Hunched forward over the steering wheel of her car, peering through the windshield into the seemingly impenetrable darkness, Lisa Hatcher could have kicked herself for choosing to come this way.
It was Halloween and she had gone to a party with a bunch of her friends this evening, choosing to stay out a little past her curfew rather than risk losing the hunk she had almost reeled in, but that had earned her a call from her father. The old man had pitched a world class fit just because she was a couple of hours late getting home, practically melting her cell phone with all of his heated griping. To defuse the situation, she had realized that she needed to get home fast before he started thinking about grounding her or something and this road was certainly the quickest way to get home.
Unfortunately, it was also a very narrow and poorly maintained strip of asphalt that wound it's way through the dense, almost primeval forest that occupied the edge of town.
The woods were a spooky place to be at the best of times, but on a black and moonless night such as this it was almost enough to make her skin crawl. The only light came from her own headlights and it seemed to her that they weren't doing a very good job of cutting through the gloom this evening. With the trees looming up close to both sides of the road giving the appearance of almost solid walls and their branches spreading overhead to create an almost solid roof, it felt like she had plunged into some kind of tunnel deep underground. In a place like this, it was very easy to feel absolutely isolated from the rest of the world even though civilization was only a few miles away.
Given that the alternative was a wide and well maintained four lane highway with lots of streetlights that curved it's way around the edge of the woods and added only about an hours worth of travel time, was it any wonder that this little road was deserted save for Lisa?
Slowing down to negotiate a hairpin curve, the young woman decided it was time to stop dwelling on how creepy this place was before she freaked herself out. Instead, she focused her attention on her success back at the party.
The eighteen year old high school senior had spent most of her evening being mercilessly flattered and hit on at the party by an endless stream of guys who were very interested in getting her out of the fuzzy pink sweater and poodle skirt she had worn as a costume, but none of them had gotten anywhere with her. The idea of a quickie at some party with any old creep just had not appealed to her at all.
Instead, her sights had been set on the football team's star running back - a gorgeous young man who was hung like a horse if the rumors flying around were to be believed. She knew that he was between girlfriends at the moment and had known that she could rule the school if she was the one on his arm. She had spun a web around the poor guy that no one could have escaped, reeling him in with all the skill of a natural born man hunter.
This was why she couldn't afford to get grounded right now - she had a big date coming up next weekend.
So Lisa could never have gotten out of these woods fast enough to suit her, but she ran into some trouble when she got about three fourths of the way through them.
One moment the car was cruising along the road without any kind of problem at all and the next the engine was making sputtering, coughing noises and the car started to slow down. Alarmed by this as the last thing she wanted to do was to end up stopped in the depths of this spooky old forest, she pushed down on the accelerator pedal only to hear the engine backfire violently twice before it completely died. The vehicle's forward momentum kept it going for just a little while and it drifted to a slow stop near a gentle curve with two wheels still on the road and the other two on the practically nonexistent dirt shoulder.
"Oh, wonderful. This is just perfect." Lisa gave the steering wheel a frustrated and annoyed slap just to make sure the car knew how she felt about this, then tried to restart the engine. She could hear it make a grinding noise but it didn't seem to her that it was even trying to start and so she gave the steering wheel an even harder slap. "Stupid car."
She was grateful though that the car still seemed to have electrical power as the headlights still shone brightly into the night outside and the dashboard still glowed a soft green in front of her. Having the lights on would reduce the chance of anyone else who was stupid enough to take this road tonight failing to see the stopped car in time and driving right into her, but she didn't suppose the battery would last for too long and she certainly didn't want to still be stuck out here when it finally died and she had no light at all.
When she fished out her cell phone, she was dismayed to see that the little device couldn't find a signal. For whatever reason, the phone couldn't call out of these woods, which meant that she was not going to be able to summon help. She gave the little phone a little of what she had been giving the steering wheel and then stuffed it back into her pocket.
