| Mystery and Crime Flash Fiction posted June 23, 2016 |
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Flash Fiction-Potlatch Practice
Unwilling Prey
by michaelcahill
The highway through Yosemite loomed ahead a mere hundred yards. Seconds normally for Dogbert Balderfinfarm. A fit thirty-five-year old, looking years younger, who prided himself in being in top physical condition, “The Dogster” once ran a 9.5-hundred-yard dash in his teens, still a record at Arcadia High School.
A sliced and bleeding Achilles tendon put the kibosh in any attempt to match that feat. His other leg sported either a dislocated or broken knee courtesy of a fall down a thirty-foot embankment, ending against a majestic California Redwood. The landing did little good for his head, certainly not designed as any kind of braking device.
The blood from his head not only weakened him, it clouded his vision. But his hearing remained intact. The sound of tires whirring along a highway remained clear and oh so inviting. It sounded like his desperate chance for survival. That desperate hope drove him forward inch by painful inch.
A little more than a mile away a search party called his name. A dazed young lady named, Laura Smythe, all one hundred and two pounds of her, walked alongside the park rangers she encountered after separating from Dogbert. Her last sight was seeing him tumble head over heels down that embankment.
She, herself, suffered from injuries sustained in a brutal attack. Somehow she had fought off her attacker despite his size.
She now looked only to reunite with Dogbert. The thought of him out there lost terrified her to the bone. She couldn’t rest until she knew he’d been found.
A shout rang out after about twenty minutes had passed.
“I’ve found him!”
All searchers rushed to the sound of the voice.
Medical personnel immediately set about treating his wounds.
Laura and the park rangers arrived next followed closely by California Sheriffs.
Laura watched as the Sheriffs cuffed the still prone Dogbert.
“Is this the man, miss?”
“Yes, that’s the son-of-a-bitch.”
“I don’t know how you did it, ma’am, but you fought off the Redwood Rapist. You would’ve been his twenty-third victim. You’re a hero. Dammit, woman, you’re my hero, that’s for sure.”
 Recognized |
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