I actually used a wee bit from the prolouge of the novel I've been trying to write, but formed it into a completely new story. I'm also entering this for the October Short Story contest, so yeah :v Also this is my first short story so keep that in mind. Enjoy: “Hey, Cameron! Over here!” yelled a strangely-dressed teenager from the side of a curb. Cameron, a short but brawny boy around 15, recognized him as his friend Jesus. “Oh, hey!” Cameron yelled back, running to his friend. “What’s up?” “Dude, it’s Halloween, that’s what’s up. I’ve got the best strategy for our candy route.” Jesus replied. “Aren’t we a little old for Trick-or-Treating?” Cameron asked. “Who says so?” Jesus quickly replied, smirking. The two boys laughed for a minute, then walked to Cameron’s house. When they got there, Mrs. MacPherson, Cameron’s mom, greeted the two of them. The boys spent a long time outside, doing things anyone would expect two teenage boys would do. They even finalized their route for later that night. A few hours passed, and Cameron’s parents left for a date. They had told the boys they were seeing a horror movie of sorts, so they would be gone for awhile, leaving the boys to go Trick-Or-Treating. “Alright, what do you want to do before we head out?” asked Jesus. “Dunno, you?” replied Cameron. “Video Games? I got the new Kingdom H-“ “Hang on, I know what we can do. It’s Halloween, so we should do something scary.” Cameron cut in. “Like what?” Jesus said with a curious tone. “Ever heard of Bloody Mary?” Cameron said in a low voice, smiling evilly. “No, who’s that?” Jesus questioned “Well, the legend of Bloody Mary goes that she was just a regular girl, but someone or something had driven her mad, so she killed herself in a dark bathroom. Now if you can find a Bathroom with no windows, you repeat her name three times inside the Bathroom, with the door closed. She’s said to appear, and try to kill whoever beckons her. And guess what? I have a bathroom with no windows.” Cameron said, again smiling evilly. “Oh… erm… Cam, you know I don’t like scary things.” Jesus said, with the a worried look. “Calm down. It probably doesn’t work anyway. Come on, it’s already dark out.” said Cameron, pulling back the curtain of the nearest window. “Let’s do it now.” Without a word of contradiction, Jesus and Cameron made their way to the upstairs bathroom. They opened the door, revealing the pitch black lavatory. “Alright, let’s do this.” said Jesus, with a hint of nervousness in his voice. They boys walked into the abnormally large bathroom, closing the door behind them. “You say those magic words, Cam.” said Jesus, this time obviously nervous. Cameron let out a deep sigh, and then opened his mouth to say the “magic words”. “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.” The room went ice cold, and instantly Cameron felt as if some sort of fluid was all over the floor. At first, he thought the toilet might have overflowed or something, but he didn’t know how it could’ve. All of a sudden, the light flashed for a split second, revealing Jesus lying on the floor. Dead. Cameron had indeed felt something on the floor. Jesus’ blood had drenched it. The light flickered once more, this time revealing a young woman. Cameron screamed as loud as he could, or rather tried, as he could hardly breath. He burst out of the bathroom, flying down the stairs. Sweat ran down the Cameron’s face like waterfalls as he ran through his house, knocking over everything he could. The woman behind him kept a steady pace, practically walking through the objects that covered the floor. The woman had a large wound in her head, causing her entire left side of her face to be drench in dark blood. Her hands dripped of the red liquid, staining the floors of the house. Her hair was jet black, and her eyes were a piercing white. Her skin was extremely pale, practically giving off a faint glow. She reached forward, almost snagging Cameron by the neck, and called, “Don’t run, you were the one that beckoned me…” in a small fragile voice. Cameron turned to face his pursuer, and nearly fainted at the sight he beheld. The woman lunged forward at him, grabbing his ankle, causing him to fall onto his face, breaking his nose. As blood gushed all over the floor of the kitchen, the woman looked up and placed her hand on the kitchen counter, looking for something. Cameron writhed in pain, spitting out blood as he gasped for air. The woman found what she was looking for, and held a knife up to the back of Cameron’s neck. He managed blurted out, “Who…Who are you…” The woman looked down at her victim, without a single drip of pity. She tossed her hair to one side, and lunged once more, driving the large knife into Cameron’s neck. Cameron went limp, and the floor was covered in dark blood. The woman leaned forward, up to Cameron’s cold, dead ear and whispered; “Mary”
