Desdemona’s death

Hey there, creeperfeverdreams! Alex is back with a review for you. I noticed this series was short and not out of the Green Room yet- making it the perfect project for my next reviews. I'm kind of fed up with doing reviewing insanely long works so excuse me while I claim some easy points. If I'm being very honest, I'm doing these to claim my knighthood for the KoGR club. That said, I'll try not to compromise the quality of my feedback one bit.

To gain more context, I did read the relevant story (25th- teensy bit of advice, please mention this somewhere as I might've had a hard time scrolling :/) from the ' 31 horrific Halloween Tales '. One thing I'll commend you on is how it gives the required background without spoiling anything. Moreover, this particular story stands alone quite well it by itself. The tale from the Halloween collection complements it and adds to it, but this individual chapter doesn't need the origin tale to establish itself. This way you give the reader a choice to obtain a more deeper account of the story by reading about the characters previously from there or plunge straight into the current plot. Not reading the initial apperance story doesn't make the reader much and thus satisfies both the options well enough. Bravo!

So some of the details in the origin story from the Halloween tales that don't make their way to this one are-
* Desdemona and Evan are platonic friends
* There's a mystery of disappearing children in this neighborhood

One thing I couldn't quite comprehend from the Halloween story was the colour of the clown's houses. I'll even quote it for your convenience-

all of the houses were one color

They stepped inside one of the colorful houses

If one house is colourful and all the houses are the same colour- are all the houses in the neighborhood colourful? But how is colourful 'one colour'... gosh I'm making no sense rn.
All I mean to say is that the phrasing was wierd there. You might say "all of the houses were the same color" for it to sound much better and solve this small problem.

Now let's jump in the actual concerning text here.

Evan had insisted that they go to the infamous “clown neighborhood"

Nice use of italics in this line! I read it by changing my tone as well, perfect direction for the reader.

Even though it was merely a block and not a neighborhood

As much as I love info dumping, this explanation seemed really unnecessary. It doesn't really add anything and in fact creates confusion. You don't want your reader getting distracted, do you? I believe you could do away with his part, but I'll leave it upto you to do what you see fit.

residents of Lilsilk

Hmm.. this one is tricky. You see, with how insignificantly you mentioned this part, I almost it the first time. But it looks vital- name of the place the story is set in. I'd recommend adding a statement that brings attention to this detail, preferably at the very start of the text.

Desdemona didn’t know whether or not it was true, but from watching horror movies, she learned not to take any chances.

That made me laugh, great work! It's good to finally see a heroine different from the one typically featured in horror works who gets killed due to her curiosity to explore forbidden places. Desdemona has a mind to stay out of unwelcome trouble, I respect that.

At the same time, I understand Evan. The silly nature of the tales he hears makes him believe they're fake. He wants to prove the people wrong so as to put an end to their lies once and for all. Being young, he possesses a natural tendency to explore beyond what's considered safe.

In one lawn, a clown was washing his car, and in another lawn, a clown was mowing it.

The wording is a bit odd here. Initially, I thought you were saying the second clown was mowing the car? Makes sense why I believed it to be a typo for 'towed'. Anyways, here's a better phrased alternative-

The first clown was washing his car while the second clown was mowing his lawn.

I do acknowledge that this doesn't tell us that stand in separate lawns and thus in front of different houses (a detail used later in the chapter) so you're free to come up with a modification of your own, keeping in mind the problem I just pointed out about the current version.

The clowns turned to look at them, eyes rimmed with malice.

Horrific! Not gonna lie, that did scare me.

pulled them to their individual homes.

I get you're trying to make it clear but the word 'individual' comes across as excessive here. Just remove it and it's much more flowy to read through.

She’d be sure to have a talk with Evan in the afterlife about knowing when to quit.

A great cliffhanger to leave at. A sudden death and a promised confrontation? I'm sure looking forward to the next chapter of this!

Overall, it's a nice crisp story. One complaint I'd have that the scene depicted is just a variant of the same plot from the Halloween story collection. It'd be nice to have a continuation or some entirely different portrayal altogether. But if I was to judge it as a standalone, I'd be much more gentle to comment. The characters are well crafted, their contrasting personalities bringing out the best flow of events. I'm not too worried for Desdemona's death as I'm aware of the tendency of your characters to live on as ghosts/zombies/vampires. Who knows- maybe she gets spared it turns into a clown after being bit by one (okay genuinely, wtf Alex?). No matter the case, I speculate this isn't the last we've seen of her.

Hope to read more from you soon. It was a pleasure reviewing this. Until next time!

Love, Alex