This is not anywhere near finished yet, this is just the progress that I have made tonight and I thought I would fill you all in on the direction that it’s going. This is completely raw and unedited for flow and such, and unfinished. Taking that into account, check it out and leave me some comments telling me what you think about it whether you enjoyed it or hated it:
Lloyd Tudor and the Giant Brain!
Lloyd Tudor awoke on this dull and smoggy New York City morning to the ceaseless slams of malodorous machinery and progress he awoke to every morning. All the slamming, crashing, grinding, groaning, whistling, screaming, screeching, and noise of the world exploded together in one continuous loop. The metal giants and beats of modern day slammed to the beat of the asphalt and concrete. It was an acute stabbing that always penetrated the thick skull of Lloyd Tudor that he could never completely extinguish. It was a race with his wits to see which would come first, the apocalyptic explosion of his temper or the winding down of the world into silence again; two mighty forces deadlocked in never-ending battle. This morning like every sunrise that passed, the slamming and yelling and crushing noise of the world seemed to sneak up on him and pull ahead in the race making him more impatient with every passing second. Lloyd Tudor was a time bomb.
Lloyd was the top dog of his company Tudor and Sons. Lloyd didn’t have any children. No one was intelligent enough to deal with him that long. In the end it all worked out for the best. He wouldn’t want to have to share his good tidings with some miserable brat that wanted needlessly and would put a permanent hole in his pocket. He knew how kids were nowadays, with the promise of all the luxuries of the world dangled in their faces. They’d want it all. Lloyd had the fortune all to himself. It was a family run business that had been going for generations now, since the early days of the settlers. There was much scandal around the foundation of the business and much mystery surrounding its’ inception. It was said that they controlled everything in the settlement and no one fought back. They all accepted it, a little too easily said some. Some even said that there was an evil surrounding the Tudor family and that they only bred hate, deception, and something far darker than could be spoken of.
Lloyd didn’t buy into such fancies. He was a realistic man. Could there have been some intimidation and muscle flexing to get to the top? He was willing to accept that. You do what you have to do to climb the business ladder. But ghosts and ghouls were definitely a stretch. As far back as he could remember all of his family had been very intimidating, calculating, and seemed to possess an unnatural intelligence about everything it had seemed, but that was the feeble brain of a child talking. What the hell did a kid know about anything? He had witnessed strange things as a child, things that he had blocked out by the time he was an adult. Grownups didn’t have time for insecurity and ghost stories. His uncle Cal was a strange one. He and Lloyd’s Father had spent many awkward moments staring at Lloyd and smiling. He smiled too much. Then again they all did. Cal’s smile had a strange intensity behind it and Lloyd remembered thinking as a child that he looked like a lion with his smile full of teeth gleaming back at him. It was as if they were contemplating the moment they would share their first kill with Lloyd and launch him to his birthright.
Lloyd remembered that same lion’s grin as his father lay suffering in his death bed. Those eyes unchanging, unrelenting and focused right on him. Nothing was more chilling than that glare. Those teeth seemed razor sharp like they could devour him whole. Henry Tudor’s last words to his son were even more cryptic than the unearthly energy that surrounded him and his brothers and sisters. "One day you’ll taste it too. You’ll taste the chaos. Once you know the touch of emptiness they will come, it’s your birthright and the greatest gift I could give to you. One day you will know the hand that grips your soul. You’ll taste the madness in your blood." Henry Tudor spit in his son’s face. "The poison that runs through my veins is the poison that runs through yours. You’ll taste it..." As spit ran down Lloyd’s face he felt his first twinge of undying hate and stared at his father through angry tears. "Do it you pussy, it’s why you’re still standing here... I’ve seen it in your eye every time you visit me here. I didn’t raise you to be a coward, kill me you fucking worthless piece of shit." For a brief moment Lloyd hesitated, but only a moment. "You don’t have the balls. You were always weak, and spent too much time clinging to your mother’s skirt. I always told her she was weakening you. She regretted defying me before she breathed her last breath. She made you less of a man. We should have called you Linda and dressed you in girl clothes. A red dress would have fit your faggot face better. Maybe a little makeup and lipstick to get you hard while you fuck yourself to the thought of how good you look as a girl. You’re a disappointment. I thought I raised you better than this. Don’t you want revenge for all the times I’ve hit you? Or are you too much of a crybaby to think for yourself. Kill me you faggot. Let’s end this little tea party . . . " Lloyd smothered his father to death with a pillow. Henry Tudor didn’t fight back, only the involuntary twitches and thrashings of an asphyxiated dying carcass. Henry Tudor laughed hysterically under the weight of the pillow till he ran out of air and the madness that inhabited that inhabited his body finally left. Lloyd didn’t have to pick up the pillow to know that a lion bared its teeth back at him, gleaming, razor sharp and proud.
In order to initiate the young into the circle that would become its’ eventual destiny the young but developed lion cubs were provided with wounded prey to get a taste of the kill. The adult lions toy with the prey weakening it and taking its’ defenses down so that the cubs could adopt their birthright and taste their first conquest of flesh. This is what Henry had done for Lloyd. From every moment that he and Cal had stared at them, they knew this day would come. Lloyd was a man. Lloyd was now a member of the pride.
He had taken on the family business and had brought more success than probably was even thought of in the days of the settlement. Though at that time they had dealt in cattle and supplies for farmers and their families like feed, grain, and other such niceties that allowed one to live off of the earth. Now they dealt in plastics, mostly with other smaller foreign companies. There was money in plastics. Everything nowadays is made of plastic, although it was suspected that Lloyd Tudor could intimidate money from a stone. Lloyd was not a man to be underestimated.
