Published June 3, 2010
Enjoy. Please give critique. ^^
Prologue
***********
Day Falls, South Dakota
1:05 A.M., May 2
Mandy Tarin, age 27, living single with no children or pets. Head bashed against shower wall. No suspects or clues. Status- Unsolved.
2:00 P.M., May 11
Edgar Wittenberg, age 45, living in retirement with his wife Sherry. Hose sneaked into the house emitting poison gas. No suspects or clues. Status- Unsolved.
9:00 P.M., May 20
Daisy and Maya Hefburge, ages 20 and 21, a married lesbian couple. Throats slit with an unidetifyable knife. No suspects or clues. Status- Unsolved.
Kiera Reese snapped shut the case-file and threw it onto the desk of police chief Allan Grant. Slowly his eyes rose up to look at her. "What this time?" His voice was dry and tired.
Kiera spoke, her eyes narrowed. "Another report. From Day Falls this time." She waited for Officer Grant to speak, but when he didn't say anything, she continued. "Same dates, times, and methods as the murders here. But the victims- completely, it seems, random. The murderer seems to pick them out of nowhere- the people killed have nothing in common except for how they were murdered and when."
From behind her appeared Drake Kerman. Tall and blonde, his green eyes roamed over the report before he spoke. "And each murder is nine days apart."
Kiera turned around and nodded at Drake. "Right. So assuming this pattern continues, the next murder should be in the next 24 hours."
She looked expectantly towards Grant, her eyes surveying his emotionless face. After a few moments, he finally spoke. "I see," he said quietly.
"What are we going to do about it?" Drake asked the officer quietly.
"Nothing," Officer Grant said finally. "There's nothing we can do."
"We can try to stop the murderer! Put... officers on guard. Something," Kiera insisted.
"No," the officer said. "There's nothing more we can do. We have no clues. No suspects. And we've been ordered not to get involved."
Kiera turned towards Drake, and said quietly, "If he's not going to do anything..."
Drake finished the sentence. "Then you're going to."
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141,432 Literary Works • 674,412 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okayyy...this is an intriguing start that we have here. Its not exactly the typical sort of style since we have a sort of list here to start off with, but I find that I like this little change from the norm there. I think you've managed to do a pretty good job on that part and create a pretty intriguing sense of mystery by running down that list in that fashion so this is a fairly solid start.
Hmm....well this is certainly quite something here. I think you create a lovely bit of mystery there with this conversation. I think its a nice balance of exposition here and exploring sort of the dynamic that exists in this office along with who I assume are going to be somewhat major players in this story. It manages to pull off all of these tasks pretty neatly too, so I think on the whole we've got a really solid opening bit here that could make for a pretty neat start to a story.
Overall, I don't find myself having too much to point out here besides perhaps a slight lack of description of the area they are in. That could add a bit of an extra touch here, but besides that, this is a really solid opening.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
I think this has the potential to really get somewhere, my only thing is (and I think the first reviewer mentioned this) that you say they were all murdered the same way, but they weren't. Some slit throats, others poisoined...so how does that make their murders the same, except for the fact that they're all nine days apart? But other than that, a pretty compelling hook that has a lot of potential to lead up into a great story.
Keep writing,
~StoryWeaver
Hello!
The prologue is very well written,its just a bit confusing, If you say that all the suspects were murdered the same way,Then at the beginning were they all killed differently? That's my only problem. Other than that its great! and I look forward to reading the story!
~Lady Kix