Reservoir Run

By Diane Strong

Alison lays unconscious in a hospital bed after a long-distance training run leaves her half-dead at the bottom of a deep ravine. While Rick is a faithful husband, Alison gave him many reasons to attempt to kill her. The question of who tried to kill Alison hangs in the air while Rick waits impatiently for her to awake and assure him he’s innocent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diane Strong
• Release date: Jun 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301616541

Diane Strong

Diane Strong lives in Kentucky with her husband and their two children. She received a liberal arts degree at Itasca Community College, a Bachelors of Science in Psychology and Equine Studies from Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana and a Master’s degree in Veterinary Science from the University of Kentucky. She writes a small column for the Georgetown News Graphic and homeschools her children. In her spare time she competes in road races, triathlons and adventure races. She is the founder of the Georgetown Run Club and Intellectual Society. She loves what she does.

Book preview

Reservoir Run: (This is a 10,000 word short story/ approx. 34 pages) (This is a stand-alone story)

Alison lays unconscious in a hospital bed after a long-distance training run leaves her half-dead at the bottom of a deep ravine. While Rick is a faithful husband, Alison gave him many reasons to attempt to kill her. The question of who tried to kill Alison hangs in the air while Rick waits impatiently for her to awake and assure him he’s innocent.

Reservoir Run

Shoe

They stand on the edge of a deep ravine, him towering over her. The ground drops with an abrupt edge then doesn’t start again for forty feet. With the translucent sky behind him and his sweaty black hair wild about his face, he yells at her and tells her how much he hates her. He hates her coldness toward him and the way she never touches him anymore and the way she folds his laundry and the way she chews her food.

She stares back at him with her icy blue eyes, not moving. She wears an evening gown smeared with mud and high heels that sink into the earth below her. Her voluptuous red lips curve into a disgusted grin.

He continues to list off all the things he hates about her: how unappreciative she is, how she never wants to have sex, how she never listens, how selfish she is. Then he asks, Don’t you care? She says nothing and continues to give him the same disgusted expression.

Don’t you care? He yells, his eyes searching hers.

Still no response. Each time he asks his body quakes with anger.

You don’t do you? You don’t care! Staring into her eyes, he searches for an ounce of warmth. He now realizes that she truly doesn’t care about their relationship or the words he says to her. Gritting his teeth, he releases a growl that develops into a roar of pure emotion. As the last decibel leaves his mouth he brings his hands up to her chest and shoves her with the power of a thousand angry elephants. Her body gives easily and without sound. He watches in frozen horror as she falls out of sight over the cliff.

Rick opens his eyes slowly allowing the view of the hospital room to sink in. His sweaty body shivers in his damp sheets. The morning sun bleeds a cool blue light through the slats on the window.

Glancing over he sees his wife’s broken body lying unconscious in a hospital bed, tubes attached to her arms and nose, a beep beep beep relentlessly playing from the machine at her side. The dream is still vivid in his head like a movie reel playing over and over, he shakes himself into reality. The dream was different this time, another version with the same ending.

Ten days have passed. Ten long days of searching, crying and consoling the