Hey I loved this. I love the description and how the characters communitcate to each other. Id love to read more of your work, to be honest i dont really read short stories or of the mystery genre but this is great.
A/N: I posted this work three years ago. THREE YEARS ago. I have written much better works since then, which your time would be better spent on. Please don't review this work- I appreciate you wanting to help out but I have moved onto better things! But I'm leaving this work up because I don't want the reviews to die with it.
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THE BETTER PATH
Eric and Landon were heading home from a long and disheartening day at school. Their marks were nothing but painful memories and there would possibly be more pain when their parents found out. Landon tried conversation but it always slid back to the grim marks. Eric, in his frustration, stepped off the road into the ditch where he confronted a gorgeously displayed poplar tree. Leaning on the trunk he dug in his baggy pant's pocket and pulled out a well used Swiss Army knife.
Landon watched as his friend carved E.W. into the horrified tree, standing for Eric Warner. After that, they stayed silent, each boy abandoned in their own damp imagination. The clouds over head disapproved of this greatly and began drowning the cowering little town slowly, enjoying every cruel drop of clear black liquid that hit the dust of Rabbit Heel Valley like shiny marbles spilling out of a sack with a never ending space. The boys went on trudging, with heads hung, through the sticky, chocolate covered road.
“Hey Landon,” Eric shouted over the heavy spray of heart drenching rain. “Let's go this way today, maybe it won't be as wet.” He was pointing to their right, where a miserable path wound warily down and in between thick trunks of firmly grounded, green giants. As these trees bent their ear to eavesdrop on passing travellers, the path looked more as if it would bury it's sad face into an ocean of pillows and sob the whole night through. That didn't seem very dry to Landon, but Eric turned to the path and started down it. His blue jeans and splash jacket were half soaked and looked as though someone had thrown a particularly moist mud ball at them.
Wait!” Landon screeched, standing stubbornly in his place. “That trail goes past Innet's house, doesn’t it?”
Eric spun around to face Landon. “Ya, so, what's the deal?” Eric's voice was nonchalant as he said this, shoulders slumped and eyes glazed, then he spoke again. “You're not afraid of her are you?” He sounded more concerned than mocking, but it stiffed Landon up a bit.
“No.” Landon sighed as he rolled his eyes. “She's just weird is all and ... wait, are you?” Landon asked Eric, who had been looking thoughtfully at the path ahead of them in a longing sort of way.
“Hmm?” He glanced up at Landon. “Oh, of course not! Can you hear your own voice? Like seriously Lan, you're crazy.” And to top off the cake of drama, he turned away and continued down the path.
Landon hadn't enough stubbornness in him to tramp down the damp lonely road alone so he found himself helplessly chasing after Eric. “Wait up!” He whispered as he caught up to Eric. “This place gets eerie when it rains.”
“So, you are scared of her.” Eric's eye brows raised as he said this.
“NO!!! I'm NOT. She's creepy, alright! And you're telling me that you don't wonder about the rumours?”
“Wow Lan, really? You're basing your opinions on her off of gossip and rumours? Besides, she's cute.”
“WHAT!” Landon tried to contain his outrage, “You dragged me all the way down here because you've got a crush!? On the weird chick?! Keep in mind that she tried to curse old Mrs. Carson just last week. Do you really want that kind of relationship?” Then Landon sighed. “You don't really like her, right bro?” He was staring directly at Eric, who was still slowly making his way down the path.
“No, I don't think so,” Eric grumbled.
“So why are we here?” Landon pleaded.
“Because, its dryer.”
“But look, the rain's almost stopped completely.” He revealed his palm to the sky. “See, practically dry.”
“Yes, but we're nearly there.” Eric reported.
“Nearly where?” Landon's question sat motionless in the cold, clear, air.
“What do you mean, 'Nearly where...'”, Eric looked up to see a field, dark and daring. Eric and Landon were in the very centre of this field, waist high in thick grey fog.
“Eric?,” Landon said, trying to keep his head on his shoulders. “Where are we?... What happened? How did we get here?...”
