1. The Closing Minutes

The final moments of a boy's life, whose death brings down both bad men and good.

1

‘Reese, they got me. If they got you too, if that’s why you’ve not been picking up, then I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean for -- I was trying to make things right again. It was with good intentions, yeah?’
     As he left the message Deano could hear his voice reverberating in the phone, delayed by half a second. It sounded higher than it did in his head. Younger. Worse, he sounded afraid. He wasn’t afraid. What he felt was a hot, molten rage at the unfairness of it all. If rage alone could have kept him alive then he would have been sorted.
     Five minutes before he left the message he had been heading home. Exhaust-scorched grass and hedgerows reached up either side of him.  He was on his BMX, hurtling down a cut-through. The burn in his thighs made him want to go faster, until the tears blistering in the corners of his eyes could be blamed on his speed and not on something more shameful. His wheels skipped over flat puddles like black holes laid out in the road ready to rip him apart and reduce him to scattered matter.
     Keep it together…
    The sun that afternoon was washed-out and wintry. It was the last hour of daylight and Deano thought he was alone.
     He heard from behind him the snarl of a diesel engine and swung his bike over to the side of the road to let the vehicle pass, something he did instinctually. He wasn’t thinking about the van when it struck him hard from behind. 
     Deano’s head snapped back. He was flung up, slammed into the windscreen. A crunch of bone and glass. A wail as the frame of his bike buckled. He hit the road and rolled. 
     An accident: that was his first scrambled thought. Just some wanker driver, probably chatting on their phone, and in the dying light hadn’t seen the boy on the bike. Blood thundered in his ears and filled his mouth, bitter and metallic, and he spat it out as he shakily raised his finger.  
     ‘TOSSER!’ 
     The van had stopped with the tangled remains of his bike beneath its front bumper and spidery cracks radiating out from the centre of the windscreen. Deano removed his helmet and got stiffly to his feet, holding his ribs. His lungs didn’t want to inflate and his chest was tight. The driver jumped out and strode towards him, his bootfalls heavy on the pitted country road.
     ‘What are you, blind?’ Deano panted. ‘You’re lucky I’m hurt or I’d properly mess you up right now!’ 
     Deano was fifteen and the smallest boy in his year. The driver quirked his head and smiled at him, like he’d said something funny; he was tall and work-strong, with grey in his hair and unevenly trimmed beard. Another door slammed: someone else had got out of the passenger side. The second man, who was younger than the first but not as fit, threw open the doors at the back of the transit. He reached in and brought out a cricket bat which he threw to the driver. Then Deano clicked. 
     He hadn’t expected them to find him so soon. 
     He had thought he’d been smart about it.
     ‘F**k..!’
     He turned and ran, or tried to. His left leg was immobilised by pain and his skull felt like it was combusting: lights exploded behind his eyes, bright flashes of disorientating colour. He limped on, quick as he could, his breath hot clouds ahead of him. The man behind him casually matched his pace.
     Deano fumbled in his pocket for his phone and then dialled his brother’s number. He hadn’t answered his calls for weeks now but Deano made a wish that this time he would. 
     When he heard the familiar answer phone message he lunged at one of the towering hedgerows which bordered the lane, scrabbling up the bank and attempting to push through the hawthorn and into the field beyond, but the branches were too close and they forced him back. A blackbird burst out chattering in alarm and the woodpigeons clattered after it. Even the birds were deserting him. He left his message, his hurried goodbye to Reese.
     A strong hand closed about his ankle, dragged him back into the gravel and dust of the roadside. Deano aimed a kick at the man’s jaw as he bent down to pull him up and the feel of his tatty trainer connecting hard with his chin was satisfying, as was the snap of his teeth and his sharp, pained inhale of breath. 
     ‘Worthless little scrote…!’
     Deano grinned a red-toothed grin. People had called him worthless all his life. He’d never listened, and he wasn’t about to start now. He hocked out a mouthful of pinkish-green phlegm which hit the denim target and stuck. The man’s lip curled as he swiped the spit off his jeans and raised the cricket bat. 
    The thwack of the bat as it struck him and the bray of applause from the second man took Deano back to the beach. Back to a not-so-distant childhood. Playing with dad, with Reese. Mum a rubbish fielder somewhere behind him with Pimms in one hand and a camera in the other as she shrieked encouragement to both sides. To both her boys. 
     The first blow broke his forearm and the second his collarbone. The third sent him into darkness, but only briefly. He came to in the van. No light. Oil and petrol and sharp metallic smells singeing his nostrils. The floor beneath him was lurching, rolling him into bundled tools. He vomited and passed out again.
     They had shaken him awake when they’d reached that place, and then worse things were done. Wires and water. A crackling, sparking heat that seared his skin and sent lightning arcing through his skull.  
     Now his breathing sounded like the rattle of a tin of spray paint. His peripheries were greying, shrinking his vision to a single pinpoint of light. The cold crept up into his bones and Deano thought of mum. He summoned up the sweet smell of her and nestled into it and slowly the pain began to lessen. 
     He hoped it wouldn’t be her who had to identify him. He wasn’t pretty. But then dad was gone, Reese was gone. Who else was left?
     It wasn’t fair they’d taken him from her too. He kept his eyes fixed on the two men as the world fell away. With his stare he both condemned them for what they’d done and begged them not to do any more. To leave her alone, at least.
     The pinpoint of light extinguished.
     Not fair…

