Little Shorts

A Flame in the Fog

        The road was bleak and weathered from years of wind and sleet, pocketed with potholes that were filled with moist, rotting leaves. The cracked concrete wormed its way up the wooded mountains of Washington state. Craggy faces of slate grimly stood crooked out of the pine needles that littered the ground, their surfaces dark with mist. The sky darkened with clouds and already a few jagged tears drizzled down like sharp needles.

        The engine sputtered along the road, struggling against the wet incline. The peak was still a few hundred feet away, but that was if Mara only drove the car off-road and through the fallen logs and walls of rock in a straight line. It wouldn't have been a bad idea if the car were a Jeep with rigid tires that could grip the damp leaves. But this was a stolen Volkswagen Bug with barely enough juice in her to reach the gas station in the small town uphill. Mara already had enough to worry about, and from the rusting exhaust pipe that spewed black smoke to the way that she'd been sleeping in nervous two-hour fits, she was in over her head with stress.

        Mara's eyes darted across the road, the fog that curled along the treeline sending shivers down her back. She glanced in her rearview mirror. Nothing. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in and slightly relaxed her grip on the steering wheel, quickly wiping her hands on her jeans. But after a few moments, a white flash downhill caught her eye. Her heart leaped to her throat. Two small beams of light bobbed on the road below as it started its speedy journey up the mountain. From above, the vehicle was the size of an ant, crawling up the anthill and towards her. Antennas searching, beady eyes never wavering until they found her.

        By now, Mara was a few states away from the hole she had blasted through her cell. Her distractions were brought down to smoldering ashes, enough to shove the warden off her trail. She scoffed at the memory of her trial. Charged for possession of illegal firearms and public endangerment. That's what she was. A bomb waiting to explode. It wasn't her fault her hands could glow and smolder. And although they had locked her in the deepest, darkest wing of the prison, with walls as thick as she was tall, they still didn't know how to control her power. Hence, the sizzling hole in the wall. She then stole a truck but had to sell it shortly after for two grand in California once she noticed a certain sedan tailing her. The moment the bounty hunter realized that the car he followed wasn't being driven by her, the cops started to swarm the state and she had to move north.

        She tore her eyes from the road just as she was about to speed past the turnoff. She yelped and jerked hard on the wheel, tires squealing, and made the turn by mere inches. She floored the gas to avoid slipping but wasn't fast enough to escape the scent of burning rubber. A shudder rolled through the Bug, and then a loud pop rang through Mara's ears as it swung from side to side. Metal ground against the concrete, tires melting as air hissed out of them, sending sparks behind her.       

        "God damn it!" Mara shrieked, pounding her hands on the wheel as the engine wheezed and the car rolled to a stop. The car was dead, a bust, a load of crap, useless. The slam of the car door was muffled by the fog. Her scalp prickled and her hair stuck to the back of her neck. Her heart thumped louder with every passing second that she stood in the road. She wanted to scream in frustration but her voice would echo off the mountain and the car that was hurtling up the slope would no doubt catch up to her in a few minutes.

        Thinking quickly, she threw open the trunk, grabbed her backpack and stuffed her wallet in it. She dug out her phone from her back pocket and without a second to waste, brought it down on her knee with a loud crack. Even if she had never used it, Mara believed that somehow the bounty hunter had found a way to track the old flip phone. Like a wolf, he always seemed to sniff her out and track her down.