Chapter 2
Well, I finally got around to it!
SPOILERS (if I'm guessing right) BELOW
So, I think I get what's going on here. The figure in the cloak is a person, serving, in some way, as the Spirit until he or she can pass the job off to someone else. I'm not sure if it's possession in the classic sense or if it's something a little different.
At any rate, looking at both chapters combined, this really has the feel of ghost stories both new and old. In terms of newer ghost stories, it actually reminds me a fair bit of The Ring, partly in the sense of inevitability, and partly because the only way to escape the effect is to pass it on to someone else.
In terms of older ghost stories, there's no one thing I can point to specifically, but I own a book of ghost stories collected by Roald Dahl, and this story has the same atmosphere that a lot of the creepier ones in the book have. I realize the Spirit isn't a ghost per se, but I got the same feeling.
Overall, this was a really creepy story with a great atmosphere. Thanks for writing it!
Chapter 1
I actually watched the PSA on Youtube some time back, and remember that it seemed mildly creepy (Donald Pleasance can do that), but this was absolutely skin-crawling.
I always got the vibe from the PSA that the Spirit was equivalent to some sort of natural predator, picking off the unwary and the foolish, but this adds a far more nightmareish character to him. This girl didn't actually do anything wrong; he's just turning her life into a living Hell because it's fun.
Well, either that or because she threw his cloak away, in which case he's petty as fuck.
I really feel for Kathy, because like I said, she hasn't really done anything wrong; she's not being punished. She just caught the attention of something particularly evil and he's wrecking her life for his own amusement.
I honestly can't think of any improvements to suggest regarding this story. It is extremely well-written. While I'm dreading reading what will inevitably happen to Kathy, I will be back for Chapter 2.
Very cool (heh). I can't say I followed all of what was happening, but it was a good read - your writing is engaging and the build up to the conclusion went at a lovely pace. Very strong imagery through-out, too.
Deliciously twisted <3
Well written story and once you start it flows past you without sensing how much time pass. I struggled with a few sentences but english isn't my native.
I really liked how the whole setup, from start to end, reminded me of the ghost stories which I enjoyed during school. The cloak as a manifestation of a supernatural being in combination with the water theme worked great for me. Katherine's slow succumb is well described as well as how easily she recogniced the cloak as something unnatural as a child but were unable to resist it as a adult.
Theres a real rhythm to your writing that I found quite pleasant. Nothing felt awkward or jarring, the story just flowed. As for the story itself, Canals, cane drains and dams have always been terrifying to me, stories of kappa, bullrout, Eena-Pena and a few extremely unpleasant incidents of my own experience served to instill in me a nigh-phobic aversion to them. So Your descriptions of a lover who is pretty well the physical embodiment of these places really does chill me to the core. " with a Kiss like drowning, blood like tepid sea water and the way her fingers sank into his flesh you were able to truly unnerve me. Like Kathy, I will be sleeping with the light on tonight.
Ps. tried to jerk off to the rapes because Kathy actually really appealed to me. I liked her style, partying being all grungy and sleeping with a ghost, but goddamit, I just kept remembering the way waterlogged flesh feels, how it just sloughs off. I got unnerved. Gave up. Good work.
I really enjoyed the long set up that occurs at the beginning, and not diving immediately into what exactly is haunting the main character Kathy. Her obsessive behavior with the hand washing and the cloak at the beginning shows how fragile her mind is, so that as things get more and more frantic and disorienting in the second part, it feels like a natural progression of what Kathy would feel in this situation. This is also a compliment to the writing, which makes us feel like Kathy as her actions become more reckless as she tries to escape the haunting of the water. I did feel that the masturbation scene seem out of place in the middle of the story, since it disruppted the flow of the horror atmosphere for me, but it does lead to some of the actions in the final scenes, so I can't complain too much. All in all, a really well written atmospheric horror story.
I'll second JayDee's praise of the echoed ending. That is classic, and sheer class, right there. Erotic horror fiction at its finest, written by the hand of a master. I'm in love!
That cold handed masturbation at the start was deeply erotic, I actually thought it was one of the sexiest brief solo scenes I've seen to picture from your words. I loved how you kept up the atmosphere throughout at a different pace to part 1 - where that was most of her life, with this only a shorter period. It really fits in with the request with that ending, I find myself wondering if it kind of goes male/female/male/female through the ages? I could see the pretty stark hard rape putting some readers off, but it makes more sense than some suddenly romantic coupling. Horror eroticism at its finest.
That almost echo quote at the end was a really cool idea as a callback, too.
Loved it!
Just an FYI - There's a couple of html tags showing in Firefox at least with the line - What are you? - not sure if that is from your document or part of the server change.