1. START:
Your name is Bob. It’s 2
a.m. and you have insomnia, again. Indigestion. Probably should have laid off
the Halloween candy. So you’re sitting in your sweats, watching Food Network
because there’s nothing else on when your apartment rattles so hard the lamp on
your nightstand falls to the floor. You look out the window and see what sort
of looks like a low-flying plane. But there’s way more lights than there should
be. You step out barefoot onto the balcony to get a better look and see this
huge metal disk lowering itself just past the woods behind your apartment.
“What was that?” says
Cindy from the balcony next door. You’ve had a crush on the cute blonde for a
year, but you rarely say more to her than “hi.”
“Um…I don’t know?” You
say.
“It looked like a UFO,
don’t you think?”
Your answer:
If you say it’s a UFO, go
to 2.
If you say no way, it was
a plane, go to 3.
2. You say, “I don’t know.
It was strange with all the lights…could have been a UFO.”
Cindy brightens and leans
over the rail of her balcony toward you, giving you a shot of her cleavage.
“This is so cool. It looked like the landed in the pasture past the woods. Want
to go check it out?”
Say yes? Go to 4.
Say no? Go to 5.
3. You say, “I don’t know.
There’s no such thing as UFOs. It had to be a plane.”
Cindy frowns and crosses
her arms. “An unbeliever, huh? You’re just as bad as my parents.”
With a sneer and a huff,
Cindy heads back inside with an angry slide of her balcony door.
You head back in with your
heart somewhere down by your feet. She’ll never go out with you now.
GAME OVER. YOU SURVIVED
BUT LOST THE GIRL.
4. How could you possibly
say no to that? This is your chance. Don’t blow it. “Sure,” you say and nod.
“Awesome.” Meet me in the
hall in 5 minutes!
You walk back into your
apartment slowly, trying to play it cool, but the minute you enter, you rush to
your bathroom and brush your teeth faster than you ever have and throw on
deodorant. You debate whether to change out of your sweats, but decide you
don’t want to make a big production, since Cindy couldn’t change much in 5
minutes, either, right? It’s not like this is a date. You throw on some socks
and sneakers, and grab a flashlight.
When you get out to the
hallway, you find Cindy waiting across the hall, a jacket thrown over her
camisole and yoga pants. Phew, good thing you didn’t change.
You head out through the
woods together, Cindy chattering away nervously about how cool this is, and
virtually clinging to your arm. Awesome. But the lights are getting brighter as
you reach the end of the woods, and soon you can see without the flashlight, so
you shut it off.
The woods clear out to the
pasture and there’s no doubt. It’s a UFO and the door is open. Cindy has fallen
silent and is staring, open-mouthed.
She’s gripping your arm even tighter.
Do you suggest going back?
Go to 6
Investigate closer? Go to
7
5. Your stomach hurts, and
you yawn. You really want to go back to bed. You say “I don’t think I’m up for
that. It may not have even stopped past the field.”
Cindy shakes her head.
“Chicken.”
“I’m not. I’m just tired.”
“I dare you,” she says.
How can you pass that up?
Go back to 4.
6. “If you’re scared, we
could go back.” You suggest.
She shakes her head no and
says, “I’m not scared.”
“I think we should go. We
got a look. This was close enough.” You pat her hand on your arm.
Cindy looks indecisive.
But finally she nods and you both turn back. The red light suddenly shines
brighter and heat out of the mouth of the entry to the UFO. An alarm sounds.
You’ve been spotted. You both start to make a run for it, but it’s too late,
the woods are set on fire and you with them.
GAME OVER. YOU DID NOT
SURVIVE.
7. “Want to take a closer
look?” You ask.
Cindy snaps out of it and
smiles wide. “You know it.”
The two of you head toward
the open field. The lights around the UFO glow red. Reminding you of the
infrared light in the headlamp your father used when trying to keep his night
vision available. It’s eerie, but you’re afraid to turn on your own flashlight
and draw attention to yourself.
The open door to the
machine leads to a red-lit interior as well. Wires and pipes head in every
direction. Your heart is pumping wildly, and your palms are getting a little
sweaty. You wipe them on your sweats and swallow hard. This could go wrong in
so many ways.
“Let’s go in,” says Cindy.
Do you go? Go to 8
Chicken out? Go to 9
8. You nod and Cindy’s
hand moves down your arm and holds yours. Good thing you wiped the sweat
already. The two of you head into the
machine. Even though you’re scared, this is kind of fun. The moment your feet
hit the pads of the entrance, a low beeping begins. Sort of like the ding of a
car door when you leave your keys in the ignition and try to get out. It’s an alarm! And something’s coming. You
hear the marching of many feet on their way.
Do you duck behind the
machine and hide? Go to 11
Make a run for it? Go to
10
9. “I don’t think it’s a
good idea.” You say. But she’s pulling you toward the ship. The moment her feet
hit the pads of the entrance, a low beeping begins. Sort of like the ding of a
car door when you leave your keys in the ignition and try to get out. It’s an alarm! And something’s coming. You
hear the marching of many feet on their way.
