Benny looked at his reflection in the mirror. But he wasn't Benny tonight. He was Connor.

Connor ran his fingertips against the stubble across his chin. It felt right. He was pleased. He turned and reached for the bathroom door. He nudged it open just enough so he could slip into the next room. A bedroom.

The window curtains were drawn but the moon was full. He waited for a few seconds as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

A cheap table, littered with empty food cartons. A monobloc chair strewn with clothes. A rug on the floor. Worn and stained. A few photographs taped to the wall. A sad effort to make this lonely place feel like home. And finally, against the far wall, a bed. Someone was sleeping in it.

Connor licked the edge of his teeth as his eyes ran across the room once more. He had found a path. He would make no sound.

Slowly, he crouched down and put his fingers against the floor. It was wooden. And cheap. He could feel the boards bend as he shifted his weight. Connor smiled. At least it wouldn't be too easy.

He slid his fingers across the floor board, following the grain. A few inches to the right, he felt the head of a nail. That meant there was a support beam underneath. It would hold his weight without creaking. It would make no sound.

Connor shifted his weight to his right hand, then lifted his foot a fraction of an inch from the ground. Carefully, he moved his knee up past his elbow, then planted his foot right below his palm. He returned his weight to his foot. The floor board moved ever so slightly. But it did not make a sound.

He repeated his motion with his left hand and foot. Then again with the right. Then left. Then right. And again. And again.

It took him ten minutes to cross a distance he could have taken in four strides. But stealth was important. The night was young. And he had time to spare.

Now Connor was crouched beside the bed. His eyes roamed over the person lying in it. It was a girl.

She was lying on her side with her face toward him. Her eyes were closed and her long lashes fluttered slightly as she dreamed. Her nose had a gentle slope and ended with a slight upturn. It reminded connor of a Klimdt painting. Her mouth was small, but with full lips that parted slightly with each breath.

The neckline of her night gown was cut low. That wasn't surprising. The nights here were warm and humid. The less one wore to sleep, the better. In the dim light he could make out the curve of her chest. Her gown had slipped revealing her left nipple. Connor found himself longing to grip it in his teeth.

In a minute, he let his eyes wander once more. He followed the line of her stomach, then up along her hips. The hem of her gown ended just halfway down her thigh. His gaze swept down the length of her legs and finally to her feet. Her toes were curled, as if she were dreaming of something exciting. Or naughty.

Connor had a fleeting memory of his lips grazing those toes. Of his tongue flicking and licking over and between the polished nails. Blinking, he chased the memory away. He was not here for nostalgia.

With great care, he reached into his shirt pocket. From it he drew out a thick piece of cloth and a small syringe. Then he settled down for the wait.

Minute after minute passed with Connor crouching mere inches away from the girl. Motionless, silent and watchful.

At one point, the girl stirred. Connor tensed, ready to move in case she was waking.

But she wasn't. She rolled onto her back and stretched her legs out. Her right hand shifted from her waist to her left breast, cupping it. Her other hand snaked down, pushing her gown aside as her fingers slid between her thighs. She moaned so very softly.

Connor smiled and shook his head.

Then, he put the cloth over the girl's mouth and plunged the syringe into the base of her neck.

The girl's eyes snapped open and she tried to scream. In less than a second, Connor had moved his body onto hers, pinning her down with his weight. She was clawing at his back, trying to push him off when suddenlt, their eyes met.

She recognized him.

She stopped struggling then. She placed her palms against his back and pulled him to her, as one would embrace a lover. She moved her legs, he let her, until her knees were at his hips and her ankles were hooked behind his knees. She pulled him to her, and he let her.

A moment passed.

And then her eyes closed and her limbs fell limp at her sides. The drug had done its work. Connor got off the bed.

There was a quiet tap and Connor turned to the window. Behind the haze of the curtain, he could make out the shape of a man. Connor raised his hand and the man outside raised his in reply. Connor turned back to the girl.

Gently, he slid an arm under her shoulder and behind her back. His other arm slid under her knees. As he was about to lift her, he noticed that her gown had slipped again. There, just inches from his face, her left nipple was exposed once more.

