The Rescue: Cute Shorts, #1

By Laurie Baxter

Fireman Mike would really like it if the rest of the crew would stop teasing him already. The lady who keeps calling him to come get her escaped cat is not helping.

The Rescue is a short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zuzu Bailey Books
• Release date: Apr 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393943815

Book preview

The Rescue

The Rescue

Laurie Baxter

Zuzu Bailey Books

Copyright © 2016 by Laurie Baxter

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgments

Big thanks to everyone who helped. Those who read drafts, including Shalet Abraham, Kate Berger, Luke Brannon, and Jeff Willis. Annie at Victory Editing and Chrissy Wolfe of EFC Services for helping me make the words all nice and pretty. The excellent people at NYC Midnight who provided the writing prompt from whence this sprang. And everyone who read and enjoyed The Rescue in its first life, as part of A Cute Pair of Shorts. Thank you!

Contents

The Rescue

Thank You

Sneak Peek: Ferry Godfather

Stay in Touch

Also by Laurie Baxter

About the Author

The Rescue

It was just after noon on Halloween at the Engine 42 Station, and the dozen firefighters working the shift sat scattered around the couches and kitchen area, digging into Massoud’s holiday-themed franks and beans. Or trying to—the franks were cut into strips to look like worms, the beans mushed to a mud-like consistency. A few of the guys eyed the huge bowl of candy set out for the trick-or-treaters they expected later that day, but none of them was quite desperate enough to take from kids.

You know you really don’t gotta experiment like this, Massoud, said Johnson, making a face.

My week, my menu. A smug grin spread across Massoud’s clean-shaven olive face. He plopped a heap of worms onto Harris’s plate.

Just then, Captain Barnes busted in through the door, a large cardboard box in his burly arms.

Fund-raiser calendars are here! he hollered, hoisting the box onto the kitchen table. He stepped back, running a hand through what was