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Title: The Shadows Grow Long 11/18
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Monday, 11:35pm, Steph's car, seemingly nowhere, VA
The quiet night was broken with a soft moan.
As Stephanie floated to consciousness, every breath she took delivered the most intense pain across her chest. Her airbag had gone off at impact, but her seatbelt had pulled her up tight, too, and that was where the pain was coming from. She knew the belt had saved her life, but dang, it hurt. A lot. She couldn't believe what had happened, what she had done. Even more, she couldn't believe she had survived.
But then she remembered why, and in a panic she looked around the remains of what was left of her car. No one. No one was in the car with her... what? The passenger door was open, well, sort of... it was dangling from the body of the car, totally out of kilter. Where the hell was he? She couldn't see him anywhere.
As she tried to move to get out, she realized that the frame of the car was bent so badly that her door wouldn't open. Through her aches and pains, she got herself moving through the front seat, to drag herself out the passenger door. Once out in the night she bent over leaning on the car, and took a moment as a wave of nausea moved through her and onto the leafy ground.
After losing the remains of the day, she stood up and looked around. Man, it was dark. Really dark. Like, deep in the woods dark. She crawled back into the car to grab her jacket, and pulled out her cell to call for help, but wherever she was, there wasn't any reception.
She could barely see with the meager help of a half moon, which was fast on its way to setting beyond the trees. All she knew was that the road was someplace above her. It was going to be a good crawl to get up there, but she knew that she had to either find Carl's body so she knew she was safe, or keep moving in case he, too, had survived. Either choice meant getting up to the road.
Going into the woods was simply not an option. She was not an outdoorswoman and she was a realist. Wandering into the woods at night would result in her either getting lost or injuring herself. After all the effort she had put into trying to save herself, she wasn't going to risk that one. She was just going to have to get up to the road above her�
� which was easier planned than done. There was a lot of brush to try and pull herself up with, but the ground was moist, and her feet kept sliding on the incline because it was hard to find decent toeholds. There was just enough moonlight that she was able to get herself up to the road. Once there, she just lay on the ground. Her chest still hurt, and her head was throbbing. Besides Carl hitting her, she must have been hit pretty hard by that airbag to knock her out.
As she lay there trying to figure out what to do next, she heard a quiet, "Bitch", just before he kicked her in the head and she was out cold, once again.
email Teresa
mercier_beaucoup at yahoo.com
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