High Beams

You're driving home late at night, and the car behind you starts flashing his lights at you, and honking... Is he trying to tell you something?

I shook my head slightly, blinking rapidly, trying to get the sleep out of my eyes. It was a huge mistake making the long trip home this late at night. Before beginning the drive, I looked at the road atlas I keep under the front passenger seat, and found a stretch of back country road that cut the trip in half.


All of a sudden the blinding glare of headlights pierced through the darkness, reflecting off my rear view mirror straight into my face; I groaned and quickly adjusted the mirror. The car must've had it's brights on, because the headlights dimmed significantly; which elicited a sigh of relief from myself. I looked in the mirror to see who was behind me, though all I could make out was the silhouette of a man, and that the car was a blueish green, not really helpful.


'This road is much longer than It looked like...' I thought to myself, stifling a yawn. I clicked the radio on, static, a turned the non, static again.. Strange, but not really unusual, I was driving in the middle of nowhere, the signal was probably interrupted or something... I quickly looked around, was I still on the right road? Did I miss a turn? The only way I'd find out is to keep driving...


It had been almost another hour... I was definitely lost. There was no option other than to just keep driving and hope that civilization would show up. I glanced down to try the radio again, but as I did, the headlights behind me flashed twice, strange. I looked in the mirror to see the guy waving at me, pointing at my car franticly, this creeped me out extremely. My mind instantly jumped to a story I heard, about people who did weird s**t to get you to pull over, at which point they mugged you...


I pushed down on the gas, speeding up, the guy behind me did the same; I was starting to get scared.


I prayed a town or something would show up so I could get help. But no such help came... The car behind me honked, which caused me to jump; I looked in the mirror to see him franticly pointing at my car still. I took a second to look closer, and I noticed he was pointing at my trunk... I moved my eyes down a little, and the hairs on the back of my neck raised and a chill went down my spine...


There was a figure laying down on the floor in front of the back seat, looking up at me, smiling. The man's face was slightly wrinkled, there were dark bags under his eyes, and his beady little eyes seemed to stare into my soul... But none of that mattered; I slammed on the breaks and unbuckled my seatbelt and threw myself out of the car, the car that had been following me also came to a stop.


I stood up and started running to his car, the guy threw open his door and quickly stepped out, "Hurry up! I'll help!" He said in a friendly, yet slightly scared voice. I smiled and let out a frightened sigh of relief. The back passenger door slammed open as the smaller man climed out of my back seat, I let out a small scream.


I was only a few steps away from the kind gentleman, when I glanced down and saw what he was holding in his hand; my heart dropped...


I fell to the ground terrified, tears in my eyes as the man from the car held up the knife up and started twords me, that same sinister smile on his face as the man who was hiding in my car. The two men stood over me as the tears started flowing down my face, terrified sobs escaped my throat; Those sobs quickly turned to screams as the two men grabbed me, one by my hair, the other by my shirt, and started dragging me to the ugly blueish green car.


The short dirty one let go of my shirt and opened the trunk, I thrashed and kicked, but it was no use...




This is how I was going to die.

Author's Note

I would love and appreciate it if you could give advice on how to improve my writing :)

This is my personal take on the popular urban legend, Killer in the Backseat, also known as, High Beams.

If you haven't hear the story before, essentially, the man in the car is trying to earn the driver that someone is in their backseat, though the driver misunderstands, thinking the man is the one who is looking to do her harm.
It is a very popular cautionary tale, and I always thought it could be adapted into something creepier, and I was right :P

Reviews

[Sachi Ruaya]

SUGGESTIONS

I suggest adding in a bit more context to the story, determinants and descriptive language in which how the character is feeling.

"I shook my head slightly, blinking rapidly, trying to get the sleep out of my eyes. It was a huge mistake making the long trip home this late at night. " Maybe add where he is driving. In the middle of the desert? A neighbourhood? A forest? The woods? Bring detail to the setting in which that is outside the car and then describe where you are going.

"It was a huge mistake making the long trip home this late at night" Long trip from where? Camp? School? Work? Probably add some background to your character. I understand that this is a short story. But a little information about the characters background and appearance will give a good foundation to the reader. Say, the first two to three paragraphs should already have answered your who, what, when and where? The rest of your story can answer the WHY and HOW.

I also suggest, after describing the background information of the narrator and main character, add the description of any main objects that they are highly associated (i.e. connected) with. In this case, it would be the car. For instance, if the person is rich, they could have a BMW or a really shiny expensive car. And if the main character is poor(er), they could have a old, run-down hooptie (or simply a second-hand car). It adds more understanding to the reader.

=====================================
Sorry it took me a while to properly review this. I was quite lazy for the past few days.

Anyways...

I really like that climax you put on the end, " This is how I was going to die." It really puts the reader at a cliffhanger. I recommend adding a beautiful aspect called the FAKE RESOLUTION. A fake resolution is...well. How do I explain this?

So, it is a resolution in which the reader first thinks the problem is solved but only then, the problem get worse ultimately leaving the reader on a cliffhanger.

For instance, in your case, I could be that he escaped from the man (when he grabbed him) then finds himself later to be surrounded by many of them once he gets home (or his desired destination).

GooD read!

*I honestly cannot find any examples of writing that can be easily accessed through Writers Cafe. My writings are good examples of the FAKE RESOLUTION topic but I also struggle in terms of CONTEXT.