You panic and slip from
her grasp, and take off running. When you reach the woods, you turn back and
realize that Cindy didn’t follow you. She’s standing on the platform of
the UFO, facing a giant green spider. It
grabs her in its clutches and pulls her into the ship. The platform closes
behind them and the ship takes off so quickly that if you’d blinked you would
have missed it.
GAME OVER. YOU SURVIVED,
BUT YOU LOST THE GIRL.
10. You make a run for it,
holding Cindy’s hand. The red light suddenly shines brighter and heat out of
the mouth of the entry to the UFO. An alarm sounds. You’ve been spotted. You
both start to make a run for it, but it’s too late, the woods are set on fire
and you with them.
GAME OVER. YOU DID NOT
SURVIVE.
11. You yank Cindy to the
side and hide against the gently humming machine. You slide a little further
down from the machine and notice it has gotten a little darker. The red glow
had been coming mostly from the open doorway. The many footsteps get to the end
of the ramp and start crunching through the dead leaves.
They are coming your way!
You push Cindy behind you
and prepare to use your flashlight as a weapon. But you can hardly see now. The
crunching approaches but you still can’t see the form of the alien yet. In your
panic, you decide you can’t defend yourself if you can’t even see your enemy.
You click on your flashlight.
Before you stands a giant
green spider, its hundred eyes all shine in the light of your flashlight and it
screams. So does Cindy. It scrambles away toward the ship entrance as fast as
it can.
Cindy pulls you away from
the ship and yells, “Come on, let’s go.”
Sure thing, you’ve seen
enough. But before you even make it past the fence, the ship makes a whirring
sound and moves away from you. The two of you stand frozen as you watch the
ship take off into the night so quickly that if you’d blinked, you would have
missed it.
Cindy laughs in relief and
hugs you around the waist. She buries her head and shivers in fear. Her voice
is muffled by your sweatshirt as she says, “Spiders? They had to be spiders.”
You nod and feel a shiver
of fear yourself.
Cindy pulls back, and
takes your hand in hers, and asks. “What could possibly have been worse?”
“Well, at least it wasn’t
clowns.” You say.
Cindy busts up laughing. She smiles, bites her
lip and asks, “You’re funny. What are
you doing Friday night?”
CONGRATULATIONS. YOU
SURVIVED AND GOT THE GIRL.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In simple language, Pauline Creeden creates worlds that are
both familiar and strange, often pulling the veil between dimensions. She
becomes the main character in each of her stories, and because she has ADD, she
will get bored if she pretends to be one person for too long.
Pauline is a horse trainer from Virginia, but writing is her therapy.
Armored Hearts, her joint effort with author Melissa Turner
Lee, has been a #1 Bestseller in Christian Fantasy and been awarded the Crowned
Heart for Excellence by InDtale Magazine. Her debut novel, Sanctuary is
scheduled for release September 30, 2013, and has already been nominated for
two awards in YA Science Fiction.
One of Pauline's short stories has won the CCW Short Story
contest. Other short stories have been published in Fear & Trembling
Magazine, Obsidian
River and Avenir
Eclectia. An urban fantasy short will appear in The Book of Sylvari: An
Anthology of Elves from Port Yonder Press, and a vampire short will appear in
Monsters! from Diminished Media Group.
Facebook: http://facebook.com/PaulineCreeden
Twitter: http://twitter.com/P_Creeden
Goodreads: http://goodreads.com/PCreeden
=============================================================
======== UPDATE: GIVEAWAY CLOSED! COPY HAS BEEN WON ========
OCTOBER 9 GIVEAWAY:
Today HALLOWEENPALOOZA is giving away ONE ecopy of SANCTUARY. It's an apocalyptic book about alien invasion (hence the game. Did you survive?), zombies, and Sci-fi adventure! Sounds great!
To win, simply post "I WANT TO WIN" on the official Facebook Halloweenpalooza in today's post announcing the October 9th's Blog and Giveaway. That's it! First one that does it, wins!
To make things even simpler, here's the link:
https://www.facebook.com/events/164385847097718/169043526631950/?notif_t=event_mall_comment
Good luck and watch out for incoming alien invaders!
SANCTUARY
Description:
“Left
Behind for the Hunger Games Generation”
In a
heart-racing thriller described as Falling Skies meets The Walking Dead, Jennie
struggles to find a safe place for what’s left of her family. But it seems as
though there is no place sacred, no place secure. First the aliens attacked the
sun, making it dimmer, weaker, and half what it used to be. Then they attacked
the water supply, killing one-third of Earth’s population with a bitter
contaminate. And when they unleash a new terror on humankind, the victims will
wish for death, but will not find it…When the world shatters to pieces around
her, will Jennie find the strength she needs to keep going?
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