BACKSTREET BLOODBATH: Part II

Jess’s purse thudded to the ground at her feet and her entire body seized up. The eyes didn’t move even as her scream pierced the night.

Run! Run, you idiot! she thought, her heels scuffing against the pavement to turn.

A metal door clanked open nearby, throwing a stretch of eerie green light across the alley.

Jess scuttled behind some garbage bins nearby and hunkered down in the darkness they provided. She peeked out after a couple seconds.

The silhouette of a person closed in over the glow until someone stood at the entrance, a garbage sack thrown over their shoulder. With one single heft, the person hucked the bag into the dumpster where she had seen the eyes. A flurry of screeches rose up out of the bin. The guy kicked the dumpster and shouted, “Frickin’ critters!”

After a moment, the little bandit crawled out of the dumpster and down to the ground. It started lapping at the puddle of reddish liquid (in the new light revealed to be raspberry jam from a cracked jar).

The man vanished back inside and the door creaked shut.

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Backstreet Bloodbath: Part I

“God, how late do you think they put their kids to bed?” Darlene shouted across the parlor as she swished a mop back and forth.

Jess slapped down a wet dish rag on the counter and didn’t respond. Just a few more minutes until closing time. You got this, girl.

Darlene shrugged and kept filling the silence. “I mean, who gets their kids ice cream at nine-thirty? The little shits should be in bed. Now they’ll be up for another three hours!”

“That’s not for us to worry about,” Jess answered, pushing through the kitchen doors to wash out the dish rag. “Let’s just get this place cleaned up so we can go home.”

The last ten minutes had afforded the girls an uninterrupted span of time to get Daisy’s Sweet Tooth ready for closing. Usually, they saw no customers after nine and were able to close early and skip out ahead of the usual ten o’clock closing time. In fact, over the last couple weeks, Daisy’s had seen fewer and fewer patrons past sunset. Tonight had been an oddity.

Horror-Fail Friday: A Likely Story!

Horror-FAIL Friday

Every good horror story, film, or game has a story behind it. It doesn’t need to be intricate in order for it to have good atmosphere and be frightening…the premise just needs to be plausible. When a game tells you that the character had heard about a haunted mental hospital and, despite being warned, just HAD to go there… that’s not really the best way to start out. There isn’t even a reason given for why this character felt so compelled to go there. Also, saying that the character blacked out upon arrival and woke up later to find that he was in the exact same place he fainted in…isn’t really jarring information. But, as we delve further into the “mystery” of this game following HarshlyCritical, the story continues to hand us plot points that don’t quite add up.

Inspiration Through Music: Dead Island Soundtrack

In last week’s Inspiration Through Music post, I talked about being able to identify with characters based on other emotions they might be feeling. Especially while writing horror or apocalyptic fiction, it is sometimes easy to skip over the idea that a character has entered a completely different world, one where the old rules don’t apply. It’s a jarring and often horrifying experience, but also very sad. It can also be hard trying to get into your characters head, trying to decipher what their reactions are toward what’s going on. My advice, in this instance, is to always look toward your own life. What is your normal routine? What are the things you look forward to everyday? Now imagine that those things are no longer here. Imagine there is no conceivable way you’ll ever get them back. Scary, isn’t it? I find it’s easier to imagine this if you have some piercing emotive music to listen to, something that really hits you. That is why I’ve chosen this week to share the Dead Island Original Game Soundtrack with you.

Inspiration Through Music: Dario Marianelli

Writing romance has never been my forte. I’ll admit I’ve attempted it in the past and it never or very rarely comes out as sounding believable. One of my first novels had quite a bit of romance in it but of course it didn’t make any sense. Allot of it probably comes from the fact that I was sixteen and had absolutely no idea what I was writing about. Since then, I’ve become more interested in period romances, pieces that go back in time. I honestly can’t get into contemporary romance and, though I’ve tried my hand at paranormal romance, I find I’m not as skilled at that as I’d like to be. Instead, as of late, I’ve found my interest in writing a WWI era novella that I’ve dubbed the “thromance”. It’s a thriller/romance piece. I thought of the idea several months ago and haven’t had any time to work on it. I’m really hoping that I can get a chance to this winter after “Aequitas” has been published. However, I always get inspiration for it when I listen to any of the music by Dario Marianelli.

Dario Marianelli is a film score composer who has a knack for working on several romantic period pieces as well as a few war driven films as well. The first score of his that I purchased was the one for the latest Jane Eyre in 2011. I absolutely adore that film. Not only are the actors outstanding, the script is crisp, the cinematography is fresh, and the music? Well, the music had me enraptured the entire way through the movie. After purchasing that soundtrack, I became curious of Marianelli’s other works, and searched his history for the list of the other films he’d worked on. I was happy to find V for Vendetta, as well as Atonement, and Pride and Prejudice. Of course, there were many others. But for me these four films were the ones that really inspired my writing. And most of it inspires scenes for my thromance piece. Today, I’ll be sharing 8 songs with you.