Short Fiction: Stranded

Stuck in traffic yields harrowing results

woman in suit sitting on side of a mountain holding her injured leg

By Vince Wetzel

Copyright OT Press

“Why do you have to go all the way out there?” Jesse said. Jesse sat at the kitchen island, having his morning coffee. The twins, Nicole and Jennifer, were also sitting on the high-top chairs, feasting on assorted fruits and a bagel, their final step before getting in their shared Honda Civic for their senior year of high school. 

Rachel, meanwhile, was frantically pulling together snacks, an apple, a banana, a granola bar, and a blueberry bagel to have in the car. She had to get on the road if she was going to get to her deposition on time. 

“It could be worse,” Rachel said. “Lancaster is only a three-hour drive. At least I don’t have to fly. I’ll be back home tonight.” 

Jesse was having none of it. She was the principal of her own law firm, and Jesse was the firm’s operations manager and accountant. Sure, not having flight cost was a bonus, but the time away was negligible, and his biggest concern was the High Desert, notorious for its crime rate and meth labs per capita. 

“At least take Heather with you,” Jesse said. “She can take notes or be a backup stenographer.” 

“You know we can’t do that,” Rachel said. “The provided court reporter will be fine. Don’t worry, you know I can defend myself, and there’s little to no danger for me.”  

“C’mon, Dad, it’s the 20s. Mom is a kickass and can do what she wants,” Jennifer said. Rachel knew Jesse didn’t doubt her ability to defend herself. The indent on the bridge of his nose, a result of a surprise hug from behind, was a permanent reminder of her self-defense prowess.  

“It’s not hand-to-hand combat I’m worried about,” he said. “But I know. I’m always going to be concerned.” 

Rachel smiled, put down her satchel computer bag, and gave Jesse a hug. She was placating him, she was sure, but she appreciated his concern. After nearly twenty years of marriage, they were in their groove and ready for when the girls left for college in less than a year. 

“I’ll be fine, but I’ll keep my eyes out for the bad guys,” she said, and she grabbed her bag, kissed her girls, who looked up from their phones enough to acknowledge the goodbyes, and got into her black Mercedes and left. 

Her preference was to have her new law associate Gillian handle the deposition. This was a simple civil case around who was at fault on a multiple auto crash claim. The insurance company disputed fault and refused to pay damages for the six-car pileup. Rachel was representing one of the claimant’s passengers, who wanted her own pound of flesh. It wasn’t her favorite case, but it paid the bills, and as principle, she needed to make sure to keep the lights on. And with Gillian busy with litigating her second case on her own, deposition duty fell to Rachel.

The deposition went well enough. The defendant was clearly at fault. Her story had too many holes, and she was sure that the lawyers for the insurer would see a million-dollar claim if this saw a trial. She expected to see a settlement offer in the next couple of days. 

Once Rachel got back to her car, she immediately regretted opting for proximity to the entrance of the office complex over shade. Even the door handle almost cooked her skin in the high 100-degree heat. When she pulled the door open, the waft of oven air didn’t want to stay in the car and rushed out to hit Rachel’s face. 

“Oh Fu--,” she said. The best thing to do was to get in, start the car, turn on Max AC, and get moving. The leather burned on the back of her thighs, and she hoped she’d be able to keep all the layers when she got out of the car later.  

“Get going, get home, and forget this drive. Next time, Gillian or a paralegal coming out here,” she said to herself after texting Jesse, her assistant, and turning on the Smartless podcast. It was better to focus on Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman, and Will Arnett’s silly interviews than her makeup melting off her face as sweat flowed from her pores. 

Rachel navigated the car toward Highway 14 and Santa Clarita, the quickest way back to her home in Newport Beach, according to the navigation system. She was sure to hit more traffic at rush hour, another reason to pass next time. 

The navigation interrupted another awful question from Jason Bateman. 

“Car crash ahead. Consider taking  Highway 2 through the Angeles National Forest. It will save you 45 minutes. Take it?” 

“Oh hell yeah,” Rachel said. It must be bad if Siri was recommending a winding two-lane highway through the Angeles National Forest and into the San Gabriel Valley. But why not? Better move through the mountains at a decent speed than stop-and-go on the highways. 

She exited and backtracked through Acton and onto Highway 2. As she turned onto the highway, Rachel was surprised she was practically the only car taking Siri’s suggestion. Was she so early that no one knew about the wreck? Would people rather sit in traffic than drive the mountain road?  

