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Here's a little description to wet your curious little whistle. That sounded dirty for some reason... anywayss:
"A Short Story. Horror. Frankie, an architect downgraded to building surveyor by the downturn after 9/11, finds himself on a job in downtown Buffalo. He must prepare updated floor plans for a huge abandoned building. The old school building seems to come alive, as the sounds of the cold wind howling through broken windows keep Frankie thinking he is not alone. Approaching the end of his task, he suddenly finds himself trapped deep in the guts of a dark, desolate maze. Frankie will have to crawl through mud, and fight against some unexpected enemies, to find his way out of this trap and cheat death."
Mud? He has to CRAWL through MUD!? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Alright, this story is a little more exciting than that, let me tell you. In fact, nothing is more exciting than a good story about an architect. Nothing, that is, except a story about an architect that can't find a job so he has to survey buildings. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole first half of this story as he took measurements and wrote down notes. Enthralling!
Other than a few editing errors every other sentence, I was really able to connect with this character's heterosexual interest in women and slight tendency towards laziness when it comes to crawl spaces. Real original stuff!
But it gets even more intense when he is mysteriously locked in the crawl space he is surveying. I actually did feel a little panic at this part, but our protagonist Frankie took it to the extreme by knocking himself out on a pipe and breaking his fist on the door to the crawlspace. He tries to find another way out as cockroaches crawl on him (not so scary for me, but I can see it, sure). He comes to a point where he has to dig with the bugs all over him and tears off his fingernails in panic. This is the point where I really winced. More on that later though. He emerges and is set upon by flesh-eating rats.
But it gets even more intense when he is mysteriously locked in the crawl space he is surveying. I actually did feel a little panic at this part, but our protagonist Frankie took it to the extreme by knocking himself out on a pipe and breaking his fist on the door to the crawlspace. He tries to find another way out as cockroaches crawl on him (not so scary for me, but I can see it, sure). He comes to a point where he has to dig with the bugs all over him and tears off his fingernails in panic. This is the point where I really winced. More on that later though. He emerges and is set upon by flesh-eating rats.
Well, spoilers, my friends, spoilers, because I have to call BULLSHIT on the description. "Unexpected enemies" means cockroaches, rats, and paralysis? Not ghosts? I thought this was horror, where are the fucking ghosts!? Not even a single serial killer? Fine, that still passes, barely. But the whole "cheat death" thing? No, he didn't cheat death, he did exactly the opposite of that. He fucking falls down a hole and abruptly dies (well, not so abruptly; the paralysis makes him good and immobile for the rats to eat him to death). Nothing is better than a story that was as fucking pointless as the surprise death endings of a Goosebumps "choose your own adventure"...!
Ratings:
Ratings:
Horror: 2 out of 5. Technically horror, but I would call it "thriller" or "psychological thriller" or some other genre that hearkens to the days when nobody ever fucking watched Fear Factor. Or maybe you did, in which case you are really fucking horrified of cockroaches and this story is for you.
Boooring: 5 out of 5. Pick a random sentence. It reads like this: "Once he reached the northwest corner, Frankie shot the laser back south to locate the southwest corner and determine the width of the tunnel: 42 feet and change." This is so interesting. Please do a story about a dude that uses a slide rule next.
Physical Discomfort Masquerading as Scary: 5 out of 5. I know, this is like a repeat of the first one. Well, you can just open your OWN fucking account and write your OWN fucking blog if you don't like it! Yeah I just remembered that the points where I "jumped" were the times when the idiot main character injured himself. Time, after time, after time. At a certain point it is no longer callus to say things like "survival of the fittest" and "pathetic" and no longer appropriate to say things like "scary".
Overall: 2 out of 5. Maybe this story would be exciting for someone (until the dude just dies and all that worry for our totally inept hero goes to waste). But that someone is afraid of cockroaches and rats, so why the hell aren't there any snakes? Why_the hell_not?
Overall: 2 out of 5. Maybe this story would be exciting for someone (until the dude just dies and all that worry for our totally inept hero goes to waste). But that someone is afraid of cockroaches and rats, so why the hell aren't there any snakes? Why_the hell_not?
For stories that are exclusively about snakes (really, it's nothing but fucking snakes!) visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall
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