The 400-Word Story: The Beach Man #1

Ifeoma

The killer doesn't lift his eyes off me as he grabs the dagger on the table. His feet barely making any noise, he ambles towards me, watching with fascination as I struggle in vain to free myself from the ropes bound around my wrists and my feet. I cannot scream; he’d tied a gag too tight against my mouth, and the cloth smells faintly of blood. When I close my eyes again, a flash of memory rushes briefly through my mind. I see myself, Peter, Chika, and Emeka sitting around the fire, near the beach, listening to the old man tell us the story of the beach man. As we returned home that night, Peter had said, “False story! Only meant to keep people off the beach on Sundays.”

Until the killer grabbed me from the beach, I never believed the story, even though I found myself sympathizing with him as the story was told. If the people hadn’t killed his wife, he wouldn’t have come back to terrorize them.

“Any last words?” the killer’s voice, a deep evil sound, brings me back to the warm hut.

I open my eyes, terrified. I look at his eyes – lifeless eyes, malevolent, all white. Eyes of a devil. The sneer on his scarred face as he unties the gag makes whatever sympathy I’ve had for him to fade away. I can tell he loves his victims to beg, to cry.

But I will say nothing. And I won’t cry. I will give him no reason to enjoy my death.

I hold my breath as he raises his hand, and my eyes catch the final view of my life: a dagger reflecting the light of the candles. With one quick thrust, the dagger penetrates my stomach and pain explodes inside me. I feel another thrust, then another, and another. Then I feel nothing again. Before I am pulled into a deep darkness, I hear the sound of my killer’s cackle.

***

Peter crouches in front of me when I open my eyes. He is tugging at my hand. ‘Go and get dressed! It’s almost time for the concert.’

I shake my head. A shiver races down my spine and I hug myself hard. I can feel a slight pain somewhere near my stomach.

Peter frowns. "What?"

"I had the dream again."

"What dream?"

"The beach man, Peter! He spoke to me this time."



Footnote: This is a 400-word story, the first of its kind on this blog. I was inspired by the 100-word story on Uzoma's writing blog. I wanted to write a 100-word story too, but I couldn’t stop myself from writing more after I surpassed the 100-word-count. Now I’ve decided to continue the story as a series, which would appear on this blog every Monday. I hope you enjoy it!

* Click HERE for the next episode.

Thanks for reading! :)

Feature and Follow #7 - Music and Books

Feature & Follow is a blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. The purpose is to meet new people and gain more followers in the book blogging community. If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers. But you have to know, the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me. The general the rules are:

·  Follow the Feature and Follow Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read}
·  Follow the Featured Bloggers
·  Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
·  Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say "hi" in your comments and that they are now following you.
·  Follow Follow Follow as many as you can. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "HI"
·  If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers. Thanks!!

Here’s this week’s question: Is there a song that reminds you of a book? Or vice versa? What is the song & the book?

Honestly, I can't think of any songs that remind me of a book. I don't connect music to books, even while I'm reading. I usually read in quiet. I love music, but whenever I'm reading it becomes a distraction.

How about you? Do you connect songs to books? Do you read to music or read in silence?

Thank you to everyone who stopped by. And don't forget to leave your link in the comments section below so I can follow back!

A Game of Tag

pic credit: pagesofflife.blogspot.com 

Tag! You're an Author and You're "IT"

You may know this game, but not played in quite this manner before. So, Tag an author who is now "IT”. To play this game you have to share your Work in Progress (WIP) or it's a smacked bottom and straight to bed with no supper! VANESSA tagged me, and these are the rules:

·    Give credit (including URL/link) to the person or Blog that caught you and who made you "IT" I was caught fair and square whilst running away.

·    Play by the rules - no pinching, kicking, spitting, Chinese burns, crying and definitely no tantrums! Which also means you must post the rules.

·    You must answer 10 questions about your current WIP, no matter the genre, because possibly we may like to get to know each other a little better (to be honest it's only 9 because as the 10th question is really only the next step)

·    List 5 other authors or Bloggers with their hiding places (URL/Links) so that they can be chased down and made "IT" so we can all go home now we've finished playing. Go in, eat supper, and check out THEIR books.


