It wasn’t the dying heap of a vehicle that lay a mile behind her which concerned Rowyn as she walked along the side of the old highway. Her concern, at the moment, was the possum that crept under the wire fence and paused a few feet in front of her.
“I should turn back.” The possum looked up at her, black eyes shining in the moonlight. She froze, unable to move. Rowyn silently cursed the natural world, with its abundance of unfamiliar and unsettling sounds, shadows, and creatures.
She leapt into the air and screamed at the top of her lungs. As Rowyn watched the possum scurry off, she told herself that some evolutionary instinct had guided her reaction. She walked toward the gas station, kicking as much gravel up as she could with each step, convinced now that noise was her great ally in her walk.
Arriving at the gas station on the edge of town, Rowyn sighed with relief at the neon-lit parking lot. The outdoor speakers played a classic rock song that she’d heard dozens of times.
“Something I can help you with, miss?” The man behind the counter was about Rowyn’s age, with an easy smile and strong, work-worn hands.
“My car broke down about a mile up the road, “she said, “Do you have a phone I could use to call Triple A?” He stepped out from behind the counter.
“It’s right back that way. I’ll show you where it is.” He locked the door and headed back to the cooler. Rowyn pulled her cell phone out of her purse, checking for a signal.
The back of the gas station was cleaner than she had expected, with some boxes stacked neatly on one side of the room, and a desk with a phone and phone book on the other. The familiar smell of spilt beer wafted from the floor. As a bartender she’d smelled far worse many times before. She set her purse on the desk and dug around looking for her Triple A card.
His hand shot out, grabbing the back of her neck. She spun and knocked his hand away with one arm, and slamming the taser from her purse into his chest with another. A spasm and he was on the floor. Slowing her breath, she kept an eye on his unmoving form as she dialed 911.
While one officer went to check on her attempted assailant, the other took one look at the handprint on her neck and walked her outside. She calmly told him everything that had happened.
“Well, I’m impressed Miss. Most folks run into trouble like that, well, they’d be a bit shaken up.” Rowyn shrugged.
“I deal with assholes like that at least once a month at my job,” she said. As he walked away, an owl hooted in the tree behind her. Shivering, she turned and looked up into its silver-gold eyes, feeling that cold fear in the pit of her stomach again.
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