Reaching up under the dashboard to give the hood release an unnecessarily hard yank, she climbed out to have a look at the car's engine hoping that the problem would be something obvious that she could take care of herself without any tools or even the slightest idea of how a car's motor worked. Realistically, she knew there was little to no chance of anybody else coming down this road tonight and deciding to stop and rescue her, so if she couldn't get this thing fixed she would have to take a very long and very scary hike to reach a pay phone.
Helplessly she stared at the dead engine, bending over the car's fender to get a closer look as it was shrouded in darkness since the headlights were the only available light source. There wasn't anything in there that looked even slightly familiar and she had to face the fact that she wasn't going to be able to fix this on her own.
Lisa was so intent on her contemplation of the engine that she didn't notice when a thick fog started to gather around her. It was a low, ground-hugging sort of fog that swirled around her lower legs and seemed to appear out of nowhere for no readily apparent reason.
Frowning to herself, Lisa resolved that she was going to learn about cars so that she would never find herself in this position again. She knew that her school offered classes on this sort of thing, but had never before even considered taking one. She was due to take an art class next year, but she was going to do what ever had to be done to change that to car repair.
"Hi, there. Having a little car trouble?"
The soft, friendly voice suddenly coming from behind her was such a surprise to Lisa that she literally jumped and banged her head on the open hood just above her head. Swearing softly to herself more out of annoyance than any real pain and hoping she hadn't gotten any grease or oil in her hair, she pulled herself out from under the hood and turned hastily to see who it was that had spoken.
She was amazed to find a lovely young girl of about her own age or maybe a little older just standing in the road not too far away from her. It was only now that Lisa noticed the low fog swirling slowly around them and it only added to how surreal it seemed for this girl to have suddenly just appeared out of nowhere on this lonely little road in the middle of this deserted forest. The girl seemed to be glowing ever so slightly, but Lisa just naturally assumed that was some weird effect caused by her car's headlights bouncing off something or other. The girl must have been at some Halloween party tonight since, just like Lisa herself, she too was dressed in the style of the fifties with a tight shirt and skirt, but she was also wearing a leather jacket like the one the Fonz wore on that old TV show.
Lisa just stared at her for the longest time, hardly able to comprehend that she was really there.
Where had this girl come from? How could she possibly have walked up so close on such an absolutely quiet night without Lisa hearing her approach? The answer to that second question was probably something ridiculously obvious like that she had gotten so caught up in trying to puzzle out this motor that she had just been too preoccupied to hear even a semi coming down the road. An answer for that first question was a little harder to come by though and so she decided to just ask.
"Where . . ." Lisa was so stunned to see this other girl that her voice came out as an almost incomprehensible croak, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "Where did you come from?"
The girl smiled sweetly but gave only the vaguest of answers. "Just back there," she said, seeming to indicate with a vague sweep of her arm the dark woods just beyond where the road made it's curve here. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. My name's Amy, by the way."
"I'm Lisa," she answered automatically, peering into the woods in vain for any hint of where this girl might have come from.
The darkness was completely impenetrable and she realized that a car or motorcycle or something could very easily be hidden in the deep and gloomy shadows among those trees. For that matter, she thought it was probably possible that an entire house or lodge could be just on the other side of those trees without her knowing about it if it didn't have any lights on. She had never heard of any kind of structure at all being built out here in these creepy old woods, but then again she had also never really looked into the matter.
"It just so happens that I know a little something about cars, Lisa," the girl continued in the friendliest, most casual way possible. "I'd be happy to lend you a hand, if you'd like."
As the shock of the girl's sudden appearance started to wear off, Lisa felt herself relaxing as Amy seemed genuinely friendly and only interested in helping her out of this jam. Considering that Lisa was so desperate to get the car working again so that she could get out of these woods and back home - even if she would have to listen to another of her dad's lectures when she got there - it was really no wonder that she so enthusiastically accepted the other girl's offer of help.