He leaned forward and brushed his lips against the flesh of her breast. He parted his mouth, then gently took her nipple between his teeth. He shifted his gaze so he could see her face. He bit down, softly at first, but she didn't flinch. He bit down harder, but again there was no response.

Connor pulled his mouth away. He felt... disappointed.

With a quick heave, he lifted her off the bed. He turned and in two steps was in front of the window. The floor boards creaked under his weight. But that was not important anymore. His job was done.

Connor lifted the girl through the window and passed her on to the man outside. Then, Connor stepped out through the window, pulling it shut behind him.

 

Benny was naked and shivering, lying face down on the hard concrete floor. At the back of his head, right under the hollow where his spine met his skull, was the cold steel tip of a pistol. The fat hand gripping the gun belonged to an equally fat man who was sweating profusely. He was sweating because he had just finished sodomizing Benny and was still recovering from his third orgasm.

"You sick pig," said a skinny man seated on a stool off to the fat man's left.

"What can I say?" said the fat man. "I like my work."

The skinny man shook his head and pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket. He patted his thigh, searching for his lighter, but realized he wasn't wearing his pants. He had stripped them off, folded them and placed them in the hall closet about an hour ago when it was his turn to sodomize Benny. He didn't want his pants to be soiled by fresh ass-smell.

The skinny man stood up and nodded to an old man who was lounging on an expensive leather arm chair.

"Be right back, boss. Gotta go grab my pants."

The old man motioned with his hand and the skinny man walked out the door. The old man turned his gaze back to Benny, who was still lying face down on the floor with a gun to his head.

"Benny. Benny, my dear sweet boy," Rasped the old man. His voice grated like coarse sandpaper on a chalkboard.

"Have you had enough, Benny? 'Cause I sure could use another go."

Benny said nothing. The fat man jabbed the back of his head with the pistol butt.

"Hey Benny boy. The boss is talking to ya'. Speak up or I'll have to scramble your brains with a few bullets."

But Benny kept quiet. In fact, he barely heard the fat man's threats. Benny was busy.

He was licking the floor. His life depended on it.

The fat man finally noticed what he was doing.

"What the hell are you up to?"

The fat man punched the side of Benny's head with one of his ham-sized fists. Benny grunted and rolled onto his side. A moment later he felt his temple being nudged by the fat-man's pistol.

"Hey boss. Take a look at this."

The old man tilted his head to the right so he could see past the fat-man's disgustingly bulbous back. What he saw, drawn on the floor with Benny's saliva, was this.

 

The corner of the old man's mouth twitched.

"You recognize it boss?"

"Yes. It's a lock."

"A what?"

"A lock. A lock that's been unlocked."

"I don't get it."

The fat man turned his head just slightly to get a better look at the saliva drawing on the floor. That was all Benny needed. With one quick move of his hand, Benny caught the fat man's wrist and twisted hard. There was a sick sound of bones popping out of sockets.

The fat man opened his mouth to howl in pain. To his surprise, he could not utter a sound as his mouth had suddenly been crammed full with his own pistol. He looked down the length of the barrel and saw that his own limp hand was still wrapped around the gun handle. Unfortunately for him, it was Benny's finger on the trigger.

Benny pulled. Twice.

Each gun shot was a dull wet boom, muffled by the fat man's fat cheeks and his thick neck flesh. Still, it was loud enough to alert the two guards outside and the skinny man who was still rummaging through his pants for his lighter.

The guards burst through the door first, fingers just a hair's breadth off the triggers of their sub-machine guns. They would've come in with guns blazing, except that the boss was in the room.

It took them a half a second to confirm the boss's position.

Another half a second to train their guns on Benny.

Within the next two seconds, they would have fired a total of sixty bullets into Benny's torso and Benny would have slumped down to the floor looking like he had a chest made of hamburger.

They would have... But they didn't.

They never got that far.

As it was, Benny had started firing on the door as soon as it opened. In the split-seconds the guards were confirming their targets, bullets were already plowing through their skin, muscles and organs.

