Anywhere But Here: A Short Horror Story

What tries to be spine-tingling horror ends up being lukewarm suspense. Though the premise is original – college student Taren suffers from night terrors and sleep paralysis stemming from narcolepsy — Anywhere but Here doesn’t really go anywhere. Given that it is a short story, character development is difficult, but Greene seems to do a fairly good job with depicting the friendships Taren has with his roommates. However, he is a bit prosaic by including hot, sexy girlfriend, Morgan. The author would’ve done well by cutting a few of the repetitive night terror scenes and giving more attention to Taren’s background. And with awkward phrasing, clichés, and an overflow of adjectives, the writing could use some polishing.

Anywhere but Here would seem to play well as a Twilight Zone episode. I wanted to like this because good horror is hard to find. Unfortunately, there isn’t much that’s scary about it. With quite a bit of tweaking, deeper character development, and an expanded storyline, Greene’s short story could potentially be turned into a full-length horror novel.