Category: Writers Block
The road to hell is a dark and desolate one, lit along both sides by a thousand burning human corpses. If there are no corpses burning, the road is even darker. Human heads are mounted on spikes driven into the ground, body parts are scattered everywhere - hanging in rows on barbed wire. Thick dried blood covers everything. Half-living human victims scream for mercy, begging their God to save them.
However, I kill without mercy, and I spare no one! I am the dark one. I am the evil that lives in every man. I have relished the blood of a thousand men, women and children. The thrill of torturing thousands is all that I live for. I crush and break bones, rip out organs, and devour flesh viciously. Sometimes, I eviscerate these pathetic humans. I am the beast!
My name is Autumn Price. I am 18 years old and will graduate from high school this year. It was a day I'd never forget. Not now, not ever. I thought that the day was going to be perfect – it had started out that way. But with one wrong turn – one bad choice - I found myself lost. Lost in a place that I thought only existed in movies. Although I didn’t know it, the place was soon to become my worst nightmare…or at least that’s what I believed at the time. I'm a survivor of Hell itself, proving that God indeed does work in mysterious ways.
Like I said, I’m a senior in high school, and Halloween 2009 is when the events began to unfold. A group of my friends had dared me to go down an unmarked road just outside our little town that everyone called “Hell's Road.” They said it was supposed to be haunted, and they'd go with me if I was afraid to go alone. My friends knew that I had a strong sense of adventure and I usually never backed down from a challenge. I thought they were trying to see if I was afraid, and since I thought they were lying about the ‘hauntings’ on the road, I agreed to venture down it. I'm pretty good sized for a senior - 6 feet tall and about 140 pounds. I have long black hair down to my shoulders, half of which I had decided not to dye and so it remained naturally blond. Most of the guys in school said I was really hot, but I took it all in stride. I didn’t have time for them. I never paraded around showing off, even though I didn’t sit in corners and wish I was more beautiful either.
It was midnight when my friends and I got finished watching the movie Twilight, because we're nerds like that. We decided that now would be the best time to go to Hell's road. We all got in to my car and drove off since they all lived within walking distance of each other. My friend Alice sat shotgun, I in the driver's seat, Ben and his girlfriend Cassy were in back. Ben was a big guy. 6 foot 3 and weighed 290 pounds. He was one of the best football players on the team and could receive and give pretty brutal plays. He was also one of the nicest guys you'd meet. However, don't piss him off in an alley. Cassy was a small dark haired girl, about 5 5 and weighed about 115 pounds with baby blue eyes. She could be rude at times but could balance it with her kindness when she felt like it. Alice was also pretty short, about 2 inches shorter and 5 pounds less then Cassy, and she was the energy booster of the group. It took nothing to get her hyper, and she lived to shop. At least she said so. We were all 18 and thought nothing of what'd happen once on that road.
"So, are any of you scared?" Ben asked chuckling. We all shook our heads, but I was a little. I'd heard stories of unexplained disappearances, murders and killings that happened on that road. "Legend has it that the road's lit by a thousand corpses burning." Ben said in a deep low voice that sent chills down my spine. "Of course it’s probably all crap." he said laughing. "I mean, who could get away with that?" he said assuringly.
"Or maybe its not." I retorted back. I saw a road up ahead that had flames shooting high in the sky. As we got closer, I realized that the road to Hell was real. Piles upon piles of human corpses were burning, all along both sides of the road. Livers and hearts, among other body parts were on spikes and were hanging in rows on barbed wire, and were scattered everywhere on the road. "Oh my God! It’s true!" Ben said with awe and amusement.
"Ben! How can you say that?" Alice shrieked covering her eyes. "This place has fascinated me for years." he said smiling as if he owned the place. "I remember when I first heard about it, I was sixteen." "Oh shut up already!" Cassy snarled jumping out of the car. She started running along the road, not waiting for us, stepping on body parts as she ran. We all ran after her wondering if she was nuts. I thought so anyway.
The one good thing was that we had a constant source of light. With out warning though, Cassy screamed.
Usually she doesn't, so when I saw what was coming at her, I wasn't surprised to see that she was screaming. It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen. It had the head of a man with long sharp teeth like a vampire’s, the body of a wolf, and black wings with horns coming out of its head. It ripped off Cassy's head, swallowed her brains and disemboweled her. Ben kicked the thing really hard in the chest breaking some of its ribs, but it laughed and kept going. "What do you want?" I asked terrified. "To see humanity and God perish!" the thing said laughing. Next, it grabbed Alice and snapped her neck, after which her lifeless body was thrown in to the corpse pile which was ablaze. Her beautiful skin crisped and crackled, flesh cooking under the intense heat, her bones were charring and turning blackened in the flames. I suddenly realized that the ones who I considered my kinsman were dying.
