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Corporate Murder - Resubmission
By
Shadowwritr
| Posted:
09 May 2009
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Eerie green, she thought. Alex clutched the steering wheel of the Cutlass Supreme as the car crawled down the highway. Above, thunder roared, lightening careened, and hail plunged from the early morning sky. Ping. Ping. Thump. Alex ducked and weaved as each hail stone collided with the windshield and top of the car. Thunderstorms, hail producing and tornado spawning, lashed out against her and made driving any further treacherous.
"Make sure you are there early," Alex spewed out the words of her boss inside what little shelter she had.
"The IRS needs that copy."
Alex squinted through the windshield, visibility plummeted as the water coated the windshield faster than the wipers worked. The concrete shelter of the overpass shown for a brief moment as lightening struck. Ping. Thump. Thump. She eased the car to the right and stopped under the overpass and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Cover should be found as quickly as possible," the weather man on the radio droned.
"Really!" Alex hissed to the bodiless man.
"Go to the interior of the house. The safest places are a closet, a room with no windows.."
Static poured from the speakers. Alex switched station after station the constant hum of static blared on.
"I'm going to die, all because the IRS needs the copies of the tax returns and the IDRs (Information Document Request) to go with them."
Lightening and thunder continued to parley with each other. The wind rocked the car with ever increasing vigor.
"Ugh!" Alex exclaimed in frustration with the reception of the radio. She pushed the CD player button. Papa Roach blared from the speakers which did little to calm her frayed nerves. Getting away with murder would feel really good right now, Alex thought as her mind conjured up a blank face with a unisex body that had IRS embedded on the clothing it wore. Her snarled grin widened as the fantasy played inside her mind.
Headlights approached from behind. "Seems, I'm not the only one who didn't watch the news last night and this morning."
The maroon car pulled around hers and came to a stop a few feet in front of her own. Alex shook her head at the shattered back glass. The storm showed its power for destruction.
"What a lovely way to start out the day. Welcome to tornado season."
Alex watch the ice fall to the ground, some shattered on impact, some bounced in erratic directions, others rolled under the shelter of the overpass. She waited while she drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel for that moment. The moment of a lull, so she could make it the last three miles to the offices of Delaney Crafts Inc.
She was ready to give up the position of administrative assistant to the Vice President of the Tax Department. Mr. Daniels, on the other hand, had contracted with the temporary agency (SCA Staffing) for four more weeks due to the need that he had not found a suitable replacement. Alex knew the reason to be unfounded; the rumors of the admin network inside the offices confirmed her suspicion. Mr. Daniels idea of a suitable replacement meant he hadn't found the right type of woman, one who knew how to cover for his indiscretions. She had trained several new recruits, each one failed to deliver, thus Mr. Daniels reason for retaining her services.
The hail slacked off, the rate that it fell increased in duration. Alex noticed her chance of leaving her concrete haven.
"Okay Gertie," Alex patted the dash of the car. "Let's make it there in one piece and I promise to give you the best oil money can buy."
Alex turned the wheel to go around the maroon car and eased the car forward. She passed slowly, glanced over and looked inside the other vehicle. The jarring familiarity of the man's chiseled face sent a shiver down her spine that even the storm couldn't cause. This wasn't the second or third time she had seen that face. It was an occurrence that Alex noticed with more frequency; a phantom that appeared when it wanted to be noticed.
Her foot pushed the gas pedal down, the squeal of spinning metal and rubber filled the underpass. Distance and safety of a secured building loomed to the forefront of her mind. Not surprisingly, copying tax returns and IDRs for the IRS was well worth driving through the storm that could suddenly spawn a tornado with a mere whim from the gods.
All articles on this website by
Shadowwritr are copyright ©Shadowwritr and should not be reproduced
without the author's prior written consent. All opinions are the opinions of their
respective authors and are not necessarily the opinions of The Writers' Circle.
| Comments | |
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Loved the idea of lightning and thunder parleying with each other - like they are enemies showing each others strengths off until a truce can be decided?
In the line 'the wind gusted..' gusted doesn't sound right.
With the line about the hail becoming nonexistent I think it needs to be 'nonexistence'.
When she sees the face of the man you probably need to cut out the second 'or the'.
Just tiny little things in an otherwise very interesting start - by the way love the first two words as an opening.
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You asked for a brutal review. ^_^
"Eerie green?" What is eerie green?
Your use of the pronoun "it" in the last sentence of the first paragraph seems off. Maybe rewording the last two sentences like this so "it" doesn't sound lost and people are not confused on what it is. [Hail wasn't unusual with a storm like this one; though, traveling was the last thing anyone wanted to do inside it. (or) Hail wasn't unusual with a storm like this one, but traveling threw it was the last thing anyone wanted to do.]
The most common way an author write dialog in this format. "Make sure you are there early," Alex spewed out. (Notice the period was changed to a comma and the sentence that follows the parenthesis continues the sentence.) Question marks and explanation points do not follow this style format.
"What are you talking about?" Ruminate81 asked completely confused.
"I'm saying the most common," Ruminate81 paused briefly to find the best word, "formatting technique uses the comma at the end of speech and continues into who said it and how directly after."
"I don't want to write like that."
Notice no comma in that line directly above. That is because there is no descriptive following the statement.
"No." He stated.
"True." He said.
No comma for short sentences or fragmented sentence dialog.
"Are you sure about this? It looks weird to me." He said unsure about the information.
No comma use at the end for multiple sentences.
Don't use two spaces after a period. When lines are put into justified format a double space can create a gigantic gap that look awkward.
Many of your adjectives need to be revised. If you are using Word place the cursor over some of your adjectives and hold shift and press F7. This will pull up a thesaurus of words related to the word you selected. You should notice from the common words that the one you used probably doesn't work right.
I'll give one example of a bad choice in adjective use. [The hail that fell reached a level of almost nonexistent in hard falling rain.] Almost nonexistent = almost does not exist, but yet it is happening and earlier you said "Hail wasn't unusual with a storm like this one." You can press shift F7 over nonexistent and see absent, missing, unreal, fictional, and imaginary. None of these words describe the type of rain/hail that is happening.
Maybe find another word, or just rewrite the sentence to remove the adjective, put it someplace else, or do both. I suggest something like this. (The hail storm's damage and volume had now reached an all time high, most likely breaking every record in existence for the area.)
I don't normally point out style or grammar specifically because sometimes I pay attention and use it and other times I'm just writing quick to get a quick fix. I have posted both of these types on here.
I suggest you take your writing and read it out loud and a pace you talk. If you get tongue tied look at the sentence and find out what threw you off. Many of your sentences are missing a word, or have an extra word. Example time: "Not surprisingly, copying tax returns and IDRs for IRS (was) well worth driving through the storm that could spawn a tornado (suddenly) on (the) whim of the gods." Three words make this sentence flow, but take them out and it is choppy and incomplete.
Okay, I'm finished. Don't hate me! You wanted a brutal review.
Other than the many grammatical problems, your description of the bad weather was enjoyable to read. You know you're in trouble when the windshields of cars are breaking!
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Good descriptions of the weather! I wouldn't want to be caught in that storm. The face of the man in the maroon car intrigued me...I'd love to see where this is going.
Happy writing! ;)
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Okay, back again. I think it turned out better this time around.
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Kudos
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From 4 votes
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Total posts: 32
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Roles:
Writer
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Dallas, UNITED STATES
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I'm 38, I've been writing since high school. I have an over active imagination.
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