She woke up this morning on an ordinary autumn morning. The wind howled outside her window through the pines. Squirrels crashed across her roof top, chasing each other around the brick chimney and some where a far off rooster crowed in this small town.
Her cell phone was still going off BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP as she reached for it in the dark, disturbing the sleeping feline who was resting by her shoulder. He yowled in an annoyed way before trying to snuggle closer. With a sign she pushed him away, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and trying to bound out of bed with a little energy.
It had been a late night at the whare house and her shoulders hurt from lifting sacks of carrots and dried beans for hours. She had driven home to her mountain cabin on the outskirts of the big farming town near midnight but if she wanted time to get in a good run she had to be out the door at dawn. Her first marathon was a month away and she needed every moment to train for it.
The girl pulled yoga pants over her muscular legs in the dark. The cat would get annoyed if she turned on the lights this early; so much for a being nocturnal creature. Sports bra, tank top, a sweater, mittens and a cotton buff to cover her messy hair and she was out the door. She slipped her contact lenses into her tired eyes and gave her cat a pat good bye. She grabbed a Cliff bar, water, her cell, and a head lamp as she slammed the door behind her and hopped into her dirty SUV.
It was a short drive, radio blaring the twang of country music to her favorite trail. It was a popular one in the summer months. Hikers, horseback riders and mountain bikers loved the four mile climb to the top of Old Pine Peak. Every weekend the place would be just packed with yuppies, hippies, and young parents with babies strapped to their hiking back packs. The girl loved to warn the yuppies with their pure bred tiny show dogs to keep them on a leash or a hungry hawk or coyote might eat their miniature Poodle or Yorkie. She had seen a hawk swoop down and pluck a full grown Bantam rooster from her neighbor’s yard just last year. These people needed to remember this area belongs to the animals, we are just visiting it, and the girl was always quick to remind people.
The girl parked her SUV in the empty Old Pine Peak parking lot. She loved running this early. She had the area all to herself. The parking area was deserted, it was nothing fancy. Just a pit toilet, a few bear safe trash reciprocals and an old useless pay phone. Really, who uses pay phones anymore? The girl wondered, as she leaned against the old pay phone to stretch her tired muscles. She gave the phones black scratched receiver a dirty look. The thing must be covered in so many germs.
With one more look at the dirty phone receiver that was just hanging there, moving slightly in the wind, the girl grabbed her day pack and was running up the trail. She had switched on her head lamp although the sun was just beginning to appear on the horizon. She turned on the radio on her cell phone and was listening to Dwight Yoakum croon to her in his sexy country drawl as her feet pounded the dirt and her breathe was visible as a ghost ahead of her. It was a little cold this morning and the wind didn’t help. The breeze was really blowing now and it was making her throat hurt a little as she ascended the mostly uphill trail.
The sun was still far below the pines but the sky was starting to pinked a bit as she came to the top of one of the earliest hills and took in the view of a dark valley of pines. She switched off her head lamp, it was getting lighter now. Up here on this ridge the wind was really blowing and with a sudden ghost there was only silence as she lost all cell phone service. This annoyed her, as she knew well where she was going but she liked to keep track via GPS of her mileage.
The wind was howling in her ears now and she was so glad for her hat to keep her messy morning hair out of her eyes. She slowed to a walk and shut her eyes for a moment against the wind…
The pain came out of nowhere. She felt like a ton of bricks hit her left side and she didn’t know what was happening but she knew there was blood gushing from her right side as she hit the dirt.
It took her a second for reality to hit her. There was a large smelly animal on top of her body and it was trying to kill her. She tried to scream but the words were lost in her throat. She knew she had mace in her pack and she tried to reach for the zipper as she felt claws on her arms and the smelly putrid breathe of a beast on her cheek. She tried to scratch the furry face away from her but her arms felt useless.
With her left arm she tried to dig at her pack and the zipper, finally she felt the plastic container of Mace and she pushed the button frantically, spraying the peppery mess everywhere. The big cat, at least she guessed in the semi dark it was a cat, howled even as the girl chocked on the Mace herself.
Suddenly the claws and the teeth and the smell of putrid death released her and she was left with just pain, raw awful aching pain. She choked and vomited in the dirt rubbing her eyes and expelling who knows what. In her hurry the girl had sprayed her own self in the mouth and eyes with the Mace, but at least the cat had backed off.
The girl’s vision was blurry. She had ruined her contact lenses. She tried to find her cell phone in the dirt but couldn’t find it. She listened for the big cat, wondering if it would return, pissed and no doubt hungry to finish her off. She realized she was sobbing in the empty forest and for once she did not relies the solitude and hoped, no prayed for another person to find her.
She could not find the phone. Her music was still silent and she heard nothing but an owl hooting in the trees. In the awakening forest light she looked down to see her arm torn open and the flesh looked disgusting hanging everywhere and bleeding even with her compromised eye sight.
The girl felt like that wild cat must be watching her from the tree line. He would come back, she knew it. He could probably smell her blood. She was a mess and she felt weak. She had to get out of this forest and quickly.
She had to be two miles up the trail from the pay phone… The dirty pay phone! If she could just make it to the pay phone she could call 911!
With this thought in her head she began to slowly make her way down the trail. She could not see, her eyes hurt and she ripped out both her contacts, ruined and useless now, throwing them in the dirt.
She fell again and again on the way down the mountain side; she kept tripping over rocks on the trail she normally could see. Between her sobs the girl screamed for help, but there was no one out this early and she was in the forest away from homes. Finally she saw the white outline of her SUV in the distance and she was running towards it and grasping that dirty black handle of the phones receiver, hoping and praying for a dial tone. She felt like that Cougar had stalked her all the way down the trail and she felt his eyes on her still even as she put the receiver to her ear.
The cold receiver contained a dial tone and she felt her heart beat wildly as her fingers flew over the keys… 911.
Comments
Dont let this come true, what with the snakes and growling bushes in real life! 🙂