I went to Disney World and all I got was this lousy...? (open)

Myra hopped into the sensible little yellow civic hatchback, made sure all her provisions were in order. This was a road trip and she had to be prepared. The passenger seat had two cold bottles of water, three packs of mild-flavor slim jims, a road map, dollars for tolls, and a pack of ho-hos. Alright, she couldn't eat this stuff, but she felt it was an essential part of the process. There were also several mix CDs and cassette tapes for the trip.

The floor held a bag with toiletries and a change of clothes as well as some spare cash and an extra set of keys in case she should forget where she put the others. It also had her hotel confirmation for a 3 day/night stay.

She popped a cassette in and a song began to play. This road trip, it's on. She figured she'd drive tonight and end up there around 1am. She thought about all the disney movies she'd loved as a kid. This was going to be a great trip.

The drive wouldn't take long. There wasn't too much traffic headed toward Orlando this time of night. An hour and a half, tops. That's about 25 times she could listen to 'It's a Small World', if she really wanted to drive herself insane.

Hmm... the road was rather bumpy...

She sang as she drove, her usual off-key screeching had matured into a more delicate and skilled voice, but she was so loud it was hard to notice. The music for her well-prepared road-trip mix had meandered through a little relaxed patch before reaching another pinnacle of road music. The prepared food items next to her had been battered into submission as she drove when she found it necessary to make it look like she had been drinking/eating them. She had giggled for five minutes straight after finally getting the slim jim open and chucking half of it out the window while doing 60 miles an hour. Small moments of happiness.

THUMPBUMP!

The cheerful, yellow Civic hit something as the music was the loudest. Whatever it was, the way she hit it now meant she was dragging it behind her... And it was an awful sound.

Maya gasped and a stream of invective exploded from her mouth. "Fuck balls! God-fucking-fuck! Son of a monkey-fucking salesman whore!"

I knew one of those once, he was a delightful inventive Pander.

"Shut up! Ohgodohgod. Cherry-scented Jesus on a cracker."

She started to pull the car over immediately to the shoulder. It... probably wasn't all that safe either.

She pulled over no problem. She could hear whatever it was dragging across the little 'wake-the-fuck-up" strips on the side of the road. But the car seemed to handle just fine.

She came to a screeching stop and threw the door open with abandon. She would have followed her left leg out of the car but she forgot her seatbelt was still on. "Ow." She unhooked her seatbelt and stepped out of the car to look at whatthefuckeveritwas.

She would be glad she didn't breathe. Any mortal would have immediately vomited just from the smell. As Myra rounded the back of the vehicle, she saw the mutilated body of a deer. And by mutilated? I mean that it looked like the stories of chupacabra were real. It's skin was flayed, it's hide hanging in strips. It bore numerous teeth marks about the neck and muscle tissue that was exposed. Flies had gather, maggots were thriving in the eyes.

But, there was no sign of blood.

It was stuck in the undercarriage-- a leg caught between metal and plastic. And with Bambi being across hot metal? It was starting to smell even worse. Rancid Bambi.

"Oh, god." She felt morally obligated to wretch. And she did. She covered her nose and leaned across the seat to grab her bag, tossing the slim-jims in the bag and grabbing the pack of ho-hos. Ripping open the ho-hos, she sniffed one with a sigh before turning to stand by the car and look around. She could be cute and get a ride she hoped, but not if she were in the middle of nowhere.

It was a major highway, so, at this time of night, it was only a half an hour or so before a blue Subaru pulled onto the shoulder behind Myra. There were two people in the car, two men. They were well dressed, mid-30's. The driver opened the door and hopped out, giving Myra a smile.

"Car trouble?"

"Omigod, yes. I hit this deer and I don't know what to do. I guess I could pull it out but..." She made the "that's yucky" face. "I guess if you could give me a lift to the closest gas station/mechanic's I could get them to tow it there. I don't know if anything's damaged undernath." She looked very very grateful.

