smiled, but the smile looked angry, and he grabbed my wrist. “No reason why you have to be such a bitch. I asked you nicely, didn’t I ask you nicely? Sure I did. But you brush me off?”
A whimpering noise came out of the back of my throat as he squeezed my wrist with a painfully intense amount of pressure.
“Please let me by,” I repeated.
“I think someone should teach you to be nice,” he said, not releasing me.
Panicked, I looked up and down the hallway. Someone will come by and see this , I thought.
Sure enough, a mother with two kids came ambling our way. The man let go of my wrist, and I ran past him to the locker room, my eyes beginning to fill with tears. What is wrong with the people in this town? Suddenly, everyone is insane. I found my locker, then sat down on the bench next to it wiping saltwater from my cheeks and feeling hopelessly lonesome. Things are going to change . As soon as I get out of this two horse town. And no way am I coming back.
❃ CHAPTER 9 ❃
M y bright mood swiftly assassinated, I no longer had much desire to do anything but drive home, a move which left me without the prospect of facing anymore hostile mortals. The highway had few cars on it that afternoon, save for a few semi-trailers rumbling on their way to the mountain pass.
I drove cautiously down the debris-strewn road, my hands tightly gripping the wheel, eyes fixed in front of me, traveling that rural route unaffected by the chronic congestion of I-5 while trying my best to get rid of the knotted feeling in my stomach and the anxiety I felt in my head, casting paranoid glances towards the road shoulders and my rearview mirror, a mirror that now displayed the reflection of a speeding black SUV quickly gaining on me as it moved into the passing lane to overtake my car, and I grew worried when it didn’t overtake me at all, but pulled up alongside me to block my escape.
No! Fuck!
I straightened the steering wheel to keep from plowing through the guardrail when I felt a jolt as the black truck’s panel smacked the side of my much smaller car. Flooring the accelerator, my car lurched ahead of the preying SUV, and I felt my pounding heart slam into my mouth as it again caught up alongside me and nudged me off the road, an invisible driver mocking my weak attempts at self-preservation behind the truck’s forbidding, black-tinted windows. I heard someone cry in anguish and realized a moment later that it was me; I wept for I knew today I would die.
The monstrous truck rammed the driver’s side door of my Toyota, and my car veered out of control as it spun sideways, thick, black smoke radiating from skid marks burned into gray pavement. At that instant, my windshield crumpled; I felt the rough, raw touch of pine branches and broken glass on my face and arms, and my world went dark.
*****
Sometime later I opened my eyes and felt a trickle of warm blood running down my cheek, saw the black leather cover of a van seat and a large, leering man with a grin like a Cheshire cat who was obviously somehow intimately connected to my unfortunate and violent encounter on the highway. Too weak to move, I let out a low moan.
“Sleeping Beauty wakes up,” he said.
“No, no,” said another male voice. “Not yet.”
My beaten head lay still and helpless on the rumbling seat cushion, and I resigned myself to whatever nightmare the Fates had in store for me as I felt a needling pinprick on my arm which sent me into a world of visions and fantasies, deep into that unconscious realm of involuntary delusion. I slept for a long time. Strange dreams jarred my sanity, pale-faced ghouls chased me down dark, winding staircases, cold hands groped my shoulders, breasts, and hips, unknown villains laughed as I cried, and a chorus of jeering, hysterical utterances promised me no
A whimpering noise came out of the back of my throat as he squeezed my wrist with a painfully intense amount of pressure.
“Please let me by,” I repeated.
“I think someone should teach you to be nice,” he said, not releasing me.
Panicked, I looked up and down the hallway. Someone will come by and see this , I thought.
Sure enough, a mother with two kids came ambling our way. The man let go of my wrist, and I ran past him to the locker room, my eyes beginning to fill with tears. What is wrong with the people in this town? Suddenly, everyone is insane. I found my locker, then sat down on the bench next to it wiping saltwater from my cheeks and feeling hopelessly lonesome. Things are going to change . As soon as I get out of this two horse town. And no way am I coming back.
❃ CHAPTER 9 ❃
M y bright mood swiftly assassinated, I no longer had much desire to do anything but drive home, a move which left me without the prospect of facing anymore hostile mortals. The highway had few cars on it that afternoon, save for a few semi-trailers rumbling on their way to the mountain pass.
I drove cautiously down the debris-strewn road, my hands tightly gripping the wheel, eyes fixed in front of me, traveling that rural route unaffected by the chronic congestion of I-5 while trying my best to get rid of the knotted feeling in my stomach and the anxiety I felt in my head, casting paranoid glances towards the road shoulders and my rearview mirror, a mirror that now displayed the reflection of a speeding black SUV quickly gaining on me as it moved into the passing lane to overtake my car, and I grew worried when it didn’t overtake me at all, but pulled up alongside me to block my escape.
No! Fuck!
I straightened the steering wheel to keep from plowing through the guardrail when I felt a jolt as the black truck’s panel smacked the side of my much smaller car. Flooring the accelerator, my car lurched ahead of the preying SUV, and I felt my pounding heart slam into my mouth as it again caught up alongside me and nudged me off the road, an invisible driver mocking my weak attempts at self-preservation behind the truck’s forbidding, black-tinted windows. I heard someone cry in anguish and realized a moment later that it was me; I wept for I knew today I would die.
The monstrous truck rammed the driver’s side door of my Toyota, and my car veered out of control as it spun sideways, thick, black smoke radiating from skid marks burned into gray pavement. At that instant, my windshield crumpled; I felt the rough, raw touch of pine branches and broken glass on my face and arms, and my world went dark.
*****
Sometime later I opened my eyes and felt a trickle of warm blood running down my cheek, saw the black leather cover of a van seat and a large, leering man with a grin like a Cheshire cat who was obviously somehow intimately connected to my unfortunate and violent encounter on the highway. Too weak to move, I let out a low moan.
“Sleeping Beauty wakes up,” he said.
“No, no,” said another male voice. “Not yet.”
My beaten head lay still and helpless on the rumbling seat cushion, and I resigned myself to whatever nightmare the Fates had in store for me as I felt a needling pinprick on my arm which sent me into a world of visions and fantasies, deep into that unconscious realm of involuntary delusion. I slept for a long time. Strange dreams jarred my sanity, pale-faced ghouls chased me down dark, winding staircases, cold hands groped my shoulders, breasts, and hips, unknown villains laughed as I cried, and a chorus of jeering, hysterical utterances promised me no
Similar Books
