Juanita gazed at the two-storey house with wide eyes as her red car pulled up onto the driveway. The house had been built out of russet bricks that had been aged drastically by the weather, had six large windows, and a lush green lawn that had been stabbed by a large FOR SALE BY OWNER sign.
Juanita had finally graduated from collage and had quickly found a job as a secretary at a nearby school. She felt as if she had enough money to make the big step out of her apartment and into an actual house. She had seen some photos of this house online and had instantly fallen in love with it. It looked so quaint, nestled in a quiet neighbourhood. She loved the pictures of the rooms and the yard and felt immediately that she had to buy it. She hoped that something wouldn’t go wrong (something strange perhaps?) or that the owners weren’t burglars or something crazy like that.
Peering into her rear-view mirror, she fixed her amber bun, which had been getting a little lop-sided during the stressful drive there. Taking a deep breath, she got out of her car and walked with brisk steps to the front door.
Ok, Juanita, she though nervously, don’t freak out. Everything’s going to be fine. The people who are selling the house are great; you’ll love them!
Juanita rang the black doorbell and it made a delightful chiming sound. Footsteps could be heard from inside the house, which made her gulp nervously. The door was opened smoothly by a tall woman with short blonde hair and a cheery face. She wore jeans and a plain black t-shirt. Her face was decorated by two moles: one right below her left eye and the other close to the bridge of her nose. Her eyes lit up at the sight of Juanita.
“Hello, are you here for the open house?” she asked.
Juanita was too nervous to speak, so she just nodded.
“Ah, yes, hello. I’m Silvey. Come in, come in. Oh, and what’s your name?”
Juanita felt as if something was clogging her throat, but she did manage to cough up her name as she followed Silvey inside.
“Lovely name for such a fine girl,” Silvey remarked.
So Silvey showed Juanita around the ground floor. Juanita was brought through so many clean rooms, all which had fitting decorations that gave the house some sort of class. She tried not to be biased and go with the first house she visited, but she couldn’t help but be captivated by it all. She wanted to buy the house right away, but she had to keep reminding herself that this was only the ground floor and she still had the rest of the house to go.
After they were about to head onto the second floor, Silvey asked if Juanita had any question.
Supressing the urge to ask if she could buy it on the spot, Juanita told Silvey that she was ready and they moved onto the next floor.
They passed through that floor in minutes and they were just about to head on to the basement when Silvey’s son, Tommy, ran up to them eagerly. He looked around eight years old. He had the same blonde hair as his mother and had sparkling green eyes.
“Can I help show her around the basement?” he asked, sounding a bit like he had too much sugar.
Silvey glanced over at Juanita. “Do you mind if Tommy joins us?”
“N-no, no, not at all,” she managed to say.
“Great. I’m sure that you’ll love our cold room. That’s were we’re going next.”
They descended the staircase, walked down a short hallway, and came to a thick wooden door. Silvey paused before opening it.
“This is possibly the highlight of the whole house,” she said eagerly. “It’s our pride and joy. We hate to leave it, but we think that it’s about time.
This made Juanita very excited. She wondered what could be behind the door. It must be something really cool or unique for it to be the best thing of the tour!
Silvey opened the door and led them into a dark room. She flicked on the lights and the room was revealed to contain several rectangular crates that were covered with plastic wrap. All kinds of these boxes were stacked together or strewn carelessly around the room. A rather large heap of human bodies could be found in the center of the room, along with a few spare crates.
Possibly strangest of all, a picture book was seen laying on one of the crates. Tommy ran over to it and his it behind his back, his face turning red with embarrassment.
Juanita’s eyes grew wide with fear. “W-what are those things?” She pointed at the pile.
“Dead bodies,” Silvey said causually.
Juanita started to freak out. There were bodies—dead ones—in this house! The owners didn’t even think that it was a big deal! If they threw around the fact that they had dead bodies in the basement, why hadn’t they been arrested yet.
“Why do you have dead bodies in your cold room?!” she asked, her voice plagued with fear. She started backing towards the door.
“Well, why don’t we discuss that matter over tea?” Silvey proposed.
This was all too much for Juanita. She bolted from the room, up the stairs, and out the front door.
Dead bodies! The words echoed through her mind, never ceasing to stop.
She got into her car and drove away as fast as she could. She thought about calling 9-1-1, but she wanted nothing more to do with that house or those people.
Maybe I’ll just stick to my apartment for the rest of my life.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Question: is there some kind of glitch or is it just me because I'm seeing my own review here. (puzzled look)
Hello, InfiniteRectangles here! I don't usually review prose, but I have decided to give it a shot so just bare (or is it bear?.. whatevs.) with me!
First, I absolutely loved the plot twist. It was pretty hilarious and I definitely didn't see that coming. She's just touring the house and then all of a sudden-- BAM! Dead bodies everywhere! I loved it. I also loved your use of imagery here. You really brought the story alive (heh, but not the bodies, heh heh... kmovingonsorry.)
However, maybe I'm just being picky here, but wouldn't she smell the bodies? I don't know if you have ever had to smell anything dead, but lemme tell ya, it stinks! If there was some way that they had prevented the smell, maybe you should clarify, because I was a bit confused as to how she didn't smell a heaping pile of bodies in the basement.
