This is the final day of 500 word excerpts for Calling All Critiques! Thank you to all who participated – we hope you found the critiques you received useful. Next week we’ll have book covers in need of critiques, so stay tuned!
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And now, on to the final critique.
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Author: Robert L. Slater
Website: www.desertedlands.com
Genre: YA/Adult Science Fiction
Entry:
*STRAIGHT INTO DARKNESS*
A Deserted Lands novel*.*
LIZZIE SLUNK BETWEEN THE CIRCLES of lights on the snow-scattered streets. The night’s cold bit at her through the layers of clothing she’d added after escaping. Her second day of freedom—slept away in an uncollected house—faded into the past. Happy Belated-f___ing Birthday, Lizzie. Now someone followed her. Or maybe paranoia lied to her again.
Her pace quickened, the baby in her belly kept her core warm, but her fear sent her running. She jogged down the center of the street away from the drifting snow that would give her path away.
Like her feared pursuer, the houses watched her; like hollow ghouls they represented the human deaths, the costs of the pandemic. Her heart twisted at the thought of her own dead. Mama, keep me safe. Jayce, help Mama not be too lonely. Lizzie wished she could hear their voices, see their pictures and videos. But that cell phone had died in the burning car. Stupid. Months later she still kicked herself for her forgetfulness and lack of focus.
A car engine hummed down a nearby street. She slid behind a wooden fence and found a knothole she could use to spy on the car. Good thing she’d hidden—one of The City’s finest. He looked like a cop, not just someone who had become one since the Quieting. That might make him better at his job.
He couldn’t be looking for her. No one should even know she was gone until she didn’t show up for Monday morning chores, cleaning up after breakfast in the cafeteria. Somebody might notice she didn’t show up for breakfast, but breakfast wasn’t mandatory for the preggers. They’d assume she’d prioritized sleep or felt nauseous. She should have had another day. She needed that day. Dammit. The cop stopped at the next intersection and turned a circle inside it, then another and stopped. Was he bored?
The patrol car sat idling. The door opened. Lizzie scanned behind herself, she needed to move. She slipped against the house and worked her way around, eyes peeled and ears open to anything. The car door closed. The engine revved and moved away from her. At the edge of the street, she waited behind another parked car until it turned onto a side street. Then she raced across.
This mission wasn’t what she’d imagined. It should have been easy. The night curfew meant no one on the streets. That was the mistake. No one except her. She needed to get out of the central district and into the suburbs. The viaduct cut across her path. She lowered herself down its incline on her butt. Ice covered the bottom, but she’d be more hidden. Unless, of course, someone had seen her go down and then there was no escape.
She slid along the ice for several blocks, but it slowed her down. She crawled out to streets blown clean of snow. Anger fueled her feet on the bare pavement, she ran, ignoring the mild stitch in her side and the uncomfortable bounce from the extra fat her body was piling up.
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