Scryer's Gulch, Episode 16 is live, plus other news

[meilin-miranda.livejournal.com]

Culling the Herd:

Sheriff John and Deputy Rabbit stood over a horribly mangled body the next morning, dumped at the foot of the rockslide. "Doc, what do you think?" John asked an older man dressed in black, crouched by the body.

"I think he's dead, Sheriff, is what I think," said the doctor, not bothering to look up as he coolly rolled the body from one side to another. "Hard to breathe without a neck."

John looked to the sky for patience. "Dr Horridge, I'm asking you for your professional opinion on what might have killed him--cougar? Wolf? Bear?"

"Man with really sharp teeth?" added Rabbit.

"I know what you're asking. Let a man in a grim profession enjoy himself a little." Dr Horridge shook his head. "Can't rightly say, Runnels. Coulda been any kind of animal with claws, but I tell you: it'd have to be a damned big one--near as I can tell, it took out his throat with one bite. And a smart one--he wasn't killed here. Something dragged him." Horridge stood up, stretching his back till it popped. "I'm getting old. And whatever it was, it wasn't hungry. Didn't really eat so much as savage him. Not many predators'd do that. Except, of course, for Man."

In other news! I didn't even place in the Ergofiction Search Term Challenge, but I like the story I wrote anyway. :)