Allan Baehm is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In the case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.)
Without further ado, here’s the winning story:
Photo copyright K. S. Brooks. Do not use without attribution.
Driftwood
by Allan Baehm
The statuesque woman stood in the water a few feet off the shoreline of the tiny island with her gray tapered khaki trousers rolled up to her knees as the waves slapped above her ankles. Her short-cropped black hair caught the warm breeze as did her brown cotton shirt and soiled white silk scarf. It was sunset and there was still no sign of a rescue vessel or plane. Her blue eyes strained into the horizon while a tear crept down her face.
She looked back towards her badly injured companion. The light from the signal fire lit his auburn hair and twisted features. His lanky frame leaned against one immense log of driftwood. He reached forward to tighten the haphazard splint of his blood-soaked broken leg. His pale face grimaced as he adjusted the rope and bandages while his limbs shivered from loss of blood. He pulled his brown leather aviators jacket closer to his upper body like a blanket. He took a sip of water from his canteen and nibbled on some dried meat, gazing at the sunset and the woman simultaneously.
The wrecked plane was still on the shelf reef.
He called out to her. “It’s time for the signal. Use 3105 kHz. The sky is clear tonight.”
~~~
A twelve-year-old kid was playing with his father’s ham radio equipment one evening. Between the strange whistles and harmonic sounds of the atmosphere on a clear night came a voice “Earhart.”
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Allan Baehm is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In the case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.)
The wrecked plane was still on the shelf reef.