by Aurianna

Created on: July 09, 2009

Allie Patterson was counting in her mind all of the numerous things she would rather be doing right at that moment.

One, cleaning the toilet.
Two, folding the laundry.
Three, eating liver.

What she did not want to be doing was precisely what she was doing, which was exactly nothing.

In the middle of nowhere.

Alone.

Her husband, Evan, had been gone for over half an hour. He had pulled their battered old Chevy pickup to the side of the dirt road, and started walking. There was a house a few miles back, and he was going to see if anyone was home.

The truck was deader than a doornail. Which meant that there would be no air conditioning for Allie while she waited in the intense heat of an August afternoon.

It must be over a hundred degrees, Allie thought, as she ineffectively fanned herself with a discarded envelope that might once have contained the electric bill, or maybe a demand for payment to one of the many credit card companies they were in debt to.

Allie continued listing things she'd prefer to be doing.

Four, gutting fish.
Five, going to jail.
Six, painting the living room.

She sighed, wondering what was taking Evan so long. Maybe he died along the side of the road, she thought. You know, of dehydration, or a snake bite, or a bee sting, or falling in a ditch and somehow skewering himself on a fence post...

This wasn't making her feel better. Especially since they'd been fighting right before Evan took off down the road.

Now, almost an hour later, Allie felt guilty. The last thing she had said to him was,

"You know, smart men carry tools in the backs of their trucks, so in case the inevitable happens and they break down in a God-forsaken desert, they can FIX the stupid thing."

At that, Evan had yelled, "Just shut up already, will you? I'm gonna walk back to that house and see if anyone there can help us. So just stay put, and try not to make things worse!"

Allie put the argument out of her mind, and stared idly out the open window, hoping to see her husband returning- with assistance. She was sweltering, melting, in the harsh heat of the sun. There hadn't even been so much as a breeze to cool her down.

So when the entire sky suddenly went inky black and started pouring down buckets, she was more than a little shocked.

The storm came out of nowhere, it seemed. Though, Allie thought, logically it must have come from the west while I was staring off into the east...still. How odd. How...eerie.

As she rolled up the window to keep dry, she watched the road ahead of her turn

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