Suggested Prompt: A conversation between two people burying a body. (Make it humorous).

The Route 9 Incident

The hazard lights of a beat-up 2008 Honda Civic blinked in rhythmic, mocking yellow beats against the dark wall of pine trees lining Route 9.

Maya stood on the narrow shoulder, her hands clamped over her hair, staring into the ditch. “Chloe. Chloe, look at me. Tell me the front left of my bumper isn't currently shaped like a crescent moon.”

Chloe didn’t look up from her phone. Her thumb was a blur as she swiped across the glowing screen. “I am trying to find the proper protocol! Give me a second!”

“The protocol?!” Maya’s voice hit a pitch usually reserved for opera singers or people encountering a bear. “Chloe, we just clipped a deer on a back road at two in the morning. You don't call a board meeting! What does Google say?”

“It says step one is 'Remain calm.'” Chloe held the phone out like a shield.

“Great! Fantastic! I’m cured!” Maya threw her arms in the air, pacing the gravel edge. “Did Google happen to mention what to do when the deer gets up and gives you a look that suggests it’s drafting a formal lawsuit?”

Chloe froze. She slowly lowered the screen, her eyes widening. “Wait. It’s looking at us?”

“It’s not just looking, Chloe. It’s sitting up on the grass like a disgruntled park ranger.” Maya pointed a trembling finger toward the ditch. “I swear to you, it just shook its head at me. It’s judging my high-deductible insurance policy.”

Chloe took a hesitant step toward the front of the car, wincing at the awful crunching sound beneath her boots. She squinted into the fog. Sure enough, two glowing eyes reflected the Civic’s remaining headlight right back at them. The deer was resting on its haunches, looking remarkably unbothered for an animal that had just traded paint with a Japanese sedan.

“Okay,” Chloe said, trying to adopt her best project-manager voice. “Okay. It’s clearly not dead. It’s just... stunned. We just need to encourage it to move back into the woods so nobody else hits it.”

“Define encourage,” Maya demanded, taking two steps back toward the passenger side door. “Because if your plan involves touching it, I am leaving you. We've been married for three years, Chloe, and I love you, but I am not becoming a widow over a whitetail.”

“I’m not going to pet it!” Chloe snapped softly, trying not to startle their four-legged highway hazard. “We’ll use a branch. A big, sturdy branch. We’ll gently nudge it.”

“A stick.” Maya stared at her. “Right. Because nothing calms down a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound wild animal like poking it with a stick. Brilliant. Absolutely top-tier tactical thinking.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Yes! Staying in the car! Rolling up the windows! Calling animal control and pretending we’re two lost tourists who don't know how roads work!”

Chloe bent down, grabbed a thick piece of fallen oak from the treeline, and held it like a broom. “I’m just going to rustle the leaves near it. To give it a nudge.”

“Chloe, don’t you dare—”

Chloe took two slow steps toward the ditch and rustled the oak branch against the brush.

The deer didn't jump. It didn't bolt. It simply snorted, stood up on all four legs with infuriating grace, gave the two women a final, heavy-lidded stare of absolute disdain, and trotted off into the dark timber without so much as a limp.

Silence reclaimed the country road, broken only by the rhythmic click-clack of the turn signal.

Maya exhaled a breath she felt like she’d been holding since three miles back. “Okay. Well. It won the argument.”

Chloe tossed the branch back into the woods and brushed off her palms. “See? Handled.”

“Handled?” Maya walked over to the front of the car and crouched down, wincing at the mangled plastic hanging near the front left tire. “Chloe, my radiator is weeping blue fluid onto the asphalt.”

Chloe walked over, leaned down beside her wife, and pressed her forehead against Maya’s shoulder with a long, dramatic sigh. “Okay. New plan.”

“I’m listening.”

“We call AAA. We tell them a deer attacked our parked car. We get towed to a garage, and then we spend the rest of our weekend in a cheap motel drinking gas station wine.”

Maya looked at the radiator, then down at Chloe, a small grin finally breaking through her panic. “...Can we get the trashy nachos from the gas station, too?”

“Two bags,” Chloe promised, pulling out her phone. “And I’ll hold the flashlight.”

I do not own the rights to this photo. Retrieved from Adobe Stock Images.

AUTHOR NOTE: I’m aware that I didn’t follow the prompt. Having a month to work on this story, and having plenty of time to work on it. I just couldn't bury the deer. But I tried my hand at comedy! I hope you still enjoy the story even though the prompt wasn’t truly fulfilled.