Burden of Proof

By Richard Mabry

[red = could be deleted; blue = my comments]

Chapter One

Dr. Matt Newman was running on fumes. His eyes burned. His shoulders ached. His mouth was foul with the acid taste of the coffee. Night call was for someone younger—much younger. But all that was about to change, and he could hardly wait.

As Matt moved from the brilliance of Methodist Hospital’s Emergency Room into the mottled semi-darkness of the path to the parking garage, he felt the weight of responsibility begin to slip from his shoulders. The hissing of the pneumatic doors closing behind him was like an auditory exclamation point. In another few hours, this night on call would end and so would his time in private practice. Then maybe Diane would stop carping at him for the missed dinners, the evenings when an emergency page interrupted a movie. Maybe this would make her happy. Maybe.

It wasn’t hard for Matt to spot his beige Toyota Corolla sitting in the darkest corner of the deserted garage. There weren’t many cars still there at two AM. And soon there would be one fewer [less—fewer sounds like it should refer to more than one]. He fished his keys from the pocket of his white lab coat and thumbed the remote. He was reaching for the door handle when something yanked him backward and cut off his air in mid-breath. He dropped the keys and reached up with both hands, his fingers prying without success at the arm he felt around his neck.

Before he could say a word [His air was cut off. We don’t expect him to be able to speak.], Matt was slammed to the garage floor. He was sure he felt a rib crack. His cheek burned as it scraped across the coarse concrete. The smell of rancid motor oil filled his nostrils. He winced as a knee pinned him to the ground like a butterfly on a specimen board. Fire shot through Matt’s shoulders as his arms were yanked together. He struggled, but the result was more force, more pain. He heard a quick rip of tape. Seconds later, his wrists were bound tightly behind his back. He tried to lift his head to look around, but stopped when something hard pressed against the back of his neck.

[The above paragraph is where everything starts happening. It’s crucial to the story—the inciting incident. But the action doesn’t flow. It feels jerky to me. There are a few problems that I see.

1. The action-reaction sequences are out of order. You have Matt’s reaction (a wince, pain) before we see the action that caused it. The action has to come first to play out logically. But when I rewrote that paragraph simply reversing the order where it was needed, I still didn’t like it. Why?

2. The second problem is sensory overload. For action this fast, Matt is experiencing too many sensory details. It seems logical that panic and adrenaline would numb him to some of the things happening. Plus, there’s a fine line between allowing the reader to get inside the character’s skin so the scene comes alive, and loading action with so many details that it sinks instead of flowing.

3. Phrases like, “He was sure he felt a rib crack” are too detached and analytical.

I haven’t had the time to come up with a version I really like. But this is a beginning to point you in the right direction:

The assailant slammed Matt to the garage floor. He tried to draw breath for a scream, but his lungs were immobilized by the pain exploding along his rib cage. A knee pinned him to the ground and his arms were yanked together. His struggles only tightened the grip and intensified his pain. He heard a quick rip of tape and his wrists were tightly bound. He tried to lift his head to look around, but stopped when cold metal pressed against the back of his neck.

Even if my version isn’t much better, the principals I laid out hold true. Use those as your guidelines to fix this action sequence.]

“Hold still.” The words came out as a low rumble, the menace behind them unmistakable.

Matt figured what he felt was a gun. Finding out for sure could be fatal. [Seems obvious already.] He lowered his face onto the cement and went limp, feeling his hope escape like air from a punctured tire. He lay, submissive, as his ankles were bound together.

There were murmurs above him, the words indistinguishable. [Try “The murmurs above him were indistinguishable,” to avoid starting a sentence with “there were”.] One voice a high-pitched singsong, the answer a harsh rasp.

“Why not here?” There was a faint Hispanic accent to the whining tenor.

[You say that the words were indistinguishable, then go on to tell us what they’re saying. One or the other should be cut.]

“Shut up and do it my way.” The growling bass spat out the words so forcefully that Matt felt spittle spray his neck. He had no idea what was going on, but it couldn’t be good.

Again the shrill whimper. “Okay. What now?”

“Let’s get him into the trunk of his car.”

Matt gave a shrill cry as uncaring hands lifted his head by the hair. [Again, fix the action-reaction.] Three quick turns of tape around his head muffled his voice and turned the world black.

Now Matt couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t speak. [I’d rather hear how this made him feel, instead of just the stark facts.] He strained to hear the murmurs above him. Only the last words came through clearly enough to understand, but they were enough to drive his heart into his shoes. “Get rid of him.”

Matt heard a jingle of keys [Sounds too passive. Instead of just “heard”, have him angle his head to catch the sounds—it’s the only sense he has left, he’s going to try to use it to the full.], two beeps from a security system, followed by a sharp click. Hinges squeaked. He had a momentary sensation of floating as he was lifted, carried, dropped. His head struck something hard. The world began to spin, [He felt as if he were spinning—the world spinning implies sight.] splashes of red flashed behind his closed eyelids, then vanished into nothingness.

Matt struggled back to consciousness like a swimmer emerging from the depths. How long had he been out? Hours? Minutes? A few seconds? At first he had no idea where he was or what was happening. He tried to open his eyes but there was no light. He tried to speak, but his lips were sealed; he cried out, but the result was only a strained grunt. Finally, he heard the faint sound of voices, a menacing rumble and a high-pitched whine. That was when he remembered.

He was on the way to his death. And the trunk of his car was the coffin.

* * *

"Let's get out of here."

Lou slammed the trunk closed, clambered behind the wheel, and started the engine. He had the car moving by the time his companion scrambled in. He reversed out of the parking slot, stopping with a screech of brakes. Then he slammed the gearshift into drive, stomped on the gas and sent the Toyota screaming down the ramp. His rear view mirror showed him a glimpse of parallel strips of black rubber, the only trace of what had just taken place.

Beads of sweat stung Lou’s eyes. He blinked them away and peered into the night. He slowed as he began to navigate the narrow streets behind the hospital, but his mind was working full-speed.

“So what now?” Edgar’s whining words interrupted Lou’s thoughts.

Lou shrugged. He steered the car through a stop sign with only the slightest tap on the brakes. “Next we find the other one.”

Beside him, Edgar fidgeted but, for once, kept silent. [Too many interruptions. It would flow better as, “Beside him, Edgar fidgeted but kept silent. For once.”]

Lou clutched the wheel and stared into the night, following the headlight beams through the warren of dark streets. The lights of downtown Dallas rose up ahead of them, bright in the inky sky. Lou took a sharp left, away from that glare.

The neighborhood’s few functioning streetlights only accentuated the gloom beyond their dim glow. He rolled by bars, strip clubs, hole-in-the-wall stores peddling XXX rated videos, all of them silent now, most secured by burglar bars or steel shutters. The streets were deserted, and rightly so. He figured that nobody in his right mind would be here at this hour of the morning—at least, not without a gun.

He saw the pothole too late to steer around it. The car bounced crazily before settling down on protesting springs.

“Hey, watch it.” He heard a click as Edgar fastened his seat belt.

“Shut up.” Lou slowed and scanned ahead for more holes in the pavement.

“Do you know where we’re going?”

“Yeah, but whoever laid out these streets must have been drunk. Let me concentrate.” Lou squinted to read the street signs in the faint light. Finally, he found the one he wanted and steered the car in a sharp turn. It lurched as one wheel bumped the curb.

“Did you hear something back there?” Edgar asked.

“Relax. He’s not going anywhere. This is his last ride.”

* * *