Shockingly Literate

Hey, folks. Long time no see. Last semester was brutal, and I took some time off from fiction to try out non-fiction and literary journalism classes. This summer I’m interning and working on my thesis, so I thought it a good time to return to the blog.

This is a sci-fi piece I wrote in January. I wanted to see if I could write a scary story in the same way that the movie Alien has always scared the crap out of me, and I’m not sure about the result. Let me know what you guys think and if you know any good books or stories I should check out as examples of a creature feature in prose form.

Indemnity

The familiar touch of the bed sheets against Rogers’ skin comforted him.  It’ll be just like going to sleep, he thought.  Rogers sat on a chair in the center of his bedroom.  The bed sheets were around his neck.  He’d tied them to an exposed pipe on the ceiling.  He planned to hang himself.
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This one is kind of nasty. Please excuse the uneven paragraph formatting in this one — the file itself is pretty old, and I had trouble transferring it onto the blog.  It’s a creepy piece I wrote for a fiction class in undergrad. It’s one of my favorites. Enjoy!

The Zinger

Paul and Stacy sat in the waiting room. Someone had scattered issues of Technology Today and Sailing Monthly, among other generic titles, across each of the three tables. Paul had thumbed through a few of them already and had moved on to twitching his leg up and down compulsively. Stacy kept busy going over various documents from her law office.

“Mr. and Mrs. Roper? Dr. Proley will see you now.”

Paul and Stacy exchanged glances as they stood: both hopeful but worried. Stacy rested her palm on Paul’s forearm, and it was enough to draw a smile as he squeezed back.

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