Monday, December 6, 2010

TSG's round robin short story contest starts!

For the next 12 days we'll be posting a story segment written by the original members of the Top Suspense Group (Max Allan Collins, Vicki Hendricks, Ed Gorman, Bill Crider, Harry Shannon and Dave Zeltserman). After 12 days the story will be finished (one way or the other), and we'll be offering free books to the first 5 people who can match each segment to the author who wrote it!

The rules for us in writing this story: no planning, no coordination, no safety nets. Each day one of us wrote up to 250 words of a short story and passed it onto the next writer, with each writer eventually working on two segments. The only leeway was the last writer got to go past the 250 word limit to try to finish up the story, and the only editing done was for consistency errors.

And without further adieu, the story starts!
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The Chase by TSG

Lauren Blaine didn’t know who was in the car behind her, and she didn’t know when they’d picked up her trail. She looked over at the man in the passenger seat. He looked back, his face a blank. He had nothing to say. He seldom did.

“I don’t think I can lose them,” Lauren said.

The man’s head moved a fraction of an inch in what might have been considered a nod.

“I’m going to try, though.”

Another slight movement, which Lauren took for assent. She pressed down on the accelerator and the Cadillac CTS-V surged forward. They were on a little-used farm-to-market road, a curvy, hilly two-lane blacktop that Lauren had turned onto from the Interstate. She’d planned to cut over to the state highway to the west and follow that to their destination. Now she wished she hadn’t taken the shortcut.

The car behind her was gaining, which seemed impossible. The Caddy was the fastest production sedan made in the U. S. But maybe the car behind had been made elsewhere.

Lauren risked another glance at the man beside her. He unfastened his seatbelt, reached inside his jacket, and pulled a Kimber 1911 .45 from a shoulder holster. Lauren didn’t think a gun was going to be any help, but seeing it did make her feel a little better. The man refastened his seatbelt.

Lauren didn’t feel better for long. As the Cadillac crested a hill, she saw a slow-moving farm combine not a hundred yards ahead. It was so wide that it took up most of the road.

"Uh-oh,” the man said.

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