Jane's Breakdown

Once she turned off the freeway the roads became smaller and quieter and at first Jane enjoyed the views of fields and rolling hills of green trees. After a while the car instructed her to turn from the road she was on into a smaller road bearing the sign “No commercial vehicles”. Jane shrugged, that would make the road less crowded for her.

After few more miles she realised that she had not seen either a town or any buildings for many miles. It gave her a slight sense of unease but she was now less than 50 minutes from the new freeway according to her car. All around her the rolling hills of Vermont looked pretty against the deep blue of the cloudless sky.

It happened suddenly and without warning. Several warning lights flashed at once and the engine died as did all of the dials and displays.

Jane coasted the car to the side of the road and came to a stop.

Cursing she reached into the door pocket and retrieved her phone. She wondered who to dial and decided to call her assistant in the office.

Having pressed Carla, her assistants name and dial she waited a few seconds. The phone bleeped and displayed a “call failed” message. Jane looked at the phone more closely and to her dismay noticed that she had a “no service” message.

Becoming more anxious the woman got out of her car, she hoped that standing outside would at least give her some coverage. She moved around the car studying the phone desperate to see some coverage.

After a few minutes of trying Jane started to consider her alternatives. She had not seen any buildings for a long time and with no service the map on her phone was unclear on her current location. If she did decide to walk, she thought, she had no idea which way to go or how far she would need to go.

She decided that staying with the stricken car had to be the safest thing. There had to be a car along sometime she decided.

Returning to the vehicle she pulled the leaver that released the hood. She peered into the engine without any real hope of seeing anything she could fix. She was smart and practical but although she knew about many things, engines were not an area of expertise. She decided that leaving the hood on the car raised would make it obvious to any passing car that she had a problem. Surely on such a quiet road any decent person would stop to help her.

Jane got back into the car and sipped some of the water. Periodically she checked her phone for service.

It was about 30 minutes later that she faintly heard the engine sound. Excited she opened the car door and stepped out. There it was she was certain a gruff rumbling engine note of a truck coming closer.

As the sound grew slightly nearer she noticed that it was not a single engine note that she could hear. There were multiple engines. Peering back down the road from the direction she had come Jane saw them and it confirmed what she had been starting to think. There was not a single lorry but a large group of motorcycles.

Something suddenly made Jane very nervous. She quickly got back into her car and locked the door then she grabbed her phone. There was still no signal.

She looked in the wing mirrors and saw that the bikes were close now. There was about ten of them and the men on them had long hair and beards and were dressed in combinations of leather and denim.

Trying to remain calm and tell herself she was being irrational Jane raised the phone to her head and proceed to talk animatedly into it, pausing as if someone was at the other end speaking back.

The bikes had slowed and were passing her quite slowly. She saw faces peering in at her and tried to look calm as she gave them a little wave and continued to conduct her imaginary conversation.

The bikes came to a stop about thirty yards ahead of Jane. She saw the men talking and looking back.

Two people dismounted one of the bikes and whilst the rest of the riders waited where they were they started to walk back towards Jane.