Here I’ve simply transposed the two sentences because the order makes better sense: She hears them coming and it spurs her to action. Now the sentences have momentum, whereas before the correction they were just a series of details.
Note the absence of quotation marks in the dialogue following that. I hope my publisher doesn’t get too mad at me about this. To be honest I’m torn about whether I should talk about why I avoid so much punctuation, because it just invites argument and distracts from the reasons why I avoid it in the first place. It would also have to be a separate post or two. I have to think about this.
Starting two sentences in a row with “and” isn’t something I’d usually do, and is definitely something best not done often. I did it here because it ends a section and leaves off on a note (literally) almost cinematic in its segue to the next sequence. Which we’ll get to tomorrow.