FELICIA HEILGENDORFF

“Sure we can pull this off,” the meerkat said rolling his eyes.

“We can’t kill him! What if the zookeeper hears him?” the other one said, looking around their little room anxiously.

“He won’t hear a thing, because he won’t scream. He trusts us,” he said, walking towards the little opening that led to the larger cave. “We’ll be heroes if we finish him off.”

“But… but…what if…”

“Shh,” the other one said, waving his sharp claws in the air for silence. “I think those were footsteps,” he whispered, backing towards the other meerkat.

“Are you kidding me? Now he’s heard us. He’s sure come to kill us now. Ohh, we’re dead meerkats!” he started howling, but the other clapped his paw over his mouth.

“What is that peculiar smell?” he said suddenly, sniffing the air.

Slowly, he took the paw away from the mouth of the other meerkat, who was sitting open-mouthed next to him. Then he was running to the exit.

“It’s a poisonous gas!” he yelled to the other. “He’s killing us! Get the hell out of here!”

He reached the exit just when something large covered it up, leaving them in complete darkness. Panicked, he rammed his shoulder into it, but it wouldn’t budge. From outside, there was booming laughter, as the gas slowly reached their lungs.

© 2016

Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner, Wee, #15 – 2016

Photo prompt provided by https://pixabay.com/en/meerkat-fur-small-face-mouth-316736/