In the Woods

by Redneck Diva

Genre: Horror
Pop Culture: Al Gore inventing the internet, Wal*Mart, American Idol

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“Come on, Les! Let’s go! Vamanos!”

Through an open window, they heard,“Alright there, Dora the Explorer, I’m coming.”

The group was ready to go and Les was taking his time, as usual. Dawn adjusted her ball cap and sighed dramatically. She looked at her best friend and their apartment complex’s resident amateur sexologist, Anne, and Anne’s boyfriend, Taco, on the ATV next to her. Anne shrugged and giggled. Taco yawned. Dawn got angrier by the second.

Les finally emerged from the house, doing a half trot, half stagger while tucking in his shirt and zipping his shorts.

“Damn zipper’s stuck,” he grumbled.

“Well, if you didn’t buy your clothes off of the clearance rack at Wal*Mart, maybe they wouldn’t wear out so quick, ya doofus. Y’ain’t savin’ money if you have to buy clothes twice as often as the rest of us!” his roommate Peter said. As Les finally jerked the zipper into submission, Peter, let loose with a guffaw that made the girls in the group grimace.

“Peter, baby? Honestly, you sound like a mule that’s being murdered when you laugh. I love you so much, but you gotta stop. I think Anne’s ears are bleeding.”

The tall blonde with enormous breasts, Daena, a relative newcomer to the group so far, hadn’t worked her way completely “in” the group. Dawn and Anne spent many a night imitating her baby-talking ways toward Peter. Granted, she was getting better, but at first she nearly drove them all bananas.

“Petey-weety? Schnoogum boogum makey me so horny-worny,” Anne would mock and Dawn would fall back on the bed, legs in the air, dramatically making out with a pillow.

“Daena, my darling, I’ve laughed this way since I was born. I ain’t changin’ now. Regulators! Mount up!” he said loudly, firing the engine on his four-wheeler. Les climbed on his ATV, swung his leg over and nearly kicked Dawn in the face.

“Dipshit,” she muttered. Wrapping her arms around him as he started the engine, she bit her lip. It was dusk and she didn’t like riding at night.

“Are you sure we can’t just stay here instead of riding? I’ve got some American Idol on the DVR and I uh, I could make popcorn...” she trailed off when the other two ATVs left them in the dust.
"Alrighty. We’ll just ride then. I guess.”

“Relax, babycakes,” assured Les as he reached back to pat her leg. “American Idol can wait. We’re gonna riiiiiide!” He peeled out in the yard, causing Dawn to squeal. She liked his recklessness, but she still didn’t like riding at night.

“You keep driving like that and I’m gonna need a tranquilizer!!” she hollered.

They caught up with the other two ATVs after watching them swerve at each other for half a mile of gravel road. She could hear the girls screaming and squealing and she was fairly certain that she saw Daena smack at Peter’s shoulder once. She liked to cut up and have fun with them, but sometimes they went too far. She made Les not take as many chances when she was riding on the back of his four-wheeler - she didn’t think her destiny involved body casts and life support. She wanted to have fun while they were young so that years from now they wouldn’t sit back and reminisce about the good ol’ days that weren’t all that memorable. She wanted their good ol’ days to truly be something good. But she also didn't want to die.

They saw Peter’s four-wheeler dart off down a vertical path and Taco followed. Dawn tapped Les on the shoulder and said, “I really don’t want to go down that vertical!” but the words were barely out of her mouth before Les, too, veered off the road. She grumbled, “You are about as dim-witted as Al Gore.”

“The dude that invented the internet?” Les hollered over his shoulder.

“Whatever. Asshat.” Dawn replied.

The further they rode into the darkening woods, the more they realized they had to keep moving at a relatively quick pace. If they slowed down the mosquitoes swarmed. Pete stopped just past a curve in the trail so they could decide if they wanted to ride further or go back to the apartment. The guys weren’t daunted by the mosquitoes, but the girls were tired of slapping at the irritating bugs. Realizing their boyfriends weren’t going to relent and take them back, Daena got off the bike of the four-wheeler and pulled a can of Off from the cargo box. The other two girls sighed in stereo when they saw the orange can in her hand.

“In retrospect, ladies, that would’ve been smart before you were covered in itchy welts,” stated Peter, but after three piercing glares aimed in his direction, he finished with, “I mean, it was just a thought…” After they were covered with enough Off to cover small army, the girls got back on the ATV’s and Taco and Anne took the lead.

Once the bugs weren’t swarming so badly, Dawn was less irritated with Les, but still wanted to go home. She really didn’t like the dark, sticky, noisy-but-quiet woods. Then she had a moment of pure enlightenment – she knew how to get what she wanted. She slid her hands around his waist again and began pulling at his shirt until she released the hem from his shorts. Her fingernails raking softly on his stomach got the reaction she wanted – he grinned and shifted on the seat. She thought she might even try the trick Anne had told her about a few weeks ago. She bit his earlobe and in one quick move, unbuttoned and unzipped his shorts. “Mmm…I didn’t have any trouble with that zipper just now….” He chuckled, then nodded when she whispered in his ear to slow down so they could have some privacy. She was hoping she’d tease him just enough that he’d want to go home and get down to the business she had in her hand. He down-shifted the four-wheeler to nearly a crawl.

The sound of the other two engines faded then stopped altogether. She noticed the absence of engine whine, but figured the other couples were fooling around, too. She figured she'd just get Les good and excited, then suggest - or even insist if she had to - that they go back and get serious, but the plot to get him to take her home was forgotten when he softly growled in her ear that fooling around in the woods turned him on even more. It didn’t take long for her to climb around on the seat so she was facing him. Their kissing became more intense and Les was nibbling and kissing all over her arms and neck. He teasingly bit at her collar bone and caused her to groan. A mosquito buzzed by her ear, but she barely heard it because Les was growling and starting to talk dirty. He reached around and unsnapped her bra as he nibbled up the length of her neck. When he had completed his freeing task, he leaned her back, resting her back against the control panel. His kisses wandered lower down her neck and as he lifted her shirt to expose more, she leaned her head back all the way. With her eyes closed and head back, enjoying the sensations Les was providing and didn’t even see the knife that slit her exposed throat.

The dark figures in the brush moved out into the moonlight and as she gurgled, her hands frantically clawing at her bleeding throat, Les got off of the ATV. She saw him standing beside her, wiping her mouth on his shirt and spitting. "Dude, I’m glad you showed up when you did. I was getting sick of the taste of bug spray.”