Undeer

By Katherine Franklin

Based on a true story.

 

It's not often the Coastguard arrive to see their casualty is already in a body bag. It's not often that casualty is a deer.

 

Whether it stays in the bag is another matter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katherine Franklin
• Release date: Oct 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915007995

Katherine Franklin

Katherine Franklin spends far more of her days than is healthy glued to a screen, writing stories when she’s not writing code, but she manages to venture outside once in a while as well. She loves science, but didn’t love her physics degree enough to do anything about it. Fiction was always her first love. Katherine lives in Yorkshire with her husband and a horse-sized dog, where she practices martial arts, miniature painting and far too many little hobbies to count in her spare time.

Book preview

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Copyright ©2023 Katherine Franklin. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, included in a training dataset, used in any other manner as input for generative ML/AI or distributed in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except in those non-commercial uses permitted by UK property law, such as brief quotations in the context of a review.

ISBN 978-1-915007-99-5 (E-book edition)

This is a work of fiction. While based on a true story, any similarities to real persons, living or dead, are coincidental and not intended by the author. Characters are the products of the author’s imagination.

No content in this book or its cover was generated, to the author’s knowledge, using machine-learning algorithms or artificial intelligence.

First edition: 2023

Published in the United Kingdom.

Contact: [e-mail]

Visit www.FranklyWrites.com

Contents

1.Undeer

About the Author

Undeer

The setting sun gave a blood-red tinge to the grey clouds that hung over Plymouth Sound as Ned pulled onto the waterfront in the coastguard Land Rover. Seagulls squawked over its sirens and rattling engine. Ned craned his neck, catching sight of the pier down below. The police had got there first, as usual, but he couldn’t make out any sign of a body bag in the quick glimpse he managed.

When he’d parked, he spotted Fern across from him in The Waterfront’s car park, pulling on her coastguard overalls by the boot of her car. She turned and gave him a wave.

Ned climbed out and went to meet her, shivering in the breeze. He hadn’t thought the day would get cold so fast.

‘Have you met anyone yet?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not unless you count giving them a wave. I’ve only just got here. They didn’t call in that long ago on the radio, so they can’t have been here long either.’

‘Alright. Let’s go down and have a look, then.’ Another gust of wind brought the noise of a boat engine and the musical clinking of rigging from Queen Anne’s Battery. ‘I hope it’s just a bag of sand or something.’

‘Yeah.’ Fern did