 

 

Author's Note

All constructive criticism gratefully received.

Reviews

[NoelHC]

I have read that editors want the writer to grab the reader's attention with the first words, and take them right into the story immediately. You achieved that very well with this first chapter, and I feel compelled to read on. I am not sure what it looked like prior to Justin's suggestions, but I certainly could see nothing else I would suggest needs changing.
Well written.

[W.k.kortas]

It's an opening Robert Ludlum would have applauded, though there's a bit more tongue-in-cheek about it than Ludlum would have employed. A more-than-solid beginning.

[SLD Bailey]

Thank you, sincerely! I hope to build on it. Big Ludlum fan, by the way :)

[Stephen]

Nice one. I like the story, that's so thrilling and filled with much suspense and crimes (lol) even am still in suspense reading this story ... lol. I hardly read thrilling novels but I think, thrilling ones are pretty awesome (especially when they are written by YOU). You've got some cool knacks of penning down the feelings and bleed into the diff-diff. templates of words. You know what? Your this below one paragraph's extremely awesome, no matter what...

"The sound the bat made as it sliced the air and made impact took Deano back to the beach. Back to a not-so-distant childhood. Playing with dad, with Reese. Mum a rubbish fielder somewhere behind him with Pimms in one hand and a camera in the other as she shrieked encouragement to both sides. To both her boys." ...
..
You know what? Why I do love this one para much.. because here you've mixed up the present with past so the past with present. What a lovely thing the most I loved here. It's seemed that am watching a movie where a boy reminds his past playing with his parents as he raised the bat in the air. Moreover, you've mentioned in your author's note that you want to have some constructive criticisms but believe me, I don't find any one if I'd found any then i'd surely have let you known but yeah, just in your ending I got a bit confused, may it's cause either yet I don't have much skills for understanding the criminology or thrilling novels or you just showed up here something very cool which I really couldn't understand .. if you won't mind, then i'd love to know more about ending from you what exactly the ending of the chapter saying :) Howsoever, Your cool, now what a thing makes my interest in your this chapter reading it with much curiosity is "your words" ..yeah, the words especially the IDIOMS you use is just freaking awesome to read. I love the way you write and transform your creative thoughts into the words. Heyy, I wish, May you soon get published! :)

[SLD Bailey]

You're too kind, Stephen! Making me blush over here :) I'm so glad that you enjoyed the chapter, especially pleased you liked the little flashback scene that Deano had with the cricket bat swinging towards him as I wasn't sure whether this worked or not...good to know it does! I hope also that you'll perhaps be enticed to read more crime fiction by authors far better at the craft than I am. It's a great genre, particularly as I think it deals with social issues more than any other genre does; the best crime fiction manages to be both social commentary and entertainment, but that's a difficult balance to strike. Thank you again, most sincerely. I hope you'll continue reading my work, and I look forward to reading yours!

