WARNING -- MILD VIOLENCE, INTENSE SCENES, TWIST ENDING
(The author wishes to note that the characters in this story are eighteen years of age or older.)
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He pulled a hidden switch and ran as fast as he could. His home tunnels collapsed behind him... so much work, all his things... and the ferret was already digging! The earth hadn't even had time to settle, she'd be through it in a flash! He turned and ran again while he could into the city tunnels.
He turned this way and that, trying to confuse his scent trail with all the other gopher feet that had passed down the tunnels. He turned right into a side tunnel. It was marked a dead end but he knew better. Ducking into a certain residence, he made straight for a back door that wasn't supposed to be there..
"Inspector!"
It was the girl next door. She wasn't supposed to be there either. But this was no time for municipal enforcement!
"Ferret! Ferret!" he cried. "Get out!"
They both raced for the illegal door. She got to it first. He grabbed it as she rushed through and stopped her from slamming it behind her. Something hissed behind him. He risked a glance and gasped; the ferret was tearing through the residence's main tunnel towards him! He ducked through the illegal door and tried to slam it. The ferret hit it first. She got her claws around the edge of the door. He hit it back and held it as closed as he could; just barely too small for her to get through!
"Can you collapse their residence from here?" he demanded.
"Bobby's still in there!" the girl said.
"He's toast!" the inspector cried. "If we can't stop this monster here, we'll all be dead!"
"I can't just..."
She didn't get a chance to. The ferret slammed into the door and knocked the inspector off his feet. She was on Bobby's girl in an instant. Whining in terror, he left her for dead.
He ran out the door and down the next tunnel as fast as he could, shouting "Ferret! Ferret!" at the top of his lungs. And before he knew it... even before he was too winded to shout and run at the same time... hot breath was panting against his hind feet! He didn't need to look, he knew from the sound that they weren't gopher feet galloping behind him. Half crying, half moaning in terror, he tried to make himself go faster.
Then the tunnel went dark. He smelt fresh soil. He realized that the tunnel was about to end at a new-cut wall. He realized that he couldn't run further than a few more steps. He realized that he couldn't stop, either. Or turn. Or jump. Something very hard hit his face.
He was blackness, silence, nothing.
...only for a moment, then he came too, his face angry with pain and pressed against a big rock at the end of the tunnel. But something was wrong. His face hurt, but the rest of him was okay. He wasn't being eaten! He got up as quickly as he could. Silhouetted against the light from up the tunnel, the ferret was picking herself up. She must have hit the rock, too!
Quick, he realized, while she's still stunned! He charged the ferret, pushed past her to the open tunnel, to any door that he could lock behind him...
One finger of his nearer hand, she caught it, pulled, swung him crazily around, tripped him, he flew in a circle around himself, the raw dirt of the new tunnel wall hit him hard from behind. Now the ferret was on him, pinning his shoulders with her forepaws. Her mouth opened wide, her sharp, white teeth showing in the dim tunnel light... so many, so sharp! He felt his lungs filling with his final scream.
"TELEGRAM!"
His scream filled his ears with his own terror, the agony of waiting for agony, despair and plain annoyance that it should happen now. Loud and louder he screamed, then softer and softer as the realization set in of the word she'd yelled at him. "Huh?" he added.
The ferret sighed in annoyance. "Why do they always send me to Gophertown?" she muttered. "What did I do to them? Sir," she went on, "are you James Hardpaw, Inspector of Tunnels for Gophertown?"
"Uh, yeah," he panted, "that's me."
"Telegram, sir. For you." The delivery ferret let go of Hardpaw's shoulders and reached behind herself to a pouch he hadn't seen before and brought out a clipboard with a signing sheet and a piece of folded paper clipped to it. "Sign here, please," she added.
"You're... not... not going to... eat me?"
"Not today, sir."
Hardpaw signed and took the telegram. The ferret put the clipboard back in her pouch and walked away. Hardpaw watched her go. When she reached the next cross-tunnel she looked both ways and sniffed carefully, then turned back.
"Pardon me, Mr Hardpaw, which way is out?"
Copyright © 2009 Allan D. Burrows, All Rights Reserved
