The Internet allows humans to communicate in ways that were not formerly possible. One exercise that I’ve always wanted to try is collaborative fiction. Upon scanning my writing journal, I came across a few fragments of fiction from Jul 2003 that show a bit of promise in the mystery, horror, or slipstream genre. It’s rough material, but I’ve threaded a few pieces together into an intro. What I’m hoping is that as this journal grows in readership, that some of you who are writers will participate by adding to the story, in sequence.

You will get credit for contributing, provided you include your name. What I’ll do is revise this post, and the story-to-date, by editing reader contributions once weekly, and integrating them into the main story thread. If even a sentence of your contribution is used, your name (and website URL) will apear at the bottom of this post, after the story. The copyright statement will change to reflect your contribution.

Note: For the sake of avoiding arguments, I’m using American English spelling, whenever I remember to, since I’m Canadian.

Old Window
Occasional bursts of cold air gusted into the apartment as the wind increased in intensity. Jacob rose and slammed the old window down. Eighty years. That’s how old the building was; how old the window must be as well. The glass looked frail. How many hands had touched that window? How many feet had walked the floors? Who had lived here?

He watched out the window. A small crowd of people stood in a cluster on the sidewalk and roadway in front of the apartment building. Some were looking around; the rest stared at the ground. He saw his neighbor, Beth, presumably on her way to work, approach the crowd. As she got closer, the crowd parted slightly, then closed. In that brief moment, he saw the feet of a body lying on the ground. They were women’s shoes, dark brown, with a small heel. What the hell were these people doing? He strained to listened.

Beth ran forward and yelled, “Has someone called 911?”.

“No,” came a reply.

Jacob ran for his cordless phone, then back to the window as he dialed. As he spoke to the person at the other end, he saw Beth look up at the speaker. He strained to look, just catching a glimpse of a vacant expression. What was wrong with these people? Beth looked around, obviously unaware that he was watching.

“Does someone have a cell phone?” she asked.

“Yes,” said a woman. “But this woman is evil.”

“Hell spawn,” said another woman.

“Do not help her,” said a man.

Jacob called down to Beth from his open window, to let her know he’d called 911. He shivered as the crowd looked up at him with glassy-eyed stares.

Feel free to make your contribution(s) to this short story.

(c) Copyright: 2003-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://talespinner.countwordula.com/

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