Phoenix
Member
There was too much smoke. It was being pulled in through the air vents in the car, filling the entire body of the vehicle. Finally, she gave up and pulled over to the side of the road. The car skid as she breaked, until she had to slam down on the brakes. Samantha was coughing as she opened the door and stepped out of her car, waving her hand through the air. She swallowed in big gasps of air as the fresh forestry air hit her. In the distance was salt from the Pacific Ocean, carried through on a breeze.
She was mid drive down Otay Lakes Road when her engine had seemingly caught fire. She walked around to the trunk of the car and popped it open, digging through the bags until she found an emergency roadside kit at the bottom of her Kia’s trunk. She pulled the gloves out first, sliding them on over the flowing sleeves of her blouse. The black was sheer enough that anything getting on it would be a catastrophe. Jogging, she made her way back to the front of the car.
With a careful touch, she flipped the front lid of the car open and pulled back as a huge cloud of white smoke puffed up. White smoke was good. Or at least, it was the best case scenario. That meant something was cracked and leaking. She didn’t see any flames, so she waved the smoke away and started poking around the engine cavity, looking for anything broken. There! Dripping down from the brake line was brake fluid. She shivered as she realized that any second, her breaks could have gone out. That explained the skidding, at least.
Well, she couldn’t drive it like this. Samantha reached into her pocket and pulled out a cell phone, a newer Samsung model, and she swiped through to the phone app. But as she clicked it, opening the dialer, she caught sight of her bars. None. Nada. Zilch and zero.
With a soft sigh, she tucked it back into the pocket of her black corduroy pants. She was glad that she had made the decision to bring her black combat boots out of storage for this trip. It looked like she was going to have to walk all the way down the road to get to Chula Vista, where her hotel was. She thought for a moment about backtracking. There was a skydiving place back down the road, wasn’t there? But it was a Sunday, and they might be closed.
She looked out into the forest on her right and then into the reservoir on her left. There was a small pathway, just big enough for a car to fit through, but overgrown partially. It looked like it was still in some degree of use. The branches of the trees had formed around it in beautiful arches, making it invisible from the road unless you were stopped and looking at it.
Maybe there was someone out that way? It couldn’t hurt to try. Certainly, Samantha thought as she walked, it wouldn’t hurt to try. She pulled her green shawl from the car, despite knowing full well that even though it was mid fall and almost sixty degrees outside she wouldn’t get cold, and wrapped it around her shoulders before she began to walk.
What a way to start off her San Diego vacation.
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