Red

Just as Lucas began to slip back into sleep, his cheek was beamed with scorching heat from the window he was leaning against. A bomb exploded a distance away from the right side of the car making everything inside shake, the great pile of stolen groceries in the trunk, rattling and toppling over.

Outside, the sound of faint screams and hissing flames grew in intensity.

‘Oh my god.’ Kelly mouthed, Her face was grey and bloodless, drained with terror.

‘Just keep going.’ Laura said firmly.

Lucas remembered the feeling of cool wind, and how it had touched his skin that morning;
Normality.
War and destruction had taken nothing more than a few hours to tear his life apart and force him and his siblings out of their home and into the unknown.

A forest with tall, never ending trees encapsulated the road on either side. Above the trees were mountain tops.

Dom pulled over. He took a pack of cigarettes out of the glove compartment and got out leaving the door open behind him.

There was a menacing stillness.

'What the f**k are you doing?’ Laura called after him.

He reached into his tight jean pocket and pulled out a lighter.

‘F**k!’ he exclaimed as his anxious shaking made it hard to light the cigarette.

He recalled how that same hand was shaking wildly; as he pointed the knife at the the young girl in the convienience store; as she slowly shook her head, terrified and confused.

'Be a good girl and do as I say and no one needs to get hurt.’

Dom sucked in the nicotine like oxygen, walking in small, tight circles. Sweat from his forehead and back dripped onto the pavement.
He eventually propped himself up against a thin tree, looking into the distance, his puffs of cigarette smoke disintegrating into the autumn air.

When a breeze blew through the trees and up Dom's t shirt, it prompted him to stub out his cigarette and turn back towards the car. He turned back however, fidgeting with his pant zipper. A great arc of urine shot from his penis soaking the tree bark.
As he urinated Dom’s fluid turned from bright gold, to a dull brown, to a rich, blood red and it ran constantly, like a stream being manually pumped by an unknown force. Streaming and streaming red like a cut vein, sharply and sparsely splattering, staining the tree. So much blood.

‘Get a grip!’ Dom said to himself and slowly the gold colour began returning to it and like turning off a tap, the liquid steadily dripped and ceased.

Lucas had been staring blankly.

'Stop staring, f*g!' Alex spat. He was breathing heavily and his angry eyes were locked on his little brother.

'Alex don't. Leave him be.’

Kelly turned to Lucas;

'You okay?'

Lucas nodded.

A loud thump shook the car. Dom was back. He glanced at the faces behind him and apologised to Laura.

‘Who said you couldn't smoke in here?'

‘I couldn’t breathe in here Laura. Please don’t start.’

'Its fine.’ she responded, ‘Let’s just go. Please.’

Lucas turned towards the window again and closed his eyes. As the car coughed into ignition he felt a throbbing in his head. He succumbed to it and sleep grabbed him by the neck.

His sleep was deep. He dreamt in feverish red.
He was drenched in blood; it was thick and sticky, like jam covering every part of his body, all except his eyes. In his direct line of vision was Dom, urinating again, standing in the same spot by the tree; this time though, they were alone and surrounded by night.
This nightmarish Dom was hunched over, his back curling forward in an impossible way.
Dom twitched, sensing Lucas’s presence behind him. He slowly turned to him until he was in full profile. His face was wrinkled and in rolls; rolls and rolls of overlapping, gloopy skin. In place of his eyes where two flesh pink spaces; the skin was so tight here you could see blue veins resting on the skin from the other side. Dom began to smile, a hideous smile, his lips tightening as a grin filled the entire bottom of his face. It revealed a black void.
The eyeless Dom lifted his penis and aimed it at Lucas’s feet. The great, current of urine began creeping its way up his body.
Lucas was paralyzed as he felt the heat from the urine work upwards on me like an ascending elevator.
In a blink of an eye it was daylight again and in front of Lucas was the thin tree. Only the tree.
He blinked again.
His eyes suddenly stung, a hot liquid was being splattered onto them. They were being splurged with the warm urine. It stung like spicy sauce. He whimpered, confused.

‘Cryings not going to bring mum and dad back Lucas; either we leave now or we stay here and die.’

Then all around, miniature fireworks sprouted from the air. The sky turned pale and the pain died down.

As Lucas’s eyes came into focus, he saw Kelly looking down at him like some half dream. She placed her hand on his forehead.

'Jesus Christ. It's fire. Are you drinking water? Here, have some of this. It's cool'.

Lucas sat up. Kelly unscrewed the top of a water bottle and looked up at him.

'Let me feed it to you.’ She said.

Kelly gently cupped the back of Lucas’s head like a precious baby and put the spout of the water bottle into his mouth, squeezing softly. The cold water sent tingles throughout Lucas’s body.

Kelly pulled Lucas’s head towards hers and kissed his forehead.

'I know mums not here right now but I don't want you to worry Lucas, everything's going to be fine.'

‘I love you.’ Kelly said softly, using all of her remaining strength to force a smile.


'Are you sure you know where you’re going?' asked Laura.

Dom didn’t respond.

She placed her hand on his thigh.

'Get your hands off me!' Dom snapped, pushing her hand away. He didn't shift his attention from the road ahead. His grip on the steering wheel grew tighter, his knuckles turning white and red.

Author's Note

Hi thanks for taking a look! Please let me know if the story is easy to follow and my if main protagonist is likeable! Also would love feedback on how to transform this from a young mans musings to a professional novel. Any help, feedback, comments greatly appreciated.

Reviews

[Mika Franolich]

Hi, there. So immediately upon reading I noticed there was a realistic error. So, at one point, the story reads, "her smile was infectious and her teeth shone with morning dew." Teeth can't shine from morning dew, though. Unless she has dentures that she removed, or unless she grimaced all night like a horse (lips pulled back over teeth) it would be a physical impossibility to have dew in her teeth. I would consider changing that. There were also a few errors later on, such as where you say, "Kelly stopped suddenly to look at Rich's happy face and grin." But by saying "happy face" you're already implying he's grinning, as (aside from twinkling eyes) there's really nothing that constitutes a happy face besides a smile. And because of your prior sentences the conclusion can be drawn he's smiling when you say he has a happy face. So you can get rid of the word grin. There's also a part where you say Rich is feeling "unbelievable", but that's vague. What does that mean? A better word can be chosen here to give the reader a sense of Rich and how he's feeling. I'm not saying this to nitpick, I'm saying all of this to lead to my main piece of advice: watch your wordage and make sure you're making sense. The story is great, all in all you're a wonderful writer. The character's stay consistent and are believable- they have flaws and strengths, all signs of good characters. The suspense you create is perfect for this genre. You have good horror descriptions- your one weakness is that you do make some writing mistakes.
One scene I really like is the nightmare scene. It was very well described- one of my first immediate thoughts was, "God, I hope if they make a movie out of this they skip this part." It was both terrifying and (with the pissing Rich part) disturbing. A good mix. However, we also have another writing mistake here where you say the skin is "rolling" off of the man, suggesting excess, but then in another part you say the skin is tight. You can't have skin be loose and be tight.
But yeah, overall, good story! You definitely did well at getting reader's invested and striking their curiosity, something that is extremely hard to do in the first chapter ^.^