Excerpt (untitled)

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**Some obscene language and violence** This is the intro to a story I've started writing. Feedback would be appreciated and let me know if it's worth continuing. Thanks.


1
Suddenly, a knock at the door then,
“Get down.” The man whispered to the woman.
“What’s going on?” was her quiet retort.
“Get down.” Blinding light entered followed by shattering glass and the woman’s whimpering. A masked face peered through the hole that had been created through the window seconds earlier. It pulled out, silence ensued. She screamed.
“Shut up.” He said and she looked hurt. “I love you, just shut up.” Tears threatened to stream down her cheek but they didn’t. Instead, where tears would have been had she had time to release them, blood flowed instead. Now he screamed.
“Fu- Dammit you came for me not her! Why the hell did you have to take her? You disgusting fucks! Take me, take me not her!” He pleaded frantically as if it would change the situation and his wife’s death. Either way, his request was granted with a second bullet through his own forehead.
2
Sikes was a middle aged officer who hated his job. In fact, he quite nearly detested it. He thought about all of the better things he could be doing on a Saturday morning than dealing with two dead people who had no known relations to anybody in the county. He brightened up a little however when he delighted across the possibility that interviewing any witnesses might then fall outside of his jurisdiction. A day off? Then he saw the two ambulances and three other police cars in front of the house as he pulled up to it. Damn, not today. He veered his beater station wagon off to a halt and opened the door. Nobody had really told him how serious the scene was, nobody really liked him anyways. In almost every regard Sikes was a shitty cop. He had enlisted almost entirely due to the fact that no respectable business would hire him. Luckily, this police department was full of shitty cops. “So what happened this time?” Sikes asked another officer on the scene as he opened the trunk of his car to retrieve his Polaroid camera.
“Eh, it’s a pretty nasty one. Good shots. Head shots, lots of blood, sterile though.” The officer replied. Sikes mused at the officer’s conversational skills while not wanting to continue the discussion. I’ll see soon enough for myself. He ducked under the caution tape sprawled across the front door of the house and went inside. He scowled as his foot dipped in the goopy mess of un-cleaned floors. “Sterile-my-ass.” He said aloud to himself half-hoping the officer could hear him. He snapped photos of the woman first. Without the gigantic hole in her left eye he would have found her fairly attractive. Smooth white skin and ashy black hair. The eye that was still intact had gone white, and her fingertips had already blued. He snapped one last photo and moved on to the man. Point blank range shot to the forehead. To put it lightly, not much was left in its normal head-like shape. Normally strong stomached, Sikes had to hold back a gag. Good thing too, a female officer entered, and he had a reputation to keep.
“Their names are Patricia and Henry Lee.” She said, seemingly un-disturbed by the surrounding mess.
“Any leads on angry friends, co-workers, malicious ex-spouses?”
“Are you kidding? Well, as I was led to believe you were already informed the details I’ll keep this curt. Nothing, no witnesses, no misplaced DNA, nobody that seems like they would be aware of or care that these two are dead. Bless their hearts.” She said with a level of annoyance.
“Oh… well… I’ll do what I can.” As if he saying this would reassure her. She so obviously over-ranked him and frankly, he was no good at conversing with women, especially women with authority. Pulling out a sketchpad to pretend to take further notes, Sikes noticed a small locket around the girl’s neck. Silver with a diamond studded lock. Now if that wasn’t the most beautiful necklace he had ever seen, probably expensive too. He knelt down and caressed it admiringly then opened it. No picture, not even the white backdrop they often came newly packaged with. Holding up the locket for his accompanying officer to see, “Now who the hell doesn’t keep a photo in a locket like this?”
“Maybe she hadn’t got around to it.” She said, unconvinced of her own words. To this Sikes smiled. He loved being the badass. “Yeah or maybe the bastard in the picture killed them both and didn’t wanna be the lead.”
“Let’s not jump on tangents quite yet officer.” This perturbed him and brought his ego down. He hated being told what to do. That never used to happen when he worked freelance. But nobody really hired freelance detectives anyways. Not in a small town like Parkway. Shortly, a man in a white trench-coat entered and said,
“Detective Sikes, Rachel, we’re going to take the bodies for an Autopsy. You done here?”
“Yeah go ahead.” Only Rachel replied, Sikes nodded.
3.




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Points 4624
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Hey I'm Amie and I'll be your reviewer today :)

I'll just dive right in...

Firstly, the way you've wrote it at the minute seems very unattached, like you're listing what's happening and in doing so you're avoiding setting any kind of mood or atmosphere, which is always important.

You're opening line has to be the hook and remember that you don't have to always say things like 'then.'

Try something along the lines of 'Suddenly there was a tremendous thudding on the door,

"Get down" The man whispered.
"What's going on?" the woman said.

I think simple additions here have created tension and atmosphere. Having someone simply knocking on the door makes the reader wonder why on earth the man and woman are afraid.

One thing I've learned about writing is the value of the word 'said' readers tend to overlook it and therefore the dialogue flows much more freely, you should bear this in mind. Use alternatives rarely and only when essential.

At the minute it all feels rushed, like you're trying to write sentences short, quick and to the point. They shouldn't be, hence why it feels like a list. Try lengthening out the sentences, mkaing them more descriptive and visual - help you're readers to see and feel exactly what's happening.

You seem to grasp some of this in chapter two and it reads much nicer. I'm enjoying reading this and I think you should definitely keep writing, I'm so intrigued to see what happens next and who the couple were and why they were murdered :)

Let me know when you add you're next chapters, I'd love to read and review for you!
Check out my novel My Life of Insignificance

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Gender Female
Points 1320
Reviews 37
Worth continuing? Defintley.
You need to find your writing style, your writing like its facts. The death didn't seem emotional...MORE EMOTION!!!!
Goodluck!!!!!
"You can't find another me, but I can find a million yous."

"My shadow followed when you walked away and ever since that day my life has never been the same"



Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
— Joseph Campbell