Mishaps & Wolves (REWRITE)

Chapter 2 - When Karma Bites You on the A$$...

"Dio" she panted, "or whoever's listening...I'm going to be...straight with you here. This...is not...how I pictured dying. I know I can be...a little shit sometimes...I couldn't help it. ...Just...don't let this...be my end!"

Marissa was not athletic at all, and running for her life had her breath sawing out of her chest.  Her legs felt leaden and her feet numb but there was no way that she was going to look down to see where she was stepping or stop to catch her breath. She was not going to die out here. She was not.  The mantra repeated with every thud of her feet and every time she caught herself from tripping and sliding across the forest floor.

If I survive this, I am going to the gym more often, Marissa promised herself. There was a life lesson to be learned from all this. And don't ever let Randy pick the holiday spot or convince you that he knows what he's doing ever again.  

"Come on!" Randy called back, dragging her along when she was getting too far behind him. The growling sounds behind them were getting louder and closer, forcing her to take one deep breath after another and just try pumping her short legs to go faster and keep up.

"Can't.....keep....up...." she panted, briefly wondering why they hand't gotten back to the picnic site yet. Surely they hadn't walked that far, had they? She also morbidly wondered why the beasts hadn't caught up with them yet. Then the idea that they were herding them, playing with their prey, got stuck in her head and she found herself pushing to go faster because she refused to have her obituary read 'Died by animal mauling at a couple's weekend retreat' .

"There!" Randy drew her eye to a break in the trees and the bright lights of the campsite up ahead. Racing through, they were faced with a ten foot tall metal fence, and safety on the other side. As soon as they reached it, Randy was moving to give her a boost as high as he could lift her up, then he was climbing up beside her. She'd never loved more in her life than in that moment, but she also really wanted to strangle him herself. Just as soon as they were on the safe side of the monstrosity of metal blocking their way.

Her heartbeat was loud in her ears, but even she could hear the dreaded growls getting closer to them. Suddenly they were both at the top of the fence and she was breathing a sigh of relief as they climbed down the other side. But it was as she was going over, that she found herself being yanked back down, losing her footing and hanging down the wrong side of the fence as her jacket snagged on something. Not willing to fall and become dinner for the beasts, she tried to grab hold of the fence, trying to tear off her jacket at the same time so she wouldn't fall.

She could feel the fence moving as Randy scrambled back up the fence to get to her, but her focus was on not falling and the jacket she'd so stubbornly refused to let go of. Then the hairs on the back of her neck rose and she knew that the beasts were right behind them. She refused to turn away, to look back into their eyes and see the hyenas getting ready to pounce. Just because she was in a horror movie, didn't mean she was going to act like it and look back.

Again, the oddity of what they were doing in this forest struck Marissa. As did the idea that she was about to get attacked but an over-hyped feline whose only crowning glory was a brief mention in The Lion King as the idiot side-kick.

She kept trying to untangle herself, but it was no use because she couldn't lower the rest of the zippers without letting go of the fence.

Of course, she told herself, This is a horror movie and I'm about to be mauled by a hyena. 

The irony of the vet being killed by a cat was not lost on her and it was a struggle in what she thought were going to be her final moments not to laugh as she desperately tugged and struggled to shed her jacket.