Sample of my work:
At the end of a dark street on a tiny, lamp-lit porch, a stranger waited to be let inside. He stood with his hands in his jean pockets, his face concealed by a hooded sweatshirt. Next door, Alice Freemont watched from behind separated blinds, wondering if her neighbors, the Harris’s, would answer the door.
Alice glanced at the living room clock to confirm the time. 8:47 p.m. Too damn late for anyone to be knocking on people’s doors.
Alice knew the Harris’s well, for forty-some years in fact. She knew their children too, and this person didn’t look like any of them.
Tall and lean, the stranger gave the impression of a teenager. Probably up to no good. Alice half-expected to see some of his buddies hiding in the Harris’s bushes, waiting to commit some sort of prank. After scrutinizing the shadows however, she concluded that he was alone.
Suddenly, Alice discovered that the stranger was staring in her direction. Her first instinct was to step backward but she resisted, afraid that he might notice the movement of the blinds dropping back into alignment. In her eighty-one years she had become quite adept at snooping and therefore had been careful to turn out the lamp in the room before going to the window; failing to have done so would cast her silhouette against the blinds and given away her presence.
Alice couldn’t quite see into the recess of the hood, but she thought she detected a glassy reflection where the eyes should be. Sunglasses, maybe. That made this event all the more suspicious. Why on earth would anyone be wearing sunglasses at night?
A penetrating chill ran through her elderly frame as the stranger held his glare. Alice sensed that he somehow knew she was there, behind the blinds. She could almost feel his eyes on her.
Mr. Biggs, her chocolate lab, raised his head off of the couch. His ears were in alert-position and he growled.