Your Future Past
This story and all ideas, themes and original characters are the sole ownership and copyright of J.L. Scott. Any unauthorized use is actionable in a court of law.
To borrow a phrase: Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman and all characters and settings no mine, no permission, no money, no sue...please? AN: Yeah, yeah, I know it's been done, especially recently, but guess what? It's being done again! Hope you enjoy!
Shit. What did that sign say? Blake tried to look through the night darkness and the rain but it was useless. She might as well have been trying to read something a mile away. She thought she had read something about Colorado. She was in Colorado wasn't she? She shook her head as she zoomed past the sign at 70 miles an hour. This was crazy. She should just pull over and wait until either the night or the rain passed, but she didn't do that. She just kept on driving. The feel of the road changed, it was rougher, almost like gravel. Well, what were you going to expect on a strip of highway in the middle of the desert that no one had driven on in probably ten years. Maybe more.
How had she ended up out in the middle of nowhere, driving like a demon out of hell in the rain on the eve of her birthday? It was all Zander's fault. Zander, her mother, and her dead father. They were the ones that had driven her out into the desert, half a continent away from home, running away on a measlely $500 she'd had stuck away in a bank account across town where her mother couldn't get to it. Zander and all his money, Dad and his bitching, Mom and her drinking. That's what had driven a (just barely) eighteen year old Blake to fill her gas tank up on the $20 she'd stolen from her mom for lunch, pack her boxes and head out of state. She'd left her cell phone on, thinking maybe if someone called her, Mom, Zander, the cops, maybe she'd turn around and go back. But she'd been gone for almost a week now, and the thing had rung once, and that had been Shelly, Blake's "friend" just to find out why she hadn't been at Alex Granguard's "totally bitchin' party" tuesday night. Blake had told her she moved out of state and then told Shelly to go fuck herself, seeing as that was probably the only person in Chicago she hadn't been in bed with. Blake rolled her eyes at the memory. Had it really been only a week since she scraped up enough class credits to pass high school? And what the heck was she going to do in.......where ever she ended up stopping. Where would that be? California? Oh, yeah, great idea. She'd probably end up in a shelter for the homeless before a month was up. What she needed was some quiet little college town where she could find a job, maybe take some night classes, and fade into the background where no one would find her. Not that she expected anyone to come looking.
Blake reached down and popped a cd in the player. Native American song started pumping through the four speakers in her car, thrumping her seat with the base from the drum. It calmed her down and pulled her away from the dark thoughts she was venturing in. This particular CD was Cheyenne, she thought, though she didn't try to check. There weren't any street lamps on this lonely strip of desert road and there wasn't any friendly moonlight either. Blake let the drums seep through her bones and let up on the gas petal a little, slowing to a pleasant 60 mph. The rain let up finally and she could at least see as far as her headlights shone again.
Shit! And now that she could see, she could see she wasn't on the road anymore! When had she left it? It must've curved somewhere behind her and she hadn't noticed through all the rain. Crap. She slowed down to a near crawl and prepared to make a U-turn. But oh, no, it wasn't that easy. She heard something rattle and hiss in front of her and noticed the steam, or smoke, starting to seep from beneath her hood. She finished stopping and put the emergency brake on, just in case. She sighed and slammed her open palms on the steering wheel, knowing it did no good. She grabbed her backpack and locked the doors, paranoid enough to worry about the threat of theives in the middle of absolutely nowhere. She got out of the car, very glad the rain had stopped now, and popped the hood. She had pulled her keys out of the ignition so had to use a flashlight to look at the engine. There was some kind of white gaseous substance lifting from somwhere deep with in. Blake took a whiff. It smelled a little acrid, but she wasn't absolutely sure it was smoke. Either way she couldn't drive her car.
She turned and shone her flashlight the way her car was headed. All she saw was a bunch of dirt and some clumps of grass. She shone it the other way. Same thing. She rolled her eyes at the lack of choice, and headed in the opposite way that her car was headed. She walked for a while, hoping to run into the road, but no such luck. Either she was lost or she had left the road a lot longer ago than she had guesstimated. She sighed and continued her trek, letting her mind drift a bit, not thinking about her problems and not thinking about her assets. She found a stone to kick as she went, and was glad she had when it suddenly disappeared into the darkness and she heard it hitting stone as it.....fell?
