My100: Original One-Page Story Hooks 62 and 63

The challenge: 100 first-page story hooks in sixty days. Just the first page (or less), and it has to hook the reader to want more.

Raise the difficulty: Nah. Not doing that tonight. These are just as they come off the keyboard.

Sixty-two:

The 24th of July in Utah is a perfect time to commit a murder. At about nine thirty, half the world began launching aerial fireworks, all of which sounded more or less like a high-caliber weapon being discharged. One more bang on a suburban street would surely not be noticed. And it wasn’t, not when Albert pulled the trigger, and not when Rachel went down in a heap with her clean laundry drifting over her like textile snow. Nor was it when Carmen, peeking through the back door at precisely the wrong moment, put three bullets into Albert’s back in a vain attempt to stop him from killing his wife. But when Zane, out for his evening patrol of his property, leveled his shotgun and blasted Carmen from across the neighboring lawn, it just happened to come in a great lull in the festivities, and every eye on the block was drawn to the rail-thin ex-accountant as he stood there in his striped shorts and dark socks, wreathed in smoke, and tried to wish the shot back into the barrel.

Sixty-three:

Shadows lengthened across the hardpan, slowly at first, then faster until Mara was sure she could see them grow as she watched. She should move. The things that came from under the rocks at the setting of the sun could swallow her whole. But she didn’t move, just sat with her back against the rotting fencepost and let the heat bake her. Let them come. She was done with it all, with the world, with what was left of life. Slung across her back was her mother’s ancient rifle. Maybe she wouldn’t even draw it.

A little dust devil, a thumbspan wide, danced off the end of her boot. She closed her eyes for a moment, but they bounced open, stinging. Not long now. Her shadow reached out across the scorched earth, calling doom. It would answer. It knew her call like a lover by now.

P.S. This series is the brainchild of The New Creatives, which challenged us to create 100 of something as a way of attaining mastery of a particular art form (or beginning the process, more like). This is my attempt. #TNCmy100

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