The opening sentence of your bestselling thriller goes as follows?

Just the fact that I am writing this from under your bed should be enough to give you pause…he he heeee

“It was a dark and stormy night, ...”

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

His wife hovered menacingly over the stove, a sadistic grin crept across her face…..

I had been waiting too long in the rain for a first date when this guy comes up to me and says ‘ I am Linda’s brother, there is something I’ve got to tell you’.

Abigail was at least a block away from her house but she couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed, she could here the third footstep that followed after her own, “don’t look, don’t look,” but Abigail couldn’t help it she had to look back…........

I’m not crazy, by any means.

I couldn’t breathe.
It was like the darkness was swarming around me, wanting to engulf me like some hungry animal. Even with my eyes open, all I could see was the pitch blackness of the cellar.
My heart was thumping, so loud that I swear I could hear it in my ears. But that wasn’t the only sound they heard. From the far corner, I heard a constant moan, getting louder and louder…

Oops. You said sentence. My bad, I got carried away there. Sorry.

The rain came down and hit the steaming streets in never ending streams, like urine into the mens room troughs at Yankee Stadium on dollar beer night…

When it was over she sat up in bed, lit a cigarette, dragged a nail along my chest and murmured “I had your wife killed tonight…”.

The night air smelled of muck and gas, and the insects screamed instead of singing.

All I wanted was a hamburger.

Burke meticulously wiped every last trace of blood from his straight razor, softly humming a snatch of Muzak he had heard on the elevator ride up to the penthouse.

“You never know who’s the one responsible for stuff we take for granted in the world, do you?” Philip asked as he held the gun to the bridge of my nose, its blue-black barrel practically glowing. “For instance, did you know Eddie Cantor started the March of Dimes and wrote one of the theme tunes to Warner Bros cartoons? ‘Merrily We Roll Along’, it’s called.”

“Who the hell is Eddie Cantor?”

Philip shut his eyes and sighed.

Marion jolted upright in her bed. Her heart was pounding and she was drenched in sweat. It was very dark in the room, but she could just make out the silhouette of a figure standing in the window, in front of the curtains. She was already trembling, and then she started to cry, silently, though, so as not to draw attention. She was terrified that the figure in front of the window was an intruder, a burglar, perhaps a madman that had sneaked into her house with the intent to rob her and kill her. Her breathing was short and shallow. She tried to remain quiet so that the man, or at least she thought it was a man, would not hear her. She wasn’t sure if he knew she was in the bed. But he must have, because she had just awoken from a terrifying nightmare. She must have cried out. He must have heard her. But why did he just stand there? Just then, she saw the figure move and she heard a sound, schiiiiccckkkkk! He lit a match. She could see his face. It was her husband. She cried out, “Oh my God! What are you doing there!? He said, “Don’t worry honey, everything’s going to be OK, I was in the other room and I heard you thrashing around in here. I’ve been standing here for quite awhile, just watching you. Are you OK now?” She let out a long sigh and said, “I was so scared, I thought you were an intruder! I just woke up from the most horrific nightmare and then I saw you standing there in the window and you scared the crap out of me. God, all I want to do is lay back down and go back to sleep. Will you please put out that cigarette and get into bed with me and hold me for awhile while I try to go back to sleep?” The man stubbed out his cigarette and came and sat on the bed next to his wife. “Honey” he said, “I can’t let you go back to sleep. You were never asleep and you didn’t have a nightmare. “What do you mean?” she asked. “You weren’t having a nightmare. We’re both dead.”

When Freckles boarded his time machine in Battery Park standing right next to the Eternal Flame, he hadn’t thought of bringing a diving-suit.

Upon arrival the water pressure almost squashed his head as he was gasping for air and inhaling a lungful of water, yet he made it to the surface where he stared at a steel-reinforced copper hand holding a torch.

With his eight inches wide blade of his old garden shovel he outlined the seven by three feet square in the moist ground.
He almost loved the preparations most.

Thanks to all future awarded crime writers!
Good stuff!

Ooops! My bad! I wrote a whole paragraph instead of just a sentence.

Sorry

@Kardamom Maybe, but that was fucking awesome. I got goosebumps in the end. Man, that rocked. :)

@Symbeline Thanks, I sat there reading the question for about 5 minutes and the idea finally popped into my head. I generally don’t write stories at all, maybe I should try some more.

Well, that little bit really sets the mood, not to mention that it invites the premise in a fun way. (going on the assumption that this story would be about a dead couple) Kinda reminds me of Beetlejuice, but way creepier. You should try your hand at a short story.

@Symbeline Yeah, that would be interesting. Beetlejuice was so funny!

After I wrote the bit I kind of thought about the 6th Sense too. For me, it was the horror of finding out that you are dead and there’s nothing you can do about it. So even when she’s having a nightmare, she’s actually inside the nightmare. It’s a never ending cycle of awful.

You’ll have to buy it to find that out!

@Kardamom Reminds me of Jacob’s Ladder…ecxept he finds a way out of it.

Anyways, if you ever do a continuation of that story, let me know?

@Symbeline I’ve never read Jacob’s Ladder. Will have to look into it. I will definitely let you know if I’m able to come up with some more story!