Ed Drury Wins Flash Fiction Challenge

Tom cautiously brought the police cruiser to a safe stop just behind the SUV and radioed for back up. He got out of his vehicle slowly, raising his nine-mil as he approached the vehicle containing the two bodies. Just as all the other times, there were no tracks in the snow around the doomed truck. Peeking inside he saw that the two men had been shot through the head, the stains on the headrest were not entirely from blood. Tom choked back the strong reflex to vomit, but not before the taste made its presence known.
Tom heard the howls of the coyotes being carried on the ice cold wind. Even though it was freezing, the scent of death here would not be missed by the hungry predators this time of year when hunting was sparse and the need for calories high. There was another sound, much different and much closer. Something like the sound of flour being sifted. Before Tom could turn around, something hard and heavy struck him on the head hard enough to topple him but not so severe as to knock him out.
Tom looked up to see a man staring down the barrel of a rifle at him. Then just before he blacked out, the man was swept away by a pack of snarling hungry coyotes as Tom’s vision tunneled to blackness.