littlemissattitude
Super Moderator
NOTE: This is a longer bit than I like to post - yeah, yeah, I know...I'm the one who wrote the guidelines. But I have a very specific question about this passage. I'm not concerned about grammar, spelling, or punctuation. I know how to fix those sorts of things. What I want to know from anyone who'd like to comment is...If you picked up a book at a bookstore and it began with this passage, would you be inclined to want to read more? If so, why, and if not why not, and what would make you more interested? Thanks in advance for your comments. Oh, just FYI, what would follow would probably be classed as urban fantasy.
This is stupid. I say it aloud to the room. I’m sitting in a motel room somewhere between L.A. and Vegas, about thirty miles off I-15, really out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a thunderstorm raging outside. I’m just glad that the building is on high ground, because this is flash flood weather - and flash flood country - if I’ve ever seen it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it rain so hard, and it’s been at it like this for almost an hour. The lights keep flickering like they want to go out, and the satellite TV is out of whack. There’s a picture, sort of, but it’s all snowy and I can barely hear the sound for the static. I keep it switched on anyway. I need the company.
This is crazy. I’m on the run. I don’t know from who or what. I don’t know why. All I know is that Adam went out of town and then didn’t call me when he said he was going to. I let it go a couple more days, thinking he had just gotten involved in the business he said he had to take care of. But I was worried and finally called Paul, which is what Adam had said to do if he something like this happened. Paul said he would do some checking and call me back. He did, a few hours later, in the middle of the night, and said that I should get out of town Right Now - I could hear the capital letters in his tone - and head for the address he gave me. This motel. There would be a reservation in the name of Susanne Ryan. That’s who I should say I was.
What if they ask me for ID, I asked him. Most places do these days. But Paul assured me that they wouldn’t, and they don‘t. The only question is, “That’s for seven nights, correct?” Seven? And they have a package waiting for me, the desk clerk announces as she hands me my key. Huh? She also hands me a shoebox-sized parcel wrapped in brown butcher paper. All that is missing is the twine. There is covered parking in the back, she tells me, and it looks like rain. Do I look like I’m hiding from someone? I think then.
By the time I get my bag, my laptop, and the bag of books I can’t do without in the room, the clouds are looking threatening, and it is uncomfortably sticky out besides being hot. I crank the air conditioning, hang up my clothes, and then walk over to the coffee shop that is attached to the motel’s office. It is deserted except for a couple at a table by the windows and the waitress, who is either the desk clerk or her twin sister. I sit down at the counter and order a fried chicken dinner and a soda. I have discovered that being on the run makes a person hungry.
The waitress says that it will be storming soon and that if I’d like, she will bring my meal to my room when it is ready. I tell her that I don’t want to be any trouble, but she says it’s no bother, that there is a menu in the room and I could have called down and ordered. Oh. I pay for my food and go back to the room.
Sure enough, the first clap of thunder comes at more or less the same time as the knock at the door announcing the arrival of my meal. While I’ve been waiting, I’ve opened the package. And nearly choke. It is packed with money. A lot of it. What the hell…? I don’t count it. I'm afraid to.
So. Here I sit, rain pounding down outside, the TV on the fritz, my dinner half eaten, and a shoebox full of hundred dollar bills shoved under my bed. And no earthly idea of what comes next.
This is stupid. I say it aloud to the room. I’m sitting in a motel room somewhere between L.A. and Vegas, about thirty miles off I-15, really out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a thunderstorm raging outside. I’m just glad that the building is on high ground, because this is flash flood weather - and flash flood country - if I’ve ever seen it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it rain so hard, and it’s been at it like this for almost an hour. The lights keep flickering like they want to go out, and the satellite TV is out of whack. There’s a picture, sort of, but it’s all snowy and I can barely hear the sound for the static. I keep it switched on anyway. I need the company.
This is crazy. I’m on the run. I don’t know from who or what. I don’t know why. All I know is that Adam went out of town and then didn’t call me when he said he was going to. I let it go a couple more days, thinking he had just gotten involved in the business he said he had to take care of. But I was worried and finally called Paul, which is what Adam had said to do if he something like this happened. Paul said he would do some checking and call me back. He did, a few hours later, in the middle of the night, and said that I should get out of town Right Now - I could hear the capital letters in his tone - and head for the address he gave me. This motel. There would be a reservation in the name of Susanne Ryan. That’s who I should say I was.
What if they ask me for ID, I asked him. Most places do these days. But Paul assured me that they wouldn’t, and they don‘t. The only question is, “That’s for seven nights, correct?” Seven? And they have a package waiting for me, the desk clerk announces as she hands me my key. Huh? She also hands me a shoebox-sized parcel wrapped in brown butcher paper. All that is missing is the twine. There is covered parking in the back, she tells me, and it looks like rain. Do I look like I’m hiding from someone? I think then.
By the time I get my bag, my laptop, and the bag of books I can’t do without in the room, the clouds are looking threatening, and it is uncomfortably sticky out besides being hot. I crank the air conditioning, hang up my clothes, and then walk over to the coffee shop that is attached to the motel’s office. It is deserted except for a couple at a table by the windows and the waitress, who is either the desk clerk or her twin sister. I sit down at the counter and order a fried chicken dinner and a soda. I have discovered that being on the run makes a person hungry.
The waitress says that it will be storming soon and that if I’d like, she will bring my meal to my room when it is ready. I tell her that I don’t want to be any trouble, but she says it’s no bother, that there is a menu in the room and I could have called down and ordered. Oh. I pay for my food and go back to the room.
Sure enough, the first clap of thunder comes at more or less the same time as the knock at the door announcing the arrival of my meal. While I’ve been waiting, I’ve opened the package. And nearly choke. It is packed with money. A lot of it. What the hell…? I don’t count it. I'm afraid to.
So. Here I sit, rain pounding down outside, the TV on the fritz, my dinner half eaten, and a shoebox full of hundred dollar bills shoved under my bed. And no earthly idea of what comes next.
