The Thing on the Train

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

A woman boards an empty carriage on the last train of the night. Soon she discovers she is not alone, and her fellow passenger may not be human...

This is a complete short story.

Information

Status
Completed
Year
2022
Author
MatthewBoggs

Tags

FEMALE LEADSUPERNATURALHORRORSHORT STORYCONTEMPORARY

Royal Road Stats

Rating
3.0/ 5.0
Followers
1
Views
319

Chapters(1 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(3)

  • HooklineDreamerRoyal Road
    ★★★ 3.0
    It was an ok story, I thought it was mildly entertaining in a cheesy horror kind of way, but think it could have done more. Lots more description to heighten the atmosphere and draw out the suspense. It was all very predictable, nothing unexpected, no surprising twist, or psychological weirdness or something to give the story more of a purpose. We don’t really get into the head of the character at all -- everything described is merely a reaction; a telling of her fear when we really need to feel it get invested.
  • RznRoyal Road
    ★★★ 3.0
    Given the set up and the horror elements, this could be several different kinds of horror. This is tame and very short, keeping itself surprisingly clean and going for a simple and straightforward type of ghoulish aspect. It does not do a whole lot to capitalize on itself and with its short word count horror is a genre ill-suited to flash fiction-sized pieces, but this was good.
  • Green CroweRoyal Road
    ★★★ 2.5
    It's basic : girl get on train, monster want to eat girl, girl wakes up, monster not there (or is it).
    That sounds good for a short story, and it's hard to mess up. The problem here is in the writing quality, the ambiance is "detailed" by adjectives, but the pacing is all over the place. There is no difference in the phrasing, the speed ... This makes for a hard to read story. Also at some point "he" and "she" are limitative, I can only read as much as 10 "She" in a row before getting bored. The vocabulary would have gained a lot with a bit of variation "the voyager, the girl, etc.