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Good job on not showing the “friend” for a while. The suspense is good. Mentioning the snake made me wonder if it was tied to the monster, and then the ugliness and the burning had me wondering what sort of monster we were dealing with. I like the gradual pace of introducing characters, and that you attach them to a genre archetype so the reader hopefully doesn’t confuse people despite them only being briefly on page at first.

I think you could keep the functionality of the scene introducing the artist and build on the “letting him know she’s single” while making it less cheesy like this:

HER: Wendy Tempest
HIM: *Eyebrows raise* Tempest? That’s a unique name. Where’s it from?
HER: It was my ex-husband’s, actually. His family was from…
or,
HIM: *Eyebrows raise* Tempest? How dynamic.
HER: Yeah, I hated leaving it behind when I married my ex-husband…

Wendy seems waaay too chill about the scene with the hair ties. I think most people in that situation would think “there’s a child abductor hiding in the woods, watching the children and somehow got my daughter over here, trusting him, letting him put his filthy hands all over her hair.”

Which, structurally, would probably put the very next scene in the police station, with Wendy anxiously asking the cops to get to the bottom of this. I don’t at all believe that Wendy would be wondering whether her daughter is just making up stories or hanging out with an adult.

Okay… Reading the next scene, it seems that Wendy didn’t see anyone, so she doesn’t really believe there was a person there? You should definitely focus in on the fact that there should have been no way for Wendy to miss someone if they were there, like it was in a clearing with very thin trees beyond it or something like that. So, the emotional part of her knows something’s very wrong while the rational part of her is like “yeah better call the cops,” and then when whichever officer they do send in response sees not a single sign that an adult besides Wendy was there.

“hi. I was just walking by, but I couldn’t help but notice that your keys are still in your car.”

Is-is that a thing people make a habit of, looking into their neighbors’ cars?

“This was so much slower and nicer than how she and Aaron first got together, and she was taking this as a good sign.”

I’m a little terrified of what happened with Aaron if “asking someone out in the second conversation you ever have with someone” is slow. Though he does seem like a nice lad. Which is probably sinister red herring-ing.

“Maybe a movie?”

Maaaybe consider giving a specific movie name (fake or real) to give a bit more characterization to the two of them? It could range from “do you like historical stuff?” to “there’s a tiny indie theater an hour away” to “half price tickets at midnight, that too late?” to “they’re doing a Lord of the Rings marathon in the little mom and pop theater downtown,” etc.

Wendy mentioning “this is the second mystery injury” aloud seems kind of on the nose.

If Ralph lives next door, why is Olivia only now seeing he drives a Mustang? Also, you could do a cute little bit where Ralph makes a tremendous show about driving all of twenty feet or whatever into her driveway and opening the door, saying something about how the traffic was terrible on the drive over.

“I told my friend we live in the orange house,”

“So, where’s Daphne?”

Asking if she went to bed okay works better.

Good job having escalation at the 50% mark. Now he’s inside the house!

And I really like the detail about her usually having the door open and it now being shut.

‘She seized the doorknob, commanding, “Alright, mister, get out now!”’

That was pretty corny though >.>

“head over heels. She flipped over the foot of the bed,”

Again, that’s more comical than anything. You had great tension and you dropped it with silliness. If you wanted to keep the tone, you could have her reach her hand reach toward the knob, not trying to alert whoever is inside, planning on just letting loose and stabbing with the element of surprise, only to have the door slam her in the face and knock her down, cracking her head on the bed as she goes down, so she gets some head trauma that flashes her vision, preventing her from seeing who she can hear is running away… And now she’s hurt and at a further disadvantage, so the tension ramps higher.

Again, for the sake of believability, knowing there’s a home invader in the house, would it make more sense for Wendy to try to lock them into the room and then try to open the bedroom window so Daphne can run to the neighbor’s house and call 911? You could even lead that into Wendy fumbling with the latch and then freezing as Daphne says “Don’t be scared…” to turn and see the friend in the locked room with them.

‘“What did you mean by monster?” he asked as Wendy conversed with the person on the 911 call. “I’m looking at your kitchen, and I don’t see anything.”’

Wouldn’t the logical conclusion be “whatever home invader she’s talking about either ran away or is in another room” than “I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

‘One of the officers said, “Alright, sir, did you see where he went?”’

First, I wouldn’t expect to see police any sooner than 6 or so minutes, and that could be pretty low depending on the area. Second, this seems a little nonchalant. You’re not describing it as focused calm, like emergency responders making sure protocol is focused despite the panic, nor as a frantic “Where? What did he look like? Was he on foot or in a car?”

‘“What are you doing?” Wendy retorted, “I’m going after him.”’

Pretty sure the cops would be taking someone in to make a formal statement and get all the information they could at this point… And Ralph, too.

“Well, let’s talk about something else. Who’s your daughter’s father?”

Wrooooooooooooooooooooong time, bud.

‘He defended, “Sorry, I just meant to distract you. Is it working?”’

This guy just saw a literal horror monster kidnap his neighbor. How is he not soiling himself right now?

So, in the end, this was kind of an ET? I like the concept. Structurally I feel like Olivia just kind of vanished from the story. Wendy should probably call Olivia and ask her to meet them at the school, but then they see the monster and chase after it before she gets there, and in the end it’s Olivia who shoots the creature after they catch up with it.

In general, as I kept obnoxiously mentioning, Wendy’s response to all this as well as the police’s and the hospital’s seems unbelievable. You could get around the police just letting them go from a crime scene by having Wendy realize the monster must be at the park after calling, and have her and Ralph leave before the cops show up.

Though there definitely needs to be more of a presence of police procedure after the fact. Maybe the monster could turn into a dude before the paramedics get there, and then they end up stationing a guard outside his hospital room, planning on taking him to jail after he can be released, and Wendy wonders what she’s going to do about it while sitting on a bench outside the hospital, only to see the monster in his human form walk out, maybe take her hand in an awkward imitation of a handshake, and then leave?

I think Ralph as an artist needs to have something of a payoff too. Maybe you could have an epilogue a year later with him teaching Daphne how to paint–not necessarily “oh they’re married” but showing they’re at least good friends.

Thanks for sharing with us. I hope some of this was helpful.