There is a loud bang and I startle awake. I immediately grab the suitcase I packed the night before and hurry to my friends dorm to wake him.
"We have to leave, now!!" I yell at his door. It almost immediately opens and I see him, suitcase in hand, staring at me, waiting for me to take the lead.
We run as fast as we possibly can. But no matter how fast we run, I know it isn't too far behind.
We run out the front door of the motel and head straight for the car. I try starting it, but the engine is silent, the air even more so. I try again and again, but then again, nothing.
I open the glove compartment and pull out a Glock. I pull out the magazine and see that there are only three bullets. Knowing I'm not prepared for what's going to happen, and seeing how useless those three bullets are, I slowly step out of the car.
I raise my hands slowly, making a sorry attempt to block my face from her. My briefcase, still in hand, seems to me like the only way I was going to hide myself from her.
I hear footsteps approach, and, still shielding my face from her, turn my head slowly and nod to my friend. He gets the message. He reaches into his pants and pulls it out. It is the only way we are going to elude this impending catastrophe. It was time.
"Sam?" I wince as I hear her innocent voice call my name.
"Y-yes?" I can barely find the strength to speak.
"What's going on?" I don't put the briefcase down.
"N-nothing." I feel like she is staring straight through the briefcase. I couldn't tell her, it would just break her heart.
"What's in the briefcase?" she sounds so curious.
"Clothes and stuff."
"Could you put it down, please?"
"Fine." I put the briefcase down and stare at the asphalt of the parking lot beneath my feet. I had to tell her; it would be wrong to just... leave.
"Can you stop staring at the ground and just tell me what's going on?" she was relentless.
I pick up my head but turn around, my friend staring intently at me with wide, white eyes. All I have to do is give him the signal, and he'll use it.
"Stacy..." I was saying it. "You're a great person. And I think we could be great friends. But the thing is..."
"What?"
"Your mom has got it goin' on." I let the last of it out, turn to my friend, and he presses it. We were gone.
This is a play off of the song "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne. I hope you enjoyed this short story. It was a collaborative project that my friends and co-authors, @DanielR, @TheRealRavioli, helped me so generously with. Thank them and thank yourselves for reading this.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
138,941 Literary Works • 672,334 Reviews
Hi all of you!
Mailice here with a short review!
A great humorous short story that played a little with the tension, leaving the reader between a kind of fun and worry.
I like the fact that the story starts right away and thus moves into the centre of the action, so the reader doesn't know directly what to expect. I like that this set-up is puzzling in many ways and the main character has many thoughts that are shared with us.
A great point that I like is how this creates a personality of its own for the main character. I think especially when we get to the Reveal towards the end, it also builds up a positive tension.
One thing I didn't like so much was the sometimes somewhat simplistic structure of the story. You write a bit simple and I think it would be better to rewrite some parts a bit. I have two examples here:
Here you repeat yourself with "pull out" in two sentences, and I think it would be easier and more fluent for the reader to rewrite it a bit to help the tension a bit more. Here is another example:
You go through a change of section here, but at the end you repeat yourself here again with the "slowly". I think these are the few points in the story where I can say that something needs to be reworked, otherwise I think the general structure reads well.
In summary, it was a great short story with some minor flaws, but overall it's definitely good humour.
Have fun writing!
Mailice
Hey there! This is probably the best humor I've read on here so far. But to be fair I've only been here a few days. You did a wonderful job of taking a small song and turning it into a short and very humorous story. I'm not the best at reviewing stories because I mainly write poetry but I do have a few suggestions. I would like to see more imagery, especially more suspenseful imagery. Maybe some shadows or something ominous. Describe how they talk and how they interact with each other and their environment, and what the setting is like. What you've written serves the purpose of a simple story and a good laugh and if you want to leave it in its integrity that's cool too. The beginning has a good start with action right out of the gates. The humor is very cleverly crafted with suspense and contrast between characters. The only thing I wonder is if you could sneak in a lyric from the song somewhere before the end. Just as a little sub-joke if you will. If you feel that would ruin it then certainly don't. I like the simplicity of it all because it doesn't interfere with the humor. Thank you for the laugh and the great story!
-thecolorofthesky
That was a nice vignette. It had all the right components of speed (but just enough to keep up with what was going on), clarity, and suspense. I can really see this being the prologue to a longer story or series because it leaves so many unanswered questions, like for instance, why these characters seem to be set up in such a precarious predicament? I'm wondering who the heck Stacy is, her age, and occupation, and why she is so multi-dimensional. What I mean is that she is just with the few lines you give her, she already seems to be a multi-dimensional character; she possess both a perceived clueless attitude weaved in with a fierce assertiveness that suggests to me that she is a ver important character. I can just see it in the way she chases down Sam, orders him to put his briefcase down, yet tricks the audience with her shrill voice and demeanor.
That being said, the best intersection of the two character's personalities and tension, and by far my most favorite line in the piece is here:
Stacy is very discerning, and so is Sam. Both know what the other is feeling, yet both have trouble communicating exactly what they want. This, one again, can make for a great drawn out story line between the two characters, no matter their relationship.
My critiques are that the beginning is a little rough. While I do like the idea of the story leaving great cliffhangers, I think that some just need to be mended for coherency's sake. That being said, the very first sentence of the story is a bit unclear, mostly in terms of logic. My first thoughts when I read this were:
From whence does this "banging" originate? From the wall of a room? From the large double doors of an abandoned mansion? I wasn't exactly sure where our setting was. Usually, people who start stories off with ambiguous lines do it to replicate the feeling of a lack of direction, and confusion that their character feels in that exact moment in the story. I could tell you were trying to do that, which is nice. However, I lost track once again of where this story was taking place when you mentioned Sam's brief expedition to his friend's dorm room. Did this mean that Sam left his own room to get to his friend's? If so, how did he make it past the person or thing making the terrifying banging sound without being noticed? Or could it be that Sam hadn't left the room at all, and the two are in fact, rooming in a suite together? If this is the case, then you may want to mention that. There could be some confusion between the words "dorm" and "suite", which honestly, I know that not everyone would know. I didn't know the difference until this year, when I started my first year in college. Words are funky like that sometimes though.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now. If I'm completely wrong about anything or everything, feel free to call me out on it. After all, it's your work, and you can do what ever you absolutely want with it. Great work, and keep writing!