you thought I would react when I found out that ..."
"Robert, I..", her voice quavers through several octives.
I slam the table with my open palm, I couldnt have gotten a better reaction if I'd slapped her.
"That wasnt a question Julie, or maybe you dont quite understand the rules yet. Hmmm?", I pat the pistol for demonstration.
And then, I cant fucking believe it, the piece of shit gun goes off.
In slow motion, Julie is punched upwards out of her seat and lands arms akimbo a full 2 meters beyond the table.
Son of a bitch!
The sound of the 44 in such a small room has my ears ringing.

Shaking with sour adrenline, I get out of my chair, circle the table and inspect the body.
The shot went right through the face, messy, but better for her this way.
I feel cheated, but I guess the gun was my fault, her head would have knocked something lose.

I clean the gun and ditch it, time to leave.
Half way to the door it happens; its like Ive been slugged by a baseball bat and my already ringing ears get a second dose of the 44.
Light explodes behind my eyes, the world spins and I hit the floor in a puddle of pain.

Blackness.

"Hey, fucker, wake up. I dont want you missing this part", a drunk slurring female voice, what the hell?
I must have passed out, my face is lying in a ridiculously large pool of blood, is it mine?
I cant feel any pain; thats bad, very fucking bad.
A scarecrow figure sways above me, my own gun making figure eights above my head.
No way, It cant be! Holy fuck, how the hell is she even alive?
She coughs bloody spray as she speaks, "You fucking cunt. Shoot me in the face will you?"
The gun roars, my lower body bucks, and blood sprays ... I dont even feel it.
Im dreaming now, my avenging angel is the only thing that makes sense in my rappidly dwindling universe.
"Did you like that big man? Youre not so big now, not at all", the gun kicks again by itself, just a shower of pine floorboard this time.
Im transfixed by her.
What force could have brought her back?
She was just another target 10 minutes ago, a peice of meat, but now she is something transformed.

She sways briefly, drops to her knees, then slumps beside me, our noses nearly touching.
I lift my hand and shift the hair to reveal her blood streaked face.
God she's impressive, one tough son of a bitch.
The immediacy of the situation departs and finally the pain hits. Gawwwwd!
But its the good pain, muscle pain ... fuck me, im going to live!
She raises the gun, ive not the strength to stop her, but its not my head the barrel searches for.
I see what she is going to do, it means something and I struggle through my confusion as she drags the gun upward.

"I'm gonna die Robert, but fucked if it will be by your vermin hands"
She tucks the 44 neatly under her delicate chin and dons a half smirk on her ruined face
Julies bright blue eyes look directly into mine.
My breathing stops.
The world halts.
A numbing cold fills me.
Merciful Christ!!!
Blam
What kind of animal am I?

 

[Raz]

Dude, that was awesome! You did a really good job of capturing that gritty pulp Sin City feel...and the last few lines in particular pack a lot of adrenaline and come off as a good cliffhanger; makes me want to read what's gonna happen next.

The only real criticism I would have is that the actual formatting of the text was a little distracting in the first paragraph where a new line is started halfway through the sentence. There's also a couple of places where the sentence carries onto the next line by only one word, and that breaks up the tempo a bit as well. The only thing I could advise for that is maybe rewrite it just slightly so it either all fits on one line or so there's more than one word on the second line to make it not stand out visually so much.

That's really a big level of nitpicking on my part though...good work! :D

 

[plazma]

You have a very good handle on the raw and stream-of-consciousness style which seems to epitomise the pulp-fiction/noir kind of literature.

I like this one. :D

-plaz out-

 

[m4dd0g]

Thanks for reading and the feedback; its a nice feeling to know you've communicated something emotive

I drafted it in my journal before transferring it here - Im a bad person for not spending a little time formatting

I read a lot of stuff here, but often feel like im either stating the obvious, or im unsure of my observations if i reply ... will endeavor to do more though.