Just Write It Prompted Short Stories

Captured

A blinding white flash cascaded across the parade as Mr Sawyer's body slumped in a heap and the car his body was riding in screeched to a halt. 

Jonah gaped over the top of his new camera as his eyes slowly adjusted to the scene in front of him. He let the camera fall from his grip as he fumbled to pick it up and checked the image he'd snapped. 

Sure enough, he'd captured the exact moment the president's brains had splattered across the pavement, the force making him keel over in the most unusual way. But something else caught his eye in the corner of the photograph and he zoomed in, squinting against the sun as he stared at it. 

A woman, dressed in a dull floral dress, peeked out from between the crowd members, a gun recoiling in her grip. 

Jonah looked out across the distraught and chaotic crowd, searching for the woman. He pulled his broad-brimmed cork hat over his eyes as he unnecessarily shielded his sunnies from the sun. The tassels hanging from his hat swayed to and fro as Jonah stood on his tippy-toes, clinging to the pole he'd climbed onto to watch the parade. 

The flash of her dress skimmed over the barrier as she sprinted towards him and his prized camera. 

"Fuck," he whispered, carefully stepping off the pole and shuffling away from the approaching woman. 

He was by no means athletic. He enjoyed meat pies piled with sauce on Tuesdays, burned too easily in the sun and had a little extra flab that posed all kinds of problems when facing a potential assassin. 

Being chased by a young lady should have been exhilarating, but he was soon out of breath as she caught up with him and pushed him hard in the back. He stumbled, doubling over in pain as his skin rippled underneath his Hawaiian shirt. 

"Give me that camera!" she shouted, reaching out to grab the camera. 

He shielded it with his body. "You shall not have it," he wheezed. 

She paused. "Are you quoting Gandalf?"

He smiled and stood up straighter, turning to face her. Perhaps he could dropkick her?

"Fly you fools!" he screeched, sticking out his stubby leg.  

He took an eloping step towards her and began to free-fall. The assassin shrivelled in terror as the body of the two-hundred pound Gandalf nerd in his mid forties came crashing down. 

She wasn't as quick-witted as she'd first hoped when she'd signed up for the job. Thinking it'd be easy to take down a tourist of his size, she'd raced after him in the hopes that she'd mug him of his flashy device and escape without so much as a second thought. 

But that was clearly not the case as she lay between the pavement and several sweaty rolls of flesh, her blonde hair caught under his heavy arm. 

"He-e-lp meee!" she wheezed, clawing at the burly man atop of her. "I promise I'll let you live."

"The treacherous are ever distasteful," he quoted, shifting his camera away from her as the police rushed towards them. 

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Written for the Aim to Engage 2019 Photobombed prompt. Hope you enjoyed! ~H.W.