Horror

I scare myself all too often. My acute paranoia betrays me a lot, mostly at night. If I stare at a tree out a window, I'll begin to see a face, when I realize the face is there, I panic and sleeping gets a whole lot harder. But the thing is I really love to be scared! Something about the feeling is energizing and exciting. I also like to write, and one genre (among many others) that I've never tackled is horror. I've always been righteously good at scaring myself and others, so why don't I write about it?
The thing is, horror, in my opinion, is the hardest genre to write. How do you scare someone, I mean REALLY scare someone; with words? How do you prey on people's fears with well worded sentences? It takes skill, something I don't have when it comes to horror writing. But I WANT to write stories that people will read at night, they'll read it thinking its no big deal, but later that night they'll be looking over their shoulder, or making a running start towards the bed.
But I can't do that yet. Baby steps. I was going through the pictures on my computer and noticed I had a copious amount of eerie/creepy pictures I keep in a folder titled "Eeriepasta". Looking through them, I noticed that, each one of them told their own little story, or had potential to tell one and I started making up stories in my head. (A lot like Chris Van Alsburg's work) I started putting these stories to paper, and while I admit some of them aren't 5 star works, I enjoy writing them A LOT.

Семья Фото

“Mother, where are we going?” I held her hand for warmth as we walked down the icy sidewalk. I looked around at the trees, bent, twisted and mangled some of them were smiling at me, they looked more imposing today; darker.

“We’re going home to take our family photo, Ivan, how many times have I told you?” Ivan. My name is, Ivan? My hand went limp in hers. A small bout of fear came over me. I looked up to her for reassurance, but she was no longer my mother. She looked nothing like her, this lady was wearing some kind of mask, her eyes were gone, she looked down at me like nothing was wrong, smiling. I wanted to cry. This is a bad dream? I felt a retching in my throat, I think I’m going to be sick, I want to go home, where is that? Where am I?

There was a tall man in a mask waiting at the house. They stood me in front of them, wrapping his arm around me imposingly. There was a masked man with a camera waiting for us. I tried to call out someone’s name, but nothing came to mind, nothing came out. He lifted his mask to take the photo, his face a featureless, mannequin-like visage, his eyes two sunken holes, his skin wrinkled around where his mouth would be, as if to smile.
“Ready? Look at me Ivan."

The Window         

“You go out there boy and you’ll wish you’d never been born.” My father’s words echoed through my head like an annoying chorus as I stomped my way through the dense mud, sucking at my bare feet like wet dough. He had always told me I’d be in big trouble if I ever went out to the house in the field. I don’t know why he got so crabby about it. He’d say things like “I find out you’ve been goin’ out there then you’ll be in a lot more trouble than a groundin’ I’ll tell you that much.” As if that was going to stop me, if I see something weird, I’m gonna check it out, especially if my dad tells me not to.

I was getting closer; I could see the late evening sun pouring through the shroud of mist over the field. Finally I got to the edge of the woods, the mist was fairly thick, the field wet with dew. Through the haze I could see that one window. A single square window lit warmly in the mist, the thing is you could never see the house, not from where I was standing at least, that’s why I have always wanted to check this place out; what’s back there? Always wanted to; always a chicken about it. But that window draws me in like a moth to a flame. I can’t explain it, maybe its just curiosity. I stepped out into the field, the wet grass tickling my feet.

 I plodded through the field toward the single lit window, hoping maybe to see someone standing in it or get close enough to see what’s inside. I went into such a daze when I was walking toward the window, it took me a few minutes to stop and realize it wasn’t getting any bigger. I began to run towards it, maybe speed things up. I ran as fast as I can for a few minutes straight, the window stayed right where it was. I looked around and then I saw someone else through the mist, a tall figure standing in the grass, too far to see who it was though. I shouted and started running to him, I ran to him, I ran to him. A slender and motionless shadow in the distance. He didn’t move, but I didn’t get any closer. I noticed there were a few other people standing in the field now, some of them a little closer but still too far to see them. Again, I couldn’t close the distance between them. Confused and beginning to panic I decided to head home. I turned to where I could have sworn I came from, but there it was, the window. My heart began to pound, I turned the other way and figured the mist had me lost. Through the shroud I could see, the window, again. I felt like that rabbit with a carrot dangling in front of it's face. A cold chill over came my body. My eyes began to well up with tears, I cried in frustration, and fear. I turned one last time to look behind me, there it was again, the window, warm and out of reach.