Blood Money
October has been an interesting month so far. I wasn’t sure I would get a chance to do any of the Indies Unlimited flash fiction challenge prompts this month, but I managed to sneak one in.
It doesn’t change. They give us a picture and a word prompt on Saturdays, and then it is up to us to write a flash story of no more than 250 words based on the prompts. On Wednesdays we go shopping and have buttered scones with tea… er…
I mean to say on Wednesdays they open the voting for readers favorite story of the week.
Blood Money
Photo by K.S. Brooks
We hid in Dad’s tool shed and I kept watch at the door while Augie sat on the floor counting up all the loot from the bank bag we found on the tracks.
“I don’t like it. No bloodstained bag can bring anything but bad luck,” I said.
“Are you kidding me? This is a fortune.” Augie stared with glazed eyes at the pile of bills.
“What about the blood, Augie?”
He waved me off. “Whoever it belonged to is probably dead.”
I heard a pistol cock behind me. A deep raspy voice said, “I ain’t dead yet.”
I raised my hands straight into the air. “We didn’t know it was yours,” I said. “Give the man back his bag, Augie.” Seemed a fair trade to me anyway, but that Augie, he had other ideas.
“How we know this belongs to you?” he asked. Augie didn’t move to collect the money or even raise his hands to the air.
The man looked him up and down. He locked his eyes on Augie’s and didn’t blink. I couldn’t watch, I don’t know how Augie managed. “I got the gun, kid,” he said. “Give me my bag.”
“Yer, name ain’t on it,” Augie said.
My heart dropped into my belly. I knew this was it. Me and Augie were dead and he kept pushing it. Then I heard the hammer pull back on the gun. That was the moment, I don’t know what came over me. I jumped.
The man must have had his attention on Augie and ignored me entirely. I knocked the gun aside just as he pulled the trigger, and Augie tackled his legs. We all hit the ground in a heap. The gun flew out of the man’s hand and landed behind us.
I guess it was lucky I had some presence of mind. I snatched up the gun and aimed it right at the man’s head. In the scuffle Augie pulled himself away as I pulled the trigger.
A couple hundred thousand might not be much but it got us out of town anyway.
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