It’s a suspense story for my writing class. It’s not very far along yet.

My main character Ben is on a road trip with his older brother, his brother’s best friend, and his own best friend. While in a traffic jam, a mechanic named Dave gives them directions on how to get to where they need to go. Later in the story, Dave catches up with the group and kidnaps one of them.

Sorry, I know the story is a bit slow.

The van smells like rotten eggs with a hint of wet dog. I sit in the middle row, scrunching my nose in disgust as I continue looking out the soda-splattered window. The few trees and plants that were outside were not moving at all. It felt as if the whole world was standing still.
In the driver’s seat, I hear Mike mumbling curse words. He is impatiently tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, looking as if he was going to explode in anger. We haven’t moved an inch in over forty-five minutes. The van was at the end of the line in the traffic jam so none of us know what is going on. People in front of us were jumping out of their cars and walking up to where the problem seemed to be.
Suddenly, someone knocks on our window, Mike rolls it down.
"What’s going on?" Mike asks.
The balding man sighs and rubs his crinkled forehead. "Road construction."
"We’re all the way back here because of road construction?" Mike snaps, throwing himself back into the seat.
The man nods. "Said we’ll be here at least another thirty minutes," he says in his heavy Texas accent. I guess he is a mechanic because of the grease covering his shirt and hands. There is a patch in the left-hand corner of the shirt that had the name "Dave" stitched into it.
"We’re never going to make it there before sunset!" Mike exclaims.
Dave leans farther in, resting his arms on Mike’s window. "Where ya’ll headed?"
Personally, I don’t think Mike should be talking to a complete stranger about where we are heading. I don’t want to be rude and tell Mike not to say, so I keep mouth shut. Afterall, I didn’t want to make a huge mechanic mad.
"Burkley," Mike says.
"Ah. Well if ya’ll turn ’round, you can take Highway 75 out to Northbound 277 and you will be able to get there," Dave tells my brother.
"Do I just keep driving on 277?" Mike inquires, obviously interested in getting out of the giant traffic jam.
"Yes, sir," Dave says. "After a couple ‘a miles, ya’ll should see a sign that says ‘Burkley – Five Miles West’."
Mike nods. "Thank you so much," he sounds truly thankful.
"Not a problem," says Dave.
Dave waves as he walks away. I turn around in my seat to see what he was driving. He had hopped into an old beat up red pick-up truck that looked as if it had been in a tornado.
Since we are at the very end of the line of cars, Mike begins to turn around without a problem. Within seconds, we are on the road again. I sigh of relief and smile.
I look to my left to see Shawn sleeping. His head is hanging down, a little bit of drool dripping down his chin. His head keeps bopping up and down. In his hand, he holds his CD player with a lose grip.
Keith is sleeping up in the passenger seat. His bare feet on the dash board and his face pressed against the window. That sleeping position had to be uncomfortable.
Mike is finally calm. He is nothing like he normally is. All day, he had been stressing about what to pack and how to pack it. Normally care-free and chaotic, became orderly and structured. Today, he was more like me than himself.
"Ben," Mike says. "Get me a soda."
Sighing, I nod. The van is so crammed with all of our stuff that the only place to put the mini-cooler was in the middle of Shawn’s legs. I reach over, trying not to wake him up, which I fail at. Shawn’s eyes pop open. He lets out a loud yawn and stretches.
"Sorry," I tell him.
He shrugs. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere on 277," I say. "Some guy came up and gave us directions to get out of there while we were stuck in traffic." The more I thought about Dave, if that was even his real name, the creepier he seemed. His voice was deep and had a rusty sound to it. The guy just freaks me out.
"Oh." I could tell he didn’t really care.
"Ben! Soda!" Mike yells at me.
"Sorry!" he extends his arm and grabs the soda from my hand.

Please rate the beginning out of ten (one being the worst, ten being the best) and please give me a reason why you rated it that. Would you continue reading it or is it just too boring? What did you like about it? What didn’t you like about it?

Thanks! Much appreciated!