Fight or Flight

Since I missed the deadline for the Witchology, I thought I would share some of my short story, Fight or Flight.  Enjoy!

-nr

Fight or Flight

by nickie Rivers

The lawn dogs sniffed the air.  Their grassy coats drank in the the rain and their brown root tongues tasted the drops of blood Gabrielle Misere had shed tumbling over the barbed wire fence.  The two green monstrosities padded along the outside of the chain link looking for an opening or a gate they could jump.  Coats of spiky emerald crabgrass shook as they ran and when they barked their clipped voices ground together like lawnmower blades.
 
Through the cellophane sheets of downpour Gabby could see blood on their thorny fangs and mixed into their rainwater drool.  Her blood.  She had scratches on the back of her right leg and her arms were tattooed with deep cuts from teeth that had been seeking her throat.
 
Gabrielle had climbed a fence guarding a construction site.  The ground here was bare dirt or fresh slabs of concrete.  The earth spirits trapped in the lawn dog bodies couldn’t flow thru the green and grow again in this barren ground.  They would have to dig under the fence or jump over it.
 
Her mentors voice whispered into the back of her mind and schooled Gabrielle on the topology of the two grass demons.  They wouldn’t try to dive back into the green and grow fresh bodies even if she jumped the fence surrounding a golf course.
 
They were too weedy and feral, bursting into the world like dandelion sprouts.

Stephanie had made a mistake binding them to fresh cut grass.  Their minds were filled with tortured memories of mechanized cutting and their lungs were choked with weed killer.  It made them violent and difficult to control.

She had to think fast.  The lawn dogs would be stymied by the fence for less than five minutes.  She could see one of them rapid fire digging at the bottom of the fence and the other throwing itself at the chain link, looking for a weak spot.

Stephanie wouldn’t be so easy to stop.  Stephanie could easily climb the fence the way Gabrielle had.
 
No, she wouldn’t.
 
Stephanie was tired.  Calling to Maya to summon the earth demons and binding them to the spirit of the grass and to the image of Anubis would leave her weak and fuzzy headed.  The constant rain would drag at her footsteps.  Stephanie hated the rain.  She acted like the water could melt flesh.  She would move slow, covered up in her thick raincoat, hiding under an oversized black parasol.

Stephanie would plod along the fence line until it reached the street where she could open the gate to let the lawn dogs in or go after Gabrielle one-on-one.

Gabrielle needed a weapon.  The construction site was rife with weapons that could stop a normal person.  A two-by-four or a chunk of rebar upside the head at the right moment would stop most attackers.  It wouldn’t phase the lawn dogs.  She needed a blessing like gardening shears.

Or... something that could stop Stephanie cold.

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