fur: Its A Rote World Short Short Story
Reese Dorrycott
Mr. Simon Barber. Used with permission.
A Long Night
by Mr. David R. Dorrycott
Usual Suspects Copyright Mr. Simon Barber
"And what might this be" the Southern Georgian rabbit Katrina Schmidt
asked as she settled down, quite closely to the Cranium Island shrew
Alpha Rote. They were on South Island, having just finished a morning
ten mile hike with full packs. Ten miles on South Island meant
walking around its sandy shore more than once, and by now the sun was
up and baking them all.
Looking up from her diagram Alpha mentally shifted gears, slowing her
normal mile a second thought process's to something more in line with
what was considered normal. "It is stun gun" she explained. "Is to
stun enemy. Not kill."
Katrina looked over the delicious looking shrews shoulder, trying to
make some kind of sense of the lines and numbers in the others
journal. "You do not like killing, do you Alpha" she asked softly,
letting her body angle just such, that her scent would drift over the
shrews damaged sense of smell. A sense of smell made ragged because
of constant exposure to harsh, most often deadly chemicals along with
the ozone created by her Cranium Island laboratories machines.
"Not since marry Nancy" the shrew admitted. "Lean great game is
wrong. Can not stop others, can stop self." She reached up, rubbing
her forehead. This constant slow speech was already causing her brain
to hurt. Even after nearly a full school year she couldn't keep it up
long. It was as though a great pressure of thought was building up
within her skull, demanding to be released. "Find other ways stop
evil ones."
Katrina leaned away a bit, giving her prey room so she would feel that
things were still in control. It was near the end of the school year,
only three weeks left in fact and Katrina was fast losing her battle
against trying to steal Alpha away from her most times absent wife.
It bothered the rabbit, but as hard as she tried, she could not stop
herself. 前h God. If it is your will. Please find a way to stop me'
she prayed. Katrina was a very religious young lady, but her heart
was a completely different thing. Softly she slipped her left paw
over Alpha's tail. It was something that she had learned that the
shrew greatly loved, to have her tail manipulated gently. "It works
how" she asked, diverting Alpha's attention.
"Two pins fired high speed at attacker" Alpha answered, slipping into
her love of all things technical. When she did, the rest of the world
slipped away somewhat. "Two tiny wires attached un-spool from weapon.
When hits target releases great amount of voltage. It stuns target
but not long term harm if not used too often."
Understanding came to Katrina, and though it wasn't something she was
entirely interested in, it did intrigue her. "How though will you
build a generator small enough to fit in a pistol" she asked, her
fingers now sliding across the furless part of Alpha's tail-root.
"Is.. Problem" Alpha answered, her words separated by a soft gasp of
pleasure. "Must design.. Small power plant. " Alpha's mind though was
no longer on her project, but upon the intense pleasure Katrina was
giving her from such a small action. "Katrina" she gasped, turning to
face the rabbit. "I..." Her words were lost as the rabbit kissed
her.
Whatever would have happened never did, as Miss Blande's voice calling
that their break was over shattered the mood. Alpha pulled away, red
faced under her fur while Katrina simply made a face. "I apologize"
the rabbit whispered.
"No... After year. You. I, Nancy. We talk yes?"
"We talk" the rabbit agreed, standing, then helping Alpha to stand as
well. They walked to the cliffs edge, looking down at their
instructor who stood over fifty feet below them.
"Envelope, under the three stones" the feline called. "Twelve
minutes." She then turned and jogged towards a curve in the path,
quickly out of their view.
Elizabeth and Megan already had the envelope open by the time Alpha
and Katrina reached them. "On company time" was all the nutria asked
as she offered the paper to Katrina.
"On company time" the rabbit admitted. "Alpha Rote has become deathly
ill after returning from Cranium Island. You must carry her body
to..." She looked over at the shocked shrew. "Says you ate something
from home that liked you more" she explained.
"Happens" the shrew admitted.
"Eleven minutes" Megan noted after looking at her own water resistant
stopwatch. "To make a stretcher, then reach the aircraft and a
waiting cure or Alpha dies." Without another word she simply pulled
her blouse off, turning it inside out. Following her lead Katrina did
the same while Elizabeth searched and quickly located two usable
lengths of wood by the simple act of breaking two saplings off near
the ground. The Nutria her dorm had discovered long ago, had immense
physical strength when she needed it.
