The Retreat
It’s Wednesday. You know that right? Time to do some voting. I know I know, you voted already. I don’t need to remind you to do it. You’re a big kid and can dress yourself and everything. Did you brush your teeth? Did you wash your face and hands? Did you remember the soap?
Don’t make me check, cause I will. I’m not trying to be mean. I just want you to be presentable when you go over to Indies Unlimited and put your vote in for this week’s flash fiction.
The Retreat
photo by K. S. Brooks
I hate these corporate retreats. I hate the happy talk and the way they pretend that what you have to say matters in the least.
Three freaking days with a bunch of people I have to work elbow-to-elbow with for eight hours a day the rest of the year anyway.
Most of all, I hate the forced group activities. This year, Doug, our glorious leader, insisted we all do a ten mile bike ride through the wilderness trail. As always, he was way ahead of the pack, even though the rangers told us to stick together. Doug should have listened…
When we found his body, to put it lightly, there wasn’t so much of a body anymore. Doug rode further ahead than we thought. We never heard the attack, never heard his screams. Oh, I am sure he screamed.
What we did find was his head. Claw marks dug deep into the side of his face. A rend and then tear removed the head from the body. I held Sue from accounting’s hair as she tossed the light lunch we ate before the ride into the weeds beside the trail.
We saw nothing of the animals that attacked him though. An attack in broad daylight, swift with no warning. I didn’t expect to see much. Hell, I assumed it was a mountain lion or something like that anyway.
Bob, lead programmer from the Jenkins account, called the ranger station to report the issue. He told us they should have a crew out in short order.
Only problem, they needed a couple of us to stick around and guide them to the deceased’s location. Said that they would need to collect information from the attack site.
Me and Bob lost the pool and stuck around to watch over the area and the body. I haven’t seen the animal that did this still but I have heard some howling, and the moon is just over the horizon.
The howls have been getting closer. I wonder if the ranger’s will get here before nightfall.
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