Friday, February 10, 2012

Are you afraid of the dark?

This is the last day of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest. My flash fiction below is supposed to invoke an emotion. I want you to feel fear.

Once on the main floor, he checked the front door, and found it still locked and bolted.  He moved through the living room, past the grand piano, toward a light in the kitchen.  He saw Mrs. H. standing with her back to him, making a sandwich.  She had on a flimsy white night gown.
He tapped lightly on the door with his left knuckle to get her attention so as not to startle her.  She still jumped and then put the knife down and looked over at him.  Jordan folded his arms across his smooth bare chest and leaned against the door frame.  “Thank God it’s just you,” she said, going back to her sandwich.  “You hungry?”
“No,” he stated.  “I thought I heard a noise so I came up to look.”
“Well that’s why I came down the stairs.  I heard someone walking across the floor.  What were you looking for anyway?”
“It wasn’t me,” Jordan said.  “I just came up the stairs a second before I knocked on the door here, and Rob’s asleep on the bed.”
She set her knife down on the counter.  “If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t Rob and it wasn’t me…there’s no one else in the house Jordan,” she said.
           Jordan glanced around in the dark, looking a bit uneasy.  She did too, moving her eyes from off of him and into the shadows that lay beyond the halo of light emanating from the under cabinet fixtures.


Excerpt from SLIPSTREAM


Have a great weekend.

54 comments:

  1. Ohh cool excerpt..... I remember this, I just read this section of the novel:) Very eerie... won't give away too much.

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  2. Yes, I felt the fear. I hate it when I hear noises in the house and no one else is supposed to be home but me.

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  3. Nice rhythm.

    I totally believe in ghosts and I used to live in a haunted house. My father and his friends used a Wigi Ouija Board and the spirits made their presence known by smashing all the windows and a picture of St. Michael slaying Satan.

    Needless to say, I used to hear people whispering when everyone was a sleep; footsteps when I alone was home; and glasses tinkering in a locked cabinet.

    One day I was on my way home and a very old woman stopped me and said: "You is the boy that live down in that house over there?"

    "Ur, yes."

    "That place is a bad place, boy--so many people die down on that land."

    Well, you can imagine I didn't sleep alone for months. Finally we moved out and I haven't had any encounters with the dead since.

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  4. first nervous, then relief, then scared!
    great job with that scene! dont look behind you!

    have a hearts & flowers weekend!

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  5. Then does the phone ring and someone say, "Do you like scary movies?" That or the cops call and say: "The calls are coming from inside the house!!!" Or maybe they just find a hook on a door.

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  6. Ooh, nice tense scene without actually revealing any shock or gore - at least not yet.

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  7. great job. I was def. feeling the scare. I wanted to run in the scene and grab that sandwich knife :) I went dark side for my scene as well.

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  8. great job. I was def. feeling the scare. I wanted to run in the scene and grab that sandwich knife :) I went dark side for my scene as well.

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  9. Creepy! Now I'll be watching over my shoulders today.

    Thanks for the spookfest!

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  10. ooh, is there scary stuff in slipstream? I hope so!
    I was impressed by your ability to pick a piece of a scene that was so well contained within itself.

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  11. I hate when I'm home alone and hear a weird noise. I'm always convinced someone is in the house.

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  12. Very creepy indeed. I am fairly certain my current appartment is haunted, but my roommate keeps saying I'm crazy, so I brushed off the feeling.

    Then last night (after he had taken his ambien and was refusing to go to sleep) he kept talking about the third person in the room.

    Creepy.

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  13. Aw snap!

    The first thing that comes to mind from this single piece is that there's a ghost in the house!

    But putting it back into the context of Slipstream, I'm wondering (big time) what the hell is going on now.

    Great job!

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  14. That's scary. If I were her, I wouldn't put that knife down!

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  15. When I read you were doing fear, I almost didn't read it cuz I'm a freakin' scaredy cat! Yikes!

    Very creepy scene, and the dark just makes it worse. Seriously, I have so many nightlights in my house so I don't have to look over my shoulder into blackness.

    *shivers*

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  16. The things you can't see are always the scariest!!! I love how you tricked me because at first I thought Jordan was the bad guy :) Well done!

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  17. Very creepy. I expected to see the furniture rearranged or a humanoid voice coming from static on the TV. (Strange there's no static anymore, only infomercials.)

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  18. Tense!
    Been meaning to ask if you knew there were two movies called Slipstream. One has Mark Hamill. Yeah, don't bother - just remember him as Luke.

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  19. Ah, I want them to get out of the kitchen NOW. Don't forget the knife.

    Great job.

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  20. @Alex: Yeah. There are movies and multiple books with the same name. My title is very unoriginal, but I don't care. I think people try to hard to be original. I accept my unoriginality with happiness.

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  21. Ohhh creepy. That's really set my on edge now.

    Great job.

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  22. Nicely done! :) I love love LOVE scary creepy books. :)

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  23. A short but well-structured scene. Intriguing.

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  24. Freaky! I HAVE to know who it was. I can't wait to read your book and find out!

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  25. Creepy which translates to a very good piece of writing....so many talented writers, so many books in genres I love...wish I could buy them all.

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  26. I think writing scary is harder than most other emotions. At least from my perspective. As I can't recall reading too much stuff that has made me feel that way. Weird, as I think it's easier to do in movies.

    Regardless, you got the creepy thing down.

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  27. It creeps me out and makes me get ready to be scared. It makes me feel that if I were in that kitchen I'd pick up the biggest, sharpest knife around. So this flash fiction absolutely works. I'll be getting the book!

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  28. The knife is what freaked me out. I kept expecting her to use it! lol.

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  29. Creepy, I got, but there wasn't enough for me to get to fear. Looking forward to the rest, though, once your darned book is available!

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  30. I remember that scene. It made me wonder what was going to happen next. You have some other scarier scenes that made me squirm, but posting them might be more of spoiler.

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  31. You had me wondering what kind of sandwich she was eating. Maybe I'm hungry. Great post!

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  32. OK, very scary. One of my fears,someone in the house,who shouldn't be.

    I would never have guessed you as an Idahoan. Left there two years ago when I moved to the Caribbean.

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  33. Okay, now this has really creeped me out.

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  34. I read that you were trying for fear and I instantly got scared. XD I promise I'm usually not that big of a weenie (at least when it comes to books). I did however freak myself out when writing my last NaNo.

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  35. You did a good job of invoking fear and nervousness :) freaky! :) lol

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  36. That is more than a little chilly... :-D

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  37. Very creepy and you did a great job of building the tension.

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  38. I liked the creepiness of this. I wasn't sure who was the sinister one here. Great job!

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  39. One of my favorite scenes in the book.

    ......dhole

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  40. Creepy! Well done. I didn't post an entry for Friday because I wasn't feeling good but I'm enjoying the reads.

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  41. OooH! Spooky, creepy, intense. Definitely got my attention. And that picture just creeps me out more!

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  42. I'd also be uneasy and want to know who else is in the house.

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  43. Oh I hate that hearing a noise down stairs and thinking if I should investigate or not,scary! Nice excerpt!

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  44. Nice tense scene without the use of blood and gore. Great job! I'm working on catching up on blogging. I was in the mountains last week with no internet. :) I'm back now.

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  45. It's so nice!

    Once I locked myself in a dark room just to defeat my fears. I think it didn't work :/

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