With Alpha securely bound to the stretcher by their backpack straps,
and their backpacks carried by Elizabeth, Katrina and Megan hurrying
down the pathway. They barely dodged two traps set most likely by the
guides. Their last two yards were to be over loose stone. Stone
both girls simply jumped side by side, clearing those stones and
landing upon soft sand. Too soft sand as it gave under their feet,
instantly trapping both. Elizabeth though simply snatched the
scratcher from their paws, dropping their packs within reach on the
rocks and hurried to the hired water taxi that was their aircraft
today.
"Thirty-eight seconds" Miss Blande noted as Elizabeth snatched the
Nootnops Red sitting beside her, a paper tag saying CURE pasted upon
it. Removing the cap with nothing but her paws Elizabeth returned
from a still gasping Alpha to shove the bottle down her mouth, forcing
the shrew to swallow its contents.
"Twenty-one seconds" Miss Blande reported over the coughing Alpha
Rotes sounds, though Elizabeth was no longer near either of them. She
was now near her two class mates, having returned to study the problem
before her. Katrina was already chest deep in the sand, and still
sinking while Megan had thrown herself forward, sinking as well but
not nearly as quickly.
"These are vibrating sands. Their movement caused by constant release
of ancient volcanic gasses. Once trapped within them one is doomed
unless another finds a way to pull them out. You have time to save
but one" Miss Bland's voice announced. "Choose, or lose both."
In answer to that challenge the rabbit Katrina wiggled, throwing her
arms around her expansive chest as she did so and sinking like a rock.
In seconds her long ears vanished under the sands surface. With her
choice made Elizabeth grabbed Megan's arms and fighting the sands grip
she managed, in time, to pull her friend from the sucking sand. Of
Katrina there was nothing to be seen.
"And now there are but three" the feline noted as she walked up to the
two shocked girls. "You were warned that our training is deadly
dangerous."
"She... she gave herself up. So I would live" Megan whispered. "As
though life meant nothing to her."
"She gave herself up yes. But why? We will never know, will we. Now
recover your packs and prepare. We are going to South Island next,
and mountain climbing." As the girls gathered their things Miss Bland
recovered an old sign hidden behind a bush, shoving it into the soft
sand between where the two girls had been trapped. 船anger. Sucking
Sands' was written on it in several languages.
"Katrina" Alpha asked, pure loss in her voice.
"These type of sands have been measured over one hundred feet deep
Mrs. Rote" the feline instructor explained. "Three hundred in a very
few places. This one is about eighty feet deep. By now your friend
is ten feet or more down and very much dead. She made her choice, to
save her friend. I can assure you that it will not be worth the
trouble to recover her body, or the others that she has joined. Due
to the dryness of these sands her body will mummify rather quickly.
Perhaps in thirty or so years she will drift to the surface. Then a
grave will be made ready for her body. Now to the taxi, it is not yet
lunch time and we have much yet to do."
"NO" Alpha yelled, throwing herself at the place Katrina had been.
She began digging with both paws, but as fast as she dug the simmering
soft, dust dry sands fell back into her hole. With ten minutes of
trying she never managed a hole deeper than three feet. Finally the
shrew gave up, understanding that sometimes one lost, even off of
Cranium Island. With her friends help she too escaped that deadly
trap, staggering to her feet, tears in her eyes she made her way to
the awaiting water taxi. "I never forget her" she told the waiting
feline as she sat down. "Never."
Alpha Rote woke in a sweat. A dream, it had to be a dream she
realized. Throwing off her thin blanket she stood, looking into the
bunk above her. There Katrina slept, the rabbit snoring ever so
slightly. It had been a dream, a horrible, terrible dream. Sitting
on her bed she tried to make sense of it. Why, why would she dream
such a thing? She rarely dreamed non-technical dreams at all. Alpha
was still trying to make sense of it hours later when Miss Bland
walked to the open door. "Five mile full pack" the feline announced
none too gently. "Ladies, today we see what South Island has to show
us."
Alpha barely managed not to scream.