Weekend Writing Warriors: 7/14

This 8-10 sentence blog hop is hosted by The Weekend Writing Warriors. (Click the link for the list of participants, or rules if you want to join!)

Here’s the start of a new WIP–working title “Discovering Gremlins. Seth had a bad day at work–hit his head and saw a monster, which he dismissed as his imagination. That night, a shadow follows him home, and his microwave catches fire–in the morning, he breaks his phone, his shower sprays water everywhere, and the subway car he’s on lurches and makes an ugly noise.

Previous snippet: “My water’s busted,” Seth said, “it’s spraying everywhere.”

The maintenance guy swore, and hurried down the hallway. Since he had a key, Seth simply trailed after, and disappeared into his room to finish getting ready for the day over the sounds of clanking and vicious muttering.

He hurried out the door and down the street with what should have been eight minutes to spare, and instead had to run and jump through the closing doors, the car inexplicably early, instead of its usual tardiness.

All the seats were full, so he grabbed a strap and consigned himself to the minor discomfort of standing the whole ride. He listened to a podcast, letting it shut out the world, until he could escape the stifling metal box onto the streets. About halfway through the trip, the car lurched, and emitted a grinding metallic screech that cut through the words cushioning him from reality.

Seth blinked, tapping the pause icon on his cracked screen.

Everyone else was looking around, many with earbuds in their hands, so he hadn’t imagined the noise. He waited, and when nothing happened for a good long moment, he restarted the podcast.

 

 

 

Just as Seth was sinking back into the flow of words, the screech and lurch repeated. The lurch shook the car hard enough that Seth toppled onto the lap of the guy sitting behind him. He pushed himself up quickly, muttering apologies, while around him other people regained their footing or grabbed for spilled briefcases.

And then the lights went out, and the car slammed to a halt in a symphony of screeching brakes. The crowd let out a collective, and heartfelt groan.

A few moments later, weak emergency lights flickered to life, emphasizing the shadows without really casting out the darkness.

“Pardon *static* -ruption, folks,” a voice blared from the speakers. “Ser- *static* will resume *static* -teen minutes or less.”

Seth was more than an hour late for work.

*    *    *

Gremlins have camouflage magic, and a way of making people who catch just a glimpse forget them. This is good for humanity, because they’re powerfully ugly, and react violently to being discovered. But when Seth hits his head and lands on the floor right next to a gremlin, he sees it… and it notices that he’s done so. Things are about to go downhill for Seth.