Fast

image is Species 2 by alexisnoreaga:

http://alexnoreaga.deviantart.com/art/Species-2-426161828

“Are you absolutely certain you gave me the right directions?” Sarah screamed into the phone. “Do you realize I am out in the middle of nowhere? There is no one around, no light, nothing! And where am I supposed to park?” She heard a crackling sound and lots of static and realized she lost reception. With the light from her dashboard and phone she looked down at the scribbled strip map. She saw the orange and white circle spray painted on the fourth tree from  mile marker thirteen, so she pulled off of the road. She thought she was in the right place, and confirmation would sure calm her nerves. Sarah hopped out of the car and waved her phone in the air hoping to find a little bit of reception. She had nothing. Not even one bar and then the NO SERVICE message popped up in the left hand corner of her phone. “Fantastic!” she muttered, now I have a $600 flash light.”

Through the backwoods she crept looking for the twisted burr oak stump. She was trying to be quiet, but as she took another step her foot landed on a twig and as it snapped the crack echoed through the dense dark woods sounding like two shots in the night. She shivered from the cold or from fear she couldn’t tell as an eerie fog enveloped the area where she was standing. She saw the lane with the tall white banded trees and felt reassured she was in the right place.  The clouds and the fog made her lose her bearing and being so far into the woods she couldn’t determine if she wanted to continue or turn and go back.

Her pride got the best of her, she researched an alternative way to become faster, to dominate the running world. She wanted to be stronger, faster, better without having to work for it, she wanted an easy solution. The strip map had been under her windshield wiper with the message “go here to be fast”.

She stumbled a few more steps as the walkway became uneven and treacherous. Her foot slipped off a root and became wedged between two hard interlocking branches; this sudden motion jerked her off balance and she let go of the phone to steady herself. She reached down to free her foot from the vice and when she did the branches she just tripped over snaked up and wrapped themselves around her arms. She yanked and pulled and tried to get away, but the branches continued to wind up her arms as her phone lay on the ground behind her casting an eerie glow around her head.