Happy Halloween everyone! In honor of one of my favorite holidays, I'll repost for you one of my favorite, haunting sections of Scarlet Reign.
Her
irises shrank, regaining focus. The purple- grey haze that was her
torment raged behind her narrowing pupils. Emily Wichum’s
apparition floated through the trees and across the quad. Kate had
never believed in the supernatural; this night would challenge her
perceptions of such things.
She
followed Emily across the quad and down the steps of the packing
warehouse of an old sugar factory. Musty, stagnant aromas excreted
from the damp cardboard strewn about the shadows of the place. She
slowly made her way through the corridor, keeping aware of slight
movements along the edges of her sight. Far ahead an image slowly
materialized through the darkness. A large metal box inset into the
concrete wall; the metal mesh gate across the opening bent around an
object protruding from it.
As
her eyes strained to focus, another image became more apparent. It
appeared to be a polyester smock hanging from a hook on the wall. It
hovered barely two feet off the floor, oddly moving like a sheet in
the wind. There was no breeze here. A strange euphoric, light headed
feeling took hold of her. The smock turned to face her then floated
away through two closed double doors on the east side of the room.
Kate
paused for a moment to calm herself. Her eyes adjusted further to the
poor lighting and the metal box took on more shape, the shape of a
corrugated box crusher. She could make out a shoe on the end of a
protruding limb. The leg bent unnaturally at the shin and ran
underneath the huge metal plunger. Fresh crimson liquid oozed down
the lower portion of the gate washing over teeth and bone fragments
that were scattered on the floor.
“Good
lord!” she said covering her nose from the stench. “This person
was crushed alive.”
The
skull had imploded in such a manner that the eyeballs forced from the
sockets. Kate stumbled, tripping over her own feet; she fell
backward, passing through an eerie gray mist that hovered in the air.
Along the wall lay a small pendant. It was in the shape of a name, a
name she knew. It was Lisa’s.
11 comments:
Great spooky excerpt! Great to see you back!
WOW, this is a great excerpt, Mel! I remember Scarlet Reign being the first thing I ever read from you at one of the Six Sentence Sundays. You seem to be able to master all kinds of genres and situations with and through your writing. Hats off, my friend! By the way, I looked for your profile on the NaNoWriMo website, but I didn't see you there..would be great if we could be writing buddies and support-cheer for one another! I'm way way behind already, wheew..:)
Hey L.J.!! Great to hear from you. Yes my Hermititus did get the better of me for a while. And now I'm neck deep in the quick sand that is NaNoWriMo and as Dana mentioned, I'm hopelessly behind too. I hope all is well for you and no storms came close to your neck of the woods. Luckily Loni and family was far enough South to skip it.
Howdy, Dana. Glad you stopped by as well! I could really use all the support I can get. As of now Scarlet Reign is merely a note book full of excerpts, paragraphs and ideas. I put some of those together to make a very short story for a class, but for the most part the story, when I started this endeavor, didn't even have a complete chapter. I'm putting too much pressure on my self to make the draft perfect and I can't quash my inner critic long enough to get more than a few pages per night. I hope you'll find me over on Nanowrimo.org. My NaNo name is MLFalconer.
Found you! :)
Stopping by to say hello. Wonderful Halloween offering, ML :-) ! Best wishes on NaNoWriMo! I know you guys can do it! :-) Shaking pom poms...cheering from the sidelines!
I love it!!! This is your book?
Thank you for pep rally, Teresa! I'm hopelessly behind on Nanowrimo but I'm still plugging away. ;)
Hi Nicole! Thank you for the visit. Yes, Scarlet Reign is one of my novels ... er WIP's. It's the one I'm working on for Nanowrimo. It needs a lot of editing help, lol but that's the nature of the beast. I have several excerpts of it around here. If you click on the Scarlet Reign listing in the Categories on the right it should bring up all the offerings of it.
It's great to see you here. I like your page so much I put your button just below. Now that WD Community is closing I hope we can stay in touch. Really sucks to see that place go. What can ya do? ;)
M.L.
Hey ML, How have ya been? Do you get serious winter where you are? I picture you with several feet of snow outside your home, a crackling fire inside, and the writers' wheels turning in your mind. :-) Staying busy on this end of things. Did you know Six Sentence Sunday is coming to an end at the end of the month? A big hug to you across the miles. :-)
Hi Teresa, it's great to hear from you. I'm doing ok, thank you. How are you doing? your writing going well?
I have been distant for some time. The holidays are so difficult for me, and so I revert into my hermit ways. I'm glad to hear from you as your note reminds me of how long I've been gone, dwelling deep in the dark place I go when the hermititus strikes.
The end of Six Sentence Sundays is a grievous thing as well. I keep telling myself I need to participate in the final few then my days blur together till Sunday comes and it's too late to participate. I have to at least climb back to renew my posts on my blog here.
Thank you for checking in on me. It means the world.
ML, I left a reply on my blog, but am concerned that you might not have seen it.
"The holidays can be so hard, ML. I do hope you visit from time to time--and I will keep checking on you. We writers are a different lot. So solitary, yet so concerned about the well-being of each other. :-) A big hug to you. :-)"
And, I wanted to let you know that a few of us have put our heads together and have a site up and running for writers to post snippets on Sundays. Dana (Daniela--our mutual little buddy) is helping on this one, too.
Please join us for the fist posting on February 3rd. That gives you lots of time to decide what to post. Don't make us come out there and drag you from your solitude! :-) We are here: http://www.wewriwa.com/ :-)
Hey Mel! I was so glad to hear from you--and I feel bad that it's been so long since I stopped here to visit. Come out of your self-imposed hermit confinement. Even the bears must come out and frolic soon--winter's over. Solitary-- it works for a while. Sometimes I like to crawl inside myself and check things over, make sure I'm all okay, clicking on all cylinders. And my most prolific writing happens when I do that. My writing is nearly at a a standstill right now. Doing the A to Z this month--that's a post each week of April from Monday through Saturday, then wewriwa on Sundays. Has spring found you yet? Seems that winter would like to linger where you are. It's late spring here. Two weeks ago we had a had foot of snow fall on a Sunday night. It is to be 80 tomorrow. But I see the long range forecast is for most days to be in the 50s through the end of the month.
I'm so glad to you stopped to say hello. Now, write something. Anything. Do you want me to give you a writing prompt? ;-) A big hug to you!
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