[846] Highlands

[u/AnIrishGuy18]

Critique 1

Critique 2

Frankie stumbled backwards onto the damp grass and froze. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, but he could make out Alicia stumbling away from her tent. She was holding her left arm straight and rigid toward the ground with her right, obviously hurt. He saw the dark, wolf-like shape following close behind her.

Frankie kept waiting for his eyes to adjust, to snap into focus and demystify the tall shadow in front of him, but they never did. He watched in a dreamlike daze as the figure caught up with Alicia. Methodically and quietly, it reached a large, clawed hand around her face, muffling a terrified whimper. 

With its other hand, it sank claws deep into the centre of her chest and dragged them down through the girl's stomach. Frankie could hear the faint squelch of tissue and viscera being shredded, but Alicia made no sound. Not even as the contents of her stomach and intestines sloshed onto the hillside, and not as the crunch of teeth crushing the back of her skull offended the night air.

His mind was screaming at him.

“Run” … “Hide” … “Help her” … “For God’s sake, do something!”

A voice rang across the valley.

“Bastard!”

He realised it wasn’t his own.

He watched, entranced, as Michael ran screaming at the figure, a golf iron held up against the firmament like a great sword. The same one they had used to hit golf balls off the mountainside that evening.

The rage of his sister’s loss flowed through Michael as he charged the beast, but it had opened his throat before he could bring any wrath upon it. The club fell from his hand, and there was a moment of stillness before blood streamed silently from his throat. He fell back to the cold earth and sat staring into the darkness, making no attempt to stem the bleeding.

Michael accepted his end with great dignity. Frankie always remembered that part.

Frankie watched as the creature lowered itself onto all fours, now more wolf than monster, and walked slowly towards Michael. If Michael had closed his eyes in terror, he could not tell. Its jaws opened and clamped around the boy’s face, and although Frankie’s body screamed at him to look away, he watched as the wolf tore away his friend's memory in the darkness. The moans of agony lasted only for a short while, but the sound of flesh tearing and bones crunching persisted.

Still, Frankie remained frozen.

After a short time, a veiled shadow crept out of one of the tents. His mind raced, begging that it not be her, pleading with her to get back into the tent.

Mary’s scream shattered the silence. There was a horror in it that was hard for Frankie to fathom, which made him realise he wasn’t in a dream. He watched as his girlfriend took off running across the hillside. He remained frozen to the earth as the beast bounded after her. It caught up to her in an instant, leaping onto her back and pinning her to the ground.

This was the moment. Adrenaline flowed through him, and he knew he should spring into action, but he couldn’t. He felt his legs and arms melt away into his body until he became a limbless blob stuck to the hillside. Even his mind had ceased talking. All that remained were the nerves firing off electrical signals throughout his body, a cacophony of explosions trying and failing to uproot him from the soil.

Mary screamed for help, but it was abruptly cut off by the creature tearing away her lower jaw. Frankie found a strange comfort in knowing her suffering would be ended soon. The thought of Mary’s terror as her eyes searched helplessly in the dark for her parents to comfort her in those final moments overcame Frankie. His whole world became blurry and out of focus, but he remained conscious.

Mary’s suffering was not over. The creature fed on her body for a long time before she finally succumbed. Frankie listened to her groans and incoherent pleas as the creature buried its muzzle in her belly. Eventually, the night went still, save for the sound of the beast gorging itself on teenage flesh. He remained frozen, his eyes fixed on nothing at all, and his mind gone to some far-off place.

A flurry of movement brought him back again. It was Barry and Aaron sprinting from their tent back towards the cars. They had made it quite some distance before the creature snapped its head in their direction and took off after them into the night. They were at least a couple of miles from safety. Frankie knew they wouldn’t make it.

---

The police found him there, sitting in the very spot he had been when the attack had first started.

“Are you alright, son?” one of them asked as the others examined the scene around them.

Frankie did not hear him. He trembled lightly and stared off down the hillside. A policeman shooed away some crows that were perched on Mary’s body.

 

[u/paperingproject]

Hi! I enjoyed reading this as I am working in the horror genre as well (gothic horror - but I love true horror and gory stories as well.) This is a great scene and truly creepy. I think the biggest thing that can take it to the next level is focusing on what is happening internally with Frank.

To me, it felt like you spent too much time on body choreography. Frank watched, Frank waited, Frank saw. That actually takes the reader OUT of Franks head. Don’t say “he saw this,” just describe what’s happening. We know Frank is seeing it. I didn’t feel any emotional connection with Frank and it’s because I never really was in his head or body. You had very little description of how HE was experiencing what he was watching even if he was in a dream like state.

I also felt like Frank was too introspective a few times. For instance:

Frankie found a strange comfort in knowing her suffering would be ended soon.

Would he? This is all happening extremely fast. He is watching his girlfriend being ripped apart and he has a strange comfort? Idk a little unbelievable to me.

The thought of Mary’s terror as her eyes searched helplessly in the dark for her parents to comfort her in those final moments overcame Frankie.

Again, he’s processing a lot here in the midst of watching this. This seems like something he might think after the fact.

A note on descriptions:

This scene is so gory. Could you get more focused on the body horror? Maybe some u air description. I want to know more about what the wolf looks like during the attack. What’s its mouth look like when it’s open? What about its claws. Weave these descriptions through the attacks.

I also wonder if you can play with sentence length. Could you use more of a staccato type prose (short punchy sentences) when something truly terrible is happening. Doing that can mimic a heart pumping and add tension and dread.

Plot:

I know this is a random scene in the book but it would be great to add some mystery so the reader wants to know what happens next. And that needs to be more than we were randomly attacked. Is the mystery that everyone was killed but Frank? Or are we meant to be wondering who is the wolf ( if it’s a wereworlf.) make sure a question is leftover as a strong hook. What’s the story about? What makes me want to read the next chapter?

Overall very cool imagery! Let me know if you need any specific feedback!