I haven't fact checked any of this, just had a scene I wanted to write because I can't sleep. This has nothing to do with my other stories but you could probably put this in the Hidden Fangs universe.
The tall grass shuffled behind Derrick. He tried his best to control his breathing as he inched toward his sidearm. He was unsure if he should turn around fast and unload into whatever it was or stay calm and raise his gun slowly. What if he emptied his mag and then picked up whatever it was he killed and it was Harriss’ kid?
“Hello?” Derrick asked, unsure if that was a stupid thing to do and next he’d feel teeth in the back of his throat.
No response.
He sucked in the humid air, turned around, and raised the gun up slowly. Whatever it was, it was too small to be seen through the grass. Not that that was saying much, he could barely see his own shoulders. Derrick pulled the trigger three times. The instructor always said twice, but who knew how thick whatever-this-thing’s skin was?
Please don’t be the kid…
The grass shuffled fast. It must have been squirming now. His shin was rammed into and he toppled over something fat. Derrick flew into the grass and landed face first into the soil. His ears rang and his dumbass mouth had been open the whole fall. Derrick had the displeasure of tasting the sweaty humid grass and chunky mud.
His glasses were gone, but first he needed to know where the animal was. Derrick pushed himself out of the mud, his right eye was caked in it. He wiped as much off as he could, though all he did was spread it down his face and get more in his eye.
There was a violent kicking ahead, but he couldn’t hear it past the ringing. With only half of his face to see with, Derrick raised his gun and stepped forward. The grass danced frantically before him. He popped another bullet off, feeling it more than hearing it. The grass stopped moving.
Derrick holstered his gun and reached down with one reluctant hand, almost certain he wouldn’t find a human child with red streaks of blood staining her clothes, but the fear sat heavy in his stomach. The tips of his fingers felt something fleshy, fuzzy, like a juvenile pig.
He lifted the limp animal with both arms. Dilated mammalian eyes stared into the sky past his arm. Not a pig, but a mammal, he assumed anyway.
Derrick almost wanted to groan in disgust or laugh, but huffed anxious breaths as its blood crawled down his arms and coat. There was another shuffling to his left.
He snapped his whole body with a quickened breath and still holding the animal. Maybe he’d throw it at whatever was coming and then book it. Feathery tails hopped up and down through the tall grass. But they were going from him towards the jungle. To his left again, he saw more fleeing, and then behind him.
Globs of sweat stung in his good eye. By shooting this little animal, he might have just saved himself from an ambush of hungry predators.
The Preserve: Stalked