Rachel sped forward, ready for the challenge. She trusted the German engineering and enjoyed pushing her S class to the limit. She forgot all about the deposition, the heat, and even highway traffic as she hugged the curves and accelerated in and out of the turns. She smiled for the first time all day. 

Jesse and I should take a fun drive like this during our empty nest years, Rachel allowed herself to think. 

She rounded another curve in the road when she spotted a mountain lion cub in front of her.  

“Oh Shit,” she screamed, turning her wheel to the left to avoid the yellow cat staring at her with narrowed eyes.  

She missed the cub and briefly exhaled before the road curved again, and she turned the wheel hard in the other direction. In the back of her head, she remembered that the worst thing to do if losing control of the car was to break hard. But she forgot the other part of that advice, mainly to let off the gas. 

Rachel’s reaction was a fraction of a second too late. If she had a few extra feet of straightaway, she could have regained control, but a final sharp curve and Rachel and the Mercedes went off the side of the road and down the gravel embankment. It wasn’t a 90-degree drop, but she felt it was close enough. Gravity was now more powerful than her anti-lock breaks, and she was hurtling down the side of the mountain. Mercifully, she and the car came to an abrupt stop. The window shattered. 

Rachel took a quick inventory. She felt around her body. Nothing protruding from her. One leg moved the right way. The other let out a big yelp of pain. She looked down. Her shin and foot were not in a straight line with her thigh as they should have been. She opened the door and vomited; the pain was so acute. 

“Oh God,” she thought. “Fuck, what have I done?” 

She turned her head and looked back to the road she just left. It was about one hundred feet up. Even with a good leg, she’d have a hard time climbing the embankment to the road. She turned to her cell phone.  

No signal. Fuck. 

What was she going to do? She tried the roadside service on her car. No signal. OK, what if she created crutches and slowly but surely crept up the embankment on her butt. She could flag someone down.  

Rachel checked the time. It was 5 pm, and the shadows from the mountains were beginning to make the canyon dark. Could she get to the road by 7 when it became completely dark? Or should she just hole up in the car until morning and then make her way up? 

As a high-powered litigator at a large firm, followed by owning her own firm, Rachel never shirked away from challenges. She ran half marathons. She managed twins. Challenges weren’t something she let get the better of her. She managed to pop the trunk of the car, remembering that Jessie had played golf last week and hoping that, despite her constant nagging, had left the clubs in the trunk.  

Next, she pulled herself up, her left leg bearing all the weight. Any movement was excruciating, and at some point, she felt she might pass out. Hopping and using the car for balance, she made it to the back.  

No clubs.  

Fuck. For once, Jesse listened.

She looked closer for anything. There was a crank for the jack, shaped like a rounded seven and just long enough to make a splint and to keep her lower leg from moving and causing her significant pain. And Nicole’s swimming bag of gear complete with a towel. 

And a condom.  

Nope, there's no time to think about that, but she’d have to have a talk with her later. 

If she got out of this canyon. 

Rachel ripped the towel and tied the tire iron to her calf and then her thigh, keeping the leg stiff and stable. She sat on the trunk of her car and looked up. This wasn’t going to be easy. But what other choice did she have? Sooner or later, she was going to have to pull herself up this hill.  

Might as well do it now. 

With nothing to support her one good leg, Rachel sat down and used her hands, arms, and leg to hoist herself up the hill, one butt cheek at a time. Her first thought was the time it would take. Could she make it to the top before it got dark? Her second thought as her hands dug into the gravel was the punishment her hands were going to take. OK, she was due a manicure anyway. And third, the pain in her leg. Just because she had a splint didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. She remembered some ibuprofen in the glove box, but that was now impossible unless she negated her process and started back again. Nope, the pain would endure. She remembered. She pushed out the twins. No C-Section for her. So, if she could do that, she could certainly move up this hill. 

An hour into her progress, she saw it was  6 p.m. The sunlight was still hitting the peaks, but the rest of the canyon was enveloped in the shadows. She might have another hour before it was dark, and who knows if it would even be safe in the dead of night. The urgency gave Rachel another dash of adrenaline.  

Reach Back. Heel dig. Ass up. Push back.  

Again. Reach back. Heel dig. Ass up. Push Back 

She steadied her progress. Forty-five minutes later, she was three-quarters of the way up, but the scenery was that much darker. She could see headlights. The day was on the edge of twilight, which could hit night that much quicker. 

Reach Back. Heel Dig. Ass Up. Push Back. 

Now it was getting dark. The car looked so far away, but it also looked comfortable. Maybe she should have saved her strength and made her move in the morning. She wanted to rest, but she knew rest would give no relief.  