One of the guards took a bullet to the heart. He was dead before he hit the ground.

The other guard had two punctured lungs. He fell to the floor, grasped his chest and gurgled.

Benny could hear the skinny man's foot steps in the hallway. Benny released the clip from the pistol. It was empty.

The skinny man finally made it to the door. He got off three shots at Benny before something hit him hard on the forehead. The skinny man's vision burst into stars.

Dimly, he realized that he had just been hit with a bullet clip. "Good", thought the skinny man. "Benny's out of bullets."

Suddenly, a hand grabbed him by the nape of his neck and something was pressed into his left eye.

The skinny man screamed as he felt his retina being seared by the red-hot pistol point Benny was driving into it. The skinny man flailed his arms to push Benny away, dropping his pistol in the process. He dropped to the floor sobbing and hands held the right side of his face.

"Dammit, Benny! What the fuck'd you do that for!?"

The skinny man never got an answer. Benny shot him thrice in the head with the sub-machine gun he'd picked up from one of the guards.

Benny kicked the skinny man's pistol out into the hallway and threw the fat man's empty pistol along after it. Then he bent down next to the guard who was still writhing on the ground, drowning on his own blood.

With a quick squeeze on the trigger, Benny put three bullets in the guard's brain, ending his misery.

Benny pulled the guard's gun out of the pool of blood that had formed around it. Benny took a moment to see if blood had seeped into the chamber. Satisfied that it was still in working condition, Benny pointed the gun at his last enemy; the old man.

"Benny. My dear sweet boy."

In the forty five seconds it had taken for Benny to kill four people, the old man had not moved from his chair. In fact, he had crossed his legs and was looking quite relaxed. The old man's index finger was tapping a steady rhythm against his thigh, as if he were imagining music in his head.

"Are you going to kill me, Benny?"

Benny, walked slowly forward, the sub-machine guns in each hand both pointed at the old man's chest.

When he was less than a meter away, Benny suddenly tilted his guns down, flipped the safety switches and let the guns hang loose on his side. He brought his hands together, turn his palms to face outwards and stretched. After a few seconds, he lowered his hands and sat down on the same stool the skinny man had sat on.

"Are you going to kill me, Benny?" said the old man again. His raspy voice oddly calm and even had a hint of amusement in it.

Benny fixed the man with a blank look.

“Benny’s not here right now.”

The old man frowned a little.

“Vincent then? Vinnie, is that you?”

Benny shook his head. Then he leaned over to pick up a pack of cigarettes from the floor. It was the skinny man’s cigarettes.

“Must‘ve flown out of his shirt pocket when he ran in.” mused Benny.

The old man frowned some more. His hand reached around the arm of his expensive leather chair. He pushed against some unseen button and with a quiet click, a small drawer popped out of the side of the chair. From the drawer, he pulled out a small golden lighter which was embossed with a lion insignia. Throughout the entire process, Benny had watched him with eyes as black and blank as a starless night sky.

The old man proffered the lighter to Benny, which he wordlessly took. Two clicks and he had his cigarette lit. Benny took a long drag, puckered his lips and starred puffing out tiny smoke circles.

“Peter?” the old man asked. His raspy voice had acquired a note of distress.

Again, Benny shook his head, blowing smoke rings left and right as he did.

“Two more left. Which one are you?”

“I don’t get out much.” Benny replied.

There was a span of eerie silence punctuated by the sound of leather upholstery stretching against the old man’s tightening grip.

Benny smiled at the sound. A smile that made the old man’s skin crawl.

“Right answer.” said Benny, still smiling.

He flicked away his cigarette.

The old man screamed as Benny crossed the distance between them in a single bound. He felt a hand clamp around his throat and a fist slam into the bridge of his nose.

And then it was dark.

~ ~ ~

A quarter before midnight, a black SUV pulls up to an expensive house on the fringe of the city. At a glance you can tell that the owner of the house is very wealthy. Also, you can tell that the house is rarely lived-in. Perhaps someone’s summer home.

The front door of the house opens and two men emerge from the shadowed doorway. They slowly walk towards the driver of the SUV is standing with his hand on the passenger door’s handle.

