"I Was Dead the Minute You Opened That Envelope"

"The Only Thing to Do."
By Henry Slesar (1927-2002).
Short short story (5 pages).
First appearance: Mercury Mystery Magazine, February 1959.
Online HERE.

You know, of course, that the badger game doesn't really have anything to do with badgers:

. . . His eyes swept over this gallery of horrors and the heartbeats exploded inside his chest. He tried to say something, but his tongue had gone hard and dry and immobile.

Resources:
- For decades the writing machine known as Henry Slesar (see Wikipedia HERE) churned out high-quality copy in many markets, with television being especially lucrative for him (e.g., see the IMDb HERE for his involvement with The Edge of Night soap opera—over 300 episodes—and Alfred Hitchcock's TV series—over 50 installments).

Category: Badgers get bit