suspense

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FLASH FICTION FOR THE PURPOSEFUL PRACTITIONER: WEEK #17 – 2016

The opening sentence for the April 21st Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner: “I’m sure that the little girl in that back seat was signing us…” Please use this sentence (or this thought) somewhere in your flash. (200)

This challenge is open until 11:00 pm Friday night, April 29th, 2016.

To read more, click Here.

car

Randolph studied the dash. Right, England, so the whole wheel and pedals were ass-backwards.  Bucking up, he started the car,  hoping he remembered to stay on the right… no left… side of the road.

His phone chirped.  “Hey, Ran, you coming?”

“On my way.”

“You remember the directions?”

“Turn at the lightning-split tree then straight on to the boonies.”

“Don’t have boonies here. Call it the way-back-of-beyond. Don’t get lost.”

Three hours later, he pulled to the side of the road. He’d remembered to stay on the left – most of the time – but now he was lost. He looked at his phone. No signal.

The forest hung quiet, trees casting him in shadow. Too quiet. The thrum of something stared in his feet, moving up his body. Why had he ever come to England? Honor? Prestige? Blah. Blah. He just wanted to be home.

A small metallic blue car whizzed past. Framed in the back window, a small girl stared back at him, waving, beckoning him to follow. His hand started towards the gear shift.  The car drew away until all he could see was a dog staring back at him, teeth bared.

 

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Read of the Week – Morpheus Road – The Light by D.J. McHale

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“I stood on the street, staring up at the most normal-looking house in the world. My house. I’d lived there my entire life. It was home. It was safe.
It was haunted.
The only other explanation was that I was demented. I couldn’t say which I was rooting for.”
― D.J. MacHale, The Light

Marshall Seaver is being haunted. It begins with mysterious sounds, a fleeting face outside a window, a rogue breeze – all things that can be explained away. That is, until he comes face-to-face with a character who only exists on the pages of a sketchbook – a character Marshall himself created.

Marshall has no idea why he is being tormented by this forbidding creature, but he is quickly convinced it has something to do with his best friend, Cooper, who has gone missing. Together with Cooper’s beautiful but aloof sister, Sydney, Marshall searches for the truth about his friend while ultimately uncovering a nightmare that is bigger and more frightening than he could ever have imagined.

From the author of the Pendragon books, D.J. McHale brings us another series fraught with scary ghosts, suspense, humor and likable characters with whom readers can easily relate.  The plot had enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing as it moves ahead at a swift clip. The narrator is Marshall and, while he comes off as a nerdy wimp in the beginning, he gradually starts to change as events build around him. The author portrays Marshall’s confusion and fears realistically, keeping the reader engaged in the story and eager to find out what happens next.

I enjoyed this book.  It is well-written; even with all the ‘paranormal’ events going on, I never lost track of the who and where and what of the story.  While this is a Young Adult novel, I would recommend it for anybody looking for a suspenseful (yet not terrifying) read.