The Missing Middle Finger: Ten Sentence Story #101

Julie pulled the smoking gun from Amy’s neck and blew smoke away from the barrel as blood spattered the air in droplets of fading life.

Amy sputtered — “Why?” — as dark red oozed from deep within her and pooled on the ground beneath her neck.

“You can take my man, but never my money,” Julie growled as she tucked the gun back into her pants near the sweating small of her back.

“Your man was my brother,” Amy gasped as a switchblade rolled away from her unclenching hand and rattled across the floor, “and he wanted you dead.”

“Now you’re both dead and the money’s mine.”

Julie pulled off Amy’s cowboy boots and aligned the bare soles of her feet to create a numbers mosaic that made up the combination of the wall safe.

Julie spun the numbers on the lock and pulled open the safe where she found only the bloody remains of a middle finger — her middle finger — that was previously cleaved from her hand by her man.

Furious, Julie turned to see Amy smiling up at her from the floor, and she took the dead finger and hovered it above the ragged stump of its former home for Amy to see:  “Very funny, now where’s the money?”

Amy giggled as blood foamed from her lips as the light faded forever from her eyes, “Your man spent all the money and gave you the finger — your finger!”

Julie kneeled next to Amy and delicately placed her found middle finger in the frothing corner of Amy’s mouth like a shriveled stogie, “Now I’m giving it to you.”