Teaser Tuesday

Here's a bit from The Fall. Not because I'm not working on something else...but because it's the thing I'm thinking about (obsessing? no, not me!) this week. This was a difficult scene for me because it was one of the earliest I wrote, and because I channeled, or tried to channel, my own childhood fears into it. And then I had to take myself out and make sure it was all Madeline.

I stand and pad across my room to put my hands on the heavy wooden door. I can feel the house breathing, or whatever it does. I can feel it watching. Opening the door, I position it carefully, folding the edge of the rug with my foot and using a thick book to keep the door from moving.

I take two steps back. It still feels…wrong. Closing the door is difficult. The malaise that causes horror of closed in spaces, the one the doctors call claustrophobia, has always troubled me. The door must be slightly open, but not so much? I adjust it, nudging the book with my foot. This feels better, but still, I’m on edge so it can’t be right. I put my hand back to the door. It creaks, louder than a door should when moved only a fraction of an inch. I rest my hand against the wood, too long because the feelings that seep into me are not my own. Dissatisfaction is ever the mood of the house.

It wants me to open the door. To put the books back on the bureau, to straighten the rug.

But completely open doors are as terrifying as being closed in with…whatever might find its way into my room. There are things, living and dead, creeping through these halls, and I’d rather they creep past than linger beside me while I sleep.

Teaser Tuesday

Hey guys, I'm going to draw (from my summer sun hat) the winners of the Handcuffs contest, so if you need a copy, make sure you comment on my post from Saturday!

This is the first teaser I've done this summer. It's something new I'm working on, and I'll probably only leave it up a few days :) . Would you want to read on?

The sun is descending and it’s begun to spit a cold rain when our conveyance rumbles to a stop at a crossroad. An awkward box-like truck is blocking the road, and even in an armored carriage we won’t try to pass it. Burly men in masks, cloth ones--flimsy and useless to stop serious contagion--stagger back to the truck, carrying bodies wrapped in tattered quilts. I wonder if the people, those who are still alive, will be cold tonight. If those are their only blankets.

April gags behind her white mask. “Too bad your father didn’t design these things to keep out noxious smells as well as noxious diseases.”

The truck moves forward a scant hundred yards and stops again. The driver doesn’t care that he’s blocking traffic, even though we are running late, heading to our favorite club.

The men, so muscular from lugging about corpses, swagger up to a woman who is holding a small bundle. When they try to take it she shrieks and tries to run away. A man comes out of what’s left of a building; I see that the roof has been blasted away, probably during some useless riot, and the stone house is roofed with canvas, A sort of tent—house, I can’t imagine that it’s warm or comfortable. He stops the girl, grips her shoulders and forcibly turns her.

The man says something, gestures to the truck. He’s impatient. I try to guess how old she is. From her posture, I’m supposing that she’s just a girl. In this light, under the bulk of her cheap protective clothing, it is impossible to say.

Maybe that’s why I feel connected to her, because she’s so young.