Welcome to #SnippetSunday! Thank you so much for stopping by. Please make sure to visit the other amazing authors who have shared their writing with you. Click here to go to the Facebook group >. Today I'm sharing the opening of a short story I submitted to a contest this past week. Out of Time follows a young woman searching for a lost family history. In the haunted town of Benton, she discovers that past and present memories overlap, and that ghosts aren't always what they seem. ![]() The autumn sun burned in reds and golds as it set behind the desert mountains. Benton Hot Springs, an almost ghost town off California Highway 120, only six miles from Nevada, was home to approximately thirteen and a half souls, according to the welcome sign. Kayla was there to find answers. Looking around at what was left of the town, she wasn’t sure she’d find them. Weathered, wood buildings slumped in between sage bushes. Half-walls and crumbling stucco hinted at structures that had been. The shell of an old general store still stood, with no-trespassing signs affixed to the plywood covering where the windows should be. There was a cemetery high on the hill overlooking town. Kayla would hike up there tomorrow morning to see if she could find the tombstone of her great-great-great-great Aunt Adeline.
11 Comments
2/18/2018 08:27:15 am
Great description of a near-ghost town and intriguing glimpse into the story.
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Karysa Faire
2/19/2018 10:18:17 am
Thanks! Benton Hot Springs is a fascinating place.
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2/18/2018 08:52:24 am
Loved the description, so atmospheric and an excellent set up for the story. Terrific excerpt!
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Karysa Faire
2/19/2018 10:21:36 am
:-) Thanks, Veronica. I wrote this for that RT anthology to submit as an unpublished author. I think chances are slim to it getting picked (only two out of how many entries???), but I LOVED writing it so much that it doesn't matter. I'll self-pub it eventually.
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Karysa Faire
2/19/2018 10:22:12 am
Thank you so much, Karen. XOXO
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2/18/2018 10:29:00 am
Oh I love it. The setting is fantastic and really puts me in your tale, Karysa. But I want to know about the "13 and a half" souls. ;) Great snippet.
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Iris Blobel
2/19/2018 01:23:19 am
LOOOOOVED the description. Really has me hooked ... wonder about the 1/2 soul, though :-)
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Jennifer Reynolds
2/20/2018 06:25:02 pm
Great opening. Love it. I want to visit the town.
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Karysa Faire
2/24/2018 10:40:33 am
You should, Jennifer! I'm going back again this summer. It's the craziest feeling to be driving through nothing for hours and then the remnants of this town just pop up out of the bushes. Like why this spot? How did the founders of the town ever find that particular place?
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