Laura just had to do something about her aging mother. This was the third time in as many weeks that her mother "needed" her to come over. She loved her mother, but the 45 mile trip to go see her was beginning to wear on her. The drive back home was worse, it was long, lonely and very dark. Laura lived a fair ways out from town, in the desert.
Laura was musing about this when she saw something cross the two-lane road in front of her. She thought it to be yet another tumbleweed blowing across the road...
There was a thump.. she'd been paying attention to her phone, changing the playlist that she'd been listening to. Worried that she'd hit something living, she pulled to the side of the road. She got out and looked around her car, not seeing any damage, she used her phone as a flashlight, and wandered back about fifty yards or so. She saw nothing, turned and walked back to her car.
When she got to her car, she saw steam coming from under the hood. She opened the hood and saw a small hole in a hose going to her radiator. From the location of the hole, it was obvious that the bump couldn't have caused the damage. She leaned over the engine compartment, and jumped as she felt something brush her ankle. Well, she would have jumped if she could have moved but there were the scratchy branches of a tumbleweed coming out of the ground and holding her feet fast. Her legs were spread just wider than shoulder width apart. As her attention was on her ankles, two other branches wrapped around her wrists. Startled she dropped her phone, and was secured very efficiently, spread eagle, between the headlights of her car.
She felt her dress move, then a light scratching going up her back, inside her dress... she panicked, INSIDE MY DRESS!? She felt the branch slip out of the neck of her dress, then felt it reverse it's course. As it came back down her back she heard a ripping, more of a cutting as her strapless sundress was cut from her body. It fell in a heap at her feet leaving her wearing only her panties and sandals.