The Woman in the Frock Coat

This is a short story that I wrote for school. In class we had been focusing on the different qualities of a good short story. After reading several differnt stories, we were assigned with the job of creating our own short story with these qualities. This is the story I wrote. I hope you enjoy. Also, you should check out @Uniquly_impish ' s short story it was for the same assignment :)  

A shiver ran down her frail spine, causing tingles to course through her whole body. She wrapped her arms around her small frame, trying to protect herself from the cold. Although the frock coat that was around her shoulders looked warm, it was not. She could feel the warmth seep out of her body and into the air. Although there were crowds of people, the woman couldn’t help but feel alone. She couldn't help but feel an eeriness, something indescribable, something almost unnatural about the scene. Hundreds of people had gathered outside for the gala event. The actual gala would be inside but, a speech was going to be presented outside and later the crowd would proceed inside for the gathering.

Her thick, dark hair billowed in the wind. She felt the coolness of small raindrops splash her face. She desperately wanted the speech to be over with. Only a matter of minutes had gone by, but the minutes were stretching out like hours. Time felt as if it were hardly moving. Bleeding. Dripping by slowly and painfully. Her thoughts drowned out the speaker’s voice almost entirely, just hearing words, but not registering them. The wind only started to feel colder and crisper as the minutes raged on. Word after word, but the speaker kept on speaking. The feeling of eeriness never left her as she shifted her weight from leg to leg. Impatience had gotten the better of her. She felt rude and selfish, but it was of the utmost importance that she attended the gala. She needed to get in touch with the cab driver company that had driven her to the event. She had left her clutch in the cab, and she was afraid because it had her drivers license, and money in it. Thankfully she had left her credit and debit cards at home.

She felt sick, like she was going to pass out any minute.

I need to leave she thought, simply. She needed to be set free from this horrible speech.

Bang! The sound made her turn quickly. No! Screams raged around her. Before she could even register what was happening, excruciating pain sunk into her side. The world went black.

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The woman's name was unknown to her. But her face was stitched into her memory, and it would be for the rest of her life. She had seen the blood. She had heard the screams. Yet all of that was over with now. But her memory is still haunted by the scene, just as clearly as it was minutes after it happened. Two hours had gone by since the shooting. The words still stuck in her brain. The words that, no matter how hard she tried, wouldn't leave.

“15 dead. 30 injured.” She had heard it on the news. To anyone else watching, they would have thought it was a tragedy. Too many shooting occurrences happened. But to anyone else, that's exactly what it was, a shooting. A terrible thing. Something that should never have happened. To her it was different. She was there. At the scene. She was lucky to be alive, and unharmed. Not even a scratch had been left on her body. But she was afraid that the bruises left in her mind were much worse than any physical injury could ever be.

One face couldn't leave her mind. The woman in the frock coat. She had been standing right beside her. The whole time. The woman had taken a bullet to her side. Apparently inches away from hitting a vital organ. She had helped her. The doctors had told her that she had probably saved the woman’s life. She was grateful in her choice earlier that day, of wearing a scarf. She had wrapped the woman’s wound up in the scarf, creating a tourniquet. She was currently at the hospital, waiting for the doctors. The woman in the frock coat was rushed in to surgery immediately after their arrival.