Page 12 of When Glitter Meets Gold

Half a mile later, the creatures are everywhere. Swarms of them. I’m even forced to turn on the wipers because the amount of bug death on the windshield has formed a light film that’s compromising my vision.

Soon, the road veers into a single lane and the terrain becomes a little bumpy, but it’s nothing the Wrangler can’t handle, right? I glance at the navigation, noting that I should be approaching a fork in the road shortly. Unless I’ve taken a wrong turn…

Bzzz.

My ears prick, and my head whips to the side.

“You have got to be kidding me.” I whine in horror as I see a huge beebobbing around beside me.

I hover my finger over the switch to crack a window but curse when I realize that doing so would probably only invite more bugs to join me.

“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This. Isn’t. Happening.”

While holding the wheel steady, I reach behind my seat. I pat blindly for my bag and squeal with relief when my fingers brush against the cool tin surface of the canister of bug spray. I grip it, take aim at the bee and spray…

Clouds of white smoke explode from the tiny nozzle, engulfing the inside of the car in a thick white haze. I cough and splutter, waving my hands violently to get rid of the fumes. It only makes things worse and draws the cloudy plumes closer to my face. I slam my foot on the brake, pushing the pedal to the floor.

The car does not stop.

Instead, it scrapes over loose gravel, spinning out of control.

Then everything happens very quickly.

My body absorbs the shock of whatever solid object therear passenger’s door collides with. The impact sends the car jerking and skidding farther. A moment later, the entire vehicle is tilting.

No. Not tilting.Teetering.

I squint ahead, over the edge of a steep,steepembankment.

A symphony of creaks ring in the air before the hood dips and my stomach turns to liquid. It’s the same curdling feeling of being flung about on a rollercoaster, or when you think you’ve reached the bottom step in the middle of the night but there’s still one more.

The feeling of falling.

The Jeep is flying.Down.

Jerking and scraping, the sound of stone grinding against metal ricochets throughout the cabin as I lurch from side to side beneath my seatbelt.

The last thing I remember is the impact when I slam against whatever solid thing the Jeep collides with.

That’s when things get hazy. But this time it’s not the bug spray… It’s me. I’m losing consciousness. I reach for the handle, but my eyelids become heavy, and everything starts to go dark.

6

‘J’

Jhikes a little more than he planned. He reaches a particular stretch of the mountain most hikers tend to avoid because not only does it lack a clear path, it’s also a radio dead zone. An unattractive pairing for those who like a mapped-out route and can’t bear to be without signal for a few hours. To J, it’s quite the opposite. Being unreachable and entirely off grid are the things that appeal most to him; it’s why he came.

Besides, hiking a mile or so into the dead zone means he’ll cover more distance before the rain arrives. His last prediction led him to believe he’d miss the downpour, but the recent swell of cloud overhead is making him reconsider. He changes course, deciding to hike to higher ground before he pitches a tent.

His plans are hijacked however, when a red blur ruptures through the trees, bursting over the edge of a steep ridge before it begins to roll down the canyon.

Binoculars wedged to his face, he identifies the object as a car, one that looks like it came from the abandoned road atthe top of the ridge. J watches the vehicle gain speed, hitting every rock and tree limb in its path, until it crashes into a cluster of ferns that somehow stop it from rolling all the way to the bottom of the ravine.

J lowers the binoculars and sighs. It isn’t the first time he’s seen someone dispose of a car this way before. Criminals driving stolen vehicles who needed to abandon them quickly or unruly kids up to no good. He’d been a kid, a rowdy one, he knew what they got up to. There are a hundred reasons why idiots rolled cars off cliffsides in deserted areas like these, the main one being because there’s nobody around to witness it happen.

He aims the binoculars at the top of the cliff.

No one in sight.

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