Not far away a shrill scream broke the awkward silence of the blackened eve. But silence soon began stalking its prey once more, creeping around the ears of foes and making a deadly statement that couldn't be heard, or could it?
Landon felt his spine chill as the hair on the back of his neck prickled. “Wwwhat wass thaaaat?”, he managed out.
“I don't know bu... wait! Did you see that?” The words barely squeezed through Eric's teeth. He was looking off past the tree line, eyes wide.
“No,” Said Landon, “What was it?”, he asked in a suppressed voice.
“It was...a, it was...kind of like a...”
“What was it?!” Landon persisted.
“I think it was...”, Eric's voice was hardly a whisper. “I'm not sure, really, what it was... but it looked like a super tall, skinny... lady?”
“What?” It was cold enough that Landon could see his own breath as the word escaped his lips. “Some of the guys from school right? Just playing a trick on us, Eric? Right Eric? Landon started fiddling with his zipper pull, zipping his jacket up and down, up and down until finally it jammed.
Eric leaned slightly over to Landon and whispered. “On a count to three, we run, down that path as fast as we can, home. OK?”
Landon nodded.
“One.” Eric started.
“Two.” Landon breathed...
“THREE?” Eric whimpered, his voice sounded like a choked canary, but Landon took off running like he had just punched the bully next door. “Landon!”, Eric tried to yell as he felt rough spindly fingers dig into his leg.
Just into the woods, where the huge trunks huddled together, Landon thought he heard his best friend running behind him and then turning off to go to his house, so Landon continued home.
That night while Landon struggled to fall asleep, the evenings events played in his mind like a miniature theatre. Outside the forest swayed nervously and the trees whispered to one another about what had happened.
As Landon slumped to school the next day, he felt as though the skies were watching him and he realized with shock, that the proud poplar tree no longer displayed Eric's scratched - in initials. Landon circled around the poplar’s trunk but he couldn't see them anywhere. He shook his head in confusion, “I could have sworn it was that one,” he assured himself out loud.
After school Landon caught a kid in Eric's locker. Landon scolded the boy and asked him what he was doing. He innocently answered that he was “getting his lunch out of his locker,” and looked rather confused as to why anyone would want to know.
Landon was well past just being worried. He dashed out of the school's nagging atmosphere and sprinted down the road. He desperately needed to find Eric, who hadn't shown up for school. Maybe he had injured himself on the way home last night or maybe he had been told he had to stay home and rest up? Landon was still running at a pretty good clip, when he turned the corner into Eric's yard. A huge spruce towered over Landon and frowned down upon him as he slowed and then came to an abrupt stop. Landon stared in horror up at the magnificent tree. It was standing, roots planted deep into the earth, right in the drive way to Eric's house. Or to be more specific, right in the drive way to were Eric's house used to be. The spruce tree merely grinned at Landon, in satisfaction and swayed to the hum of the wind.
Hey I loved this. I love the description and how the characters communitcate to each other. Id love to read more of your work, to be honest i dont really read short stories or of the mystery genre but this is great.
Hi, Holysocks ^-^
Firstly, I adore your name choices c:
You have a nice, personal style, very unique and different. I would suggest you put a bit more into the characters: make people like them, even love them. Than we'll care about how they feel ,what they say, and what happens to them ^-^
Anyhoo, extremely interesting. I would have to say though that the opening lines of all stories are what draws people in. The first words, paragraph.... it's what lures people in. Maybe add something a little bit . . . "summoning" in the beginning. I dunno, anyhoo, it's very good and has lots of potential, just polish it up and you could really have something here ^-^
Keep writing c:
Catnip~~
First stories.. Never know if they are good enough aye..? c:
But, I did like this, the names where good, my favorite being Landon.
It was really interesting, I like how you showed their actions and emotions. I just didn't understand this part:
"Not far away a shrill scream broke the awkward silence of the blackened eve. But silence soon began stalking its prey once more, creeping around the ears of foes and making a deadly statement that couldn't be heard, or could it?"
I didn't understand it, yet I really liked it. Ahaha c:
Continue with your writing, its great!
Hey Holysocks 
Hope you're enjoying the site! Why not get out there and have a look at some other people's work too? I'm sure they'd appreciate it!
