Word Master Challenge

My main reason for starting this blog was entering a contest, the Word Master Challenge, proposed by Misha Gericke in her My First Book blog  The challenge was to recreate a scene from a favorite famous book in a completely different genre. Try to recapture the feeling of the story and scene as best you can without trying to slavishly reproduce exact details. Oh yes, and do it in under 300 words!



So here's my entry. Can you guess what story it's from originally?

A Police Story

“Didn’t need to be so hard on her,” I said.

Red grunted. I don’t know what smelled worse, him or the old warehouse we were making our way through. His wino cover sure smelled like the real deal.

Min had to be here somewhere. The chief would lose it if she found out we were here after the order to pull out. But it was kinda our fault she doubled back this way, with no way of knowing there was a junkie, armed with a bomb, in here. We had a good idea which way she went though, and figured we’d be in and out before the chief knew.

“She doesn’t need to talk about what hot shit she was at the academy 24-7,” he muttered. “If I wanted to I could…”

A scream came from a bathroom on the right. Red kicked the door in and we charged through. I could just make out Min pinned on her stomach by the junkie, who was gnawing on her head. Her gun lay a few feet away. The junkie raised his head when he saw us, mouth filled with Min’s wig. She was a mess, but still alive.

Red leveled his gun. “Back off asshole.”

The junkie looked up, glassy eyed. His jaw slackened, dropping the wig. For a second I thought he’d come quietly. Then screaming “Las Culebras!” he ran towards us.

I swung out with my right, but he caught my arm. My free fist connected with his nose while Red pistol whipped the back of his head. He was down.

“The bomb!” Red yelled. “Where the fuck is it?”

Min pointed, “You mean that?”

A jumble of trash held by duct tape sat in a puddle.

“A diversion,” Min said.

“For what?”

“Something the Culebras want,” I said.

2 comments:

  1. I continue to see Min's wig dripping out of the junkie's mouth--you totally got the gross effect.

    And Red is FANTASTIC! The dialogue, the characterization, you got them all, dear Kestril. You already know that I know what story this came from. Now lets see if others can guess it, too ;-D

    Las Culebras!

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  2. Very nicely done. I enjoyed this effort. Will be back again to decide who won. :-)

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