[Stephen]

Lovely, my pleasure dearest one. Am glad I could grab a chance to make some blushes on your angelic face :) Thanks for blushing. Yeah, of course, I'd keep continue reading your marvelous stuffs as long as am over this site :) By the way, would ya love to describe a bit about ending of this chapter..I want to know from your beautiful perception with which you just penned the scented words? :)

[SLD Bailey]

I forgot to explain! My bad. Basically, Deano is the victim (he'd hate that word) around whom the book will revolve. I don't want to give away too much at this early stage as the "whodunnit" element is important, but by the end of the chapter he has been dealt the death-blow and is just waiting to expire. He is worried what effect his death will have on his mum, and of what might happen to her. He is also hugely pissed off that he's dying so young, and that so much life has been stolen from him. Like I say, you're not meant to know too much about where he is or what state he's in as this is revealed in the next chapter, and the details of the why are explored throughout the book.

[Stephen]

Ah! It's ok...Oh I C...yea..yeah..I got it now. I got the whole concept of the ending. Whao, now I think, my suspense's been cleared up the all things. Ha! Thanks dearest one for taking some time to reply me and letting me know the theme of the concept. Keep writing and heyy..i'd try to read the next chapter too ASAP .. within the next few couple of hours :)

[IK]

Lovely start with a good voice, Deano is developing well, and in terms of plot it seems clear this is a prologue sort of thing? (will get clearer as I read on I suppose!)

Just a few comments on things which stuck out:
1. Adjectives, adverbs, similes - You are generally pretty good at choosing the right words to describe things however at points I felt that you went one description too far. So for example in the sentence: "They had blindsided him. Music was blasting through his earphones and he hadn’t heard the vehicle approach but he remembered what felt like a wrecking ball striking his bike hard from behind, and a flash of pain up his neck as his head was thrown forward and his teeth clashed. There had been a moment of weightless suspension in the air as he went over his handlebars before the breath-snatching impact with the ground."
the "breath-snatching" was the bit where it became too much and the reader noticed it. Maybe because it's so soon after the rather vivid "weightless suspension" phrase.

The second example was:
"He turned and began to run, or tried to. His left leg was immobilised by pain and his skull felt like it was combusting; lights exploded behind his eyes, bright flashes of disorientating colour. He limped on, quick as he could, panting like a dog, his breath hot clouds ahead of him. The man behind him casually matched his pace."

The "panting like a dog" was the bit that jarred. Maybe you can turn it into a metaphor instead?

2. I like the idea behind this para: "The sound the bat made as it sliced the air and made impact took Deano back to the beach. Back to a not-so-distant childhood. Playing with dad, with Reese. Mum a rubbish fielder somewhere behind him with Pimms in one hand and a camera in the other as she shrieked encouragement to both sides. To both her boys."

but the link between the present and the back story wasn't as smooth as it could be for me. Maybe go with "The thwack of the bat as it connected with his face took Deano back to the beach."?

3. Ending
Okay so we want to know where he is and if he'll escape. But an idea to get an even more gripping end is Deano being worried about them harming his mother too? Or perhaps the sound of them entering or doing something in the distance...so its either a case of fear or foreboding which pushes the reader on.

I look forward to reading more of this and am really happy that I've found reviewer who also writes well so I know they know what goes into the writing process!

[SLD Bailey]

This was immensely helpful, thank you so much for going through this so carefully! Exactly the kind of review I had been hoping for. I find first chapters so difficult; they're the most self-conscious chapter, I think. You see it even in published works by (presumably) experienced writers. My typical is to go hell-for-leather with the adjectives and hard as I try to strike them during editing, a few seem to slip in under the radar. I will edit again according to your recommendations :)