Free Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 1) by Ariana Hawkes Page B

long time!”
    “Well, we can’t leave a little lady marooned in a storm. Her having an important appointment and all!” He grinned at her impishly. Isabel liked his playfulness and found herself blushing.
    “Thank you so much!” she said.
    “I’ll get the car. When we get to the turn off, it’s a dirt road all the way for a good three miles. It’ll probably be churned up pretty good, so follow me, but not too close behind, and sound your horn if you get into any trouble.” Isabel nodded.
    “Yes, sure thing, officer!” she said, her mood lightening. The sheriff walked over to his car and she closed her window and turned her Mini Cooper around. He drew level with her and then she followed him back down the unlit road.
    Isabel turned her music back on. Now that meeting her date tonight was once again becoming a possibility, she needed to trick herself into relaxing. She leaned back against the headrest and let the melancholic tones of The National ease the tension running through her muscles. Her knees fell apart a little. She’d been feeling sexy and full of anticipation when she’d been preparing for her date, and at least a spark of that sensation was still there.
    A moment later, the sheriff’s car indicated right and they turned directly into the woods. It was pure, unfathomable blackness, the kind of dark Isabel had never experienced until now. In her rear-view mirror she saw it closing behind them, and she had the sense they were being swallowed by it. She shivered again, with the unease she’d felt before, but this time it seemed more imminent. The road was exceptionally bumpy. Isabel crawled along behind the cop car, sloshing through vast puddles, falling in and out of tire tracks left by a far bigger vehicle. A few, heart-stopping times, the wheels span in the mud, but her little Mini Cooper recovered and she managed to keep the patrol car in sight. The red and blue lights, lazily blinking, were reassuring, as was the calm authority of its driver.
    At the speed they were going, the journey was taking a long time. Isabel pressed a key on her phone, lighting up the display. It was now the exact time she was supposed to be meeting Peter, or Lupus11, as he was known on the dating site. Lupus11 – what a weird screen name , she thought, not for the first time, giggling. Her screen name was Little Red, after the Corvette, the girl who got eaten by the wolf, and the auburn hints in her mostly caramel-colored hair. The whole thing seemed pretty ridiculous actually, but her short experience online was teaching her that you needed a made-up, fantasy name to keep people at a distance until you had some reassurance that they were ok. And she was learning that some of the phrases in her profile attracted all kinds of freaks and weirdoes. Peter seemed different though. He hadn’t said anything sleazy or gross, he’d just been very direct, and seemed to understand exactly what she was looking for. Well, she would find out if her intuition was right very soon. That was, if she ever got out of this forest.
    Suddenly, something pale ran across her path. Isabel jumped and hit the brakes. But it had gone already, into the pines on her right-hand side. It was silver, or maybe white, and big, like a dog perhaps, but even bigger than that. She shook her head. It was more likely to be a jackrabbit, or a deer – did they even have deer in the woods here? Never mind. At least she hadn’t hit it. They drove on, and, after a couple more minutes, she saw lights ahead of the patrol car. The track opened out into a clearing and the cop pulled over. She opened her far-side window.
    “Still in one piece? Bit of a bone shaker, wasn’t it?” the sheriff called to her.
    “Oh, I’ve had worse,” she shouted. “Just glad to have made it through to the other end!”
    “So, where you headed now?”
    “Oh, this bar, called – uh – ” She scrabbled around for a post-it note. “Silver Dime Saloon.” The cop