Loretta and Mick were driving down a lonely highway one winter night. The car hit something, making a loud noise. Loretta and Mick bickered about whether he was driving drunk or not, then they got out to see what was hit. They peered into the darkness, seeing nothing.
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Mick was beginning to doze. They were still a two-hour drive from home and the wedding’s atmosphere had left him in a daze. The drinks, the dancing, and the gaiety all swirled into a night of mirthful relaxation leaving him exhausted after only forty-five minutes of driving. He was operating the only gas pedal on a hundred-mile stretch of interstate, and his girlfriend, Loretta, was zonked in the passenger seat.
Mick loosened his tie and tugged his sports coat tighter around his body. It was near freezing outside, and the cold permeated through the windows even with the heater on full blast.
He took a quick glance at Loretta. The hairspray from her bridesmaid up-do was blending with the sickening-sweet smell of alcohol, threatening to give him a massive migraine. But she looked so peaceful slumped against the middle-console. Mick smirked. He loved that mess of a girl.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of tawny fur in the lower right corner of the windshield. Instinctively, he swerved left but not before a squeal erupted from whatever he just hit outside. Bones crunched beneath the right tires. Loretta gasped and shot upright, eyes wild as she flailed about in her drunken stupor trying to make sense of what just happened.
Mick eased on the brakes and began to pull his truck over. Finally aware of her surroundings Loretta moaned, “Oh, I swear I should not have let you drive! Not after that last shot of whiskey.”
“That last shot of whiskey was about two hours ago and three margaritas fewer than what you drank. You stay in the car. I’m going to go see if we need to pull whatever animal that was off the road.”
“I’m going with you. I need to pee anyways, and since we are in the middle of nowhere, this is probably just as good a place as any.”
“It was just a rabbit or something. I just hope it didn’t mess up my new tires. I just had them put on,” Mick groaned as he opened his car door. A blast of frosty wind slapped him in the face as he got out. Loretta adjusted the straps on her heels and rifled through the backseat in search of her coat. Mick jetted around the vehicle and opened her door. He attempted to shield her bodily from the whipping gales. The wind nipped at their ankles and noses like an angry puppy.
Snowflakes were just beginning to flurry in the sky. The couple peered back through the frosty haze, scanning the pavement for the roadkill they had probably just created. The red tail lights on the car weren’t putting out much of a glow.
“Maybe I should back the car up or at least put the reverse lights on,” Mick offered. The dark void beyond the truck’s lightbulbs draped over them like a thick blanket. Mick and Loretta surveyed the mirky black surrounding them, both feeling lonely and vulnerable. The oppressive darkness weighed heavily on their waning spirits. Something just wasn’t right…
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