Was this woman serious?
“Okay,” Jessa barely answered, feeling defeated. If she just fell to the ground and curled in a ball, would the woman judge her? Would anyone judge her? “Can I use a phone?” Although she had no idea who she would call.
“No, honey. We don’t have any signal in these parts.”
“Land line?”
“No. The owner hasn’t paid the bill.”
What. The. Fuck.
“Okay, thank you,” Jessa said as she turned, trying to remember the directions in her head.
“Oh and, honey,” she called out to her, “watch out for deer. There are hundreds of them, and they like to jump out from nowhere.”
As Jessa walked out the door, hoping not to drown as she ran to her running car, she realized that the fairly large man had disappeared. Oh shit. Was he hiding in her back seat, getting ready to slit her throat? Or worse—was he going to knock her out and take her to the Bates Motel and kill her in the shower? Shit, shit, shit, she silently said as she glanced in the backseat seriously expecting to find the fat man waiting with a knife he used to cut his steak with at dinner ready to stab into another hunk of flesh—this one living. Jessa quickly hopped in her car and locked the door.
Her journey to the pits of hell continued as she drove the dark road, trying to remember the directions and watching for deers to jump out of nowhere. Just as she was reaching the point of pure panic and was positive that she was truly lost, she saw the lumberyard the woman spoke of.
“Yes!” she said out loud, not being able to hold back her excitement. And besides, maybe all this had made her batty. Who could really blame a girl for talking to herself when she’d gone way beyond a normal person’s breaking point?
Pulling over to the side of the road, she grabbed her phone and hopped out of the car, grateful that the rain had let up enough that she could stand outside without getting drenched again. Holding the phone in the air, she watched the screen for any sign of signal as she walked around. She noticed that across the street from the lumberyard was an abandoned church. Did anyone even live in this town? Not that she would blame everyone for moving away from this backwood hillbilly place.
“Look what we got here,” a voice cut through the air from behind her. Jessa spun around just as two strong arms grabbed her and wrestled her to the ground.
God will be your GPS was the last thing Jessa Crowe saw before she was hog-tied and thrown in the back of the biggest piece of shit, white trash car she had ever seen. The sign with the black, block letters rested on a rusted stand in front of a dilapidated old Baptist church with an empty parking lot. Where the fuck was God as two backwood hillbillies kidnapped her? Where was God now that she struggled in a trunk about to get raped and killed? And where in the hell was God when she foolishly decided that renting a small cabin in the hills of West Virginia would be a nice break from reality?
Fighting against the restraints, she closed her eyes as she took deep breaths.
Calm.
Remain calm.
Face reality.
Fuck reality, Jesse Crowe. You are about to die!
Only moments ago, she’d been in control…okay, maybe not in control, but she’d been behind the wheel of her own car driving through a storm of the century. Why in the hell did she stop in a nearly non-existent town in West Virginia. Where were all the people of the town? Could no one hear her scream? Was there not a soul who witnessed the attack? Well one thing was sure, Jessa would fight. She knew she would lose and die, but she’d be damn sure to scratch, punch and kick all the way on the journey where she’d meet the grim reaper. The cops wouldn’t find her body at first—they never did find bodies fast. But when a hiker, or hunter stumbled upon her remains dug up by some creature of the night, the investigators would be able to dig out the DNA of the men’s flesh from beneath her nails. She would make sure to leave her violent mark as she took her last breath. This much she knew.
An hour passed—maybe two—and the smoothness of the road turned bumpy. Yes, she’d known they would kill her in the heart of the woods. There wouldn’t be a soul to hear her scream. Just her and the hemlock trees. Several more hours of bumpy road jarred her entire body before finally, the car came to a stop. She heard both doors open and close shut and prepared herself to go to war. The battle of her life.