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LINKY & DINKY in "20 Clicks outside Hell" ©2003 Linky & Dinky Enterprises. All Rights Reserved. 437 words
Linky and Dinky lie badly wounded and bleeding in a shallow mud ditch, 20 clicks outside of De Neng, unable to move to the cover of the nearby treeline, and completely unable to fight. One of Linky's legs was now more bone than flesh, an anti-personnel mine having blasted away his entire calf and much of the thigh. Dinky suffered a wide gash in his left side from flying shrapnel, and with no way to close the wound, it now soaked in the filthy sludge of the ditch, the water and it's teeming organisms lapping in and out of his body with every breath. Hungry, vicious jungle dogs waited nearby, attentive for signs of weakness, watching, creeping slowly closer.
Their weapons lost, Linky & Dinky knew friendlies weren't likely to find them, but the Viet Cong would, and surely before morning. Even if Charlie miraculously overlooked them, they would soon sicken from the lethal bacteria seeping into their open sores, or die from the attack fangs of poisonous snakes -- if the blood leeches didn't get them first.
And at what point would the pack of wild dogs start to rip and tear into the found meal?
Rain gave way to a relentless blast of hot sunlight, followed by blinding rain again as Linky & Dinky tracked the coming of night. Three hours until darkness, now two hours. The light began to fade. One hour left to live. In the darkness they would die. Earlier, Linky & Dinky shared their only knife, cutting leeches off each other's exposed skin, but since that just increased blood loss, they gave up on it, and actually appreciated the growing numb spots, a gift from the leeches. They spoke little, and as the hours passed, dementia kept them awake more than conversation.
A rumble far down the rutted Vietnamese footpath grew louder, until it nearly roared upon them, but they could only watch as it approached... helpless. It was a native, pushing a mechanical wagon, and they saw him waving his arms, gesturing them away. Get out of the way! Move away!
Linky & Dinky only stared.
The roar stopped. Sudden silence.
"Get out of that rain puddle, you're in the way of the lawn mower!" Uncle Url barked. "Get inside and change your clothes, you're all wet and dirty now. What a mess!"
Linky and Dinky hopped up from the grass, looked down at their soaked clothes, and ran toward the house. Uncle Url yanked the lawnmower back to life and deftly skirted the big puddle in the yard, never to know the incredible drama imagined on that spot.
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