Shorts: A Collection of Short Fiction

Meal Ticket

Rex opened the door to trailer number twelve in the Dry Acres Trailer Park with a hint of excitement. A new beginning. The rusty tin can home reeked of beer and moldy carpet, but beggars couldn't be choosers, as the saying went. And he had been a beggar.

Rex remembered the day he'd stooped to scrounging scraps from the dumpster behind The Depot Grill, his favorite eatery in a past life that didn't involve sleeping in Storybook Park or begging for change.

He'd taken a congealed hunk of sausage and two toast halves from the dumpster and spun around to find he wasn't alone.

"Hey, Fella. Need a job?" the squat, cardigan-clad man asked behind a bushy mustache.

That was how he became a finder. A man who located and delivered people. He never asked questions, and he never received answers.

He'd come to like Mr. Fernberry, though the man unnerved him. But, he'd supplied Rex with a home and a paycheck, so he couldn't complain.

Rex studied the name and address of his first assignment.

He found the apartment door ajar and the woman cooking dinner. She only fought for a moment or two, but he was able to pack her unconscious body to a quiet place in the alley where his boss met up with him.

"Nicely done," Mr. Fernberry crooned as he embraced the woman.

"Want me to undress her, Boss?"

Fernberry smirked. "You don't know what you're saying. You may leave now." The last sentence came out distorted as his canine teeth grew an inch inside his mouth.

Rex granted his boss the privacy to enjoy his meal. He swore he'd never procure another body for Fernberry again, but each name he received reminded him of the dumpster.

And everyone deserved a decent meal, didn't they?