He ran a tight ship and only spent money on what was needed to keep all the ungrateful employees from revolting and not a single penny more. Lloyd didn’t care much for dealing with US companies for business. Labor was cheaper overseas. Moreover he knew that people working for shady companies worked harder for their keep as they knew that fucking up would end up making them even less money than they already did. They were slaves to his needs and it made him grin a lion’s grin to have such convenience at the expense of someone other than himself. Lloyd was not an ethical man, he was not a caring man, he was not even an emotional man except for when it came to anger. Lloyd Tudor was 100 percent out for himself.
Lloyd viewed his co-workers with much disdain and nausea. They were all leeches that would rob his hard-earned money from his wallet if he turned his back even for a second. He suspected some of them even resented him enough to revel in seeing him die. He would never give them that satisfaction. He would be alive for every possible moment there was to remind them that it was his money they were working for and that they wouldn’t get a penny more than what they already were making. Raises only came along at terrible price as Lloyd never did anything outside of personal gain. You were always better off not asking for one, either it would cost you something dear or, like most of the time it would near to cost you your job. If he smiled about it, you can bet that you were bent right over, ready to be fucked. He wasn’t stupid and knew that there were bounds to how much of his muscles that he could flex in this modern age, so Lloyd bought off everyone. Lloyd owned everyone. If he wanted to make you suffer, all he had to do was fathom it. Everyone bent to his will and didn’t question him. He couldn’t be touched. If Lloyd did give you a raise, you could guarantee that he was making a gigantic monetary gain by doing so and would knock you back down when he had no need of you. Lloyd Tudor was a predator. Lloyd was running late today.
Lloyd Tudor was always on time. Being on-time meant more money that could be made. Henry, when he was younger, had always told him that money was more important than loyalty, love, friendship, or anything the pot smoking druggies tried to dilute your mind with. Peace and love were novelties that could be sold out to the highest bidder and you could always buy those things later. Lloyd’s father was not one for compassion and often struck Lloyd out of what seemed like boredom. Lloyd always stared up through tear-filled eyes and wondered how someone could be so cruel and heartless. Lloyd had learned to be ashamed of his childish tears and feelings. Henry Tudor ran a tight ship and there wasn’t room for stragglers or whiny babies that couldn’t hack it. Violence built character and strength. As Lloyd stared back through hate filled eyes, bruises, and blood, Henry simply laughed. Henry’s idea of consoling Lloyd consisted of assuring him that he’d deserve those beatings for something he’d do later on. He was just keeping tabs on him and staying caught up with his schemes and lies. "You’ll thank me someday when you stop looking so much like a girl and start to look more like a man. You’ll thank me for the things I have given you. I’m just doing my duty as your father. Who else will teach you how to be a man?" Lloyd was sure that his father would take his fortune to the grave with him, but the moment that Henry entered his death bed, Lloyd may or may not have been holding his breath. Henry in the end passed on in pools of his own vomit. It was thought that he vomited everything he had in him, his soul, his guts. No human being could vomit that much. No one but Lloyd Tudor knew that Henry Tudor didn’t have a soul to vomit. Lloyd grinned his lion-like grin, one of the valuable tools of intimidation that his father had passed down to him. Patience had never been one of Lloyd’s virtues upon entering adulthood. In the end he couldn’t even wait for his own Father to pass and give him everything. That would have never happened. If he had been allowed to pen his own will, the man would have buried himself with everything. No one would dare accuse a grieving son of murder. That was how he got away with it, and Lloyd would take it to the grave along with everything he had, every single penny. Henry Tudor was a smart man. Lloyd Tudor was smarter.
When Lloyd walked into the office he was greeted by the same unsure faces, scared to look up at him. He knew they dreaded his arrival more and more with every passing moment. The ticking of the clock was like a jack hammer pounding the nails into their minds, driving the fear home deeper and deeper. Lloyd stopped dead in his tracks watching two younger interns chatting away, losing him valuable dollars. They were on his time now and were stomping on thin ice. His face turned redder and redder to the point where you’d think it would pop as he listened to them go on as if he didn’t exist.
"Can you believe it?! A giant brain!" "Well maybe it’s something else. It could be anything." "No scientists have been studying it for hours now . . . " The first young man trailed off as he saw the doom that awaited him. He couldn’t have seen it coming, but it was too late now. The young man cowered under the hulking lion’s shadow that Lloyd Tudor cast. Lloyd wasn’t just angry today. Lloyd was always angry. But today was a bad day. This was especially a bad day for those who would take advantage of him. Lloyd Tudor let out a bellow that could very well have shaken the office floor out of the top of the building. All life around froze into silence. No one would dare breathe at a time like this. Even a sneeze could send this man to violence at the wrong moment. At a time like this, the sound of an exhale might drive Lloyd to murder. Lloyd stared at the youngest and newest of the interns with a gaze that could shatter glass if he willed it. The young intern’s lip quivered as he wondered how he would escape the lion’s jaws that had been ensnared around him. Lloyd had set the trap and knew that the intern couldn’t escape, he was too dumb to resist. And just like he predicted the intern opened his mouth to speak. This was the moment the time bomb known as Lloyd Tudor exploded, and all around him ceased to be, bowing to the fury and flames. Everything surrounding him smoldered to ash. No one would have wished this day upon themselves. If these were more primitive times, they would have torn the intern to pieces and stoned him for bringing misfortune into their house. No one spoke of what happened that morning and that sad sack of an intern was never the same again. Something in him changed. He now knew his role in the foodchain and would also never speak of what had transpired. There are no words in any language to describe the horror that lived in the intern’s mind from that day forward. Lloyd spent the rest of the day in his office.