Now lets get some things straight. When I say "I am an aspiring horror writer," that doesn't mean that i think im going to be the next Stephen King. Am I going to make millions writing? Proooobably not.My goal for horror writing is for it to be a life long hobby, to be published, and to meet some awesome people along the way.
This is a short story I did called the long drive. It's not in it's entirety, just an excerpt. The story follows a couple that get lost in a Midwest ghost town.
The Long Drive:
He
continued to drive towards it, and as he went he could see roofs of other house
beginning to poke out of the tip of the field, coming into view as if he was
driving in a snow storm. By the time he reached the drive way of the weed house
an entire broken Midwestern town had come into view. They rolled up to the
house and saw that it was structurally unsound. Some of the supports it had
been standing on had either broken or were missing, and the house was in
position that made it look like it had fallen from the sky and froze just
before impact. The porch sat on the ground as the house loomed over it. Posts
on the railing had been smashed and angled painfully like broken legs. A dented
but still serviceable mail box stood at the edge of a dirt drive way. Shingles
were torn off. The chimney was crumbled. The windows shattered.
Danny pulled into the drive way and
looked at the house.
“You can’t just sit in their
driveway.” Nicole said.
“You think someone lives here?”
“Let’s go into the town maybe
someone can give us direction.”
He propped his head on his hand out
the window and examined the house.
Danny whistled.
“Danny, Let’s go.” Nicole nudged
him.
As they drove further in town some
of the houses were as dilapidated as the first they had seen, only the charred
skeleton of other remained, but others looked livable. Antique cars and trucks
sat in some of the more livable houses and to his amateur eye none looked to be
restored; the paint was opaque, the chrome worn, rust ate away at the area
around the tires, dirt built up on their windows. Certainly none of them were
winning “Best of ” at a car show.
Finally the dirt road ended where it
was cut off by another dirt road. Danny assumed this was the ‘center of town’,
barely. A church loomed dead ahead, the clock hands were rusted and were fused
by grime, unable to move. The numeral
“III” had gone missing and created a ghostly bright spot on the clock’s face.
The lead paint tore off the side of the church like peeled scabs, exposing the
rotten wood underneath. The doors hung
carelessly askew, allowing dead weeds and various animals to come and go as
they pleased. Stained glass arches,
which portrayed journey of Jesus Christ to the cross, had been smashed.
Danny
stopped to admire, or pity it, or fear it. He didn’t know which. Churches no
matter their age are usually kept up, at least for the sake of the town appearance.
People either want to see a church every Sunday or they don’t. But this church
looked like it had been vandalized.
“Maybe
they were born again atheists.” Danny mumbled to himself.
“What happened to it? I’ve never
seen one so…destroyed.” Nicole said.
“Yeah. Or maybe they just don’t have
the money to fix it up.”
A general store lay in the shadow of
the church. Cars sat silently in the store’s parking lot like old hibernating
beasts.
“We should ask them for directions.”
Nicole said as she motioned towards the store.
“Why don’t you just ask Gerald?” He
laughed.
“Danny, I’m serious.”
Danny pulled into the parking lot
and parked the car in front. “You going in?” He joked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“This place is giving me the
creeps.” She stared straight ahead at the convenience store.
“What?” Danny said.
Nicole glanced up at him, “Where is
everyone?”
“I don’t know at work, in their
houses…out? It’s not a really big town Nicole, we aren’t in Kansas anymore.”
Danny saw in her eyes that she was afraid, so he relented, “Fine. I’ll tell yah
what? If I come out with a Diet Coke then you’ll know that everything’s fine,
but if I come out with a Diet Pepsi, you start the car and drive is fast as you
can.”
“Make it quick Danny.”
He tossed her the keys.
The store front window displayed a
sign that read: “He’s Watching.” Under the warning was a picture of a man in a
helmet, which Danny thought looked like Darth Vader, peeping over a horizon.
Next to it was an image of a glass bottle of Coca Cola Classic being held by
woman who asked, “Have you had a Coca Cola today?” The large display window had
a thick layer of dust on it, which made it as transparent a used hockey rink. Spider
web like cracks scattered throughout the plane of the window.
Danny rested his hand on the front
door’s handle and smiled at the vintage novelty of the store front. He jumped
as a loud noise blasted through his silent day dream; he looked back and saw
Nicole staring at him from the car. She flipped her hands in the air as if to
say “What are you waiting for?”
Danny rolled his eyes, shook his
head, and swung the door open. Inside the dust danced in the air. It swirled around
the boxes and cans that sat on the shelves. The lights from the cooler section
blinked and hummed behind a layer of grime. The smell in the store reminded
Danny of the small musty basement room he would watch the game at in his
friend’s house.
“Hello?”
No one answered, but his own echo
“…Hello…”
Danny walked towards the cashier register.
The dust fluttered around him as he walked through the store. He picked up a small
box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes held it up to his face then blew the settled dust
off of it, before placing it back down.
“Hello?” he cried out one more time.
There was no answer, except another echo that returned back from the dark door
way behind the register. But it was not
simply an echo, it was perverted. Rasped, slow, and dry. As if the echo
responding was his own voice, except 30 years in the grave. Dried by dust and
hollowed by the worms that feasted on the soft flesh of his throat.
So feel free to leave comments or your thoughts on writing, or anything on horror.
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