Q 1) What is the title (or working title) of your book?
THE ROAD TAKEN (The Road Taken #1)
 
Q 2) What genre(s) does your book fall under (or land near really!)?
Young Adult, Urban-Fantasy, and Suspense.

Q 3) What actors would you choose to play the characters in the film version of your book?
Wow, this is a difficult one to answer really…still thinking.

Q 4) What is the main outline for your book?
Seventeen-year-old Nnamdi tries to unravel the mystery of his father’s will. When he’s accused of killing his girlfriend’s dad, leader of the Phoenix Cult, Nnamdi must choose to either leave the country to escape the fury of the Phoenix members or join an opposing cult, which he’d always detested.

Q 5) Will your book be Indie published, self published or represented by an agency and sold to a traditional publisher?
I’d love to be published traditionally, but you never can tell… so for the time being I’m focusing on revising and polishing my manuscript. I’m currently on the fifth draft.

Q 6) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
8 months. I had to stop writing for a while.

Q 7) What other books in this genre would you compare yours to?
This one is difficult to answer as I haven’t really read anything comparable. I know there are some out there but I haven’t come across them yet.

Q 8) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
A short story I wrote in my final year. I kept going back to the story, (rather the character in the story kept calling me back, and screaming, ‘Hey, my story doesn’t end here yet!’) So I just had to continue the story.

Q 9) What else about the book might pique the reader’s attention? 
The series contains a twist to the Phoenix mythology. Did you know that a phoenix flew to Nigeria some 300 years ago?

Q 10) Thank goodness!! Phew I've ran as fast as I can and these are the author's I've caught (and any who don't have a Blog of their own are welcome to have a sleepover at mine and post their answers here)

Now for my five victims... erm five other authors who will tell you about their WIP:
Uzoma
Athina
Robyn
Guinevere & Libertad Tomas
Megan

ENJOY GUYS... and if you can't take up the challenge then try and pass it on to another author that might be interested.
Thank you :) xx

Book Review: Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark

Two Little Girls in Blue
Author: Mary Higgins Clark
Released Date: January 1st 2006
Publisher: Pocket Books

When Margaret and Steve Frawley come home to Connecticut from a black-tie dinner in New York, their three-year-old twins, Kathy and Kelly, are gone. The police found the babysitter unconscious, and a ransom note from the "Pied Piper" demands eight million dollars. Steve's global investment firm puts up the money, but when they go to retrieve the twins, only Kelly is in the car. The dead driver's suicide note says he inadvertently killed Kathy.

At the memorial, Kelly tugs Margaret's arm and says: "Mommy, Kathy is very scared of that lady. She wants to come home right now." At first, only Margaret believes that the twins are communicating and that Kathy is still alive. But as Kelly's warnings become increasingly specific and alarming, FBI agents set out on a desperate search.
*Goodreads Blurb*


                                                                    MY REVIEW
Two Little Girls in Blue is my fifth Mary Higgins Clark read. And I enjoyed it.

It’s a wonderful book, and I was fascinated by the idea of twin telepathy, which made me pick up the book to read. Like every other Clark book I’ve read, this one is fast-paced, suspenseful, and it kept me reading into the night. Two three-year-old twins are kidnapped, and one, Kelly, is returned after some days with a suicide note saying the kidnapper unintentionally killed the other twin, Kathy. I couldn’t help but read more, as I wanted to see how Kathy would be reunited with her family. A good suspense, I like the way the story ended with the kidnapper revealed and all other crimes solved. I loved the chapters, short and quick, with most of them ending in a cliffhanger.

My put off with this book, however, was the large amount of characters. I could count at least twenty-five named characters. And it was so hard to keep up with all of them. Also, I thought the outcome of the story was predictable.

My favorite characters were Margret Frawley, mother of the twins and Angie Ames, one of the kidnappers. I thought there was enough depth to both characters, one of them, a loving mother in distress, the other, a psychopath and evil woman.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good suspense. And if you’re interested in twin telepathy, then you should check it out.

That being said, four (****) stars to Two Little Girls in Blue. I’m still going to read more titles from the author.