Lurkers - Print Topic

Really good questions -- I'll try and answer (and make corrections) as best I can.

As far as parenthetical dialogue, I'll go back and make some changes -- for the most part I tried to keep it as little as possible, but I understand that you're generally not supposed to add action cues.  It's a bad habit I've still yet to break.

In regards to name changes, I'm not sure what you're speaking of -- did I write Bentham or Morgan in the action lines when I wasn't supposed to?  I know I had Bishop refer to both characters by their last names, which is usually how I've always been referred to personally by all of my professors: it's just the way he talks.  I don't think it'd be too far-fetched to believe that an audience would be able to follow this.

Shelley is around Josh's age, probably a little older.  Her character, more than any other, is one of the reasons I've considered going back and adding another draft.  I always knew she'd be around for only the first half of the story but I didn't want to kill her off so I just had her simply leave.  If I go back and rewrite, I'll probably expand her character a bit when we first meet her and probably give her a better reason for having to leave as well.

As far as you're questions about the creatures, I've thought extensively about why we can see them through mirrors/reflections (not to mention why we can't see them at all) as well as about where they come from and their motives for killing.  BUT, in the end, this story was never written to have ANYONE explain those things.  To me that really helps us focus more on the characters' survival than finding out the who's and what's of the "lurkers."  Plus I also wanted the idea of "lurkers" to play on childhood fears, i.e., the idea of when you're alone as a child and think you hear a noise you couldn't place or see something out of the corner of you're eye only to turn and there be nothing there, I wanted that sense of creepiness and terror about it.

Ben and Ana followed the creatures back to the woods, where Ana was subsequently attacked and killed.  Ben, scared and having no flashlight and therefore no way to see them with his mirror escapes into the shack until morning to try and find and kill them.

The ending was initially conceived a little differently.  The creature was to fight our three heroes and kill Bishop (like it did) and then chase Josh and Emma back to campus where Shelley would be waiting with the officers.  The two would exit the woods screaming (rain pouring) and no one would no why, and only moments later everyone would be flabbergasted when the creature emerged from the woods (again visible by the rain) and a shootout would ensue, killing the creature.  The story would have then ended with everyone staring dumbstruck at the creature's body on the ground and we'd wash out to the end credits.

But as I was writing, I found that I liked the idea much more of Bishop sacrificing himself to kill the creature (he was initially just supposed to be killed in a fight with his neck simply being broken).  And I also found that the original ending had a much more action-oriented feel which I didn't really want.  So as the idea unfolded with Bishop killing himself and the creature, I found that it would be much more horrifying to have Emma partake in the action (though she was trying to stop it, of course) and inadvertently be a part of his death.  I also liked the idea of Josh rushing towards them only to arrive a mere second after they're dead and we'd pull back with Emma screaming hysterically with Josh trying to restrain her.

This ending also allowed me to focus more on the psychological repercussions by adding a much more quiet coda to the ending with Josh, near catatonic, holding Emma who is asleep.  To me it summed up the entire idea of the story as well as it's plot, too, including the sub-plot of Josh and Emma's Will they?/Won't they? relationship.  The idea was that Josh was just as bad off as Emma at the end but the only reason he's able to stay awake from all of the exhaustion is because of his care for her to keep her safe, which is why's staring at her breath on the glass -- he's simply staying conscious to make sure she's still breathing.  "Lurkers" was written almost as a response to modern day horror movies such as "The Messengers," "The Ring Two," "The Grudge," et cetera.  It was all about the idea of what is really scary and what the makers of those movies THINK is scary (stylized sequences that go nowhere, that rely more on music cues and "cats in closets" to scare an audience rather than providing real fear).  To that effect, this story plays on the fear of the unknown, i.e.,  the fear that is conjured over something we can't see or understand.  That in mind, the movie was thus written as very quiet, if that makes sense; to be more visual than audible, and so to me the ending had to reflect that as well.

The ending was also an indirect homage to the end of John Carpenter's "Halloween."  That film ended with a sense of, "Holy shit he's still out there!" and was made to unsettle the audience as they left the theatre.  To that end, the last thing we see in "Lurkers" is the creature's dead body, but the last line of dialogue we hear is Shelley asking Josh if there are any more creatures out there, and then a fade out with no clear answer.  I also added Interpol's "Evil" music cue as an after thought -- I'd recently listened to it again and the tone of the song has such an eerie feel and sound to it, that it just seemed to fit perfect.

Whew, that was a lot of writing.  Regarding you're last question, I do have one last comment.  According to it, you inferred that the creature was still twitching as we fade out, but it wasn't, it was always meant to be inferred that the creature was dead -- that was almost the entire point of having it rain, so we could see the creature lying there, dead and NOT moving.

Anyways, THANK YOU for the feedback and the questions, not to mention reading the thing in the first place!

I'm glad you enjoyed it as well. :)