Genre: Short Story – Horror, Fiction
Author: Kenny Matthews; Freelance Writer
Methods: Developmental editing, proofreading, line editing, beta reading.
Techniques: Suggested structural editing for improved flow of character details and general characterization. Suggested minor cuts for a cleaner, more focused overall piece. Provided detailed final notes, giving author my thoughts not only as an editor but also as a beta reader.
Outcomes: Final edits resulted in a more cohesive, tightly written piece that skillfully utilized genre tropes and expectations to deliver a deeply evocative and emotional story.
Timeline: Edit was a single day project, allowing for author to dive back into the work almost immediately.
Software: The original manuscript and the edit were developed in Microsoft Word, with changes tracked and highlighted comments for additional notes.

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Eric’s soft steps barely disturbed the dust on the hardwood floor. He wore jeans, a t-shirt, and an olive green, canvas backpack. Sunlight filtered through the dirty hall windows. Motes of dust floated across the light like tiny skydivers . There should have been heavy, blue curtains hanging over the glass, but he couldn’t stand to turn on the lights. He could see the spot in the yard where he’d put the curtains his mother and father had recently purchased. They’d been buried by Eric. ¹ He knew his mother loved those curtains and would have hated the house this way. It seemed like such a small thing. That didn’t matter now.

Eric’s mother was notorious for leaving the light on when she left a room, and his father was notorious for losing his cool when she did. Eric used to follow his mother from room to room turning off the lights that she’d leave on. His father had yelled at his mother once for her “frivolousness.” Eric had looked the word up, and then took it on himself to manage his mother’s frivolousness, taking to following his mother around from room to room, turning off the lights that she’d leave on.² He would navigate the house using peripheral lighting. That habit held through everything.³⁴ There were times, while he was turning off lights, that Eric would forget that Lucy⁵ was in a room. She would sit in the dark and cry.

Eric would say, “The light’s on in the next room, dummy. Just go in there.”
His sister would never answer him, she’d just sit in the dark and cry. She looked and cried a lot like their mother. Most people are hideous when they cry, but his mother and sister were beautiful. He knew it was strange to miss crying. Lucy hated⁶ the dark, vegetables, and getting dirty. The kitchen was the only room in the house with a light on now.

Eric hated the way the kitchen smelled, but he was starving. He had stayed out as long as he could, but his stomach was cramping. It felt like his stomach was trying to eat itself. He closed his eyes and walked into the kitchen, not opening his eyes them until he bumped into the island in the middle of the room⁷. Shuffling to the right along the island, he made his way to the cupboard. The canned foods were on the top shelf, so he had to pull a chair over. He pulled down cans of tuna, fruit, and evaporated milk and put them in the backpack beside Lucy’s favorite Barbie. Eric left a can of peaches on the counter. He grabbed the can opener from the drawer and put it in the backpack’s front pocket where his father’s watch and his mother’s wedding ring rode. He would use the electric can opener now, but he would need the other for when he left.⁸

Picking up the can of peaches, Eric made his way to the electric can opener. He put the can under the hanging magnet. The motor broke the silence with a violent tearing. Eric cringed, and then looked around apprehensively. The sound felt wrong. His chest was tight, but nothing happened. Yes, it was past time that he left. Soon enough.

Throwing the backpack’s straps over his shoulders, he picked up the can of peaches and walked to the back door. He’d forced himself to go into the kitchen for the food, but he couldn’t eat in there. The backpack felt heavy, but the canned food wouldn’t last him long. He would have to figure something out. Hunting wasn’t an option at the moment.

“We aren’t rednecks, son,” his father had said when Eric had asked to go hunting with his classmate Tanner. Eric’s grandfather was an avid hunter, but Eric’s father was strongly opposed to it and hadn’t hunted since well before Eric was born. Eric knew enough about hunting to know that he was painfully ignorant. His father had never needed to hunt a day in his life. Eric would.⁹

Pushing the concern aside, he stepped out the backdoor from the kitchen and made his way to his stump under the live oak. It was hot and sticky outside, but it was nice to be under the sky. For weeks he’d been unwilling to go back outside¹⁰, but he’d made his choices. A cricket had been chirping nearby, but had quieted as the boy moved up to the stump. He slid the straps of the backpack off his shoulders and sat down. He’d forgotten to get a fork from the kitchen, so he started pulling out slices with his fingers. They were a little bit dirty, but the fruit was delicious. He finished the can quickly and drank the syrup left behind. The cramps had stopped, but he wanted more. He knew he should wait. There wasn’t much food in his backpack, and no one was coming to help. He’d called everyone he knew. The phones were working, but no one was answering.

