©BigDave1690
I read a story a while back about a couple on holiday where they were held at gunpoint after they had strayed out of the tourist safe area. The wife was raped and the husband severely beaten. They never caught the culprits, but some of the locals told of stories where the couple had sought revenge.
This story it one of fiction based on the event that happened many years ago.
Names and places are fictional of course. If non-consent, rape and revenge offend you, then don't read any further.
Feel free to comment and give positive feedback, but more importantly... enjoy.
*****
'I think I'm going to have to turn around. I'm sure the sign said 'Next Right' back there,' I told myself. Lisa was fast asleep and oblivious of our detour.
We were on the 6
th
night of our 4-week holiday in the Mid-Western United States. We love road trips, especially on the back of our Harley riding through Europe and the UK, but for this year's holiday we thought we'd try something a little different after our previous motorcycling rain-soaked trip through Europe was more like a ride/eat/drink/sleep endurance escapade rather than a relaxing 'let's take in some views along the way' sort of road trip.
We'd deliberately hired a car rather than a Harley as we would be in the States for a month, carrying a lot of luggage. We'd booked hotel stays of two nights or more to break up the potential monotony of gazing at the black stuff and more importantly, allow us time for sight-seeing.
We'd started the day with an early breakfast at our hotel just west of Oklahoma and thought we might pick up a section of the world famous Route 66 en route to Fort Sumner, west of Amarillo. We also wanted to pay Wichita Falls a visit along the way since the direct route to Amarillo was only going to be around three or four hours and another hour or so leg to Fort Sumner after that.
We'd stopped several times to take in some of the scenery, collect pictures, a few knick-knack souvenirs and some food and then driven through the early evening; we were hoping to reach our hotel before dark.
The sun set ahead of us painting the sky a beautiful shade of deep oranges, reds and graduating into violet, blue and eventually black.
Not for the first time on this road trip we had picked up a detour for road maintenance. This diversion diverted us onto a dusty old road that looked more like a dirt road. For ten miles or more I looked out into the black of night, my dust covered headlights throwing out amber illumination on gravel and tarmac -- the diversion had slowed our progress down considerably.
The SatNav showed us 'off-road' and in the middle of nowhere. And then, just when I thought I could see a few headlights in the distance, we came across another 'Road Closure' sign with a 'Detour, Turn Right' instruction forcing us to take a single track lane that was barely wide enough for the car.
I had turned off the volume on the SatNav after getting fed up with hearing the same instruction: 'Take a U-turn; Take a U-turn'.
Heavily pot-holed, the car bounced along the lane with its soft suspension; it woke Lisa from her sleep.
"Where are we?" she asked as she let out a yawn.
"In the middle of nowhere," I eventually replied; I was focusing on my driving, trying not to bottom out the car's suspension and lose a tyre.
"The SatNav is telling you to turn around, look," Lisa pointed at the little screen in the middle of the dash.
"Yeah, she's been telling me to do that for the past hour. There's road works and they've closed the main road. We've done at least ten miles, maybe fifteen, and I've not seen a soul, no other cars and now, hell, look at the state of that pothole. We got nothing to complain about with our roads in the UK." I explained.
"You're getting a good workout there Andy," Lisa observed as my hands were swinging the steering wheel left and right.
"Yeah," I agreed. "If we don't get off this road soon I'll be pulling over and we'll be sleeping in the car tonight," I told my wife.
"Or under the stars," Lisa added as she looked through her side window up at the sparkling lights that filled the night sky.
"Well I was really looking forward to seeing 'Billy the Kid Inn' at Fort Sumner," I quipped.
We drove for another hour and there was still no sign of a decent patch of tarmac, let alone a trunk road or motorway -- or should I say 'interstate'. At our current rate, if we did fine the main road again right now, we'd still not get to our hotel at Fort Sumner until the early hours.
I checked my watch, 11:06, "Fuck this," I shouted."
"Hey babe," Lisa stroked my arm. "We'll get back on the main road soon enough and we'll make up some time then."
"Don't think so Lisa," I responded, appreciating her trying to calm down my annoyance. "I'm going to have to stop soon, I'm bursting for a piss, the headlights are all but useless now with all this dust, and it's late and there's still a few hours' of driving to do even after we find the road. I think we should find a pull-over and take stock. Maybe there's a map in the glove box or something we've picked up at the souvenir shop that will show where we are."
It was another fifteen minutes of upper arm exercise with the steering wheel before the single track lane opened up to some smoother crumbled tarmac. A glimmer of hope was soon dashed when the tarmac disappeared again and the rumbling from the stones filled the car with road noise once more.
"Ok, this is way beyond a joke now," Lisa was getting frustrated now. "Pull over, pull over anywhere, let's see if we can find out where we are," Lisa ordered.
Ahead was a slight widening of the lane, I pulled to the side and switched off the engine.
The dust settled quickly and I wound down the window, Lisa followed suit.
The silence was deafening.
In the distance we could just hear the sound of a cow mooing. The fresh warm night air was welcoming after living in a cocoon of air-con drafts that chilled two small patched at the bottom of the windscreen.
"Listen," Lisa whispered.
"I don't hear anything," I whispered back.
"Exactly, not a single sound... apart from that poor cow,"
We both laughed at her unintentional pun.
"Let's drop the hood for a while," Lisa suggested.
I pressed the button on the dash and a click, followed by the whirring of a motor lifted the front of the rook section away from the top of the windscreen. Moments later the boot opened up to devour the soft-top hood and then closed with another click as the whirring sound stopped.
"Well at least it's not raining," I said as I tilted back my seat and looked up at the night sky.
"Wow," Lisa said in amazement, "Look at all them stars. They're beautiful." She pressed a button at the side of her seat and it slowly tilted back alongside mine.
A shooting star darted across the sky, "Did you see that?" I pointed to the sky."
"Yes, yes I did. Look, there's another," Lisa added. She reminded me of a kid seeing her first fish in an aquarium watching as the colourful creatures might swim past the glass and then behind some rock or ornament to hide from the child.
Several minutes slipped by in silence as we gazed at the stars.
"So, what are we going to do?" Lisa asked.
"Well I know what I'm going to do first," I answered, "I'm going to take a pee."
Lisa slapped my arm playfully, "You be careful out there, there may be snakes in the grass."