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Short stories: The dump

by Stacey Foxworthy

Created on: November 01, 2008

It was a very small town located a little over two hours from the nearest refuse dump. Out of a desperate need for a more convenient location the townspeople had decided to create their own little landfill to help ease the burden of waste disposal. It was a thinly populated county situated in a very mountainous region so word had spread fast.




The official county dump charged a fee for use and held strict regulations regarding what could be dumped and exactly where it could be dumped. Some people living in the county preferred to go the extra mile to dispose of their unwanted debris in order to avoid the strict regulations and fee of the county sanctioned dump. Unfortunately, what some people had come to consider refuse had become a bit skewed and terribly unnerving to say the least.




Unwanted animals, specifically dogs and cats, were disposed of in this highly unregulated area. It was not uncommon to come across litters of abandoned puppies and kittens among the various other debris deposited here. It was often done under the cloak of night out of view of any watchful, prying eyes. If exposure to the elements did not initially steal the life from their weak, fragile little bodies then stalking coyotes and mountain lions would feast upon their vulnerable flesh.




It became a habit of mine, a young teenager, to make constant trips to this dump located just outside my home town as I had been moved to perform constant rescue missions. I could not just stand idly by and watch these poor defenseless creatures suffer for the mistakes of their previous owners. The local animal shelters in the region came to know me on a first name basis. My name was Mercy.




One late afternoon I made a normal trek out to this dump I had named The Pit of Despair. Far too often I had arrived late to the morbid sight of half-eaten corpses and decaying bodies. It never got any easier for me to view such displays yet I continued on my quest to save as many innocent lives as possible.




I saw him from around the bend with rifle raised standing next to an old beat-up four-door truck. I watched in horror as two defenseless fleeing puppies were gunned down in cold-blood before my eyes. I swear I could make out an evil, sinister smirk enveloping his face as he appeared to take great joy in these heinous acts. Rage coursing through my veins as I observed these poor creatures trying desperately to escape with their very lives, I felt my foot jam down on the accelerator. Steering the truck straight for him

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