Funk-N-Fiction

B A Torguga takes us to the heart of this beautiful sunflower field for her story about a rampaging herd of beasts!!! (The term “beast” being a bit subjective, here, lol!)

Sunflowers, Dogs, and the Occasional Llama

“Can you believe it’s almost Halloween?” Brett sat on the tailgate of their truck, staring out over this huge field of sunflowers. They were starting to fade. A lot of them in fact had already lost all their seeds and were drooping, but still there was beauty there. Beauty and birds.

Lots of birds.

“I can. I feel it in the air. Is it beautiful?”

Brett started to nod to his lover, then squeezed Rowdy’s hand. “It’s a Super Bloom. Oh man. I mean, it’s not as pretty as it was a month ago, but it’s still amazing. Sunflowers are just yellow and green and brown as far as I can see. And the birds. Can you hear them all? They’re eating and doing their thing, ignoring us like we don’t even belong here.”

Rowdy chuckled softly. “Or maybe even better, like we do belong here, huh?”

He hadn’t been sure he’d ever belong here. The high desert was a completely foreign animal compared to South Carolina with the green and the rain and the ocean so close. It was a whole different universe. This place, the ranch, it was Western in a way that he’d never really imagined until he came here. Now he didn’t know how to leave.

Hell, he didn’t intend to ever leave.

“Rose packed us a lunch with tamales, some cokes in here too. She said she’d put in dessert, but I’m not sure what it was. Smelled like pumpkin.”

“Madison asked for pumpkin empanadas. I heard her last night, so I imagine that’s what it is.”

He chuckled as Rowdy smiled, just the idea of his daughter enough to make him beam.

The stalks of the sunflowers began to move. At first, it was just a single line heading straight for them, and then that single line split and became two. The parting and straightening of the stalks was the only way that he knew that anything was happening.

“We’re being hunted,” Rowdy said. “I can hear the rustling.”

Yeah, it wasn’t like they hadn’t known it was coming. Of course they had, but it was still a little thrilling to know that something with teeth and claws was hunting you and was fully intending to get in the back of this truck.

“We have three on one side and two on the other,” Rowdy warned.

“Come on, let’s get you back in the truck a little bit.” It wasn’t any reason for anyone to take a tumble.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know, but if something happened to us it’d be a hell to get us back.”

“Oh, I’ve got the walkies.”

Rowdy’s words were cut off as the first wave of the attack came, the first beast leaping up into the truck, teeth flashing.

As soon as that happened, a wild howling filled the air, and Brett shook his head.

Rowdy tapped the truck bed. “Come on, guys, everybody in the truck.”

The seeing-eye dogs, current and retired, all leapt up and the howling got louder, more poignant.

“Oh, for—” Brett climbed down and scooped up his basset hound, loading Mr. Mann up into the truck bed so he could be with his friends. “Lord have mercy. Did we have to bring the pups with us?”

“Hell yeah! That’s the fun. Let them run it out. Also, sheep like sunflowers, so if you happen to see a llama, don’t freak out…”

CONTEST: If you’d like to read more about Brett & Rowdy and their howling herd of pups, commenting here enters you for a chance to win their ebook from B A!!
To enter – let us know if you have any pets, and if so — do they have Halloween costumes?
Bonus *squee* if any of them have sunflower or llama costumes, lol!!
** Entry for this contest will ALSO count as your entry for the overall HFF event contest. **