PREY

The Evening

Her hands traced the steering wheel as the sun shot through her sunglasses, she sped up on the dirt road. No other cars were present on this road. This left only the mesmerizing road ahead of her, the trees surrounding her, and the smoke in the sky above her from a nearby factory to accompany her. No, the only other people who drove this deep into the forest were the game hunters looking for a real challenge, more so than those looking to boast about what they had caught over their long weekend.

Some of them would take their kids when they went hunting, that's what her dad did. He taught her all of what he knew about the hunt. He was her idol and she loved him with everything she had. But all that didn't matter when, a few months ago, he was hospitalized. He told her it was all going to go back to how things were, but at the time she wanted nothing less for it to all return to normal.

Her boyfriend of way too long had broken up with her and not long after she got the call about her dad, she hit rock bottom, or so she thought. Less than a month after she got that call she received another and she found that there was always a rockier bottom. She figured a weekend away at her and her father's old hunting spot could do her some good, to get away from it all.

She was falling into a trance, as she refused to stop and had been driving for hours. She felt her car speeding up and felt her foot press farther onto the gas but it felt as if she was watching herself do this, as if she had no control of the car. She continued to feel her foot press down onto the gas, continuing to accelerate the vehicle.

Something flashy caught her attention in the side mirror of the vehicle and it took her a second but she realized that this policeman was flashing its sirens at her. She instinctively let go of the gas and slowed to a stop on the side of the road, now feeling powerless to her own instincts.

She wondered if she would have ever slowed down or if she had truly been that entranced that she would have kept driving. Driving until she would have undoubtedly gotten herself into a crash. She wondered if she would have slammed into a tree or into the back of another moving car, she couldn't decide which would have hurt more.

Just as these thoughts began to conjure themselves into her mind there was a soft knock to her left. She turned to give this knock her attention and soon realized this was the officer knocking on her window. She thought about what was about to happen and convinced herself that she would be arrested and shipped back to her mother's porch, where she could continue to be scolded. She rolled the window down and the officer conversed with her about her speeding and after he handed her the ticket he leaned in and asked where she was going. She told him the side road where she would be turning off into and he chuckled to himself. He pointed back down the road and told her she had passed it seven miles ago. She was warned not to speed again and to drive safely. She thanked him and the trooper continued down the road.

She was able to find the road and she went miles down it until she passed a pub with a phone booth out front. She was able to drive for plenty more miles before she was confronted with a log in her path. There was no way around it without rolling into a ditch and she didn't want to take her chances with this in the middle of the woods, so she drove back to a pub she passed on the way in.

When she walked in she scanned the place and saw three guys dressed up in camo patterned outerwear sitting side by side at a bar. By the time she noticed the three of them, a fourth came out of the bathroom and immediately ordered another drink. She walked past them to the other side of the bar and asked the bartender for something light, she knew if she drank something even a little heavy she wouldn't be able to get up in the morning let alone finish setting up her tent that evening.

She conversed with the bartender and told him she had found a tree blocking the road up ahead. He told her he would be right back and he went over to the guys who seemed to only be a drink or two into the night. This was a good thing because she couldn't deal with the four of them all hammered up, and they would certainly be of no use with the log. They talked amongst themselves and then walked across the bar to her. They said they'd help out with the log and they ordered a final round of drinks.