Twisted Tails from the Mountain
#1 of Twisted Tails from the Mountain
They were coming down the road towards me, rifles slung over their shoulders, bodies swaying to the odd distribution of weight on their athletically muscled frames. This was starting to get terrifying as I found myself trying to force my jeep to not be broken. Every two to three seconds I found myself looking nervously at the two, they were fairly far away right now but they were getting a lot closer than I wanted them to be at present.
Chhhhrrrr-Chrrrrrrr-Chrrrrr-grind-grind-grind-grind, it sounded like I managed to break something regarding a piston or something when I pulled down this damn-founded road. My heart was racing and I was starting to break out into a cold sweet as I slipped out of the Jeep and dug the balls of my feet into the ground, holding onto the door frame as I tried to get the stupid thing at least moving in the right direction, away. As soon as I got it rolling enough to try to jump the clutch I hopped back in.
When I popped it into gear, I was greeted with a far different noise than what I wanted to hear. "KEEERRRR-SNAP!" shortly followed by me swearing viciously at it while I hopped out. After a short look at the engine and the underside of the Jeep I found what was going wrong. Much to my dismay I found half of the clutch dangling six inches from the ground. It was about that time that a single shot echoed through the mountain valley I'd driven into.
"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! shit!" I found myself repeating as I watched a good chunk of the passengers side panel erupt into scraps. With the clutch gone and now a bunch of psycho hillbillies shooting at me, I found it far better to just run my sorry ass as far as I could get and prey that they were not good with moving targets.
It's amazing how fast you can run when your body has poured all of it's adrenaline into every last pore and for a few minutes I was booking it back towards the highway as I found myself not bothering to look back and hoping that I'd not run out of energy before they'd given up on me. I really wish I would have bought that stupid GPS navigation device when the salesman at the dealership was harassing me about it.
Another few shots whizzed past me as I booked it, always low and close to my feet, the sick fuckers were making a game out of this whole thing as I was trying to save my own hide from what would undoubtedly be some atrocious sin against god. It was about the time that their shots were getting far too close to my ankles that I felt my heart sink into the depths of my chest. There was an old, battered truck was careening down the dirt road towards me, kicking up a plume of dust.
I was left with two choices, hope that they were not related to the nut jobs behind me, or book it into the hills. It didn't take a genus to figure out what I did, as another round whizzed past my legs I hopped over into the open fields surrounding the road. I was thinking to myself, "If I can just make it to the hills... I'll be able to hide in the forest, or at least keep traveling without these wackos catching up to me"
I got maybe a good quarter mile off the road before I had truck beside me, a wicked grin twisting the bastards face as he started to inch the vehicle closer to me, just enough for his friends in the bed to reach out and grab at me. Instinct took in more than anything else as my arms wrapped around my head and I threw myself away from the truck, rolling into a thick patch of tall grass.
While they were busy getting a look at where I'd disappeared to, I was plenty occupied with finding a way out of this situation and not finding any pleasant ways for this to end. It was about the time that I started to crawl away that I found myself being hauled to my feet, then a little more so that I was kicking and flailing at two equines, who for having long faces, seemed to have developed a wholly lupine style of smiling. After I'd almost kicked one in the groin, the other slammed his big, meaty fist into my gut and I didn't exactly have much fight left in me after a nice cracking noise and a light breakfast erupting onto the grass underneath me.
Through labored breaths I looked up as the other two who were toting rifles finally managed to catch up. I really couldn't figure out what the hell they were as I'd only gotten a glimpse of their hazy frames, backlight by the sun, before I had a piece of denim tied across my eyes, another crammed into my muzzle and a few more used to bind my arms and legs. There was only one thing going through my mind at the time, causing me to grin and wince at the same time, Dueling Banjos.
I was treated like a sac of vegetables as I was tossed into the truck bed, landing with a fleshy "thud" as the others hopped in with relative ease. This couldn't be good, and their conversation was not putting my thoughts to ease at all.
"So, Esther whatha wanna do with the furball ere? Seems lill' scrawny fer' eats donne?"
"Damnit Nate, what I gotta do to get you to stop talking like an iddijet? He's not fer' eats, that's saved for the pudgies that we can't get to work right understood?"
"Awww, but he's got nice thighs, looks mighty meaty kinda likes' a chicken!"
There was a moment of silence before I heard a fairly hard "THUMP" shortly followed by a scream. I could only find myself panicking and trying to squirm away, or at least out of the truck bed before this conversation got any worse. I would have done better if one of them hadn't decided to make my frame a hoof-rest.
"OWW! The'ell you do that for Esther?"
"Nate, shut yer' hole before I cram my hoof down it, or for' you scare the fun out of em! Now keep it shut understood?"
"Yeah Esther, I's got it,"
As forlorn as this Nate sounded, I had a very hard time imagining him being so for very long, especially for the way they seemed to treat innocent bystanders. I had no idea where they were taking me, or what was going on other than these people were utterly insane. It would have been a lot easier to figure things out if the one with his legs on me, or who I assumed to be the same one, would stop prodding my ass with the butt of his rifle. After the tenth or twelfth time I knew it was intentional.
The conversation these freaks were having brought little light upon where I was going, what they were going to do to me or why they'd bother to tie me up, throw me into a truck bed or blindfold me for that matter it was just weird. I'd turned out bits and pieces of it but occasionally I found myself picking out some really weird portions of the conversation, one of them I just couldn't stop scratching my head at. Breed Milkin's? What the hell are they talking about, and more to the point, what did it have to do with me. This was starting to get more disturbing by the minute.
I just stopped listening after a while, two of them had gotten into an argument over who had the better looking rifle and it was starting to get redundant as the truck came to a screaming halt, nearly tossing one of the hillbillies who cursed at the driver for a good half minute. Things were about to get very strange, very very strange.