Garrettpwnsall

I lay down to sleep this early morning and I got to thinking of an idea for a short story. I couldn't sleep until I put it down so I figured I'd share it with everyone to see what they thought. Maybe I'll expand on it in the future, maybe I'll leave it short and sweet (or rather grotesque).

THIS HORROR STORY CONTAINS IMAGERY NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL AUDIENCES.

It was the worst day of my life, and it will forever be etched into my mind.

My son, Nick, always had to have a night light. He was afraid of monsters in the dark. I never thought much of it, you know? All kids are afraid of the dark. He was really afraid. Even when he was a baby, he cried every time a light went out. So when he was young, I bought him a light blue night light. I liked it because it was shaped like a lava lamp and had sparkles instead of the wax used as "lava." It reminded me of being a teenager in the seventies and having trippy stuff like that. I plugged it in and since then, it was on every night.

Like all things, it couldn't last forever.

One night, my wife was quite restless in bed; so much that she kept waking me in the night with her constant tossing and turning. I got a few hours straight of sleep and was awoken in the morning, for the final time, by a putrid smell. After gagging while pulling on a pair of lounge pants, I set off to find the source of this stench. The first room on the left was my sons room, so I decided to start there. Upon opening the door, the first thing I noticed was the night light had gone out. The second thing I noticed was my son. His corpse was the source of the smell that had awoken me. Flesh was torn from his limbs. His eyes were sunk so far into his skull they were almost unseen, liquid, of what I couldn't imagine, oozing from the orifices where his eyes once held fast. The most horrific sight of all, Nick's bones were twisted tighter than a sailor's ropes, and bent out into odd angles, like a chicken bone left out in the sun.

The monsters that I believed were imaginary had inevitably gotten him.

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-Garrett-
http://www.myspace.com/garrettpwnsall
http://garrettrockstar.deviantart.com

Truth-Teller

You ever read Stephen King's Boogeyman?

This is what I call "plagarism."

Garrettpwnsall

In all honesty I've never read Stephen King's "Boogeyman"

I've always been a big H. P. Lovecraft fan, and anyone I know who reads Lovecraft has said that Stephen King basically just takes Lovecraft stuff and modernizes it, so I never bothered reading any of his works.

__________________
-Garrett-
http://www.myspace.com/garrettpwnsall
http://garrettrockstar.deviantart.com

Wiggin

Ooo, flawless grammar. Which means actual critique is possible.

Not bad, but the ending doesn't quite work for me. The father comes across strangely emotionless when he begins describing what his son's body looks like.

Are you sure you have the right POV? This could be done in third person, which would allow the narrator to describe the body as you want.

"I plugged it in and since then, it was on every night." After this sentence, I think you need something like "It worked like a charm." And then, in the second part, you might consider working something in about a power outage. "The night light had gone out" is a bit too vague, I think.

I think in the first part you need the father to say something like "There is no such thing. You're a big boy now. I don't want to hear any more nonsense about monsters, okay?" It makes for more impact when it turns out there were monsters after all.

Alternatively, just an idea, but have you considered replacing 'night light' with something like 'ray gun'? While a night light does help children deal with monsters under the bed, another strategy parents can try is to give their children some toy weapon and convince them that it is magical and will kill any monsters (interestingly, it is much easier to convince a child that the weapon is magical than that there are no monsters.) The point of this would be that the description of the body could end up with "his little hand still clutched the ray gun."

Truth-Teller

This is why you will always flounder in mud.

I suggest you buy yourself "Night Shift," open it up, read "Boogeyman," and glean from the master.

Garrettpwnsall

Thank you, Wiggin, for giving me constructive criticism instead of just accusing me of plagiarism. All of your comments are seriously being taken into consideration. As I said, I thought of this early in the morning (while trying to fall asleep), and had to write it down or else I'd never falls asleep, I'd just keep thinking about it. There's an actual secret in the story that only I know, and I want to some how convey it so that people can figure out the story. I only dropped one hint to it, and it's impossible for any reader to figure out, which is entirely my fault, but something that I didn't have the energy to give more thought to at the time. All day at work I've been giving it thought and have figured a few more hints I can drop to push a reader into considering the secret, if not entirely figuring it out on their own. I like to keep readers guessing, sometimes.

Truth-Teller:
Every "Master" has someone they consider "The Master."
Because I take all things into consideration, I will pick up said book and read the entire thing through. But, I suggest, if you can find it, pick up The Dunwhich Horror and Others" by H.P. Lovecraft and read "The Whisperer in the Darkness" and see that, even before Stephen King wrote "Boogeyman," there was a story about a "boogeyman." Stephen King did not invent monsters that attack children at night. Lovecraft didn't. These stories have been around for ages. But you wouldn't accuse Stephen King of plagiarism. If you can't find The Dunwhich Horror and Others I suggest just finding any compilation of Lovecraftian lore that contains "The Whisperer in the Darkness."

__________________
-Garrett-
http://www.myspace.com/garrettpwnsall
http://garrettrockstar.deviantart.com