Sorry if i repeat any comments, I didn't read the other posts Hope this is helpful!



934 Evernham Street

“Four.” He stabbed her four times. She’ll never forget because she counted out loud. She had watched him slowly shuffle around the kitchen comma opening all the drawers comma looking for just he right utensil. He finally settled upon the cutlet knife. Beth’s heart dropped as he turned to her and grinned. He knelt down and asked if she could count to four. Tears streamed down her face as she nodded. He had told her to show him how good she was at counting. The only consolation she had was that her mother clearly passed away after the first blow to the left side of her chest. She knew this because she felt her mother stop wiggling.
I would like to hear the conversation between the two of them, have the guy actually say to her "Can you count?" and perhaps add some feminine diminutive, like sweetie or honey. it adds creepiness. And if this guy is such a vivid memory, I want to hear his voice.

Her mother never said a word after he flung open the door and pointed the gun in our Your point of view switches from third to first person here, fix it. faces. Never screamed, almost as if she was accepting her fate. Beth would never understand her mother’s lack of contest, but would also never try and think about it. Obviously she will try, she's thinking about it right now. Beth soon realized that was easier said than done. Oh. He pulled out the new roll of Duck brand duct tape and told us Your point of view switches from third to first person here, fix it. it was just to keep us out of the way. It was one of many lies he told her that day. Night? Also, you never go back and finish this plot element, when the story ends, this is the only conversation she's had with the murderer...which would be only one lie.

Beth had closed her eyes after that first fatal blow I wouldn't use blow when talking about a stabbing. Knives don't usually make blows. Fists make blows, baseball bats make blows...knives don't make blows. Use a stabbier word. but heard every other one and counted just as she was told. Her wrists throbbed from the bracelet her mother was wearing. He had bound their wrists together so hard that it was beginning to cut into her. I think you can combine those last two sentences into one, more effective one. Now she was holding up her mother’s heavy comma lifeless body. The warm blood pooled around her legs and soaked into her socks. I was under the impression that she was standing, but then how would the blood pool around her legs? and if she's sitting, how would she really be holding up her mother, because the floor would be giving most of the support? Plus that's a lot of duct tape if the two of them are bound back-to-back sitting on their knees on the floor, and the murderer would have had to have told them to sit down specifically like that so he could tie them up. Perhaps you meant to say the blood pooled around her feet. Beth had come to a point of numbness. There’s only so much a person can consciously accept. Beth had reached her limit.

So let me get this straight. Dude throws their door open with a gun pointed to them, and then searches for a knife after pulling the duct tape from nowhere and binding them so he can stab her mother? If he's a sick freak that takes pleasure in stabbing, you should mention him setting the gun down on the kitchen table and telling them he wasn't going to hurt them with it.

She heard the man walk off the old linoleum of the kitchen and into the newly carpeted hallway. Each door in the hall was swiftly opened and each room was thoroughly inspected for another victim. I don't like your use of passive voice here. After she heard door number two open she realized he had four more doors and opened her eyes. She looked through the open doorway in front of her into the living room saw her younger sister by five years, Nina. WAY too many numbers in those last couple sentences. No one counts doors in their head in this situation. She should remember, perhaps, that he has "All the other bedroom doors to go" and should see her "baby" sister.

