The combine harvester suddenly started coughing. It stopped, I went out to see what the problem was. It must be a rock, I thought, as I opened the separator doors.

I inhaled the stench of a freshly ripped corpse. Fresh blood was dripping all over the metal box. Damn, I thought, quail again. My hands pulled out stalks mixed with minced meat, enough meat for a wedding. Never before had there been so much blood and flesh. And harvester had never shut down because of quail. Red noodles hung from the grille. I moved one to my nose and sniffed. Fuck, this is not a quail, this is red meat. Pig? As I closed the cabin door, I realised. I couldn’t have ground up Rex, could I? Rex is big. He weighs forty pounds, enough to block a machine. It couldn’t be Rex. He was too smart a dog for that.

After two more coughs, the machine made its normal sound. Great, but I couldn’t escape that thought. Rex is used to the harvester, maybe he was thinking I would stop when I saw him. Horror! If that happened, what would I say when I got home? My wife will handle that, but the daughter really loved him. Just yesterday, she made him a pink necklace.

I stopped the harvester and took the cell phone in my hand. A female voice answered. Where is Rex, I asked. Rex is here, she said, surprised. In the background I could hear a dog whimpering. I thought you were calling about Lucy, she said. We have been searching for her for over half an hour. Do you know where she has disappeared to?

On the rotor fluttered a small piece of fabric. Pink, with glitter.

This story was written on CeKaPe 2014 summer writing course. My assignment was to write a short horror story because that was the genre I was least comfortable with. Nebojša, thanks for pushing me outside my comfort zone 🙂