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Challenge
The Twelve Days of Christmas...
I did this last year, but I think that I'll bring it back this year too... Your mission here is to make a story titled after one of the verses of the classic song: A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE/ 2 TURTLE DOVES/ 3 FRENCH HENS/ 4 CALLING BIRDS/ 5 GOLDEN RINGS/ 6 GEESE A-LAYING/ 7 SWANS A-SWIMMING/ 8 MAIDS A-MILKING/ 9 LADIES DANCING/ 10 LORDS A-LEAPING/ 11 PIPERS PIPING/ 12 DRUMMERS DRUMMING. Choose one of these and write your short tale. It doesn't have to be about someone giving them as gifts. It doesn't even have to be about Christmas at all. For example, the 5 GOLDEN RINGS could be some sort of pirate quest for treasure, 11 PIPERS PIPING could be about an elementary orchestra recital, 3 FRENCH HENS could be about a farmer and his wife in France etc. Please take a look at the entries before you join the contest to make sure there are no duplicates. I might give some $Juice$ to the entries I like best!
roboggeek
15 reads

Nine Ladies Dancing

Special agent Shelly Jansen felt the mud soaking into her shoes, the murder scene was more swamp than pasture and yet the killer somehow left no tire tracks, no footprints and not even a trace of evidence.

Agent Robert Smith lifted the sheet and winced. “Same M.O. as the others?” he said.

“Yep,” Jansen said, “Something small caliber like a .22 long rifle, but some crazy number of shots.”

“25 rounds,” Smith said, “we’re dealing with a seriously disturbed individual”.

“Is this the seventh victim?” he said.

“This is number eight,” she said, “and they all fit the pattern, every one a dancer”.

As Jansen drove away from the scene, the rain made the roads slick, but she was deep in thought and didn’t even notice. As the wipers chattered over the scratched windshield of the government-issue sedan, Jensen was thinking about each crime scene, there was something they were missing, she knew it. Why so many rounds? It’s a message someone is sending, but we’re not getting it. Her thoughts were interrupted by her phone, it was an urgent message from special ops.

KIDNAPPING REPORTED. Calumet City 23:30 Zulu. Suspect spotted. Stand by for GPS coordinates.

Her pulse quickened as she slammed the throttle to the floor and hit the switches to engage lights and sirens. It was a farm only two miles from her location. The speedometer crested 100 as the she cut the siren and slowed to make the turn.

This never happens, she thought to herself. The local cops are always first on the scene, then the feds show up afterwards, yet here she was, going in alone and armed with only her sidearm.

Out of nowhere a bullet slammed into the dashboard as the side window blew out in a flurry of glass. She instinctively ducked down and spun the sedan left for cover, dropping it in a ditch as she hit the red panic button on the radio. She grabbed two magazines from the glove box and jumped from the car. Two more rounds punched through the windshield as she drew her weapon, but she was pinned down and the shots were getting closer….

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