Your character is alone at night in the woods. Something terrible is about to happen. Are they being stalked? Are they about to make some gruesome discovery? Without telling me what happens, make my spine tingle and my skin crawl by setting the scene. Incorporating the image of the night sky through the naked tree branches, paint a scene that gets your reader prepared for coming terror.
In this small town, playing football at the edge of the woods was a favorite pastime of the neighborhood kids. It's a tradition that has gone on for years and years. Parents now, remember when they played as kids; everyone knew the stories, but always laughed them off, saying it was only old wives tales to keep the kids from wandering off in the trees.
Robert had laughed, too, but he always had a creepy feeling like someone was watching him. When the football game was done, all the kids headed for home. Robert's house was the only house down the dirt road that went along the edge of the woods. All the other kids lived in the other direction. As he picked up his jacket to go home, someone yelled, "Hey Robert, don't let the Boogie Man get you." He smiled a weak smile and waved as all the other kids laughed and ran away from him.
Robert wasn't a scrawny wimp or big chicken, but now walking home alone, he was scared to death. Every little creak or rustle in the trees made his heart beat faster until he thought his chest was going to explode. His breath was shallow as he glanced at the trees, afraid he might see something or someone. Dusk was setting in, casting off eery shadows. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead, but he was freezing. As his pace quickened, he put on his jacket, keeping one eye on the woods, hoping someone would drive by like his grandfather to give him a ride home.
Nicely done Pam!
The scream echoed through the wood, a chilling note carried on the wind like the ghost of a past lover seeking his embrace. His heart pounded, pulse quickening as he bounded through the forest, seeking the sources of the terror. The scream came again, this time shrill and blood curdling. He was now running flat out, hurtling through the trees with no regard for what might lie ahead. The scream rang out again, crisp and sharp in the cold night air, but was suddenly cut short. He stopped, lungs heaving, streams of hot air blasting out of his mouth and nose as he tried to seek her out. But instead of a scream, all he heard now was booming laughter and his blood ran cold.
"Your turn."
Couple of bloopers in there, I apologize. *grimace*
I think I FIFY, Will.
Also, the first sentence has a 'chilling not' instead of a 'chilling note' haha. Thanks!
Got it. 🙂
Woo! Thanks. My previous story, 'Dark House' is actually going into a free Halloween anthology to be published on the 31st. First publications, it's exciting, so thank you for allowing us the opportunity to try something new here!
The chug chug clunk of the engine was the final straw. She eased her aging hunk o'junk to the side of the road. Out of gas, out of money out of luck. That's how she'd describe the last 6 months of her life. She picked up the cell phone and its face was black. Add out of battery power! "Damn," she swore as she wrapped her heavy coat around her, grabbed her purse and climbed out of the car. Looking around her hadn't been a good idea. The horizon was filled with the scrawny branches of wintery trees reaching for a moon-blanced sky like harbingers of evil. The sound behind her was, she prayed, of leaves swept across the country road. Not a single light from a farm house could be seen. She was totally, frighteningly alone. Then she heard the movement behind her. She spun around but saw nothing. Cold sweat poured down her back making the night's chill even worse.
Oooh! Very nice, Linda Rae. I want to read that story! 🙂
He tripped and instead of getting up, he lay on his back and tried to catch his breath. He'd been running non-stop for fifteen minutes trying to out run whatever was behind him. The fingers of the tree branches reaching across the sky, seemed to grasp each other and block out the stars. The same way fear was blocking his sanity. His breath escaped his lungs in such an over powering rush, he could swear he was the power behind the swaying branches. Turning his head slightly to the right,he was assured of the fact. The crushed dried leaves near his nostrils scattered with the contact of his breath. He felt his heart thumping in his chest and echoing through the earth and down his spine. Wait, that wasn't his heart.
Excellent!
He tripped over yet another tree root, pitching onto his face, and swore. The shifting light of the full moon, dodging fitfully between clouds, made it hard for him to distinguish the shadows of the bare branches from the roots that stuck up, half-covered by dead leaves.
Surely they could hear him for miles? He hadn't run like this since his schooldays, and his breath came in noisy gasps. The pain in his side wouldn't go away, and his knees were shaking.
He had to keep going, or they would find him and drag him back, and he had no illusions about the treatment he would receive once he was inside again. He scrambled to his feet and moved forward, a little more slowly and cautiously this time. To his horror, he heard the howling of wolves ahead of him, and it sounded as though they were close.
FWIW, I hadn't read Ey's excellent writing just above when I wrote mine. We seem to have moved along parallel tracks, though.
When she first noticed the full moon rising, it was late. Naked treetops hid its lukewarm presence, washing the sky with an eerie glow of distant candlelight. She sighed and picked up her pace. Dark jagged bands fell across her path, plunging the patchwork field into cascading shadows! She sprinted across a yard blanketed with long-dead leaves. Overgrown vines strangled every foothold and she stumbled. Swollen weeds poked through her thin pajamas. “Ghastly!” she cursed, as she climbed the front steps of a ramshackle house listing precariously into the hillside. Risking a backward vigil at the creepy village of Witherworm below, she saw the last streetlight flicker. She was alone! Terrified now, gasping for breath and half mad, she flung herself into a spider web spun across the gaping door. A silhouette moved against the moon. She shivered in her slippers, knowing evil watched from the shadows. What choice was there? Surely, not return. She swept the door aside to enter.