OK,
First big thanks and congratulations to CC for marshalling the challenge, the encouragement and annoucnements were nearly as entertaining as the stories.
I don't normally read horror, and certainly don't write it (is that a hint? maybe, who could say), but I really enjoyed reading these stories, I particularly liked that they ran the gamut from light Horror/ comedy, to Slasher gore, to more banal everyday (and perhaps more scary as a result) horror.
I particularly liked:
Intellicide- talk about setting the bar high to start with. Really creepy.
Go Alone- Warm, and tragic, and made chilling by the realisation that (unlike demonic possession) something similar may lie in store for all of us.
Arachnofamilia- I love this story because it kinda plays a double reverse. The author does not seek a twist from the 'it was a spider', that is obvious as soon as you reed the title, but over the course of a taught 100 words, the horror shifts from the spider, back to the reader as we consider hundred of spiders hatching and doing their venomous worst.
Homework*- the flat, matter-of-fact narration of our psychopathic protagonist, nails this story. It didn’t make me feel anything. Exacerbated by the fact that it might all have been avoided had the teacher better defined the assignment, had Mrs Bled said "Right a story about you Drowning", two lives might have been saved. I can't help thinking that had this been a 101 word challenge, it wuld have been a happier ending alround.
I will come back with my guesses later.
