I had a plan... It was bulletproof. Or so I thought. Get a degree, find a decent job... Not so much. Now two years into "adulting" I was a nanny AND an Uber driver with a massive student loan debt. I guess almost everyone else my age was in the same boat. So.. jobs are hard to find. It's embarrassing to say but right now I mostly live in my SUV. I save a ton of money and I like to travel... But when it's cold out, like now, I couch surf at my best friend's place.
Tonight just seemed like any other, little did I know my luck was about to change when I picked up an Uber rider.
We did the usual dance; the guy asked my name as he stepped into my SUV. He was an older man, grey hair, weathered-looking but charming. We made small talk. He was in the big city doing interviews. A talent recruiter for a small-town TV station in a remote northern city.
I thought about it for a minute as I drove. I did like to tell stories, I was good at it. But a job like that would mean moving. I mean, it's not like I had much to move... It was in the middle of nowhere, I wasn't sure where this "North Slope" place he talked about was, but I bet they see the northern lights there. So, I told him I was interested. One thing led to another and we traded information. That evening he called and offered me a position reporting for the local news department. I was going to be the new Junior Reporter for North Slope Network. Now I had a road trip to plan...
I have to say... reading a map, not my forte. I studied the arts, not geography. And getting to this place was even a mystery to google maps. But I sort of figured things out and watched for the occasional road signs. Then I realized I was lost... again... At the last fork in the road a while back, I think the sign had fallen over, so I took a guess. A lucky left? I let out a sigh, I should have looked at the map...
To make things even more confusing and dangerous, it had started to snow, heavily. If you didn't know it was March you'd think it was Christmas day. I backed up to turn around and with a large THUMP, I felt the rear end of my SUV drop! My heart sank, I tried to go forward and the wheels spun. SHIT! 4 wheel drive my ass. I got out to look and my eyelashes instantly froze and my lips chapped... Holy crap it was freezing out! My SUV had slipped off the road. It looked solid but I was bumper deep in a snow-covered ditch.
I decided to get back in my SUV to warm up and think. Stupidly, I wasn't wearing a hat, I didn't even own gloves and I was already worried frostbite had set in. My ears and fingers were numb. Even my toes felt frozen through my thick socks and boots and I had only gone out for a moment. I dug out some extra socks for my feet and hands and put on a few more layers. Folding out the paper map like an accordion to take a closer look, It seemed like I was in the middle of nowhere. If I was even on the right part of the map! I grabbed my phone, I could at least call roadside assistance. As I tried searching for the number I realized I had absolutely no service. I put my head on the steering wheel.
One thing was for sure, If I didn't figure something out, everything would be buried in a snowbank within a couple of hours and then what? I wasn't prepared, let alone physically equip to have to dig myself out. Should I wait for help? Hope that someone drives by and sees me? Fuck.
I grabbed the flashlight I had in my glove compartment and decided to walk down the street for a bit to try to find a road sign before it got too dark.
It was hard walking through the knee-high snow and now I wished I had taken a blanket as well. It was tits cold and I have the kind of tits that would know. Fuck, the wind bit through my shitty coat and right to the nipples. My skin was starting to hurt, burn even. My face was numb, and my thighs were rubbing my pussy wrong as well. Everything stung.
The whole time I wondered how far it would be to get a signal when the fucking battery on my phone died. It was an older phone and didn't hold a charge very well, especially in these frigid temperatures. Now I needed to trudge back. Cursing my stupidity, I turned and quickly noticed two things...
The first was, where were my fucking tracks? The snow was blowing hard and coming down so fast that they were almost already gone. But that wasn't why a flash of heat came over my body. I wasn't cold anymore and began to sweat nervously... two wolves were standing there, right in front of me! My heart started to pound and I could see my breath, like fog in the air, as it started to speed up.
They must have been following me. I've only ever seen wolves like this on sweatshirts. One was jet black and the other had a lot of white markings with grey on its head. Through the snow, I could just make out the yellow eyes in my flashlight. Well, this is just fucking great; how could this get any better. I can hear the news story already "Lost Reporter Mauled to Death By Wolves" - What if they don't find my body, I'll just be a dozen piles of frozen wolf shit sprinkled around.
My heart was really racing now. The black one put its head low like it was deciding what it wanted to grab first. My throat or my leg. At that moment I knew what a dear must feel like, and, like an idiot, I turned and ran. Even as I did it, I thought about how stupid I was.. and then I slipped. The slipping was the easy part, it was the rolling off of the god damned road and hitting my head that totally sucked, I tumbled down like a log, into a ditch and thankfully, I hit a rock. Lights out.
I woke up in a warm place. A cave? I was looking at a rock wall. It smelled musty. Did the wolves drag me to their den to finish me off? Did I still have all my limbs? My head hurt like hell. Fuck. My hair felt like it was sticking to my face, one eye glued shut. I put my hand up to my face to assess what the hell was going on and touched something that felt like it was sticking out of my forehead. Shit, was my face split open? It stung when I touched it and it freaked me out so I started to cry and whimper.
I heard something behind me, and I quickly turned. It was a huge fur covered mass. MUCH bigger than a wolf... A new headline echoed in my head "Lost Reporter Mauled by Wolves, Finished off By Bear". I could hardly see out of one eye and that was through my blood matted hair.