Shadow of the Ponderosa – Michael Hodges

Read on June 18th,2019

Edition Details:
Format: E-book
Page Count:  12
ASIN:B07CH3X516
Price: 65Rs (Free on Kindle Unlimited)

Shadow of the Ponderosa - Michael Hodges
Shadow of the Ponderosa – Michael Hodges

First Sentence:
At first they didn’t seem real, those red eyes as big as dessert plates.

Story:
Jan sanders has been living in Montana from the past 10 years. After his wife died in an accident, he had found solace in the wilderness. He lives with his animals here.

But now somebody is out there to get him. Some one seems to be stalking him. It’s big, it can fly and it’s hidden among the Ponderosa pines.

Jan has been running away from life but now he doesn’t want to run any more. He has decided to take on whatever is coming for him. He has seen it and he knows that it’s not something from this earth.

What was stalking Jan? Why was it stalking him? Would Jan survive the attack?

Major Characters:
Jan Anders – A farmer
Higgin – Jan’s neighbour
Angie – Jan’s wife who had died
Asher Ames – a drunk driver

My take:

We humans have always had fear of the unknown.We have been sacred of the things about which we have no knowledge. We either revere them or we just tend to be scared of them. We have been like that from time immemorial. This story is also written along these lines.

The setting evokes a feeling of dread and one can see why Jan reacted the way he did. The story holds your interest and you keep reading because you want to know what’s going to happen to Jan.

The only thing that i didn’t like in the story was that the story seems to end before shedding any light on the creature.
What was the creature?  Where did it come from? Why was it doing, what it was doing?

These are  the questions that have been left unanswered. And thus it feels that something is missing. We are left to ponder over these questions.

I think i would have enjoyed reading the story more if these questions were answered in the end. It would have nicely wrapped up the story and given it a sense of completion.

Anyway, apart from this single little thing i enjoyed reading the story. If you are looking for a short thriller read with a tinge of horror in it then you can give it a try. It just takes few minutes to finish it.

Rating: 2.5/5

If you have read this story, then do tell me what were your thoughts about it.
If you want to read this short story, you can get it from the following links:
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विकास नैनवाल को अलग अलग तरह के विषयों पर लिखना पसंद है। साहित्य में गहरी रूचि है। एक बुक जर्नल नाम से एक वेब पत्रिका और दुईबात नाम से वह अपनी व्यक्तिगत वेबसाईट का संचालन भी करते हैं।

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