One Line Horror#2
I’ve got the full quote of the line from Aliens:
“We’d better get back ’cause it’ll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night… mostly. ”
Newt, a little girl, is the sole survivor on a planet of human settlers that has been ravaged by the aliens. Very spooky in context. But lose that context and what have we got? Let’s break it down.
We have a ‘they’. This is, of course, quite ambiguous and gets our minds racing: Who or what is ‘they’? They could be supernatural creatures, they could be human or animal. Because of the night-time reference, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine ‘they’ might even be vampires. That the monster was, as a matter of fact, one of the most terrible imagined (for its time) is neither here nor there. The implication is that these guys come at night — when humans are always vulnerable — and that they are really very bad news.
The ‘mostly’ fills us with an unexplained dread, too. Not only do we have an unimaginable terror running around in the dark that we must, simply must, hide from, that terror could actually come in the day-time too. No vampire, this, eh?
That’s my take, anyway. Discussion always welcome.
I was thinking of what a fellow writer said to me, too, about thrillers needing that horror kick. Indeed, the thriller kick is nearly always something that could have, or has, happened in reality: the serial killer’s history; the torturer’s den; the stalking of another. Which brings to mind the opening line of the first novel I ever wrote, Razor. Though I classify the novel as a dark fantasy/horror, my beta readers always assumed it was a thriller until half-way through the opening chapter. Here’s the line:
“Raul watched the man who watched the children.”
So, your turn now — why is it scary?
…Or not, as the case may be. 
