Salvation of Sam Read online

  “Right,” said Jonas solemnly.

  “Well,” explained Liz eagerly, “as I figured I’d let you down, I headed on back down the path you’d come from to try and find your friend.”

  Jonas perked up, eyes widening. “And?”

  “Don’t get too excited, sorry. I couldn’t find anyone. But….but, you’ll never guess what I did find. Go on, guess,” said Elizabeth with a playful grin.

  Jonas thought of Sam lying there under his special blanket, probably staring ahead down the path waiting for Jonas to come back towing a large vat of water behind him or pointing fervently to a helicopter that had come to airlift him to safe waters. “What?” said Jonas, a little impatiently.”

  “There was this dolphin. No word of a lie. A dolphin right there in the middle of the forest.”

  “What?” Jonas feigned surprise, fighting an urge to sit up. “Was it alive?”

  “Barely. Its eyes were moving, not much else, so I had a quick look around for your friend, albeit not the most thorough of searches, but then I ran. I ran hard Jonas and found a picnic site where this family were barbecuing. I barged in like some crazy woman, and got the father to come and see. He had a phone with him and he dialled for help.”

  “What happened?” asked Jonas, fighting back elation as he waited for a sting in the tail to strike his hopes down.

  “You’ve never seen anything like it, Jonas. The police came, and local television news people were there. The fire-brigade turned up and tried to get in, but couldn’t. They and the forestry commission were trying to cut their way in but it was a lost cause. So they got some helicopter in to spray water down and saturate the area. I don’t know if it helped, but the coast-guard arrived in a rescue helicopter of their own, one of those really big jobs, and airlifted the poor thing out of there and onto this big lorry-thing that had turned up from a zoo.”

  Tears were forming in Jonas’s eyes and he wanted to bend forward and hug Liz, but he was frozen to the spot in disbelief. “Was it OK? Where did they take it?”

  “Well, these newspaper reporters turned up at my door this morning and wanted to interview me as I’d found it. They said they’d rushed it up north to a sea-life centre who had the facilities to care for it. They said it had survived its ordeal somehow. It was like some miracle or whatever. They’re doing a big piece on it for a late edition.”

  “That’s, that’s amazing,” said Jonas.

  “I know,” replied Liz. “As I said, I couldn’t find your friend, and so I thought I’d check at the hospital this morning to see if anyone had been brought in yesterday. They said they’d had one person who’d been found injured out in the woods. So I asked to see them. I had just assumed that it was your friend. Did you hear from him?”

  Jonas nodded, letting his head fall back into the pillow. “You know, Liz, yeah. He got out alright. I saved him Elizabeth. I saved him.”

  ###

  Thank you for reading my story. If you enjoyed it, won’t you please take a moment to

  leave me a review?

  Thanks!

  Lee A Jackson

  About the author:

  I began writing in my mid to late teens, sequestered away in my bedroom in rural south west England. The writing was borne out of a need to express myself and to communicate with the world, something I was not good at doing verbally. It became an outlet for me and my writing grew with me through the years.

  For the longest time I had a fear of being forgotten and the way I figured to combat that would be to have a published book sat on a library shelf somewhere. I would have indelibly left my mark somewhere, long after I passed. To this day, the enduring nature of my words in print following my end, is comforting.

  Other titles by Lee A Jackson

  A Soul of Stone

  A Cerberus Jaw

  Connect with Me:

  Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LAJ_writes

  Friend me on Facebook: https://facebook.com/leea.jackson.336

  Subscribe to my blog: https://leeajackson.weebly.com