flakes the size of a silver dollar. To the side of the narrow highway a sign appeared. She whizzed by without seeing it. She had been traveling too fast to read the sign, and without street lights, all she could see was what was ahead. The windshield wipers were quickly filling with snow flakes and slowing down.
“I forgot to change the wiper blades, oh shit,” she shouted pounding on the steering wheel. Then the phone rang again. She turned her head for a few seconds and when she switched it back, a large buck crossed her path and hot on his heels, a wolf. “Oh god.” That was all she said and things went out of focus and dark.
Adrienne’s old gray Honda hit the deer or something. The Honda had sustained four years of high school, going to the movies, and carrying her friends to school. Four years of college with Paul using it when his old Toyota finally gave out because of excessive abuse. But it took one deer to permanently disable and destroy her silver Honda.
Waking up, Adrienne shook her head, blinked her eyes to see her car angled to the side near a ravine, broken and helpless. She loved that car. It was like a friend. The car lay teetering on its right side. She shook it off, sucked in air, then passed her hand over her face, eyes still working, no cuts in her face, just a slight bruise to the knee from the steering wheel. She was a little stiff but she was use to that. It was no more than taking a ten mile hike up and down a small mountain. She let out a sigh of relief.
“Wow. It could have been worse,” she said. It was a saying she heard many times on the news.
Pulling her skirt down, layered over her exercise pants, it was now wrapped around her breasts. She breathe clear cold air coming in from her front window. She unfastened her seatbelt and tried to open the door, pulling and pulling, it wouldn’t budge. She would have to climb out through the front window, but she was afraid the car would tip over. “Ah hell, can this get worse?”
Adrienne thought the deer had broken it but that couldn’t be. It was as if someone pulled it from its frame. She tried lowering down the window near the driver’s side but it would go only so far, so she took off her shoe and pound on the window and it slipped from its gears but still it slipped only a few inches.
Convinced that she had to climb through the front window on to the hood, she hoist herself over the steering wheel, head first. Heaven help her if she slipped. Adrianne proceeded gingerly, holding on to the raised hood, swinging her body around to the left and sliding off little by little, until her feet hit the ground.
Taking a minute to count her blessings, she turned around looking down, she saw a pool of blood and she panicked. Running, she couldn’t see anything for the dense forest. There was no way she could get out of the forest except to try to climb back to the highway. That was impossible. Then she remembered, she hadn’t taken her phone. She turned back, and then she heard and saw her car tumble and sink deep into the earth. “What the hell,” she murmured. She stood looking and not believing what she saw. “What am I going to do?” She walked in a circle breathing hard. “I’m going to find my way out. I can’t be afraid. The moon’s large. I can see. I’m just going to walk. There must be a house nearby. I can’t be far from the interstate,” she said as she ambled along stumbling over high grass.
Adrienne trotted through the thick forest staying on Indian trails. She wasn’t sure where it would lead but she had no choice. She could feel the temperature dropping. It was cold. She began shivering. “I’m going to die in this wilderness.” She didn’t know how long she had been walking. “Where am I?” she mumbled. Adrienne stopped, bent forward catching her breath with her hands holding on to her thighs. The cold air didn’t help and she wasn’t dressed for this season, skirt over exercise pants, and jean jacket over
Grace Slick, Andrea Cagan