Master of (young adult) horror R.L. Stine spent Tuesday evening tweeting out an original, short story. It’s about a sandwich, required 14 tweets to flesh out, and is generally delightful. The gimmick is timely, sharply executed, and it’s one he’s pulled before. I’ll hang up and listen.
I am going to try to write a story live on Twitter now. The story is called “What’s In My Sandwich?”…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
People call me a loser, but that’s going to change. I was in a little diner downtown and I ordered an egg salad sandwich…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..I was about to bite down on it when I noticed something moving in the egg salad. Was I imagining it? No…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..I saw a hairy, three-fingered claw push a clump of egg out of the way. I saw two round black eyes. A fur-covered face…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..The creature poked out of the sandwich, sending egg salad tumbling onto the plate. It was the size of a fat beetle…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..But it wasn’t an insect. It had a furry head and eyes that peered into mine. Before I could react, a second creature poked out…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..And then a third. My sandwich was infested. My stomach lurched. “Is everything okay?” the waitress asked…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..”Yes. Fine,” I said. “Could you wrap this sandwich to go?” Finding hairy things in your sandwich is gross…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..But I knew this sandwich would make me a winner. The sandwich would turn my life around…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..Discovering a new life form had to make me rich. I carried the sandwich home carefully and set it on a table…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..I didn’t hear my son Willy come home. When I finally saw him, he had egg salad on his face…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..Yes, he ate the sandwich. If only I could have stopped him. Now the creatures are biting holes in his stomach…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..They are biting holes in Willy from the inside, poking their furry heads out of his stomach, chewing his flesh…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..Okay. A minor setback. But I’m not giving up. Willy is screaming in agony. The poor guy is terrified…
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
..I’m so excited. Where is my camera? Willy is going to make me rich. ##
— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) October 29, 2014
The 71-year-old Goosebumps writer has sold 400 million books and also co-created the underrated Eureeka’s Castle. But he’s yet to match the blistering highs and harrowing turns of 1994’s immortal Ghost Beach.
Photo via John Dalton/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
