Chpt. 2

Luke’s car sped through the streets ignoring traffic signals and nearly giving Madeline a heart attack at every four way intersection he ran through.

“Luke, can you please tell me what’s going on?” She asked angrily. Luke slowly decelerated to the proper speed limit.
“I didn’t want to hang around there anymore.” Luke stated in a hardly controlled voice.
“Well, yeah! I could tell that from you speeding away from the place at ninety-five miles an hour!” Madeline cooled her voice. “You normally don’t lose your cool like that, Luke, and it scares me, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be hanging around just in case the girl is in the background taking faces to memory.”
“Why would she?” Luke’s cell phone rang and he jumped at the sound. He quickly fumbled his cell out of his pants pocket and answered. Madeline watched his expression grow dim and he finally hung up. “What is it?”
“That was the chief. He said he wants to speak with me.” A bright light in his rear view mirror made him speed up but the vehicle behind him kept pace with him. He slowed to let the vehicle pass. As it passed Luke’s car another appeared behind him again and the car that was now in front of him slowed. “What the hell?” A third vehicle pulled up, suddenly, alongside the car.
“Do you think these guys are the ones who you said will stop us at any cost?” Luke’s car was boxed in with the only opening being off the road way and into the grass.
“Probably.” Luke abruptly stomped on the gas pedal and rammed the black SUV in front and then hit the black car to his side. The act left a small opening in between the two vehicles and Luke sped through. Luke’s car quickly reached its top speed on the open road but the other three cars seemed to easily keep pursuit. “Madeline, I’m going to need you to take out at least one of those cars.” Luke said, his eyes constantly shifting between the road in front of him and the rear view mirror.
“How am I supposed to do that? I wasn‘t issued a gun or an RPG.” Madeline yelled, obviously in a panicked state.
“You haven’t been assigned a handgun yet?” Luke asked hysterically.

“Well, I haven’t exactly formed a fond relationship with weapons, okay?”

“There’s a pistol underneath my seat. Just grab it and shoot at their fastest vehicle! Anything to get them off our tail.” Madeline reached for the gun on the underside of Luke’s seat, being careful not to touch him for fear of him losing control of the car. After she grabbed the weapon she looked back behind their car. The only experience Madeline had in shooting a gun was at arcades and at basic training. She personally hated the things so she never really tried at qualifying to get one.
“Luke, it looks like all of their vehicles are easily keeping up with us.” One of the vehicles was starting to pull up alongside the car. Madeline quickly crawled to the back seat and opened the window.
“Hurry! I think they’re going to ram us off the road.” Madeline took aim and shot at the tires off the SUV. One of the bullets hit and the tire was instantly ripped to shreds. The vehicle tried to turn and but instead went into doing barrel rolls. The other two vehicles swerved clear of the rolling wreckage dwindling Madeline’s hopes of taking two birds with one stone.
“I got one of th-” Madeline’s triumphant rant was cut short when shots flared out from the car behind them. Luke quickly stepped on the breaks and was behind the two pursuers after they swerved to avoid Luke’s vehicle. Madeline shot into the left car’s tank several times and was rewarded when the back end blew up into flames making the vehicle flip over onto it’s roof. Luke and the last car approached a bridge and the last black motor vehicle started ramming into him trying to force his car off the road and into the river several stories below.
“Moron.” Luke said under his breath and again stepped on the breaks just when the black car tried to ram him again. Luke’s car tail ended the pursuer and made it spin off the road just as Luke’s car made it onto the bridge. They both watched as the last car tumbled down the side of the cliff and exploded into a pile of flames on the way down. Madeline crawled back into the front seat. “I thought you didn’t like guns?”

“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t good with them.” Madeline looked out the back window to see the black smoke rising in the air. “And with that we are now official enemies of whoever just tried to kill us.” She let out a sigh of relief. She had never been in combat situation before and first time she got combat experience it was a constantly moving one. Madeline then blew out a breath and laid down across the back seat. She was shivering but not from the cool Autumn air blowing in through the window that she opened. It was from the realization that she could have been killed. Luke’s voice brought her back to reality.
“The fact that they didn’t even give a warning is proof to how serious this is.”


The chief slammed his hands on the desk in front of him. “This is outrageous! Who would dare try to kill one of my best officers without reason?” Even though the chief was only in his upper twenties he had the temper of an old man, especially, when things went out of control.
“We don’t even know who it was. An SUV and two black cars. Both were black but other than that there is nothing. No license plate was seen on either of them.” Luke said in his regular calm voice. The rush of the day’s events obviously left him exhausted. Madeline was with the other nightshift workers. They both were going to stay at the office for a while since their home would be unsafe. “What was it you wanted me for in the first place?” The chief sat back in his seat to regain his composure.
“I have a mission for you.” He said pushing his eyebrows together. “It’s to investigate a facility where unexplained murders have happened. I understand if you don’t want to do it, particularly, after what happened to you tonight.”
“What does this mission have to do with me?”
“One of the bodies is like the doctor’s body and the asylum.”
“And why exactly am I the only one to be in on this case?” The chief let out a breath.
“Don’t worry. Madeline’s on it now too but her investigation is going to be elsewhere. You have more experience so it’s only to be expected that you search the areas that require a more experienced person like yourself. I’ll be in contact with you myself. You won’t be expected to do much. Only check the area and find any reason as to why the murderer would strike there.”
“I expect to be fully equipped with any defensive weapons.”
“But of course.”



