A wave of dogs, all teeth and snarl, crested the hill, flowing like water toward Julia’s car.  “Damn that GPS,” she screamed. The road was a narrow dead-end. A man, nourished by equal amounts of lard and meth – like my brother looked when I identified him at the morgue – stepped out of the battered trailer and pointed the business end of a double-barreled shotgun at her.

Getoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetout.  She slammed the gears into reverse and fled.   Gravel spattered against the floorboards under her feet.

The gun roared.  A dog yelped.

“Enough!”  Julia floored the accelerator through a narrow turn to point her car out, scattering more gravel.  Heart galloping, hands shaking, she tried to retrace turns that all looked the same.

“A lot of good that GPS did.  Help me, Jesus.”  She smeared tears across her face without losing speed or control.  A church, a place to get her bearings, get some help.  “Why didn’t I see this on the way in?  How lost am I?”  Rough panting drowned out the crunch of gravel under her wheels as she took the turn too fast.  “Easy, girl.  Rolling the car and killing yourself won’t help you.  I’m talking to myself.  That doesn’t help, either.”  She took a deep breath, avoided the potholes in the dirt parking lot, and slid to a stop.

She dashed to the church’s front door.  Locked. Only then, she noticed she hadn’t closed the car door. Slumping against the car’s fender, heat radiating from the metal, she closed her eyes, trying to decide what to do next.  She closed the car door, gagging on coppery fear in her mouth. Thunder boomed across the overgrown clearing. A rusty truck blocked her in.  A woman slid out of the driver’s seat and ran  her fingers through unkempt hair.  The unmistakable stench of the meth lab followed her out.  “What ‘cha doin’ here?”

Julia tried to smile.  “Lost.  Can you tell me how to get back to the highway?”  The accent she’d worked hard to lose was back, showing her roots.

“Yeah.”  The woman pulled out a pack of cigarettes.  “Got a light?”  She shook out a cigarette and stuck it between thin lips, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t smoke.”

The woman looked at Julia and an amused grin crossed her face.  “You look like you could use one.”

Julia pressed her lips together.  “I don’t smoke.”

The woman shrugged and patted her pockets.   The stock of her pistol, pale pink, in a shoulder holster caught on her jacket.  A “girl gun.”

“You’re just going to gun me down anyway.”

The woman looked down at the gun as if she’d never seen it before.  “Forgot I was wearing it.”  She pulled her jacket over the pistol, then flicked a lighter to life.

Julia rolled her eyes.  “I know how to handle a gun.  I don’t forget I’m wearing it.”

Lightning flashed, cloud-to-cloud.  The first drops of rain hit the dust with visible puffs.

“Rain’s a-comin’.”  The woman gestured with her lit cigarette toward the covered porch of the church, ash tumbling off the burning end of her cigarette.  “I won’t shoot unless you insist on being killed.”  Silent laughter washed over her wasted face.

“That’s a real comfort.”  Julia kept nervous eyes on the other woman and her pistol.  She ducked under the porch roof.

“It should be.”  The woman followed her, leaning against the wall on the other side of the over-sized door.  “I haven’t got as short a fuse as Ray does.  He uses too much.  He’s going to kill himself one day.”

“Who’s Ray?”

“Husband.  Resident addict.  Heard his shotgun and followed you out.  One more thing for good old LouAnne to clean up,”  she added, bitterness almost visible.

“You always chase people down wearing a gun?”

“I told you, I forgot I was wearing it.  Ray gave it to me last Christmas.  I’ve always got it on me.  I never know what kind of freaks might come over.”  She dropped her cigarette butt to the porch and ground it out with a vicious twist of her shoe.  “Living with an addict isn’t fun.”

Julia looked at LouAnne, trying not to pity her.  “There’s limits.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Enough.”

LouAnne looked out into the rain.  She snorted.  “I wanted to believe him when he promised me the moon and stars.  Can you understand that?”

Julia’s lips twitched.  “What makes you think I can’t understand loyalty?”

“Nice try, rich girl.  You don’t belong here.”

Julia glanced out too into the curtains of rain hiding their cars.  “A real frog-strangler.”  Keep her talking.  If she’s talking, she won’t shoot.  I hope.  “I used to.”

LouAnne’s hand moved toward her pistol.  “If you belonged here, you’d know where you are.”

“I’m not from here-here.  I’m from somewhere like here.  People leave, even if you didn’t.”

“I got Ray.  Won the lottery, didn’t I?”

“You think you’re the only one with problems?”

“You trying to get killed?”  LouAnne pulled her pistol free, glaring at Julia.

“You’ve got the gun, not me.”  Julia swallowed, fear raising red spots in her eyes.  She braced herself.

LouAnne looked out across the mud of the parking lot.  “It looks like the rain is letting up.”  She stared at the gun in her hand, then pointed with her pistol down the road.  “I’m not a killer.  Turn that way, follow the road for maybe two miles.  The highway cuts across it.  Get on, now.”

Julia hesitated.  “What changed your mind?”

“I can change it back, if it makes you feel better.”

“I’m not looking for trouble.”

“Well, you found it.”

“My GPS found it for me.”  Julia took a deep breath and dove into the rain to run to her car, easing the car around LouAnne’s truck.  A shot rang out.  She ducked as her back window dissolved in crumbs of safety glass.

Julia tapped the horn twice, a parody of approval and turned out onto the road.

# # #

Pauline Mountain grew up in rural North Dakota in a large storytelling family. She is a first-generation college graduate, the University of Kansas, and lives in Huntsville, Alabama. Find her work in the anthology, *A Grimm Imagination*.

Photo: Caleb Jones