A scary story

A full moon would have welcomed this night but instead a wee slice hung like a hook in the marcasite sky. The rough road made the car pitch and veer until I slowed to a snails pace. I was never going to the get to the poetry reading on time, who found this great short cut on that stupid map? 

Of course, I had, someone who actually owned a paper map of the national forest roads in the county. Mostly logging roads, pitted with deep potholes from skidders and semis. My little Hyundai was doing pretty good so I should have given her more credit that the grief as I beat on the dash when she finally plopped into one of the holes and decided she’d gone far enough. 

The tires spun in the mud, I tried to rock’er back and forth to no avail. No poetry reading for me I thought. It was still early, barely 6 but dusk was here and of course as I picked up my cellphone from the passenger side floorboard, I saw the “no service” right away. 

Now what, it was at least three miles back to the better road and according to the map about five miles ahead. If I started walking i would be in total darkness within thirty minutes. I popped the trunk, looking for….something to help me get unstuck? A flashlight? A jacket? It’s chilly this time of the year and all I had was my pasha, that was not going to be enough to keep me warm. 

The car for the night it was, I’d wait until morning then hoof it out and hopefully catch a logger so I wouldn’t have to walk too far in these high heeled shoes. When did I get so dumb, i thought. My dad would kill me if he saw me like this, totally unprepared. 

At least I wasn’t afraid of the stars that started to peek out from the clouds that were blowing in with the light misty fog. I guess, I’d just curl up and go to sleep and wait for daylight. I climbed in the backseat, locked the doors, used my purse for a pillow and covered myself with my pasha. 

I might have dosed for a minute or two when I heard a hum of a vehicle coming down the road. I sat bolt upright, when the bright headlights streamed into my windshield. But it wasn’t a car, or a truck, nothing had lights so bright and so green and blue. They strobed like they were analyzing my vehicle and maybe me inside. I swear I could feel the light pulse in my chest as it flashed on me. 

I thought about opening my door and walking toward it by thought better. I just sat there frozen. The lights blinked again. This time when they went off, I could see the vehicle they came from. It was a small disk floating about three feet off the ground, right in front of my car. The lights stayed off. As I tried to focus on this object, a single white light on the bottom lit up and the object jumped, bolted, soared, I don’t know how to explain, it flew straight up. And I never saw it again.