by Tegan Maher
After that, it was all over but the crashing.
The truck plowed through the brush at the edge of the road and kept rumbling right on over the edge. My skull thunked off the doorframe and the forward momentum shoved my knees into the dash—in the ’80s, seatbelts weren't quite what they are now. The sound of rocks and bushes scraping the undercarriage harmonized perfectly with the terror raking over my nerves.
My head whipped forward and cracked on the steering wheel, and my seatbelt finally caught. I came so close to a giant oak that it ripped my mirror off and flung it into the truck. I scrunched my eyes shut and threw my arms up to defend my face from the incoming debris.
Then, just when I'd resigned myself to a bone-crushing demise, the truck lurched to an abrupt stop.
For a few seconds, I was afraid to open my eyes, then I was afraid not to. Metal groaned and I reached forward with shaking hands to shut the truck off. I poked my head out the window to see what had stopped my descent to certain death—or at least extreme agony and disfigurement—and saw that a little maple tree about eight inches thick was wedged between my rear bumper and the body of the truck.
Bessie slid a bit, so I didn't waste any more time. I opened the door and jumped from the cab, releasing a sigh of epic proportions as I landed relatively unscathed in the soft grass. I grabbed my purse from the floorboard and just left the door hanging open, scared the movement would send the truck the rest of the way over the hill. The last thing I needed was to completely lose my transportation, and there was no way I had enough magical mojo right then to pull it back up the hill. That trick would have been a stretch on my best day, and this definitely wasn’t that.
I bent over with my palms on my knees, waiting for my body to stop shaking enough to make the trek back toward the road. Once I had a modicum of control over my limbs, I walked up the hill a bit and collapsed onto a butt-sized rock, staring in disbelief at the sight of my beast of a truck dangling halfway down the hill from that one scrawny little maple tree. Something trickled down the side of my face and when I touched my eyebrow, my fingers came away sticky with blood. I hadn't even felt the pain until right then.
I put my head between my knees and thanked the universe for giving me a pass, and sent a grateful push of energy to the little tree. When my hands stopped shaking and my head cleared enough to allow me to think beyond surviving, I reached for my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I found the number for Skeeter's Garage and Appliances.
Don't let the name fool you; he meets all three of my gold-star requirements: he's good, he's honest, and he's cheap.
After three rings, Skeeter himself answered. I'd never been so happy to hear his cheerful twang. I gave him the 411 on what had just happened and told him where I was, grateful for once that I live in a small town where the only directions required were "the curve right above Old Man Bailey's quarry on the way to my place."
I ended the call and had turned to scramble the rest of the way up the hill when the feeling of being watched made the hairs on my nape stand up. I searched the trees and caught a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off something a hundred yards or so up the hill on the other side of the road. My gaze darted toward the glint and I scanned the spot for any other sign of movement, but all stayed still. I decided to stay right where I was, figuring it would be a whole lot harder for some ax-wielding serial killer to drag me up the hill than to just shove me in a van if I was standing conveniently by the road.
Yes, I'm a capable witch, and I live in BFE, Georgia, where the odds of a random serial killer just happening by were about the same as going to Walmart without seeing at least one hairy butt crack. But I wasn't feeling particularly rational at that point.
Pulling as much defensive magic into my hands as I could manage in my frazzled state, just in case, I leaned on a pecan tree and hoped Skeeter would hold true to his promise to get there in "two shakes of a coon's tail" before my paranoia got the better of me.
Little did I know then that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're wrong.
