Nice follow up. The dialogue does a pretty good job of conveying both the plot and their emotions, but it almost feels unnatural because of all the conveying it does. It sounds like there’s more dialogue in here than necessary. I think it would be more effective if you let the readers figure it out (for example, describing another pause or their silent reaction after the “Dear lord…volunteers” line would be more suspenseful for the reader).

That said, the story is still plenty suspenseful and interesting. It could just use some polishing in my opinion.

The one liners are usually pretty open to interpretation, however when I read PJ Deane’s the first time, a image of something similar to this popped up.

I think that you could have made it more intense by downplaying on the dialogue like Stovohobo said.

I really like this – not what came to mind when I read PJ’s, but then it’s good to be surprised…

Kind of darkly funny in a way, that prospect that everything could come crashing down on them is worrying, but you tell it with some subtle humour – I like it muchly – MH :)

Thanks for the feedback, all. I’m trying to get my brain back into the habit of writing prose after doing almost nothing else but webcomics scripting for the last couple of years. Gotta rewire some synapses, apparently. :)