"No, no, no, no..." Rebecca mumbled under her breath as the headlights of her car grew even dimmer.
It had been over an hour ago that Rebecca had noticed the red check engine light at the same time she had smelled something burning. She wasn't sure how long the light had been on before then, but since she'd first noticed the dashboard light she had also noticed her headlights getting progressively dimmer. Rebecca was down to less than ten miles an hour as her tires crunched down the gravel road, her headlights barely reaching a car length ahead. Rebecca checked her mobile phone and felt her heart plummet when she saw that there still wasn't even a signal.
"Shit!" Rebecca yelled, slamming her palms against the steering wheel as the car's headlights gave out at the same time the engine coughed to a stop, "Fuck me!"
"Shit, shit shit!" Rebecca yelled as she coasted the car to the side of the gravel road and finally rolled to as stop.
"Now what?" Rebecca said aloud, glaring at the brand new GPS fastened to her dashboard that had shut off a few minutes before her car had died.
Rebecca closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. She had decided to drive to her friend Tracy's house up in Scotland on the spur of the moment in part just to try out the GPS that her parents had bought for her birthday the month before. The trip was a long one and normally took eight hours to drive, but Rebecca hadn't seen Tracy in almost six months and she had a good two weeks before she had to be back for University. The GPS had been something she had always wanted being horrible with maps and totally lost if she drove around the block twice. The idea that she could type in an address and the little computer would tell her exactly how to drive somewhere had been absolutely amazing and had worked flawlessly since she had received it.
Naturally Rebecca had decided to use her new favorite toy for the trip and had plugged in Tracy's address and selected the shortest route from the menu. Her on again, off again boyfriend had tried to explain that the shortest route wasn't necessarily the quickest, but Rebecca had dismissed him as man-splaining and being overly techy. Rebecca knew that if a route was the shortest it would also be the quickest and had followed the GPS directions to the letter. She had started to get nervous when the route she was taking began to look more and more remote, had to seriously second guess herself when she realized she hadn't seen a building or even another car for almost an hour. Rebecca had tried to redo the GPS and make it take a route that led to more people, but she just seemed to make matters worse when it had her turn onto a gravel road that led out into the middle of the countryside and as far as Rebecca could tell far away from the nearest motorway.
And then, as if she were in the middle of her own cheesy B list horror film, her car decided to breakdown.
Rebecca felt herself tear up as she stared out the windscreen. She could see trees along the sides of the road only by where they blocked the stars without even a sliver of a moon to shed any light. She tried to roll her window down only to realize that without power even that didn't work before opening the door and stepping out into the cool night air. The stink of burning rubber was stronger outside.
Rebecca looked up at the sky and gasped having never seen so many stars and simply stared. A dog barking in the distance jerked Rebecca back to the present and she glanced fearfully into the pitch black high along both sides of the gravel road wandering which direction the bark came from before hastily climbing back in her car and slamming the door. Rebecca slammed the palms of her hands against the steering wheel again before glaring at the GPS which remained just as dead as her car.
"Figures!" Rebecca said in exasperation.
Rebecca leaned back in her seat, staring at the fabric covering the roof as she thought about what to do next. It was almost midnight so the likelihood of anyone driving along and finding her was slim to none since she hadn't seen a single car after pulling onto the gravel road. Also she hadn't seen any lights anywhere that might indicate a house or a farm or something. She felt a little reassured that since there hadn't been any lights for such a long time then surely she was getting close to a village up ahead. Rebecca closed her eyes and steeled her nerves, knowing that if she just walked a mile or two down the road she'd have find some help to get her car fixed.
Rebecca got back out of her car and opened the boot, finding the torch her father had placed there in case of emergencies before rummaging through the bags she had for her trip. It only took a minute for her to find and put on a pair of jeans and a long sleeve blouse instead of the shorts and cotton t-shirt she had had been wearing. Rebecca grabbed her fleece almost as an afterthought, the cool breeze sending goose bumps up and down her arms as she slammed the trunk closed.
With a final look back the way she had come down the gravel road Rebecca turned and began to walk. As she chased the bobbing and weaving beam of the torch the dark night seemed to come alive with sounds she had never noticed before. Insects hummed and chirped to the sound of her flip flops slapping her feet with the sound of the occasional owl hooting eerily over the road. When Rebecca again heard the sound of a dog barking in the distance she turned to look back at her car which was already lost in the inky depths of the night.
"Only a mile or two," Rebecca breathed, turning back and continuing her walk.
When finally even the torches beam began to waiver Rebecca opened her phone and felt her lip tremble when the display lit with the time as a little past 2am and still no bars at all. The torch gave a last flicker before dimming away almost exactly like her car had done earlier. Rebecca slammed it into the palm of her hand repeatedly without so much as a flicker before flinging out over a hedge.
"Damn!" Rebecca sobbed, instantly regretting throwing away the torch even though it wasn't doing a bit of good with the batteries dead.
The night was truly pitch black, but after standing under the stars for a minute Rebecca's eyes began to adjust and she found that she could at least see well enough to continue down the road. Without any light the night sounds around her suddenly seemed sinister and foreboding, the rustle in the bushes now a wild big cat instead of a startled rabbit, a sudden jarring burr an angry snake instead of a grasshopper kicked up by her feet. Rebecca tried to control her breathing and not panic, hoping that the next turn of the road or the next hill would reveal a light in the distance. It was another hour before Rebecca heard the sounds of a car and it took several moments for her to be sure it was a car and not her imagination.
"Oh, thank god!" Rebecca sobbed and spun in a circle not sure which way the sound was coming from until a distant gleam lit up the the hedgerows from the direction her car was parked.
The gleam increased in intensity until the car came into sight, the headlights glaring so bright that they were painful for Rebecca to stare at. Instantly she began to jump up and down while waiving her arms enthusiastically as the car approached.
"Stop!" Rebecca yelled as the car which turned out to be an old Transit van barreled past, "Please, stop!"
Rebecca's heart plummeted as the van flew past her without slowing before leaping up into her throat as the driver slammed on the breaks and scattered gravel everywhere. Rebecca ran up to the van, her flip flops slapping noisily until she reached the driver's window.
"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!" Rebecca nearly sobbed as the window was rolled down, "You're the first person I've seen all night!"
"What in the world are you doing out here?" the man behind the wheel asked in amazement.
Rebecca felt herself blush as she saw the man in the dashboard lights of his truck. He certainly fit the bill for a handsome, dashing knight out to rescue a fair damsel with his clean shaven face, square jaw even down to a dimple in his chin, unkempt shaggy black hair and plaid shirt that couldn't conceal his wide, muscular chest. He looked to be in his mid 30's. She had a moment to wonder if she met the description of said damsel with her slender and short frame, oval face, and mousy brown hair that looked shorter than his.
She did have one asset which she tried to use to her advantage by standing up straight and thrusting her chest out inconspicuously to show off her breasts. Officially Rebecca was a C cup, but her frame as well as her very firm, full breasts had guys always taking a second and even a third glance.
"My car broke down and I was trying to find someplace to call for a breakdown service" Rebecca explained, happy to see that the driver of the truck had indeed taken a second look at her breasts, "Could you give me a lift to town please?"
"No," the driver said simply, glancing at Rebecca's breasts once more, "The town is another twenty miles down the road, if you can call a couple of buildings, an old petrol station, and an abandoned café a town."
"But..." Rebecca began.
