Disrupted Dinner

Flash ~ 400 words

Photo by Jeff Finley on Unsplash

Jayden Moore’s body lay broken at the base of a cliff. Climbing equipment was scattered all around the corpse like sacrificial offerings to some long-dead god.

But there were no gods in this country. There never had been. There was no ruler of this realm – this land of red rock, dust, and sun.

Two days passed since the fatal fall, and rigor mortis already pervaded the body, stiffening it like a plank of wood. Maggots infiltrated orifices. Once they filled the nostrils, they went for the eye sockets, then the ears.

Eventually, they worked their way south.

“Oh” was the last word that escaped Moore’s mouth when he slipped – when his climbing rope snapped. He didn’t even scream. It was more a whisper.

When his skull whiplashed onto the devilish rock, he didn’t feel a thing. His spine shattered and shoulder blades exploded. He had no time to think, cry, or pray. His life didn’t flash before his eyes.

Within hours, he was nothing more than rotting meat – dinner for the ecstatic maggots. Soon, he would be the one to feed the earth.

On the third day after the event, a pack of starved, feeble coyotes traced the corpse’s stench. Once the body was visible, they swarmed it, yipping and cackling at their long-sought find. The rottenness didn’t faze them in the slightest. Neither did the maggots. The largest of the pack leapt onto his dinner, sinking teeth into flesh. The others joined in, ravaging their supper to pieces.

Within minutes, there was a faint rumbling in the distance.

Two rangers driving all-terrain vehicles tore into the clearing, near the cliff’s base. One of the men spotted the gruesome mealtime and held his pistol in the air, firing a round.

 The coyotes scampered away toward the parched canyon. A lonely dust cloud followed after them.

The two men killed their engines and approached the body.

“Christ,” the gun-wielding ranger said. “It must be him.” He covered his mouth and nose, gagging.

The second ranger reached for his cell phone to alert the others. Jayden Moore had been found. Finally, the search was over.

But the image before them would be burned in their minds forever, etched like the yin-yang tattoo on the half-eaten forearm.

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