Meme The First!

[samanthahirr]

I've never done a meme before. Let's see how it goes! Via arsenicjade's journal:

Pick one of my fics, and I'll give you three details that didn't make it into the fic. Background canon, deleted scenes, or a look into the future. My choice, but if you have a specific question you can ask it in your request.

Comments

Re: Community Rules for Hauntings – Deleted Scene, 3/3

[samanthahirr.livejournal.com]

Standing in the dark living room, he can make out the large shapes of furniture and something shining that must be a streetlight reflecting off a TV screen. There's no sign of whoever he'd thought he'd heard before. Adam gropes for a light switch and is greeted by a totally normal room. A little messy, sure—magazines lying on the carpet, cereal boxes practically exploded across the kitchen counter and floor, and some gnarly old stains underfoot—but it isn't disgusting or crawling with bugs or anything.

Something scrapes, metal against metal, from the back room, and Adam freezes and scans the dark, open doorway for movement. "Hello?" he calls softly, cautious steps leading him down the hallway, past the empty bathroom and toward the bedroom.

The room is trashed worse than the living room, but Adam hasn't thought of Kris as a particularly clean person up to this point, so that's not surprising. What is surprising is that there's no one there. The sound comes again, low and muffled, and Adam realizes that the creepy neighbor's condo butts up against Kris's bedroom wall. It's probably wire hangers sliding across a clothes bar in the closet.

The coast officially clear, Adam settles in to do some real digging.

His inventory reveals two nice couches, a bulky TV of impressive size, food and beer in the fridge (mostly takeout containers), one bedroom, one bed, and only one shoe size. There's no sign of a roommate or significant other in the whole place, no bug infestations, no evidence of a break-in besides his own. Just a lot of ruined things; smashed photos of family and friends, broken glasses in the sink, bookshelves half torn out of the wall.

Adam is running out of patience with the unsolved mystery, and he mutters as he flips through Kris's stack of mail on the kitchen counter, "I don't get why he's so fucking scared of you."

Suddenly, glass shatters just over his shoulder, and Adam whips around to face whoever snuck in behind him. He's blinded by the beam of sunlight shining through the transom. He blinks and ducks behind the counter until he can clear his vision enough to defend himself. The crash comes again, this time muffled by the windows, and echoing around the red-brick façades of the development, followed by the cranking gearshift of a recycling truck pulling down the block.


————

I was going for a horror movie vibe with this scene, and that last paragraph was my literary attempt at a jump-scare. The shattering glass is just a recycling crew dumping bins of glass into the back of their truck, but the reader and Adam don't know that when the sound first happens. I don't think it worked as a successful jump-scare (are those even possible in literary form?), but this scene contains some creepy hints at what's been going on in the condo:

On Wednesday evening, the condo looked fine…until Kris found the shattered photo frames in his bedroom. That's what freaked Kris out and made him run—that evidence that "it" had been active in his absence. When Adam breaks in just a few hours later, the cereal has exploded all over the kitchen—that's proof of brand new activity. Adam heard something moving in the condo before he opened the door; he almost walked in on the haunting in full swing. Yikes!

Re: Community Rules for Hauntings – Deleted Scene, 3/3

[pennilesspoet17.livejournal.com]

I should not have read that before bed. D:

Re: Community Rules for Hauntings – Deleted Scene, 3/3

[blue-icy-rose.livejournal.com]

Why do I insist on reading this stuff when I'm alone at night? WHY?

I actually thought the scene was really effective - it wouldn't have worked because it was from Adam's POV and everything else is from Kris's but I love that we got this glimpse so that we can see what exactly happened when Adam went over there and why he's so mad when he goes back to his place.

And now I keep thinking of that scene where it's like in the doorway when they're trying to contact it or figure out how to get rid of it and holy cow, I shouldn't be thinking of that while staring at the empty, dark doorway of my office. Creepy. Damn.

But I loved getting to see this, thanks for sharing it! :D

Re: Community Rules for Hauntings – Deleted Scene, 3/3

[samanthahirr.livejournal.com]

MWAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!


[excerpt from the voodoo seance scene]

The lights flicker.

"What the-" Adam says, suddenly alert.

Theresa's and Michael's eyes are closed, but Joseph looks around and then at the two of them with surprise.

Kris reaches out and grabs Adam's hand, holds his breath and prays it was just an electrical surge.

The lights flicker again, and this time Kris feels it, the brushing of something against the back of his neck, all the hair on his body suddenly standing straight up. "It's," he warns Adam, squeezing his hand as tight as he can. It's whispering. No, laughing. It's in the bedroom watching them, and Kris stares at the dark doorway, the bedroom door they hadn't bothered to shut hanging open. Was it just his eyes playing tricks, or did the door just swing an inch wider?

"What is it, Kris?" Joseph asks, studying him carefully. "Do you feel something?"

"It's here," Kris says. All eyes open and turn on him, looking for more information. "It's in the bedroom."

"What does it feel like? Can you describe it?"

"Keep your breathing calm," Theresa says in therapist-mode.

"It's." And how can Kris possibly describe it when he can't hear it, can't see it, can't touch it? He just knows.

The bedroom door slams shut and everyone gasps.

Re: Community Rules for Hauntings – Deleted Scene, 3/3

[blue-icy-rose.livejournal.com]

See, now you're just being evil.

Thank goodness I sleep with the door closed and locked anyway. LOL.

Re: Community Rules for Hauntings – Deleted Scene, 3/3

[samanthahirr.livejournal.com]

I can't help it! It's a dark and stormy night over here, and I haven't exercised the creepy part of my imagination in months and months!

Sleep well...



...yes, that is a creepy ellipses. Deal with it. ;D

Re: Community Rules for Hauntings – Deleted Scene, 3/3

[blue-icy-rose.livejournal.com]

You guys are having that kind of weather too, huh? It really is the perfect time to write something creepy (says the girl who just spotted a prompt for a Glee future fic based off Paranormal Activity - hello, demonic!Rachel!).

LMAO, oh fine. Go ahead and be creepy. Complete with creepy punctuation! (I imagine that 'sleep well' said in a Vincent Price voice, for the record. Thanks, Thriller, thanks.)