Now, let's have a look at your story.
I like the concept of the trees kind of getting their own back on being hurt by people who seemingly don't care. However I think this sort of gets lost along the way.
My first main point would be that I didn't care enough about the characters to really worry about what happened to them. Who are Eric and Landon? I don't really know because you don't take enough time to show the reader their personalities or their friendship before all this weird stuff starts happening. This leads to your ending not packing as much punch as you would hope. It just makes the reader shrug after finishing and then continue on with what they were doing. I think instead of just saying they were at school at the beginning, you could show us. Perhaps show them messing about in class or playing a prank on the teacher that involves them working together. Something simple like that could tell us so much about who these people are.
My next point would be that I got a little muddled about what the threat was going to be. You mentioned this weird house and this girl and I was like 'Oh, ok...so something is going to happen when they get to the house.' but then they never get there and then they see something and Eric gets grabbed but then it's a tree? I don't know, maybe you meant it as a red herring but mostly it just confused me. I think it would be good if you could thread the tree thing throughout the story more. And if the tree thing is to do with the girl well...you need to make that a little more obvious.
Finally, this isn't necessarily bad but I would say that sometimes you have a habit of using too many words or getting caught up in description that we don't really need to know. For example, this line - The clouds over head disapproved of this greatly and began drowning the cowering little town slowly, enjoying every cruel drop of clear black liquid that hit the dust of Rabbit Heel Valley like shiny marbles spilling out of a sack with a never ending space. - That's a pretty long sentence full of description you don't really need. Like you use 'cowering' and 'little' I don't think you need both of those, just one would do. If I'm describing like a basement I might just use one or two words like dank and underground just to give an impression of the space. Don't underestimate the ability of your reader to imagine for themselves.
However, I still think this is really interesting and I think if you clear up what the antagonistic feature of this story is and strengthen the characters with a little introduction, you could have something real good!
I hope that helped If you have any questions then feel free to PM me.
Bex x
Hi there.
disclaimer: I don't usually review short stories. I usually review poetry. If I seem a little harsh, it's because I'm used to nitpicking.
I like the story. It's definitely more interesting than I thought it would be. I like that the friend ended up never existing at all. Nice one.
There are some things in this piece that need to be addressed.
The introduction is short and not very satisfying. If there was dialogue, I feel like it would illustrate the characters more effectively than you telling us that they are walking home from school. Create the dialogue that they have about the bad grades. I would be more interested.
You use a lot of metaphors. Cool beans, right? Well, some of them work, and some of them don't. I like the marbles metaphor, but some of the others are too flowery, and come at random times without reason. The one about silence stalking prey was a little too much for me. Also, you use lots and lots of adjectives. Cut it down a little. "Show, don't tell" doesn't mean that everything needs an adjective, though it is easy to think that is so.
Showing is what you do with the dialogue at the most intense part. I like that you illustrate the scene with the dialogue, instead of describing every little thing that happened. Kudos.
Ready for some nitpicky things? I hope you are.
Eric and Landon were heading home
where he confronted a gorgeously displayed poplar tree.
Landon watched as his friend carved E.W. into the horrified tree, standing for Eric Warner.
The clouds over head disapproved of this greatly and began drowning the cowering little town slowly, enjoying every cruel drop of clear black liquid that hit the dust of Rabbit Heel Valley like shiny marbles spilling out of a sack with a never ending space.
The clouds overhead disapproved, and began drowning the town, enjoying every drop of liquid that hit the dust, like marbles spilling from a sack.
The boys went on trudging, with heads hung, through the sticky, chocolate covered road.
His blue jeans and splash jacket were half soaked and looked as though someone had thrown a particularly moist mud ball at them.
And to top off the cake of drama
“I think it was...”, Eric's voice was hardly a whisper. “I'm not sure, really, what it was... but it looked like a super tall, skinny... lady?”
“What?” It was cold enough that Landon could see his own breath as the word escaped his lips. “Some of the guys from school right? Just playing a trick on us, Eric? Right Eric?
The spruce tree merely grinned at Landon, in satisfaction and swayed to the hum of the wind.
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