"Cripes!" she exclaimed and took a hasty step backwards. She had nearly walked right into a giant gorge! Where the hell had that come from? Blake played her flashlight around and found that she was still dangerously close to the edge. She couldn't see how deep it was, nor did she feel like finding out. She looked out the other way. All her flashlight could find was more grass, and all her eyes could find was the siluette of a lone tree. Wait! Hadn't she crossed a bridge about an hour back? She didn't remember a river, but she remembered the bridge. Maybe it crossed this gorge. It was a long walk, but it was the best shot she had. How far back had that sign been? Colorado something, she was pretty sure it had been a sign for a town. Well, at least she could make it back to the road.
Thunder rolled over head and Blake sniffed the air. There was rain coming. Probably a lot of it. She just hoped she could make it somewhere with a roof before it started pouring again. She started walking again, this time along the gorge, trying not to get too far away and at the same time not fall in.
"Amazing grace" she started singing under her breath. It drove her mother nuts when she did that, just started singing out of the blue. But her mother wasn't around to bitch about it now, was she? So Blake just kept singing. Mother Nature decided not to be kind to her and let a volley of water droplets fall from the clouds that were obscuring the helpful moon. It wasn't the real downpour Blake had feared it would be, though, and it was a good half an hour before she was really wet.
Maybe it was the rain loosening the dirt, maybe it was the dieing flashlight or maybe it was Blake's own negligance, but she didn't even notice when the ground stopped being there for her to walk on until she was rolling down the steep side of the gorge. She could feel a million bruises forming as she crashed past scraggly bushes toward the pit of the gorge and figured she'd be meeting her maker sooner rather than later. How many people survived a dive down a rocky gorge, after all? And that was her last thought before her head impacted against a large rock and she stopped her rolling on a sturdy ledge.
This story and all ideas, themes and original characters are the sole ownership and copyright of J.L. Scott. Any unauthorized use is actionable in a court of law.
To borrow a phrase: Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman and all characters and settings no mine, no permission, no money, no sue...please? AN: Yeah, yeah, I know it's been done, especially recently, but guess what? It's being done again! Hope you enjoy!
Shit. What did that sign say? Blake tried to look through the night darkness and the rain but it was useless. She might as well have been trying to read something a mile away. She thought she had read something about Colorado. She was in Colorado wasn't she? She shook her head as she zoomed past the sign at 70 miles an hour. This was crazy. She should just pull over and wait until either the night or the rain passed, but she didn't do that. She just kept on driving. The feel of the road changed, it was rougher, almost like gravel. Well, what were you going to expect on a strip of highway in the middle of the desert that no one had driven on in probably ten years. Maybe more.
How had she ended up out in the middle of nowhere, driving like a demon out of hell in the rain on the eve of her birthday? It was all Zander's fault. Zander, her mother, and her dead father. They were the ones that had driven her out into the desert, half a continent away from home, running away on a measlely $500 she'd had stuck away in a bank account across town where her mother couldn't get to it. Zander and all his money, Dad and his bitching, Mom and her drinking. That's what had driven a (just barely) eighteen year old Blake to fill her gas tank up on the $20 she'd stolen from her mom for lunch, pack her boxes and head out of state. She'd left her cell phone on, thinking maybe if someone called her, Mom, Zander, the cops, maybe she'd turn around and go back. But she'd been gone for almost a week now, and the thing had rung once, and that had been Shelly, Blake's "friend" just to find out why she hadn't been at Alex Granguard's "totally bitchin' party" tuesday night. Blake had told her she moved out of state and then told Shelly to go fuck herself, seeing as that was probably the only person in Chicago she hadn't been in bed with. Blake rolled her eyes at the memory. Had it really been only a week since she scraped up enough class credits to pass high school? And what the heck was she going to do in.......where ever she ended up stopping. Where would that be? California? Oh, yeah, great idea. She'd probably end up in a shelter for the homeless before a month was up. What she needed was some quiet little college town where she could find a job, maybe take some night classes, and fade into the background where no one would find her. Not that she expected anyone to come looking.