Nina was six This makes little sense. If she's six and something, the something should have something to do with the six, not be totally random. Maybe you could say "She was six years old, a baby yet, and blah blah blah" or "she was six, usually disobedient, but was still crouched where Beth told her to be..." and still crouched behind the big maroon and green striped chair in the living room. She was in the fetal position on the floor with her head tucked in her arms just as Beth had told her when she heard the window break. The window broke? I thought the door burst in? if they had advance warning why did Beth and her mom just stand there like dumbasses? This sounds like beth had enough time to yell "Nina! Go lay in the fetal position behind the maroon and green striped chair in the living room with your head tucked into your arms!" and if she had that much time, she had time to move. Especially if the murderer didn't hear her give that description, which he obviously did not, as he's now searching the house. Beth should rememeber saying something like "Nina! Get down!" and your description should reflect that. Beth hoped that her normally stubborn sister had also listened to her instructions to keep her eyes closed and be as silent as possible. Beth managed a whisper, “N-Nina.” It came out just loud enough for Nina to peek up at her. She imagined how hard it was going to be to explain the blood-covered kitchen to such a tender imagination. Uh, she's duct-taped to her mom's dead body and the kid just heard the exchange between Beth and the murderer, while Beth counted the killing blows. The bloody kitchen is the least of her worries. “Come here.” Beth watched as Nina promptly scooted out from behind the chair and tip-toed into the kitchen. She's not scared out of her mind? Sorry, but if I'm a six-year-old who just heard my mom get stabbed to death, I don't obediently scoot into the scene of the murder no matter who is calling me. Beth instructed Nina to hurriedly grab the pink scissors from the top drawer that was still open from the man’s exploration. You don't need to say that the drawer is still open, Nina should know where the scissors are kept. And I would like it if you typed this out as dialogue, rather than just saying what Beth said. Give me her voice! Nina went and slid the scissors out from under all the papers and pens that had been stacking up for years now. “Now cut the tape real careful. They’re real sharp, Nini.” She had been calling Nina “Nini” since she was born. Nina had always responded better to her sister’s pet name. I like this description, and the interruption with the bit of backstory. It shows the chaotic mass of thoughts running through Beth's mind.

So let me get this straight now. Dude breaks a window and then gives the family ample time to warn the little one but not for the older two to move before he bursts in the back door with a gun which he then proceeds not to use as he fingerprints all over her kitchen looking for a knife? Well i suppose smart people aren't criminals, after all...

Beth felt the tension of the tape loosen and stripped her hands away with no regard for the pain of the industrial adhesive on her bare skin. Or the sound it would make? She scooped Nina into her arms and sprinted through the front door. But not the open back door? I'm assuming it was the back door the murderer came in through, since front doors generally don't lead to kitchens. For a front door to be his point of entry, he would need to cross through another room to get to them, presumably the living room, where Nini is hiding. It was so bright outside. So it is daytime, then? I would specify that at the very beginning, since usually these stories are set at night. It made her squint and the heat was comforting. Why? She just stood up from a pool of warm blood. Shouldn't coolness be comforting? It was such a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky. The girls and their mother were supposed to go the park that day. Nina had just gotten a new bike and they planned a trip to test it out at the park. All of them would ride together. They didn’t get many chances to do things as a family. Again, I like this interruption that shows what's going through Beth's mind right now. It also shows the irony of this horriffic scene on a beautiful day. Very nice!

Now the girls ran. They ran across the normally busy street with no caution. Officer Holcomb had lived directly across the street from the girls for about three years now and had a young daughter of his own. Beth knew he was the answer. She ran through his front door, which was always unlocked, Really? a cop keeps his door unlocked? Seems like it would be better if she had a key, and ran to the back door and fumbled with it in nerves, and worried, and Nina's crying, and it's like that nightmare where something is chasing you and you can't move... and into the Officer’s living room. Her She and her sister stood in front of his whole family. That sounds like they're about to play charades or something. Maybe she "Burst in to his living room, finding his whole family on the couch, their eyes moving from the television to her" Reddish-brown footprints trailed behind her from her still hyphen damp socks. She fell to her knees and wept on his floor asNina told Mr. Holcomb that a bad man Really? She calls him a bad man? really? had broken their window. And burst through the door... He didn’t say a word and Nina heard him load his gun as he was jogging through the yard. Which he teleports to....? How'd he get outside? Does he watch TV with the gun on his hip, and if so, why doesn't he keep it loaded, what's the use of having it so close at hand otherwise? Is he Barney Fife, with the bullet in his shirt-pocket? Also, Nina knows what it sounds like to load a gun? He would get him. Use at least one name here, it's confusing. It was over. She held her sister and continued to weep. She never got to tell her mother she loved her again. So she told Nina instead. I don't like that sentence to end it...sounds sort of contrived, doesn't show the emotion, and the last she you talk about is Nina, but then you switch to talking about beth, which creates pronoun-antecedent confusion. Perhaps you could say something like "Beth cried as she pulled her baby sister to her, her tears falling into the little girl's hair. She wouldn't ever get to tell her mother "I love you" again, and Nini wouldn't either. She pulled Nini closer, and whispered it to her instead, still weeping"