One of them is old. His back is hunched and he seems to suffer a great pain with every step. The other man looks to be in his twenties. He keeps pace with the old man, but offers no help. He watches the old man, smiling all the while.

When they finally reach the SUV, the old man barks some orders at the driver.

“Take me home. Then take him home. Afterwards, do whatever he tells you to. From now on, I’m paying you to work for him.”

The driver hesitates. His hand snakes behind his back, fingers closing around his pistol’s grip. The driver starts to speak but is cut short when the old man snarls.

“Don’t ask questions! And don’t say a word about this to anyone! Loose lips don’t sink ships. They kill your family and friends with horrible painful tortuous deaths! I guarantee it.”

Without another word, the driver opens the SUV’s doors and helps the two men inside. He then takes his place at the wheel and they all drive off into the cold, dark night.

In sights? In sounds?
In writ? In song?

In want and wanting?
In deep desire?

When you sleep, where do your secrets run to hide?

Out of sight?
Out of mind?

In storerooms and attics?
In lies and shadows?

Where does your darkness grow?

... said the bomb.

I've been using Adobe Photoshop for years now but it's only recently that I've started to understand exactly how powerful it is when you need to color your graphics.

 

I made two drawings last night (above); A "Warhammer-ish" Soldier and a "Mechwarrior-ish" Mech. Anytime you're dealing with mecha, you expect a lot of little details. And the debris-strewn backgrounds did not exactly make my job any easier. Imagine if I had colored them by hand, I would've taken at least a day for each.

• First I'd make photocopies of the original.
• Then, using a copy, I'd paint on the drawing with the color scheme I had in mind.
• If I didn't like the colors, I'd have to start all over again with a fresh copy.
• Once I'd finalized a color scheme, I'd start on the final working slower to avoid mistakes.
• By then I'd have wasted a lot of time, paper and paint.

With Photoshop however, I can just put each color, shading or detail in its own layer and modify them separately. I just set my drawing's layer to "Blending:Multiply", adjust my brush size, pick out my color and start painting. Later on, if i want to change a color, I just fiddle with the hue/saturation.

But the biggest advantage to using Photoshop is the "Undo" option. Working manually, every error you have to erase or paint over mucks up your paper. You can only make so many corrections before your paper is worn thin or soaked through. With Photoshop, it's just a quick Ctrl+Z and your mistake never happened.

Of course, Photoshop will not magically enhance your work. In fact, it probably requires a lot more skill and practice to than to color manually. And even if it cuts down your work time, you should still expect to spend long hours at your desk. (My two drawings took about 6 hours to color)

The drawbacks? Well, while you DO get a more polished look with Photoshop, you also lose the style and charm of a hand-made drawing. Digital coloring MIGHT be more expensive sometimes due to electricity consumption. However, considering the price of paint plus the power consumed by your drawing lamp, I think it costs you about the same.

If you'd like to view some solid tutorials on coloring with Photoshop check out these links.

Lynda.com: Photorealism with Bert Monroy* [lynda.com] - A good starter guide for working with layers, blending options and the various color-adjust and shading options that Photoshop has to offer. According to the site, this tutorial has 5.5 hours worth of video, so you'd better be ready to sit at your desk for a long while. Luckily, the tut is divided into parts, so you can have breaks in between. Cred to Mon showing me this years ago.

*(note: Photorealism with Bert Monroy now requires a Lynda.com subscription to view.) 

Bolt-City: Guide to Copper [boltcity.com] - Shows the whole drawing-to-coloring process of Copper, a comic by Kazu Kibuishi. It has tips on scanning and clening a line drawing; something which the Lynda.com tutorial lacks. Cred to Martin for pointing me to this, and many other fine comic resources.

How to Make Blastwave [blastwavecomic.com] - A tutorial on how Kimmo Lemetti (aka: Morr) creates a page of "Gone with the Blastwave". It describes several techniques about painting with Photoshop and also a few tips on planning your Page-layout. There's even a video of him doing the actual work (camtasia screen-capture) which shows you just how fast a pro can go.