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Friday, May 9, 2014

Excerpt from book I am writing...Flash Forward with John Driving back from a friend's party over in Seattle...year about 1977. Forgive the grammar. It is a rough draft.


Wrong Turn

by Ida Brown
Ch.1 Wrong Turn
A lonely twisting road… Snaking back and forth through desolate land and deep canyons… a quiet calm night. The rain soaked road shone like a black snake reflected in the moonlight… It’s sinister body slithering along the hills and canyons. The mouth of the snake waiting to swallow whole and devour whatever fell in its path.

I was just getting back from visiting a friend’s house in Seattle on Saturday. I had been driving at night. The weather was really crappy. It was dark and the road was really slippery. I was visiting my friend Eric in Seattle who had just graduated from high school and we were out late celebrating… Now I am driving down this winding road in the middle of the state trying to get home to Spokane… It is just pouring down rain and I can hardly see anything! I haven’t seen a car or a house or anything for the last 2 hours… Who would ever be out on a night like this! The rain was coming down so hard I could hardly see… I kept seeing dead deer carcasses on the side of the road… It wasn’t raining when I left. Sure as soon as I start home it does this… “I muttered to myself”.

I kept on driving as though my life depended on it. Thank god I didn’t drink much at Eric’s party… He did enough of that for both of us.  I couldn’t stay as I had to get back to school Monday for the last week of my junior year in high school. As I continued down the road the rain started to slow down and the road returned to this dark black abyss with only my dim headlight as a reminder that there was life on this road, meaning me, that and the dead deer.  I was thinking to myself, Eric, it’s a good thing we were best friends growing up or I wouldn’t be out on a night like this. The things we do for our best friends…

The road was endless. Mile after mile of winding road, it was driving me crazy. I was so tired… I could feel my eyes getting heavy… Why did I stay at the party so late… Probably the pretty blond that seemed to like me and was talking up a storm… Eric was his usual charming self surrounded by girls hanging on his every word. My mind was drifting and I was just thinking that maybe I should pull over when a deer darted out in front of me! I slammed on the brakes! Its glowing eyes met with mine for a second in front of my headlights! It scared the shit out of me! I had to stop for a few minutes and collect myself.  “Death by deer, what a way to go John. I told myself. ””And I didn’t even get a chance to call that pretty blonde back!” I decided that I would try to drive just a little longer, but much slower this time so that I had more warning if a deer decided to kamikaze on me… I started up the car again and proceeded ever so carefully down the road when my headlights spotted something off to my right in the ditch… It was a flash of some color…. I slowed down and stopped. What the hell was I doing? “I said to myself” “It is fucking late—3:00 in the morning, I am tired, and I want to go home!” “I should just keep going,” But something was pulling me back. Something telling me to look off the road. Like a giant hand had grabbed me and was pulling me back and taking my foot off the gas pedal.

So I backed up to where I thought I saw something. It was so dark and the hill off the side of the road was steep. I stopped and looked through the window… I could just barely make out some dark object with maybe a greenish color? It was pretty large… “Shit, I fumbled in the dark for my flashlight; at least I think I had one. I had borrowed the car from my Aunt Ida and she usually kept one in her glove box. I found it and I stumbled out the driver’s door. Thankfully the rain had stopped and there was a full moon out, but the clouds were covering the moon so that it barely peered behind the clouds. I slipped and fell on my ass a couple times on the wet ground as I tried to look over the edge… I pointed my flashlight down the steep incline… It was a car…

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