Moose And Mayhem

I get in the car with my three friends. We're laughing at the joke the gas station clerk told us. John gets in the driver's seat, laughing harder than us all. We're on our way to his family's vacay spot on the lake.

We get back on the road and drive for another hour, singing along to our favorite songs, and dancing in our seats, while munching on the snacks we had bought at the station.

BAM!!

The music has stopped. My eyes are closed. I hear something hissing. Something warm and wet drips down my face. I try to wipe it off and realize I can't move my hand. I finally open my eyes and am so shocked by what I see that I want to close them again, but I don't.

Instead I try and take stock of what has happened. I'm sitting in the backseat with Mabel. She looks to be in the same condition as I am. She looks at me with more fear in her eyes than I've ever seen.

John's body is all mangled and twisted up into the steering wheel, if it can be called that. The entire steering column is out of place.

I wiggle free my stuck seat belt and painfully move toward him to feel for a pulse. There isn't one. Then I look over into the passenger seat and see Todd, in shape even worse than John's, if that was possible.

He has no pulse either.

In tears, I turn to Mabel and get her out of her seat belt and out of the car, wondering what on earth had happened. How were we all in such terrible condition?

We shove open the crunched door and step out on what we had expected to be the road. Instead, we find ourselves standing on grass.

We exchange a glance and inspect our injuries. My right shoulder is dislocated and her left wrist is shattered. Past that, our injuries are only superficial.

She sits down and begins to cry. I pat her shoulder, tears still streaming down my own face, and I move to the front of the wreck.

From out here, the damage takes my breath away. John's Toyota Corolla is crumpled like a tin can. There is a mega-sized moose lying spread-eagle on the hood. It had come out of nowhere.

There was no warning.

I go back to Mabel and sit by her. We cry together for a while, and then Mabel speaks.

"What are we going to do now, Leah? We can't call anyone, the phones were destroyed in the crash, and the gas station is a whole hour's drive away. Who knows how long it would take to walk there."

I give her a gentle side hug with my good arm.

"I don't know. We don't know our way around these parts anyway. I don't know what's next, but I do know that we need medical attention."

As if on cue, the adrenaline rush we were functioning on began to wane and Mabel's wrist began to swell and my shoulder was beginning to follow suit. I make a decision.

"That gas station was just down the road from a doctor's office. If we can make it back there, then that's what we should do. Maybe somebody will drive by and see us."

Mabel nods and we start walking in that direction.

After a few hours of our very slow progress, a young, red-headed, freckled boy comes by on a bike and as soon as he sees us, he gets our information about our friends and promises to get help. He rides off faster than he arrived.

Before long, a pickup comes by from the direction the boy went, and our hopes rise. This is our rescue.

The truck comes to a stop by us. It is occupied by six young men.

I am wary of them. I smell liquor and they seem drunk. Two of them start to lead us into the car, when a third makes an advance on me.

Gritting my teeth through the pain in my arm, I find another burst of strength that I didn't know I had in me, and I fight them off of me and grab hold of Mabel's good hand. We run for the woods and they follow us.

Mabel seems as if she's found extra strength too, because somehow we find the will to keep running. Their shouts follow us, and we're scared out of our wits.

We duck behind a tree trunk, and are concealed by the lengthening shadows of evening. The young men run right by us and after a little while, give up on the hunt.

Mabel and I just sit there for a while, huddling together for warmth. The night gets colder by the minute. We pass it sleeplessly, and in the light of morning we try to find something to eat. We don't find anything, but we make do with some clean water from a puddle. We try to clean our wounds a bit, but abandon the project before long because it was too painful. We wander around, looking for a path.

After a few hours, we still haven't made it back, and I strongly suspect we're going in circles. We stop, the pain from our injuries finally getting the better of us, and we collapse, exhausted. After some minutes, we make eye contact and wordlessly communicate what we both know, but can't stand to say aloud.

We are lost.

Then we hear a growl from somewhere behind us. We turn and see the biggest grizzly bear we could ever imagine. We are too exhausted to run. So we sit and wait for the killing blow, praying the end will be swift.

He roars again, and I notice that the sound is uncharacteristically like my alarm clock.

A moment later I open my eyes and find myself safe in my own bed, my alarm beeping right by my head, and my dog nuzzling my hand, growling softly for his breakfast.

I chuckle with awestruck relief, and turn over to shut off the alarm. I sit up and look around at my familiar surroundings, receiving comfort from them.

As I get up and feed my dog, there is one thought running through my mind.

What a dream!