Hmm. Ok, I will be completely honest with you. As a prologue or an opening to a longer story I really like it, it sets an atmosphere and pulls the reader in. As a stand alone short story though I don't rate it. It is over too fast and whilst short stories are meant to be short it feels almost like it is over before it has started. It also feels awkward to me that they have already been at Cameron's house for a few hours before thinking about something to do, what did they do in those hours? You have good control of dialogue IMO (which is something I always struggle with), and your grasp of English is decent too. I did notice one spelling error: As well as this, which is me being picky: Is he a man or a boy? If you are having an issue with finding the right word, maybe change it to "The woman lunged towards him" or something similar? This is just personal taste but please avoid using similies such as and when describing attributes of people. It does create the idea of a supernatural atmosphere, since the mind automatically associates these two things in particular with the supernatural, but in this context they seem cliched. I think that you use the noun "liquid" too much and would perhaps benefit from using other words such as a substitute, for example fluid. It almost seems as though you are afraid of the word blood. Don't be afraid of words, you control them not the otherway around (disregard if I misinterpreted this). For your first go at a short story I have seen much worse, I think with practice and time you will become a lot better. As I already said, as an opening to a longer story I think it is great, just not as a stand alone short. If it helps, I always find it hard to adapt things I have written for different purposes too :B maybe work on writing some short stories that are written for that purpose instead of changing pieces you have written for something else. This section I really liked, especially since it contrasts with the idea of her being feeble in an earlier paragraph. You have a really nice use of imagery, I can picture her stood there over him, full of contempt. The flicking of her hair is a nice touch, it is a feminine move, quite a girlish thing to do, and it makes the idea of her being this calculating, cold killer more unsettling. That being said, I hate you, my bathroom has no windows and I am already scared to be in there in the dark >: p.s Please don't send dead zombie girls to kill me D: I think you have a lot of potential <3
Wow, you actually used the name Jesus after all? xD Heh, awesome. I will not give much opinion to this since I will be judging this after all but I will say that it's a well written story. I don't have many complaints (though as Kay said the repition of "liquid" was just too much) but I will say two things. To me, Jesus' answer doesn't seem right. If someone suggested this to you, you wouldn't reply "oooh" and be happy about it. You'd probably either be doubtful or frightened if you were younger. A more confident child like Jesus seems to be would probably be the former. The second thing I'd like to say is that Mary just alltogether reminds me of the girl off The Ring xD With the dark hair and pale face and just walking towards her victims. You've got some good description, though to me you mentioned blood a bit too often too.
I actually brought this story in to my Language Arts teacher at school today, and he went over it with me, and bassically said these things. And I'm planning on revising this, so I'll throw in something that the two of them could have been doing during that time. When I was first writing this, it was orginally going to be the prolouge to a much longer story I've been trying to write, and Mary was chasing after an unnamed man. I guess I forgot to change that one part to "Cameron" Instead of "The Man". I've had a trouble with using similies a lot in the past, so this is one of the many things I'm planning on changing. For some reason when I write, I have a hard time thinking of other words to use in places, so that's definetly something I'm going to work on. Thanks, though I really do have a lot to improve on. Also, The orginal writing that was the prolouge to the longer story, was a lot different, aside from the small chase scene, and the characters. It had no real explanation, except to demonstrate what the main characters in the long story would be up against later in the book. And the zombies are gonna be dissapointed they won't get their dinner now >: But thanks :D p.s. sorry if the text burns >:D Why yes, I did xD Thanks, and like I said a minute ago, the whole repitition thing is something I'm gonna fix. Yeah, I guess your right about this. I remeber when I first tried the whole Bloody Mary thing, I was kinda scared. But most of the fright came when my friend came out of the bathroom stall covered in ketchup to scare me. xD The girl from the Ring came to mind when writing this, so yeah, I guess I kinda subconciously made Mary look like her. And I didn't think I used Blood to much, but I'll try to fix that xD
<3 thanks for being mature and not threatening to kill me. I would love to see the original piece, I promise I won't scribble in red pen all over it. Horror is a genre I very much adore, and you have potential, so I am happy to see you want to improve and will keep trying. If you ever DO want crit and/or advice, I'll be happy to help where I can. Also, I personally felt the amount of blood used was fine, it was just your use of the word Liquid :b