Ben tried to kill the thing with his bear hands. Pummeling it viciously, breaking its bones as much as possible. But the more he broke, the more he was injured as well. Clearly the thing wasn't going down with out a fight. "Your strong boy, but not strong enough!" the creature said as he drank Ben's blood. The creature turned to me, broken bones sticking out everywhere, blood covered his face and was dripping from his mouth like water from a drain pipe. "So, I usually savor the best meals for last." He said as though it'd make things better. "I bring the wrath of God upon you!" I shouted in his face, praying silently. "Go ahead and pray to your God that doesn't exist, that's not real!" he roared charging me, but I dodged him. Suddenly, the sky turned pitch black. Clouds came across the sky, blotting out the stars. Both the creature and I looked up in astonishment. Lightning flashed, then came shooting out of the sky, striking the ground beneath the creature's feet, sending sparks flying in every direction. More bolts crashed upon the creature where it stood, until the area was on fire and the creature was howling in pain. I could have sworn I saw God himself in the sky, but I was to busy thanking him and running for my life.
um? wow!
I like but...
wow!
Damn! At the beginning I thought it was gonna be some story about a Satanic ritual, but that was pretty awesome.
I like this. It's a really interesting and entertaining short story. Thanks. Keep up the good work.
right... It needs minor changes. the action filled part at the end looked like a story on speed. Perhaps you can slow it down with details. Also, the whole deal with the part when it starts where she says her name is autumn seems a bit abrupt. Find some means of trans
I mean no insult by my comments, so please don't take offense. I want you tu succeed, and so if I seem arrogent or harsh, I'm truely sorry.
-- I'm assuming there is some paragraph structure in your story, but on this post, probably due to the format this website uses it's difficult to tell.
-- Your first paragraph, for me, paints a somewhat generic picture of hell. Perhaps the mood simply needs to be darker. From the perspective of the Beast, I'd expect the tone of the paragraph to be more sinister. For example (just a suggestion mind you) ""The road to hell lies desolate, its only light given by the putrid yellow flames that eternally consume row upon row of damned souls." Given what I know of the hell you're portraying I'm not certain why their body parts would be scattered, but that's just nit-picking I guess. Honestly though, I'd either make the paragraph darker (in tone, not necessarily in subject matter) and less campy, or simply remove that paragraph altogether and begin at the next one. I'm sure the beast will come into play later, and it would be a great time to showcase the horror that the beast explains.
-- "I am 18 years old and will graduate from high school this year. It was a day I'd never forget." FIrst of all, I like the name. Second of all, you've got a big issue with tense here. She's saying she will graduate, but then she said it's a day she would never forget which implies that it's already happened. How about "My name is Autumn Price. The day of my graduation is one I'll never forget. The day should have been perfect..." You can see I took out 18-years-old. Since she's just graduating highschool we can guess her age. Obviously this is just an example, but now you don't have any tense issues.
-- I find your descriptions of Autum's friends go on a bit too long. We don't really need to know their exact measurements. It's important to give them depth (which for a story of this fassion is rather difficult) and a bit of physical description is good, but perhaps a little less would be better here.
-- The transition into the hellish landscape happened so abruptly I barely even registered it. I honestly feel like all the body parts is a bit much. I like gore as much as the next person, but I've always thought of hell as more a nightmarish landscape. The seering bodies, screaming and decay is good, but...I don't know. Maybe it's just me. I also had a hard time with the characters. You'd think such a sight would freak them out a lot more....You could easily get away with taking out the very first paragraph as I mentioned earlier, because you're essentially rehashing it here. THis time it fits better though.
The idea of a group of teenagers literally going to hell has potential. RIght now this sounds like a summary however. If you drew it out, made it more of a story with more character interaction, personality less blatent telling, you could probably do a fair bit with it. As it stands now, it's more of a concept which relies on a lot of blood and gore. I see this in a few of the things you've posted here (such as that Into the Shadows one (I think it was called.) I can see that you have the vocabulary to be a good writer. You just need to slow down a bit and be careful about cliches and Stariotypes. ANd please please please, for the sake of everyone including yourself, stay away from twilight references like Into the Shadows, because you'll honestly get a lot of flack for that. (I'm honestly speaking from experience here.) You've got a good concept. But right now I feel like I"m looking at the big picture from a bird's eye view. Seeing the whole picture (or at least up until it ends) but not really getting to know your characters, hell, or really what the story is about.
If you don't hate me now and would like some more in-depth comments, just let me know. Otherwise, I really hope I've been of help.
I agree with Rachel. You need to work a transition into the paragraph where Autumn is introduced, because it almost seems like you're jumping from one story to another.
Oh, and Blind Guardian, this writer is not the one who wrote Into the Shadows by the way.
If the speech and settings were darker, and some few changes as far as organization is concerned, It could be a stephen king story, but, as I said, His is much darker... Just me though...
Oh, that's right. I'm sorry for the mix-up.
I'm sorry. Into the Shadows is a story I haven't yet read. Taste the Blade is the story I was referring to in my critique. Sorry for the confusion.
Huh. A bit hasty and thrown together, from the very beginning. Almost forgivable, but for the Twilight reference. I almost hit the back button on my browser the minute I saw it. But I staye on like a trooper.
The idea of seeing god is a bit presumtuous, such horrible glory surely would have blinded Autumn, who, let's face it, as a Twilight fan, has no concept of hellacious or godly things, and so would have likely just screamed in terror and thrown herself at the feet of whatever beasty this was.
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