Blake reached down and popped a cd in the player. Native American song started pumping through the four speakers in her car, thrumping her seat with the base from the drum. It calmed her down and pulled her away from the dark thoughts she was venturing in. This particular CD was Cheyenne, she thought, though she didn't try to check. There weren't any street lamps on this lonely strip of desert road and there wasn't any friendly moonlight either. Blake let the drums seep through her bones and let up on the gas petal a little, slowing to a pleasant 60 mph. The rain let up finally and she could at least see as far as her headlights shone again.
Shit! And now that she could see, she could see she wasn't on the road anymore! When had she left it? It must've curved somewhere behind her and she hadn't noticed through all the rain. Crap. She slowed down to a near crawl and prepared to make a U-turn. But oh, no, it wasn't that easy. She heard something rattle and hiss in front of her and noticed the steam, or smoke, starting to seep from beneath her hood. She finished stopping and put the emergency brake on, just in case. She sighed and slammed her open palms on the steering wheel, knowing it did no good. She grabbed her backpack and locked the doors, paranoid enough to worry about the threat of theives in the middle of absolutely nowhere. She got out of the car, very glad the rain had stopped now, and popped the hood. She had pulled her keys out of the ignition so had to use a flashlight to look at the engine. There was some kind of white gaseous substance lifting from somwhere deep with in. Blake took a whiff. It smelled a little acrid, but she wasn't absolutely sure it was smoke. Either way she couldn't drive her car.
She turned and shone her flashlight the way her car was headed. All she saw was a bunch of dirt and some clumps of grass. She shone it the other way. Same thing. She rolled her eyes at the lack of choice, and headed in the opposite way that her car was headed. She walked for a while, hoping to run into the road, but no such luck. Either she was lost or she had left the road a lot longer ago than she had guesstimated. She sighed and continued her trek, letting her mind drift a bit, not thinking about her problems and not thinking about her assets. She found a stone to kick as she went, and was glad she had when it suddenly disappeared into the darkness and she heard it hitting stone as it.....fell?
"Cripes!" she exclaimed and took a hasty step backwards. She had nearly walked right into a giant gorge! Where the hell had that come from? Blake played her flashlight around and found that she was still dangerously close to the edge. She couldn't see how deep it was, nor did she feel like finding out. She looked out the other way. All her flashlight could find was more grass, and all her eyes could find was the siluette of a lone tree. Wait! Hadn't she crossed a bridge about an hour back? She didn't remember a river, but she remembered the bridge. Maybe it crossed this gorge. It was a long walk, but it was the best shot she had. How far back had that sign been? Colorado something, she was pretty sure it had been a sign for a town. Well, at least she could make it back to the road.
Thunder rolled over head and Blake sniffed the air. There was rain coming. Probably a lot of it. She just hoped she could make it somewhere with a roof before it started pouring again. She started walking again, this time along the gorge, trying not to get too far away and at the same time not fall in.
"Amazing grace" she started singing under her breath. It drove her mother nuts when she did that, just started singing out of the blue. But her mother wasn't around to bitch about it now, was she? So Blake just kept singing. Mother Nature decided not to be kind to her and let a volley of water droplets fall from the clouds that were obscuring the helpful moon. It wasn't the real downpour Blake had feared it would be, though, and it was a good half an hour before she was really wet.
Maybe it was the rain loosening the dirt, maybe it was the dieing flashlight or maybe it was Blake's own negligance, but she didn't even notice when the ground stopped being there for her to walk on until she was rolling down the steep side of the gorge. She could feel a million bruises forming as she crashed past scraggly bushes toward the pit of the gorge and figured she'd be meeting her maker sooner rather than later. How many people survived a dive down a rocky gorge, after all? And that was her last thought before her head impacted against a large rock and she stopped her rolling on a sturdy ledge.