"Eh..." The driver bent down to take a look, wrinkling his nose. "We could give you a lift if you want, though," he looked at his friend. "I don't know if it's wise for you to be taking rides from strangers. If that's what you want, it's cool. If not, we can just hang here while you call for a tow and it gets here."

She smiled disarmingly. "You guys seem pretty cool. I'm not worried about you. Are you local? Do you know if there's a gas station with a mechanic thataway?" She pointed in the direction they were headed when they pulled over.

((Smack me! You have permission. If this goes more than 24 hours without being posted to, pm me.))

"Sort of local, yeah. We live just east of Orlando," the driver smiled. "About 6 miles down the road, there are a number of stations and mechanics. But getting a mechanic at this time of night is going to be impossible. If we can get the deer out, and the car is driveable, you'll probably be fine until tomorrow."

((It's all good. ))

"OH, right." She nodded, just remembering that whole sunlight problem. She totally couldn't stay with these guys. Well, she probably could. They might find it cool. But, no. Bad idea. While she thought about it really hard, she probably looked like a complete ditz thinking too hard. "Right! Removing the deer. How do we do that?" She leaned over to look at the thing. "Ew. Um... reversing won't help, will it?"

"No," he laughed. "Reversing the car will just get the poor thing caught even more. My buddy and I can pull her out of there. Just let me get some gloves out of the back."

And he did just that, getting two pairs of gardening gloves out of the trunk of his car. Each grabbed a back leg of the dead animal and began to pull.

She watched them work, not sure if she should be suspicious of their preparedness for handling yucky stuff. But maybe that's a man-thing. Or they're boy scouts. How old can you be and still be in the boy scouts? She chewed on her bottom lip while her mind went around different possibilities. Right... suspicion? She walked around to beside their car and sniffed deeply, belatedly hoping she was far enough from the stench that her Heightened sense of smell might not make her vomit.

Sorry, dear. Heightened sense plus fried Bambi plus rotting Bambi? Oh that smell was disgusting.

But with a big enough heft, the guys pulled the deer free and in tact and tossed to the embankment on the side of the road. The passenger of the car coughed, his eyes water.

"No, start it up and drive forward about 15 feet and see how the car does," said the driver.

She stumbled over to the side of the road and gagged. Spat out a little blood moving her head to face away from the boys helping her. Thankfully there wasn't any food in there to join it.

She gave the two a quick running hug before hopping into the driver's seat and testing the car out as recommended.

They were both a little surprised, but they stood back and seemed to listen and watch. Her car started up just fine and pulled forard fine, as well. There wasn't anything wrong with the car, really. Though she might want to have the thing aligned soon.

Alignment, schmalinement. This car was great!

They could hear her squee from the car. She turned the car off and grabbed a handful of snacks from the driver's seat before hopping out. "Thank you, so much. Here! I don't have much to thank you with, but at least it's road snacks." She grinned like the impish college girl she once was.

They took the snacks gratefully-- if not awkwardly. They were not expecting it. "Oh, um... Thanks. Just hope you can make to wherever you're going. Don't forget to have it checked out, though-- the sooner the better."

"Thanks. I was on my way to Disney, but..." She was good at that slightly uncomfortable how-do-I-flirt-with-this-guy look. She threw a little Awe in with her cute friendliness. She wondered if one of them was a little creative to come up with another option. It might be too much, though. She knew they didn't want to be creepy stalker guys.

Well, they were definitely looking. She had their attention. A female was always so much more entertaining to look at than gravel, pavement and trees.

"Right in the middle of tourist season? Ouch. You live in Florida, right? Mondays and Tuesdays are your best bet. Early morning and evenings. Other wise, you might as well just hit Cocoa Beach."

She let her laugh turn into an endearing snort. "I'm from New York originally, so I had no idea. I was thinking evenings any way but that's good advice. I'm not really one for a lot of people any way. Kinda hoped I'd be able to find someone who could sneak me in after hours. What's Cocoa Beach like?"