#

Eric’s father had been getting sick for a while before anyone noticed. He had continued working even after the reports came in of hundreds being hospitalized, and he’d laughed at Eric’s mother when she suggested that he see a doctor.
“The news is playing this up to scare us. I’m not saying that it isn’t bad. A lot of homeless and street trash are getting hit hard, but we’ll be fine,” he said.
The schools had all shut down and the news had talked about the pandemic for a while. Eric had watched intently at first, but he soon grew tired of the same story. The disease ran a simple course. It started with a cough, then the fever, then the shakes, and then the blood. Eric’s mother started coughing when his father started shaking, but she caught up before too long.
“Take care of Lu,” she said before the end.
“I will, Mother,” he said.
She laughed and looked at him with her blue, dying eyes.
“Just once. Call me ‘Mom.’”
“I will, Mom .”

After a time, Eric stood and put the backpack on again. He wiped his puffy red eyes on his arm and made for the garage. Once inside, Eric found the five-gallon gas can on a side shelf. It was half empty, but he still had to carry it with two hands and it sloshed around as he took awkward steps back toward the house.
“Dang it,” he said.
He sat the can down, went back to the garage, and started looking through drawers for a lighter, but he only found a book of matches. He slid them into the breast pocket of his shirt, returned to the gas can, picked it up, and made for the house.

After his parents, things had been hard. Lucy was young and needed a lot of attention. Eric had watched her before for small amounts of time, but taking care of her for days on end was different. There wasn’t a choice, however, she was his little sister. He was the big brother, and he’d take care of her like his mother had told him. Then Lucy started coughing. She’d follow him from room to room, walking slowly, coughing and shaking. They would fall asleep curled up together on the couch, and each night he prayed that he’d start coughing too. He hadn’t. Lucy got worse. They were getting¹¹ cereal when she stopped coughing.¹²

#

Inside the kitchen, Lucy was where she had fallen. Her brown hair covered her face, and that which made things a little easier, but it was hard to look at her. His eyes were burning. He’d have to hurry. Determined steps brought him to his sister’s body. This was as close to her as he had been in days. He brought the neck of his t-shirt up over his nose in an attempt to block out some of the smell.

“I’m sorry, Lu,” he said.

He felt silly talking to her since she was dead, but he had to say something. People had backyard funerals for their stupid pets—said a prayer and buried a fucking¹³ cat they’d had for two days. His little sister deserved a few words at least. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he started to walk away, but stopped.

“I love you. I didn’t tell you that much.”

He picked up the gas can and dumped the remainder of its contents onto the kitchen floor, making a trail to the back door. The fumes distorted the air above the trail of gas and burned his eyes and nostrils. He dropped the can and pulled out the matches. The match lit on the third try. The highway wasn’t too far away and he would make for it. It would probably be safest. The fire would be seen for miles. He’d seen on TV that the Vikings had burned their dead. They would pile up wood, put their dead on top, and burn them. He didn’t think he was Viking, but he couldn’t bury Lucy. She hated getting dirty.

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Final Thoughts

It’s hard to get through the emotion in the story in order to find inconsistencies or questions. The heartbreak is just so heavy and devastating, and truly wonderfully written. After a few reads, though, some issues that might be worth tackling:

Eric’s age. Overall, I love the choice you made to not outright state his or Lucy’s ages. It really helps it feel like it’s from a close 3rd POV, and it’s one of the things that makes him feel so young. Another thing you did was make him feel young physically, but emotionally matured through trauma. His thoughts on protecting his mother from his dad’s anger, his sense of duty to lucy, his reluctance to cry, his decision to burn Lucy at the end as a proper farewell all give him a feeling of emotional maturity. His stature, needing to use a chair to reach the cupboard, his language (calling his little sister “dummy”), his difficulty carrying the gas can and his backpack, all lead to him feeling physically very young. I think the only place where there may be a discrepancy is in the implication that he buried his parents in the yard. That would be extremely difficult for one person in general, adult or otherwise. Perhaps something like he covered them with the curtains in their room and kept the room closed off would be more believable? There is also the question of how did he bury them while caring for Lucy?

