LAURA
“Great. Perfect! Is there anything else that wants to go wrong today?!” I’m not going to lie, I should not have asked that question. As soon as the words left my lips, the heavens opened and Mother Nature herself decided to teach me a lesson about tempting the fates.That bitch.
“Fuck!” Shouting in to the sky, I spun around and lashed out at my poor car, kicking the tyre and earning myself a very sore foot in the process. Yep, my stupidity really knew no bounds. Here I was, stuck in the middle of god-knows-where, being pummelled by rainfall and stood next to my car which had just decided not to go any further. It was almost like the car was getting the same creepy vibes I was from the surrounding woods and just went, ‘nope, I think I’ll stay here!” After hours of driving through these strange woods with nothing but trees for miles, the only thing I wanted to go was get the hell out of here. I had a really bad feeling about the area, and was praying that I would come across some civilisation soon.
I really was having just the worst day, and in fact one of the worst months of my life. In the past month I had celebrated my 25th birthday, got married, been cheated on and then ran away from said husband. Yep, busy July for anyone to handle, I think we’ll all agree? But, that was a story for another time. What I’d gone through in the past month could probably be made in to a movie where we all laugh at the main character as she fails at absolutely everything in life. Yipee.
I looked around to try and figure out where I was but it was so dark, and I hadn’t really been aiming for anywhere in particular. All I’d wanted was somewhere far away from my husband and civilisation in general - somewhere I could ‘find myself’, as cheesy as that sounded. I’d packed up the very few things I had and google mapped ‘places in the middle of nowhere’ and just driven. I’m not even kidding, that is actually what I searched. You’d be surprised how useful a tool the search engine can be, even when you have no idea what it is you are actually looking for. Trying to figure a way out of the mess I was in, I pulled my mobile phone from my jeans pocket, and lo and behold - no signal. Well, wasn’t that just fantastic? Peachy. A few hours ago, the thought of vanishing in to the middle of nowhere where no-one knew who I was sounded like a brilliant idea. Now? Not so much. Now it sounded like something someone would do, who had absolutely no brain cells and was acting purely on their emotions. Probably not ideal.
Realising I needed help, and beginning to shake from the cold of the rain soaking to my skin, I locked up the car and waved it a solemn goodbye. Ok, so I hated the piece of crap, but it was the only constant thing in my life right at that point and I did feel kind of guilty leaving it in the dark woods all alone, as stupid as that sounded. Throwing my handbag over my shoulder, I chucked my useless phone into its depths and started to walk, praying that I found someone who could help me soon.
After what felt like hours, but was in fact only around ten minutes, I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the welcoming lights of what looked like a pub in the distance. Getting closer I could see it was surrounded by trees with an eerie look to it, and I physically shivered as the water dripped off my long, dark hair and the cold breeze hit my sodden clothes. The thought of entering a warm and cosy country pub – however odd looking - had my legs moving faster toward the brightly lit doors. I looked up and scoffed at the sign hanging by the big oak doors. The Howl. Well, that was fitting for how unnerving the place was. All I needed now was a vampire and a werewolf and I’d set myself up to be in a cheesy horror movie! As I pushed open the door, I smiled at the warmth that instantly hit me and stepped inside, wringing my hair of water and trying to peel the wet clothes away from my body, so they weren’t quite so skin tight. I’d worn a yellow floaty top, with a pair of skinny jeans but right now they had moulded to my body so tightly you couldn’t tell where the top ended and the jeans began. Real sexy. As I walked in I noticed the dim lighting in the pub, and the fact it was packed full of patrons enjoying an evening drink. I was quite surprised to see how busy it was, considering it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. I scouted around to try and find a friendly face to help me, when I noticed that every single eye in the room was on me. They weren’t exactly welcoming stares, either. No, these were more like ‘stranger! What are you doing here?’ kind of stares, and I felt more uncomfortable every second I was there. Trying to ignore the suspicious and hostile looks being thrown my way, I walked over to the bar and the man who was stood behind it, leaning against the bartop and watching everyone with an amused look in his eye. He definitely looked the friendliest of the bunch.