an Opening for Guests & WIP excerpt

I don’t like not having a post this day, mostly because, yeah, I have something posted every day, but Sat’s are different, they are meant to be more than just a bit of fluff, a filler. They are meant to be something you’d look forward to, not something to see on a page. So I’ve decided to make this my guest day.

 

If you are looking for somewhere to flog your book, your blog, give me a bell (at beeheeley@gmail.com), and I’d be more than happy to put you here.

 

I will accept any genre in any category, or age group. However, I get final say on what I’ll post.

 

Latest WIP: if you don’t know that I’ve been planning to write a short horror novella, I’d love to say for Halloween, but I’m not putting that down, since I’d really love to finish—yeah I’m not putting that down in concrete. Then, um, I’m writing a horror novella.

 

Anyway, watching Supernatural one day I started writing it, and it was shit.

I wrote 400 words in 1st person, and the scrapped that for 800 words in 3rd person and then settled for the night, but I wasn’t happy with it. Not one bit.

You see, I want this one in 1st person, I wanted to write it so close that you were the person on the page, and I still might be able to get it that close, but it just wasn’t working for me, and I wasn’t sure why.

 

I thought, and thought some more, and it hit me that I just didn’t know how to start the story. Yeah, I had an idea, I absolutely know what’s happening, I have it written down, the main scenes that will have great details in what’s happening in each room.

I have the idea of how I want it to come across the first time you read it, and then by the time you get to the end...everything changes.

I want it to be a story you can only read once, because every time after that it’s gone, you know what’s about to happen.

 

I have so many thoughts on this one. So many things I want out of it that I’ve scared the shit out of myself. So I pulled it all back. There’s a thought on how I want it to come out, and if that happens, then I’ll pat myself on the back if not, hopefully, it will still be a great story.

 

[Un-edited excerpt—people this is straight out of 1st draft]  

 

***

Mum was always the one to walk into the closet to make sure the monsters were all gone each night before I went to bed.

She was always the one that told me it was okay to fear. But that I was always safe when she was around, and if she couldn’t be, then I’d find something that would take her place.

I choose a stuffed rabbit, by the time I could remember it, I’d held the rabbit for nearly 5 years. It’s actually one of my oldest memories.

The rabbit, which apparently was a nice baby yellow, had turned a grayish colour, but I was more than sure that was years later than that first thought. As it stood now, me at the tender age of twenty-two it only had one ear, long and paper thin, crusty from years of being chewed, and as clear as anything, a replacement from one I’d lost year before.

The stuffing was those little beads, settled in the arse, its toes. However, one of those had seen better days.

I remember this point in all my thought because I wanted to be clutching it now. I wanted my fingers around the head, suffocating poor scratchy as the butt sat snuggled into my armpit.

Screams scratched at my ears, my mothers, my sisters, yelling for the pain to stop, for everything to stop. Panicked I try to run away, to turn invisible as I slowly back out of the room. Tears ran down my cheeks, I want nothing more than to run to them, to get him to stop it.

My head beat rapidly, it rebounding around my head as fast and as strong as everyone else’s in the house. Pound pound pound, as if it was ready to jump out of my skin and dance the hula on my grave.

I pray I’m not making any noises.

My feet are heavy as I drag myself along the hall, a hand trailing against the wallpaper, as I slowly make my way to the front door.

The sound dances around me, sounding as if they were far away, as if they were right on top of me. I’m alive and dead, dreading the moment he finds out I’m still in the house, that I’m not asleep, or locked up somewhere else.

I don’t know why he hasn’t seen me before, why he didn’t checked out the house before standing over my mother—sister in bed with her, and started the butcher I’d witnessed.

Fear rides me hard, I understand that as my hands shake and my mouth turns dry. I want to run. I want to scream, I want something to happen. The hope, the fact that I’m walking now is almost scarier. Why is it possible? When is he going to see me, to hunt me down and do to me as his doing to my family?

Sweat slides down my spine, running cold, making me shiver while heat licks at my face, my neck. I’m all over the place, hoping and praying that my fingers are going to wrap around the front door handle, as I know it’s not going to happen. Any moment now, any fucking second, I’m going to get grabbed from behind and dragged to me death, and from the screams and blood, coming from my mother’s room it’s not going to be fun sailing.

My bladder punched at me, I need the toilet, needed it in the worst way possible, and I wasn’t even sure why. I mean yeah, I just woke, but honestly hadn’t even really fallen asleep before all this happened.

I reach the front room, the door is right there, just a few feet away. In reach. I push out a breath of happiness. I’m excited, I’m shaking, but breathing becomes ragged, hitting me as I suck in more than I let out.

I stumble, hitting things that aren’t there.

I jumped, heart leaped into my throat, closing it up, as a scrap came from behind.

Turning myself back, after I nearly made the most basic scary movie no no, I bump into the counter, it rattles, making a loud bang in the quite room. There’s no way, even if he wasn’t here with me, right now, that he doesn’t know I’m there now.

My fingers fumble on the table, running into keys as they stabbed into me. I grabbed at them, then ran for the door, not caring anymore, just knowing that I needed out. I would be safe once I got out.

I clutch at the door as it swings open, rolling around the hard edge taking myself outside as it swings.

I look back, not able to get to the other side without looking. In most ways, I can’t help myself; it’s almost a compulsion, I can’t not see what’s chasing me. can’t not see if he was actually there or if I was home free.

I see a reflection, a cabinet door swung open, its shined into the hallway. A man stands there, young looking, covered in blood, his jeans looked almost black in spots, his shirt ripped, as if someone had pulled at the collar, a butchers knife in his left hand, a smaller one in his right, blood dripping from them both.

A smirk lined his face, nearly deviously happy with himself.

A shiver worked up my spine, getting me moving again, I blinked, not releasing I stopped.

“I’ll find you,” was spoken from somewhere behind me, and a laugh, fucking hell, the laugh, it was like something you’d hear coming out of a man who knew he’d done a good job in the sack.

A beep shattered the world, making it shift and wobble as I slowly made my way out the door.

It happened again. I stilled, not really sure what was real and what wasn’t.

Fear drenched me some more as I turned myself around, frantically reaching out, trying to find some common ground.

Hard plastic hurt my hand as I hit something at an odd angel.

I cry out in surprise, and pain, as darkness folded around me.