The chief and Luke pulled into a back ally behind the facility. The chief stopped the car. “I expect you to be back in an hour; no more than that. And remember to expect anything.” Luke got out of the car and checked his assault weapon over.
“Yeah, I know. I made that oath when I signed up for this job.” Luke closed the door and the chief pulled out of the ally and drove off leaving Luke alone. Although, I rather go with the phrase, “expect nothing.” It was a phrase that Luke had made up himself. Instead of looking for anything that might surprise him he would go in with no expectations at all, that way the element of surprise doesn‘t exist. He already felt his confidence coming on as he dropped into a pipe line that leads under the facility. When he came to an opening that leads to an entrance into the building he readied his weapon. “Hey, chief, can you hear me?” Luke said in a quiet voice.
“Loud and clear. I got a visual too. That way if you see something crazy I might actually believe you, that is, if I can believe it myself.” Luke tried not to think too much of what the chief meant by that and continued on. He soon came across an area that had several small cells built into the walls.
“It looks like This is where they hold their dogs.”
“Yeah, but where are the dogs? None of the cages are open.” Luke spotted a cage that had been broke open from the inside. “What kind of dog do you think they hold here?” Luke squatted down to examine the cage wires.
“Most likely, Dobermans.” Luke grunted at the thought of having to take down an animal. He stood up and proceeded through the open door that leads out of the room. He quickly checked the three halls.
“What do you think, chief? Hall one, two, or three?” Luke turned on his flashlight to see in the dimly lit halls.
“Go to the left.” Luke followed the hall and thought he heard a growl come from behind him. He quickly spun around with his gun held up. There was nothing there.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what? Luke, don’t go crazy on me right now.”
“Never mind. It must have my imagination getting the better of me.” Luke continued down the hall and saw the monitor room. He opened the door, ignoring the smell of something being burnt. The room was empty with none of the televisions on. Luke closed the door and flipped the switch on, that was next to the door. All of the monitors came to life. It was then he saw a light flashing next to one of the security tape players signifying that the tape was full. Luke pressed the rewind button to see what was on the tape. As the tape rewound the image remained the same. Then a blotch flashed across the screen. “What?” Luke whispered to himself and quickly pressed the play button. A little girl was walking across the screen when she stopped and looked up at the camera. She then waved at the camera and Luke almost felt as if she were addressing him specifically. “Chief, you getting this right?”
The only response was the sound of light breathing. “Chief, are you alright?” Then he heard the sound of a little girl giggling. When he looked back at the monitor he saw the chief standing and waving where the girl was. Then he took out a gun a pointed it at his head. “NO!” Luke yelled out but the monitor only showed an empty hall. Luke calmed his heavy breathing. Not real. Just my imagination.
“Hey, Luke!” The chief’s voice over the earpiece made Luke’s heart skip several beats.
“God, chief!” Luke said in an exasperated voice.
“Quit scaring me like that. You just suddenly froze up and wouldn’t answer. I think you should come back.”
“Y-yeah. That sounds like a good idea right now.” Luke took out the tape and returned to the alley where the chief was waiting for him. When Luke climbed into the car he tossed the tape at the chief.
“Something on here?”
“I think so. Only one way to find out.”

Reviews

[Creepy Swine Guy]

You have a lot of good action here, but your writing is beginning to suffer technically. If I had to guess, I'd say you haven't re-read this. let me give you just a few examples.

From the beginning:
"There’s a pistol underneath you’re my seat. Just grab it and shoot at their fastest vehicle!"

A bit later:
"You have more experience so it’s only to be expected that you search the areas that require a more experienced person like yourself."

This reads very awkwardly.

Also, you should treat each piece of dialogue as a paragraph. Pick up any novel and look how they handle dialogue. Always indented and always on a new line. Also, I find some of the dialogue to be very stilted. For example:

"...No license plate was seen on either of them."

I don't know anyone who speaks like that. Everyone that I know would say ...

"... none of them had license plates."

... or ...

"... we didn't see any plates."

Vincent, my intent isn't to beat you up or sound like a know it all. I feel that you have a VERY interesting story here. You have action, fear and intrigue all of which make me want to see what happens next. It's just that you seem to have gotten a smidge loose with your writing as the story has progressed. I want you to keep it tight so that the exciting plot that you have woven isn't beaten down by lapsed attention to detail.

Please take this as encouragement ... you have something here that can be awesome, but you must care for it with attention to detail.

[The_Dreamer]

I am going on to the next chapter. I liked how added the little part with the imagination on it to create even more suspense!

[Hipster Detective]

Again, there's grammatical and spelling errors. Try indenting when someone starts speaking or when you start a new paragraph, so that it's not all bunched together on the left margin. I liked the action sequence at the beginning, it was vivid, but I have to doubt the shooting of the gas tank and the car exploding, not to mention that someone who isn't very skilled with guns would be able to hit such a small, not to mention moving, target. Could you give the chief a name? It reminds me of those old superhero TV shows where they've got the phone with the bat symbol: "I'll be right there, chief." The end is sufficiently eerie; the description of the girl on the tape gives you a bit of a chill. I don't think 15 or 16 is considered a 'little girl', however.

[ChloeKirk]

Too bad this is the end thus far. Luke's got good character, but Madeline seems a bit undefined for me still. Is she a cop or fed or investigator or what? If you are trying to make her a bit not so action heroy then maybe insert a paragraph or two that gives her backstory and tempermant to be able to throw up and not carry a gun on her own person. But apparently they've got it out for Luke in a special way and I'd love to see why :)