Out of the corner of her eye, down near the car, Rachel saw movement. The movement above was good. It meant a car, a driver, and a way out. A move below meant an unwanted creature. She kept watch. More movement. She hoped the unwanted creature was a skunk or rabbit. She’d take even a raccoon.  

But out of the dense chapparall came a mountain lion, much like the one who sent Rachel careening down the mountain n the first place. Was this the cub’s mother?  

Rachel moved faster now. Reach Back. Heel Dig. Ass Up. Push Back. She had it on repeat. Reach Back-Heel Dig-Ass Up- Push Back. Like a rower, she just kept moving.  With her eyes on the mountain lion, Rachel continued another step. Then another. 

Reach Back. Heel Dig. Ass Up. Push Back. 

There was no chance the mountain lion didn’t see her. It crept up the hill with her, likely thinking more about the meal than Rachel for sure. Because it is so eloquent of movement, the mountain lion closed the distance of 40 feet in a matter of minutes.  

The mountain lion was extremely close now. So was the road. She continued to say to herself, “Just get to the road.” 

Now closer, the sneer came across its mouth. Even with darkness creeping forward, she saw the Mountain Lion’s eyes narrow. It was searching for its next meal and saw it in Rachel, the careless human who drove down her baby. Rachel understood that love. All she wanted was to hold her daughters in her arms. 

At the crest of the hill, the Mountain Lion looked like it could pounce at any moment. She couldn’t let the big cat out of her sight, But she kept moving. 

Reach Back. Heel Dig. Ass Up. Push Back. 

The sounds of the highway were getting louder now. Every minute or so, a car drove by. Rachel was so close. If only she could move up a little more. She could waive a car down. Her nightmare would go away. 

The mountain lion growled. How did she know Rachel as the one who set her cub down the hill? She swerved. She sided with the cat and ended up in the ditch. Now, she was the one going to pay. How wrong was that? 

Rachel noticed flashing lights approaching. She worked her way up the final parts of the hill, drunk on the idea of a bath, a meal, and a manicure. She didn’t dare look at her nails right now.  

The lights continued to flash but stopped their trajectory. Was it on the side of the road? She looked at the mountain lion. No longer ready to capture its prey, it began to scoot back. She took another look at the road. 

“Rachel?” screamed a voice. It was Jesse. What? How? No time for questions, she just screamed. 

“Here. I’m down here.” 

Rachel turned onto her stomach to get a better look. Silhouetted against headlights, she saw her husband. That short, bald, beautiful Latino man was looking right down at her.  

“Oh my God, Rachel,” he said, before turning back to yell, “Rope, do you have a rope?” 

Moments later, she saw the brown uniform of the California Highway Patrol looming throwing a rope down. She grabbed and held tight as they pulled her the final 10 feet to the edge of the cliff. When he pulled her up to her feet, her knee and leg screamed. But she hugged Jesse.  

“How? How did you find me?” 

“That tracking app that we use on the girls, we have it on our phones too, remember? Once I heard about the pileup on 14, I opened it up to see if you were stuck in it. When I saw you on 2, I was surprised. But when you didn’t move for a half hour, I checked to see no traffic alerts, and I got worried. When I called with no response. Then I got really worried and got in the car. When you still hadn’t moved, I called the CHP. They passed me on the road here. What happened?” 

“I swerved to miss a mountain lion cub, lost control, and… the car, I’m afraid, is totaled.” 

“As long as you’re safe. With a busted knee, I see.” 

“Next time, I’m sending Gillian.” 

Rachel and Jesse appear in the 2021 novel “Friends in Low Places,” available at online retailers. You can also purchase direct.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Like more stories like this? Check out my Fiction section.

Extra Mustard

Lose Yourself Wins Best Baseball Fiction Book

I was so honored that The Twin Bill, a baseball literary magazine, named Lose Yourself its Best Baseball Fiction Book on 2024. They see dozens of great works throughout the year. They also interviewed me for their podcast. Lose Yourself also won First Place (Inspirational Fiction) at BookFest, and Honorable Mention (Sports Fiction) at ReadersFavorite.

Since its release in April, I’ve heard from readers that this is not a “baseball book,” but a novel that explores human relationships with the backdrop of a baseball game. People have connected with the characters as they navigate life during this particular day. I’ve always thought that the best sports novels are not about sports but use sports to create the stakes of human drama.

Currently, Lose Yourself is available at a reduced cost. You can purchase on Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, bookshop.org, and more. Or you can buy direct for yourself or as a gift.

Read more about the book and my other novel Friends in Low Places.