How stupid of her to drive all the way out here, in the middle of the goddamn woods out in the middle of goddamn nowhere, to look at some stupid cabin because some stupid man had called saying he wanted to list it with their office. All that work putting together a goddamn listing package, making this long ass drive, double checking to make sure he'd actually be there when she arrived... just to get there and have him tell her he wasn't so sure now that he actually wanted to sell. Fucking moron! Like he couldn't have told her that on the goddamn phone??
This was one hell of a fine mess! Piece of shit car anyway! Stupid client! Frustrated and angry, she kicked the tire of the car. As if the day hadn't been a total ruin to begin with, now the stupid car had just quit.
First there was Robert. What a great support he was! Asshole! Constantly bitching about this or that, always whining about his ex-wife trying to put the screws in him. This morning, between the bitching and whining, she had asked him to look at the car because it was making a funny sound. His answer had been to tell her she didn't need to go running all over for her 'stupid job' anyway and if the car was making a 'funny sound' then she needed to get it to a mechanic, not drive off to see her 'boyfriend'. Always with the boyfriend remarks... every time she went to meet with a client. She really needed to dump his ass instead of making excuses for why she stayed.
Then there was the mechanic. Bright light that he was! "It's not making any sound now. I need to hear the sound to diagnose it." Well no shit! Then he had looked under the hood, jiggled a few wires, checked a couple connections , pretended he knew what he was doing and told her it would be fine.
Naturally, the car drove just great on the drive up here. No funny sounds. And for the last three miles it had been fine. Then poof! It just quit. No warning, nothing. It just stopped running. She barely got it off the road.
Road! Ha! There was a fucking exaggeration! More like a fire trail through these stupid woods! Dirt and gravel, wide enough for two cars to pass... as if there was going to be another car! The only car that might pass would be that stupid moron Geoff Lungren, who thought it was fine and dandy for her to drive an hour out of the city just to send her packing, and seeing him in person, he didn't look like the type who left his house very often.
Sitting behind the wheel of the car once more, she attempted to start it again. Same as last time... nothing. She reached behind the drivers seat to retrieve her purse, taking her cell phone out.
No friggin' signal! Wasn't that just fantastic! Always advertising that they have more coverage than anyone else and she couldn't get even the smallest signal here! Fucking liars!
Now she was going to be forced to walk back to that morons house. As if she wanted to see him again! As if the half hour she had spent with him wasn't enough for a lifetime. There was something decidedly wrong with him, that was for sure! He looked normal enough, but... he was definitely off in the head. All the while she had been trying to go over her presentation, he had been looking around; glancing out the windows, getting up to look into another room, looking up toward the ceiling. It was as if he was afraid the fucking gnomes he had scattered around his front yard were going to come get him or something. Wacko crazy moron! And now she had to go back there. Oh yay!
After locking the car up, which seemed pretty stupid since it wouldn't start, she grabbed her purse and umbrella and set off walking back to that crazy moron's house. Three miles on a gravel road in heels; how great was this?? Damn mechanic! Piece of shit car!
Sitting in the comfort and safety of her car, these woods seemed to be just a bunch of trees and undergrowth. But goddamn! She was getting a case of the willies walking in the open through them despite the fact it was still light out. Probably filled with fucking Bigfoots or something! Well too bad! She had her trusty umbrella with the pointy end... she'd poke the fucking eyes out of anything that came at her!
Her car was still in sight when she heard it first. She would have sworn she could hear laughter. Like there was a group of little kids playing nearby. That was ridiculous. The crazy moron's house was the only one she had seen on this road; in fact, it was the only one she had seen anywhere in the last fifteen minutes of the drive. It had to be the wind playing tricks on her.
A few minutes later there was a rustling in the woods to her right. Heart racing, she stopped to listen more. It was quiet again. Still, she raised her umbrella just in case some hairy creature came out at her. Two minutes and nothing. She tried her cell phone again... still no signal. Heart beat nearly normal again, she started off once more then screamed when something emerged from the underbrush.
Her scream turned into laughter when she saw what had rushed out. Nothing but a bird! It looked like a small wild turkey or a quail... whatever it was, it paid her no attention, just ran across the road to the other side.
"Fucking idiot!" she scolded herself and began walking.
She had only walked maybe ten minutes more when she heard the laughter again. It seemed closer. And less like small children this time...more like... munchkins! It sounded like the munchkins on The Wizard of Oz! These spooky ass woods were filled with fucking munchkins! As long as the flying monkeys didn't descend on her, she'd be fine.
By her estimations, she was half way back to the cabin. Checking the clock on her cell phone, she'd already been walking for just over a half hour. There would still be sunlight for the remainder of the walk then. That was good because if she was going to be confronted by munchkins, she wanted to see them!
As she set off again, she began singing the song from the movie. She tried skipping, but nearly tripped after the first hop, so she settled for walking a bit faster. That got old after five minutes.
Almost as soon as she stopped singing, she would have sworn she heard someone else singing it. Someone who had a small tinny voice. Someone nearby. Fucking munchkins in the stupid fucking spooky woods! Holding the umbrella out like a weapon, she swung around. No one.
Starting off again, she decided she was going to ignore any and all sounds she might think she heard. No sense behaving like some friggin' five year old, letting her imagination run wild. Munchkins! Ha! Bigfoot! Ha! Nothing but the wind. Except, there really was no wind... barely even a slight breeze.
She'd walked perhaps a quarter mile when she could no longer ignore the sounds. There was undeniably someone out there trying to scare her. It wasn't her imagination getting away... a small tinny voice had definitely said: "Fucking idiot."
"Who's out there?" she called out.
No answer.
She started walking again.