I went ahead and suggested cutting the bit about hunting. It was good characterization for the father, but it didn’t really give us new information about him that we didn’t already know. It also gave some information about Eric – at least that he’s young enough to still be in school, but we also get that information elsewhere throughout the story. I think it’s good to show that he’s thinking about how he’s going to survive, but that’s also shown through him packing up his backpack and deciding to head to the highway.

Some ending notes – the relationship between Eric and Lucy is written absolutely beautifully. You know that he loves her dearly and feels obligated as her big brother to protect her, but you can tell that there isn’t a whole lot of substance to their relationship since she is so very young. You wrote that really, really well.
Another piece that was particularly effective was your descriptions. You use every sense to describe within the story – He closes his eyes before going into the kitchen. He covers his nose with his shirt later because the smell is so strong. He struggles with the weight of his backpack; the taste of the peaches is sweet. You paint the story beautifully.

Notes

1. On the first read, this was difficult to make sense of. On the second read it makes much more sense, but it might be a good idea to reword for clarity here.
   I like the detail that he couldn’t stand turning on the lights, and also that the curtains were used to wrap and bury his parents in the yard.
   Am I correct in reading it that way? If so, his dislike for the lighting wouldn’t actually matter here, since even if he wanted to use the lights he couldn’t cover the windows anyway.
    A suggestion: “There should have been heavy, blue curtains hanging over the glass. He could see the spot in the yard where he’d buried them.” (‘them’ here for the initial read just speaks to the curtains, but we know later that it means his parents too)
   ↩︎
2. This makes the sentence quite long for the style of writing you have throughout the piece, so I’m not super fond of this edit. I do think that moving the sentence about Eric following his mother around to turn off the lights works better here, but you might consider fiddling with the wording and sentence structure a bit so it fits better.
    “Eric had looked the word up, then took it upon himself to manage his mother’s frivolousness. He’d often follow her from room to room, turning the lights off that she’d leave on.” Maybe? ↩︎
3. Did he do this to avoid his dad’s yelling being directed at him? ↩︎
4. If its possible, I’d love to see this moved further into the story to let the connection with the title hit harder for the reader. ↩︎
5. I really like that you don’t give the ages of Lucy or Eric. On the first read, I think I initially saw Eric as maybe late teens. As I finished, and am reading through a second time, he’s coming across as much younger, maybe as young as 10 or 12. (On that note, if he is that young, would he have been able to bury his parents? Could he have dragged them outside, even with the help of putting them on the curtains?) Lucy, initially, I saw as about 10 but on the second read she’s coming across as much younger, possibly 2 or 3. Old enough to be walking but hardly talking (especially as a younger sibling). Alluding to their young ages without stating them outright is a fantastic choice in this piece. ↩︎
6. This sentence is vital and gives important information for the story’s conclusion, but it doesn’t fit here very well. Something like “But his mother and sister were beautiful. Lucy was always crying for one reason or another. It was dark, she didn’t want to eat her vegetables, her dress had gotten dirty. He knew it was strange to miss crying.”
    Might consider reorganizing it so that it’s something like “Lucy was always crying for one reason or another. Her dress had gotten dirty, she didn’t want to eat her vegetables, it was too dark. The kitchen was the only room in the house with a light on now.”
    On an initial read that final sentence doesn’t really belong, it feels weird. But with the reorganized structure, the reader can understand that the light on in the kitchen somehow has to do with Lucy hating the dark. (even though they don’t know why). ↩︎
7. This choice, to have him keep his eyes closed in the kitchen is so strong. Confusing at first but when the reader realizes later why, it hits real well. ↩︎
8. This paragraph could be split into two – your paragraphs tend to be about half this size, so it would help keep the flow consistent. ↩︎
9. I really like this information, but it could be cut and I don’t think anything really would be lost in the story. ↩︎
10. Weeks since he buried his parents? ↩︎
11. Consider a different verb, maybe “making”? ↩︎
12. I teared up at this point and the “call me mom” part on all 3 reads. Very effective and heartbreaking. ↩︎
13. I love the use of strong language here for him, it really shows his mindset and heartache, not to mention gives him that “aged through life not time” kinda feeling ↩︎