The next thing I noticed is that I feel like the story should be longer. The ending happened so fast (which I understand was intentional), but it might help just to slow it down a teeny bit, so it can really sink in for the readers. Just as you reached the climax of the story, it ended. There wasn't much time for the readers to process the situation. It was very intriguing though. I want to know what happens next so maybe you should make this a two-parter!
Anyway, that is all I have for you. Overall, the story was hilarious and I really enjoyed reading it, and I hope that there is a part two somewhere in the future! Keep writing and have a wonderful day/night! ^-^
Thanks for the review! I'll definitely slow down the ending/climax when I do my editing.
I really love the plot twist! It was a normal day and the main character is visiting a house and she meets normal people. Then when they show her the basement... BAM! Insta murderer in the main characters eyes.
I'd really love it if you'd publish more of the story so I can find out what happens to Juanita. I would love if you added more plot twists later on in the story. The earlier one of the dead bodies really got me reading!
I have one question though. When you state this sentence; 'A rather large heap of bodies could be found in the center of the room, along with a few spare crates,' you don't specify what kind of bodies. Human bodies? Animal bodies? It took me a while to picture what types of bodies were in the room
Other than that, it's amazing! Please publish more!!!
~NympheaLily
^^ Thanks for the review! I am kind of looking into writing more (probably won't be for a while, though) on this idea. Thank you for getting the idea more wedged into my head!
And yes, they were human bodies.
I'm glad you've given me such a great review! Every bit of it counts!
Hi, SummerSunshine here with a review for you.
I have things I love about this story, and a few suggestions. Most of the suggestions are mechanics related.
Let's start with the suggestions:
"Juanita gazed at the two-storey house": Did you mean to say, "Juanita gazed at the two-story house"?
Also all your dialogue should be indented.
Now, the good stuff:
I love the imagery you used in this piece. It feels like I'm actually there with Juanita. Sometimes, I feel like dialogue can be too wordy, but you made sure that it wasn't like that. I would love to see if the dead bodies had some kind of logical explanation, I wonder if you wrote the same thing, but from Silvey's point of view.
That's all I have to say for now. Keep Writing!
Hi! Thanks for the review!
(And I'll also look into indenting!)
A few things I just want to mention/clarify:
I actually do mean 'storey'. As you know 'story' refers to writing but 'storey' refers to a level of a building. I know, homonyms, thay can be so annoying.
Also, about the indenting... I actually have no clue how to indent on YWS. If I could, I would.
Again, thank you so much! When I do some editing, I'll remember what you have to say.
Thanks for clearing that up. That means that I've been spelling that wrong forever. So actually I do not know about that.
Hello. this is Abhipsa, here to review your work.
Before starting I want you to know that whatever I write is solely my opinion and you don't need to take it too seriously.
First of all I liked the way of your thoughts. Dead bodies inside a house, where a family is living! I am sure you would be the first one to invent such a thing.And they are casual about it too!
But checking out from the reality end, this is something very unlikely and highly unnatural. Until the family is a family or ghosts or something of the like, this is something which would never occur. I felt that your story needs some elaboration. You need to write the details about why the boy hid the picture book behind his back, or if not all the details, at least some hints so that the readers can speculate about it. There should also be some knowledge about why they were selling the house in the first place. Juanita should know that. The mother says that it was about time that they give up the house, but again why? And again at least some hints should be mentioned.
Perhaps you wanted to wrap the story in a kind of suspense, but here in such a background as this with the dead bodies, it doesn't work out too well. One feels that the ending is very abrupt and there should have been something else happening, so as to give it a chiseled finish.
Something else about your story is quite inappropriate, I feel, and that is the fact that Juanita gets so nervous when she goes to buy the house and constantly has the apprehensions about it, even though she is attracted to it. When one is spending all the hard earned money to buy a house, nervousness is natural about how all would go, but so much nervousness, so as someone is unable to speak and that too about the house owner and the house is quite unnatural.
Perhaps you wanted to give the implications to the readers that something would happen in the house, and one gets very much interested in the story when the part of the dead bodies comes up, but the ending of the story somehow ends this interest quite abruptly.
Now coming to the words (details) of your story -
At the beginning you have mentioned that the woman has got blond hair but then later you have mentioned that the boy had got brown hair like his mother. Was this a deliberate mistake to imply that they were not humans, or was it just a mistake after all?
Then in the 18th paragraph - ''where'' has been misspelled as ''were'' and in the 26th ''hid'' for ''his''.
Overall you have a great imagination and can do wonders with it. So keep creating and sharing!
Hello and thanks for the review!
Just a few things I would like to mention:
1. You were very helpful and I will definitely do some editing.
2. I hadn't noticed the hair thing, so thank you for pointing it out.
3. Tommy hiding the picture book was actually a reference to my script Mommy-o and Mommy-ette (which I have based this story off of).
4. When I do my editing, I will include some of the hints that should be included.
Thanks again for reviewing me! You have been of considerable use to me!
It was a pleasure