Hey there spook fans! I want to write a scary story or two in prep for Halloween. I'm undecided between a "real life account" or tale of terror, but I've always enjoyed the adrenaline rush that fear brings forth. It's a feeling that is most easily summoned from a deep forest at night with a couple like-minded friends to bounce your nerves off, but occasionally I have gotten chills from the written word. I aspire to do this on screen or on page, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be difficult to pull off. I am gonna try it anyway, at the very least it will be a project to practice refinery. Who knows, maybe I could submit to a contest...
Jotting down some story starters here for posterity and feedback.
Let me know if any of these ideas whisper at you from the shadows. You sleep...
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When he woke up, something sharp was trapped under his leg. When he looked, there was nothing but a small but painful swelling. Most likely a spider bite, he thought. Hopefully nothing deadly. Without thinking, he plucked the cockroach from the floor and popped it into his mouth. Nothing like the taste of nature. He found his appetite gnawing at him suddenly. Saliva puddled on his tongue. He stared at the prone form of his friend Mike, sleeping soundly on the facing bunk. He wondered whether to wake him before he started eating...
***
The first sign of trouble was the serpent in the road. It had died sometime yesterday afternoon, and the grotesque sight of the flattened rat snake was waiting when they returned home. The boys, still at a young age and the pairing of curiosity and revulsion in them was evident. They had insisted on getting a closer look. They lived on a quiet street, so they all held hands and ventured into the road. Jerry knew from experience that snakes could keep writhing-and biting- after decapitation, but there were no worries here. The juices had already dried on the pavement, and the flies were attending to the serpent's place in the circle of life. There was no movement from the snake. Later, while he was grabbing a smoke on the front porch, his heart nearly misfired for a moment later that evening when he saw it. The dark twisted form unmistakeably twitched, then unraveled and slowly wriggled away into the grass. A soft wind rustled the leaves of the trees and carried whispers from the grass. The quiet sounds were suddenly full of threat, and he hastily retreated inside to forget what he'd seen. He would be reminded soon enough...
***
Ron wasn't afraid of heights, but he got incredible vertigo when faced with something that reached high into the sky. Downtown, he wanted so badly to look up at the towering skyscrapers but if he did there was a decent chance he would be knocked to the ground by a wave of dizziness, so he kept his eyes focused between the ground and the distant horizon. He was passing through the breezeway that ran between and underneath a pair of 30 story office buildings when gravity stopped working. There were butterflies in his stomach as he felt his weigh leave the ground. Startled cries echoed in the man made cavern. It was happening to other people too, then. For a moment he and the nearby pedestrians floated in midair, drifting lazily away from the earth. In a panic, he forced himself to look up. He'd never been so glad to see a ceiling above him. His body was rotating slightly beyond his control, and kicking his legs was mostly useless. He locked eyes with an older man who had been walking on the street. His briefcase floated away from him, bouncing off of a car and careening into open space. The man screamed as gravity came back on like a switch that had been thrown in reverse. . Ron's butterflies flapped and whirled in his guts before his weight crashed into the aluminum canopy that he hadn't taken notice of before. He dropped his phone and heard it careen off the metal once before he watched it arc away, falling toward the clouds. There was a low groan as the nails holding the thin corrugation began to scrape free...
***
Carla was a fan of beginnings. She had watched her marriage with Kevin turn from something truly magnificent to this silence they lived in now. She missed falling in love. She'd be willing to fall in love with him all over again, if she thought he could fall beside her. No, beginnings really had to be from scratch of they weren't the same anyway. She would never cheat. She'd wait until the end came for one of them, and enjoy her new beginnings however they found her. Carla was a daydreamer. In her mind she walked a virginal forest, the only noise to be heard the eternal cycles of nature, death and rebirth on all scales in balance. She knew that she was the intruder here, the wayward child of earths bosom. A stranger now. Black, sooty footprints followed her, and leaves withered before. She strode forward to the precipice above the churning sea. It was as vibrant there in the watery shade, and she knew she would have a place there. Her role was no longer master of the earth, had never been. She was meant to be food.
It was dark and she was alone in bed when she sat up from the dream. Something had changed inside her overnight. She had a new singleminded purpose. Humankind had been a scourge for too long. Carla would do her part, she would use her claws and teeth and whatever she could find and set about erasing the stain from the Earth. Where to start?
Some part of her old self whispered a name. Kevin...
***
It happened at meal time, in the glow of a campfire at sunset. Mr. Sanders had been teasing Mr. Wright in front of the boys again. True, Mr. Wright had lost the map, and also true that he had been increasingly paranoid about the dangers of the expedition, but he was a full grown man and was unprepared to deal with public shaming. No matter how much the other scoutmasters tried to steer the conversations away, Sanders always found a way to mock. Even the boys seemed uncomfortable. At last Mr. Thompson, a soft spoken man with kind eyes, spoke up sharply. Mr. Sanders smirked and looked around the circle as he got in one last deep cut at Wright. He was looking right at a small gawky child of 11 whose body looked too small and his eyes too big when the big rock leapt through the flames and crashed into Mr. Sanders face, shattering his left temple. Wright froze when he saw the blood. Thompson rushed to the fallen man and the boys leapt about the fire, shouting and crying, crowding away from the murderer and falling all over themselves. No one know what happened in Cleveland Wright's mind next, nor why he did what he did. Chuck Sanders was a well known asshole and suspected wife beater. Perhaps the antagonized scoutmaster would have had some sympathy if the middle aged bully had been the only body found on that mountain...
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SHORT STARTS
The ride I took with a stranger was the most terrifying experience of my entire life...
It happened on the night of the big power outage. Now, I always carry at least a penlight and sleep with the lights on. If it gets too dark, I hear it all again...
Ben only told his story once, at his bachelor party after he got very drunk. He cried hard in front of all of the guys for twenty minutes after, and the party was over. That's why I believe him...
My parents always told me that we moved so much when I was young for my dads work. After they died, Uncle Bob told me about the blood...
In my last year as a police officer, I got called in on a jumper. He didn't make it, but I'll hold on to what he told me until the day I die...
Daylight is supposed to make you feel safe, but after my experience, I'm a night owl...
*******
LEMME KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO READ!
No promises it'll be great, but I'll endeavor to make it at least interesting.
-JG-
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