Here are JayG's {http://www.writerscafe.org/JayGreenstein} recommendations to me in my struggle in terms of CONTEXT;

Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It's not an easy book, because it is a university level book, and goes into great detail, sometimes becoming a bit dry. And it is an older book, one that talks about your typewriter, and assumes that successful writers are male. But it is the best.

Jack Bickham's, Scene and Structure. Professor Bickham taught with Swain, so their views are much the same. And as a newer book it's more often found in the local library system.

Debra Dixon's, "GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. (a hardcover version on her site is a lot less than on Amazon). It's a warm easy read, though it does go into a lot less detail than do the others, Still, it's a good first book, and worth reading.

[Sachi Ruaya]

I hope this review was helpful.

Happy writing!

[barleygirl]

I read Sachiko (below) & there are some good comments there. I also felt some of your descriptions were sketchy. Sometimes sketchy can be good for a fast-moving spooky tale, tho, so I would not bog down the peppy pacing by describing too much detail that doesn't matter. What I found myself wanting more of would be sensory stuff -- noises, smells, sensations -- when the guy sees headlights the first time, say he swerves to the edge of the road & a low limb swipes his windshield so he ducks and hits his head on the shift knob. These are the kinds of sensory details that can pump up a spooky tale like this. It's a great story without any changes. My thoughts are only to advise on future writing (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[JayG]

• I shook my head slightly, blinking rapidly, trying to get the sleep out of my eyes.

As a reader, why do I care that someone unknown, in an unknown location, doing something unknown, shook their head, “slightly?” Why do I care that they shook it at all if I don’t know why?

Problem is, when you TELL the reader a story, you’re going to forget to mention things about the situation that you already know, and think obvious. Shouldn’t you have placed this person in a car, at night, and sleepy, BEFORE they acted, so they had a reason to try to dispel the urge to sleep?

But there’s a more important side-effect to telling the story as you view it, as against the viewpoint of the one living it: We think in terms of story, and assign our characters actions in support of the plot, rather than have them act as they would were they making decisions based on their situation as they see it. And by doing that, your characters will be dumb when you need that and smart if you want them smart. Not real, in other words.

Look at the story from the character’s viewpoint. S/he’s been driving for some time with someone on the floor behind him, when the stowaway’s partner in crime shows up behind, in another car.

After it shows up, and for unknown reasons, the other car does nothing but follow for an hour? Why? They’ll take an extra hour to drive home, after they act. Who would do that? And the one hiding must now stay silent and not cough, sneeze, change position enough to shake the car, or even fart for an hour. Had you asked either of the men if it was okay, they would have said, “Hell no!”

If the men behind the seat has a weapon, the second car is unnecessary. Why not just say, “Stop the car or I’ll cut your throat.” If you asked the man on the floor how to conduct the crime, I’m certain he’s opt for the, “We’re out of town and alone, so let’s do it,” approach. Wouldn’t you, were you him?

And look at our driver. Forgetting that you cannot see the person in the car behind on a dark road because their headlights point at your car, not the inside of their car, given that the man was pointing at the trunk, wouldn’t our driver get out and look at the trunk? You do NOT turn around while driving, and look down. He or she has no reason to suspect that the one behind can see that someone lying on the floor. And that driver has no reason to suspect that any second person in the car doesn’t belong there. But…because your plot says that’s how it must go to work, they all do what you tell them do without complaint. How can that seem real?

And finally, our hero—whose gender has not been defined—is out of the car and facing men armed with knives. Were you facing men who mean you harm, on a lonely stretch of road, in the dark. Would you resign yourself to what comes? Or would you, like me, take off into the dark woods or fields, and fight to live, or at least escape by becoming invisible in the dark? They have knives. Wouldn’t you heave rocks? Wouldn’t you make a run for the driver’s door of either car, and then run them over if you make it? Wouldn’t you do more than give up?

And think about the reader’s view of the story. We learn that we’re someone driving a car from someplace unknown to someplace unknown, for unknown reasons. We find ourselves in a dangerous situation. So what would the reader advise the protagonist to do? Give up and die without a struggle, or even pleading? Is this someone worthy of a reader’s attention?

In short: Stop ordering the characters around. Place them into the situation and let THEM react, based on THEIR observations, resources, and needs. And if they don’t react as you want them to change the forces driving them. If that doesn’t work the story is flawed and won’t work.

Fiction, in our medium, is a difficult and complex taskmaster. It’s very unlike verbal storytelling, and writing for stage and screen. Our medium has specific and strong constraints that must be taken into account. And our school-day writing skills are of little use for fiction because they are nonfiction skills, taught to make us useful to potential employers, not make professional fiction-writers of us. Those skills must be learned in addition to the general skills we’re given in school. Although no one tells us, we are exactly as well prepared to write fiction as to remove an appendix when we graduate our public education years.

So while this is not good news, it’s something you share with pretty much everyone who decides to write fiction. And you can fix the problem by adding the necessary skills and knowledge to those you already own. So it’s not a matter of your talent, or the story. And time spent in the local library’s fiction writing section can be a huge help.

As a kind of overview of the issues involved, and why they matter, you might want to browse through the writing articles in my blog. Some of them are even helpful.

But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Sachi Ruaya]

I am not quite sure which one you actually wrote first; this or the Don't look in the closet one. But anyways, I see that this one is more better (if not improved) than the other one. Good read!

[Andrew Close]

I wrote this one second, so there was some improvements!
I'm glad you enjoyed it!