Getting Out

19

Georgia must not have slept as much as she’d thought. Wait, had she slept at all? She was starting to feel delirious from lack of sleep, from hunger, from the fatigue of walking all day.

She’d cruised right past the people whose car she was obviously driving. She wasn’t going to stop, not when the well-being of her family was at stake. But she felt a horrible nagging guilt that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Those women had looked so… helpless. They’d looked innocent. And she’d seen it on their faces. They simply couldn’t believe their bad luck.

She tried to justify it to herself. Where did they need to go in a car anyway? They already had their house.

But soon she was second guessing her own rationalizations.

Well, the house hadn’t appeared to have a lot of food in it. Maybe they didn’t have much food left, and they would need to leave to get some.

But where were they going to get food? It wasn’t like they’d be able to just drive to a grocery store. Even if there was one nearby, it would have been looted long ago. What’s more, it would be dangerous.

The sky was a dark grey. The rain started falling. It was light at first, but after only a few minutes, it turned into an intense heavy downpour.

So far, no lightning or thunder. But it really felt like a storm was developing. A heavy, intense storm.

The road didn’t have good drainage. Instead of being formed like a crown, sloping down on the sides, it was the reverse of that. The road was shaped like a U, so that water quickly accumulated in the center of it.

Some parts of the road were already flooded.

Georgia had driven trucks as long as she could remember, and she didn’t feel confident in the abilities of this little foreign compact car.

Maybe she should have gone looking for a better car, a truck or something. But she knew there were few houses around here. She would have had to walk perhaps an entire extra day.

She was worried about Sadie and James. She hoped nothing had happened to them. She hoped no one had come along to do them harm.

Georgia was going down a long and steep descent. There was a curve coming up ahead, and she slowed down a little. But maybe not enough. After all, she was anxious to get back to James and Sadie.

It happened fast. Maybe it was the water. Or maybe Georgia was driving too fast on the curve.

But the next thing she knew, the car lost control.

Shitty ass tires, was the last thought she had, before the car left the road completely and hit a tree.

The impact wasn’t that hard. Surprisingly soft, actually. But she felt jolted, and a little dazed.

The airbag deployed perfectly, just as it should have. It worked beautifully, cushioning what would have been a nasty bashing against the steering wheel.

The engine still running, Georgia tried her seatbelt. But it was jammed.

She knew what was happening, despite being dazed. She didn’t stop and cry. She didn’t give up. She didn’t feel sorry for herself.

Instead, she did what she had to do. She was slowly able to fish her pocket knife from her jeans. She flicked it open, cut the seatbelt, and then punctured the airbag for good measure, allowing her to get out of the car easily.

She stood, slightly dazed, next to the car. It didn’t look like there was any way the car would be able to get out of there on its own. She didn’t think that it was severely damaged, but it was definitely stuck.

She got back in and put the car in reverse. But the wheels just spun. Yeah, she’d been right, there was no way it was going to get out.

She killed the engine, pocketed the keys, and started to walk down the road.

Georgia realized that she wasn’t that far away from the women she’d passed, the women she’d stolen the car from.

She walked for less than a minute, when she realized that her ankle must have been twisted.

She tried to push on, simply gritting her teeth and continuing, but the pain was completely overwhelming. Each step she took was pure agony.

She looked behind her. There was no sign of the three women. And what motivation did they have to follow her? They couldn’t have thought they would have any chance of catching up to her on foot.

But then again, there was the possibility that they’d heard the crash and would come to investigate.

The rain was pouring down.

For the first time, Georgia heard the tremendous crack of thunder far away in the sky.

It startled her. She was soaking wet, already drenched to the bone, and shivering.

She sat down on the side of the road to consider her options. There was no way she was going to make it back on this ankle alone.

But she was resourceful, and she wasn’t going to give up just yet, especially when the safety of her kids was at stake.

So she found a small sapling, fished out her pocket knife, and set to work cutting it down as best she could. She made the cuts at an angle, and used the non-serrated blade to make sawing motions. She bent the sapling down from the top, using the pressure to increase the effectiveness of her cuts. She didn’t know much about bushcrafting, but she must have understood some of the basics, because it worked.

In less than ten minutes, she was back on the road, using the cut sapling as a rudimentary crutch.

She gritted her teeth through the pain and used the crutch to help her damaged ankle. She still had to put some weight on it, but it was better than before. Soon the crutch was digging horribly into her armpit, but she did the best she could. She stopped in the pouring rain and picked up some soaking wet dead leaves on the side of the road. She stuffed them into the crook of her armpit to use as padding against the end of the sapling.

But it was still hurting. So she stopped yet again, took off her soaking wet shirt. She balled that up, then stuffed the leaves inside the shirt. It made a much better pad for the crutch, and she was able to walk at a slow yet purposefull pace down the road.

She was freezing, wearing just her bra. But the shirt wouldn’t have helped much anyway.

Georgia hadn’t seen rain this intense in a long, long time. She could barely see more than twenty yards in front of her.

The thunder was getting closer, and she saw lightning in the distance. The storm was upon her.

As she moved, her large breasts bobbled in front of her. The bra was soaked and had become uncomfortable when wet. The straps dug into her skin. She considered taking off the bra, but her breasts had always been uncomfortably big without a bra when doing any physical activity.

There was a sound behind her. It was hard, if not impossible, to tell what it was, because of the noise of the growing storm, the cracks of thunder, and the pounding rain.

But there it was. She heard it now. It was a scream. A human screaming, cutting through the rain.

Georgia stopped and turned around, supporting herself as best she could on the crutch.

She felt vulnerable for the first time in a long time. Maybe it wasn’t wearing a shirt, having her breasts exposed in the soaking bra, having the crutch, being impossibly fatigued and hungry. Whatever it was, it was a new feeling for her, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t feel ready to confront whoever it was that was coming.

Her mind turned to the women whose car she’d taken. It must have been them.

She felt guilty and stupid. She’d stolen their car and gotten it stuck. What had been the point of all this? She felt like a failure. But she wasn’t just going to sit in the woods and wait to die. She was going to do what she had to do to get back to her kids. If that meant fighting off these women, then that would be what she had to do.

“Hey! Yeah, you!”

Georgia still couldn’t see the women through the thick rain. Not yet. They must have been right out of her sight.

Georgia took the crutch from the ground and held it like a club. She was ready to defend herself.

She was wobbly on her legs, her ankle about to give out.

She was so tired it wasn’t until she finally saw the woman approaching that she remembered she had two guns with her.

But was she ready to use it? Ready to defend herself against someone who she’d wronged?

The three woman appeared before her. They were soaking in the rain. Their faces were contorted in pure anger. They were ready. For what, Georgia didn’t know.