Last week’s challenge — “Five Titles Make A Challenge” — exists for your perusal. Oh, and a quick housekeeping note: still reading through the last Epic Game of Aspects stories to determine my favorite! Gimme time. You guys did some awesome stuff and there’s a good amount to go through. Soon!
Today is easy.
Er, easy to describe, difficult to do.
This is another “write a story in three sentences” challenge except —
Drum roll please, make it scary. (Meaning: horror.)
And please, under 100 words.
This one’s a little different from all the others in that, I don’t want you to post at your respective online spaces. I want you to post here, in the comments. I’ll pick a favorite of the stories and send that person something scary. Er, “scary,” maybe, I dunno.
Remember: a story is not a vignette.
It has a beginning, middle and an end. It is not merely a snapshot in time.
You have, as usual, one week. Due by October 19th, noon EST. Though, note — I’ll be in Los Angeles that day at Storyworld and the Writer’s Digest West conference giving a talk and doing some panels (so if you’re out that way, do come say “hi”). So I’ll get to the stories after the weekend is over and I’ve flown home, drunk and filled with the glittery dream poison that is Los Angeles.
Colleen Simpson says:
An Appointment with the Fairy Prince (87 words)
I met the Sidhe-man in the middle of the street, beneath a moon long-shrouded in cloud and the velvet of night. Heartbeats hung between us as he held out a hand whose fingers ended in well-manicured talons, his invitation one for an evening filled with dance and laughter and pain. We parted ways when I held up my key ring so that the key to the old lock on the ancient garden gate hung between us, and he swore we would dance together on another rainchecked night.
October 18, 2012 — 2:48 PM
Patti says:
She had never considered refusing the dare; she would show them she was not a “big baby”, that she was not afraid to enter the house. But they all ran when they heard – or rather, felt – the Voice that shook the door that had closed behind her.
She had been given simple instructions to perform a series of tasks that would determine whether she would leave, or remain, and she knew she could do it – if only she could remember the difference between “always” and “never.”
October 18, 2012 — 3:22 PM
Ben K. says:
The ruby-tipped finger went to her lips, “shhh” escape from the crooked yellow snarl, and his heart, beating ever harder in his chest, counted down the last moments of his life. It had been too painful, too short between then — finding the wretched hovel deep in the sun-hidden woods during a youthful weekend at the cabin on the lake — and now. He closed his eyes, felt that bony crick of a finger brush his cheek, and like that, the spellbound life was over.
October 18, 2012 — 4:17 PM
kacynielsen says:
I burst into the abandoned gymnasium, gasping raggedly; my ears ringing.
The building shudders and reinforced rebar screams when colossal talons carve down.
Far off, beneath the wailing air-raid sirens, Just Like You Imagined is playing.
October 18, 2012 — 6:00 PM
elanthra says:
‘DO NOT USE CONTENTS UNLESS…’
‘Unless what?’ thinks Tom Wilkes, spraying ‘TerminAnt’ on the larder floor, thinking too, he can’t be arsed to check the manufacturer’s online guide, though… ellipses are always ominous… so he DOES glance round with a cold shiver…
Paralysed and his cry choked by the sheer weight of sand that buries him up to his neck, he wakes in a nightmare desert, lit by a black sun, vegetated by stumps of bloodied spines, where the Giant TerminAnt, mandibles salivating, scrapes away screaming victims’ faces, scoops out brains and crunches on the white bone of skulls…
October 18, 2012 — 11:23 PM
Mike says:
Here you go – three as required. 60 words
Allison had finally managed to sneak away from the party, escaping from her creepy ex.
She’d rushed through the dark streets, glancing behind, hearing only the echo of her footsteps.
Her front light was out again, but she finally managed to jam in the key and turn the lock – just as she felt a hot breath on her neck.
October 19, 2012 — 10:24 AM
Adam Gaylord says:
I can feel tears run back across my temples and cool air caressing my naked skin, but I cannot wipe the tears away, cannot cover up.
“The paralytic should be in full effect by now,” he says over the whine of the buzz-saw.
I cannot scream.
October 19, 2012 — 11:19 AM
Jeff English says:
Outside Emma’s Window
Trapped in Drew’s gaze, Emma opened the window.
” Drew,” she said, “what happened to your eyes?”
His answer was a smile full of razor sharp teeth; the last smile she would ever see.
October 19, 2012 — 12:40 PM
Nora says:
She turned around and gaped, choking out a stifled scream. There in the wall was a twisted, terrified pale face of paint and drywall, its lips frantically contorting in a silent scream. Warning her, begging her to get out.
December 20, 2012 — 2:34 PM
Taylor K. says:
I had to do this for an assignment in school. This is what I came up with.
With the shredder rolling right behind her, Jeanette walked into her husband’s office and began to feed the stacks of paper Steve categorized as “to-be-shredded”.
Reading bits and pieces of marketing strategy papers, Jeanette came upon an envelope encasing what turned out to be a flyer depicting a man strikingly similar to her husband.
Steve was a wanted raper.
October 16, 2013 — 8:57 PM
sara says:
She woke up by the voice of someone. “Wanna go jogging with me?” Thinking it’s absurd to jog at 3 am, she turn her back from the girl peeking at her window sill and realized she’s on the building’s fifth floor.
January 29, 2014 — 8:43 PM