Grease Monkey

Prologue: The Road Less Traveled

The day she didn't even think was possible.

It was a stressing thing, getting over the death of a loved one. Downright painful and depressing if you asked me. I mean, I was having a pretty tough time with it. Nearly ten months since I lost Him and I still have a hard time facing it. I still worked at His dads gas station, His dads garage, and I had yet to take any of His stuff out of our… my… one-story. I even kept some of our day-to-day habits. Every night I ran the trail that we used to run together, the trail we discovered when we moved to Beacon Hills after High School. At the time, I had no idea why he wanted to live in such a hum drum town. It was even smaller than my hometown. But, I knew, deep down. He wanted to go back because He wanted to reconnect. It's where his dad and step-mom live.

His mom left his dad when He was young. Plus, from what He remembered, Beacon Hills was a really nice town. Nice people, nice schools, nice neighborhood, and a nice place to start a family. That was our plan, to start a family. Well, we don't always get what we want, do we? Sadly, that's life. It sucks. And here I am, bitching about a life I'll never have when the life I'll end up living is so much more chaotic, extraordinary, and absolutely unbelievable. You, truly, don't know what the worlds capable of until you take that road less traveled… do I regret it? Taking that road less traveled? You can bet your sweet ass I do.

There I was, alone in my living room, staring at the bare wall in front of me, shoveling strawberry ice cream into my mouth. In other words, I was severely bored. I was lounging on my couch with Kipper underneath my arm. Kipper's my faithful Jack Russell Terrier-Beagle. Always there when my shoes needed an extra hole in them, always peeing on the floor when it needs to be cleaned, and always keeping me company when I slept alone in that huge bed. He knew I had a hard time when He died so he picked up the slack by being extra affectionate.

I don't know how dogs know these things, but they just do. I placed my little pint of ice cream on the coffee table I made out of four tires, half a dozen nails, and a plank of wood. Kipper whined as I stood, missing my company already. I reached my arms up, hands clasping the cuffs of my blue flannel, stretching my back, arms, and shoulders since sitting there like a lump really can cause a girl to ache.

As I stretched, the last button on my old flannel popped off, "Fuck." I muttered. I never did learn how to sow so either I'd suck it up and wear the shirt as-is or throw it out.

While my sisters all learned to be the perfect wives, I learned how to replace a transmission with my toes from His brothers. Slight exaggeration. After fiddling with my shirt for a few seconds I decided it was about time for my moonlight run. As I said before, I still did that, every night. I walked into my bedroom, shedding the buttonless flannel and the denim shorts I was wearing as Kipper yipped at my ankles. Wearing nothing but my white sports bra and boy cut blacks I picked up my little puppy; I let him lick my nose before I placed him on my bed. He sat there, like a good boy, but his tail wagged a mile a minute.

He wanted to go running with me. If it was light out, I would've totally been up for that, but it was nearly midnight and I wasn't comfortable not being able to see my baby boy (I don't believe in leashes). I gave him a sad smile before retrieving a pair of black knit shorts, some socks, and my hole invested Chuck Taylor's. The shorts were His, but, again, I couldn't bring myself to get rid of anything He owned. I slipped them on and rolled them to fit. I took my hair out of the fishtail I had it in and tied it into an intricate knot so my waist length black hair was out of my face. Then I grabbed my arm holster for my iPod, grabbed the actual iPod, well, iPhone, and I was ready to go.

I headed towards the front door causing Kipper to whine from my bedroom, "I'll be back in an hour." I called to him, did a quick check of his food and water levels, all was well and I was set. I opened the door with a bit of a spring in my step, shut it, locked it, and I started to run while turning on some Ellie Goulding to get me in the mood. Her techno beats were all that got me up anymore.

My run was as liberating as usual, the cascading sweat, the smell of pine as I ran through the woods and the cold September wind in my face. Everything was as it should be. I looked to my right and I could almost feel Him there. But of course He wasn't. He'd never be there again. I exhaled at my hopelessness and just kept running. I ran past several familiar rocks, I even ran past one of those trees that every teenager would write, 'So-and-so + so-and-so 4E'. Being in one of those high school romances I knew how good it felt to claim something was forever and even to write it somewhere where it would, indeed, last forever.

Being an adult who lost their soul mate, things like that just brought tears to my eyes.

The feeling burned my eyes as a different sensation burned in my legs. When the burning in my calves became too much I collapsed against a tree, breathing heavily, dried tears in the corners of my eyes. I had only been running for 45 minutes, or so, but I was running faster than usual. Running away from my past, I guess. I checked my watch to confirm that I had been running… for an entire hour already. Hope Kipper didn't learn how to tell time. If he had then he would've been pissed.

I looked up to what was in front of me, the trail back to my house, the trail that went deeper into the woods before coming back to my house, and one I hadn't really noticed before. Now, in the light of a nearly full moon, I could see a clear, but slightly faded, path. I was about to head back home when I decided to throw caution to the wind and travel that abandoned path. Perhaps it was one of those long forgotten trails. Perhaps I'd receive enlightenment after traveling it. Well, I was about to find out. I turned up my music and ran. I ran with no inhibitions.

That abandoned path was littered left and right with garbage, debris, and cigarette butts. It was disgusting. And I thought to myself, 'How could people let this happen to a place to serene?'

That's what it was to me, serene. There was an ominous feeling all around it, sure, like the path hadn't been used for years. Or perhaps something haunted it. I pushed those sorts of thoughts out of my head and picked up the pace a little. I was running for another thirty minutes on that abandoned path when I thought I saw something through the trees. Perhaps it was a deer.

I came to a stop and pulled out my ear buds, "Is anyone out there?" I called.

If it was Bambi then they would probably run off… if it was something more of the predatory nature then I was probably screwed. But as soon as I really saw it, it was gone again. Bambi, for sure. That's when I heard something behind me, I quickly turned only to be greeted with a sharp pain to my right forearm, "Hnnnn! Fuck!" I groaned. I cradled my appendage to get a better look. Some sort of whatever had bitten me! There was blood everywhere and I wasn't quite sure what to do. I looked around frantically for it, but saw nothing. I took that as a pretty good reason to head back home.

While clutching my arm and picked up my leisurely run to a full out sprint. I'm glad that running was one of those things that I actually decided to keep doing upon graduating from Fleursville. Because, well, it came in handy when keeping up your stamina, running marathons for AIDS, and running from vicious creatures that aren't afraid to bite you! It didn't take me long to get back to the house since I didn't take any trails and I was running as fast as I could.I had to resist looking back to avoid the chance of tripping over something so I had no idea if that thing was following since it decided that my blood was oh so delicious.

When I ran into the back door of my little one-story, I fumbled for the spare key I kept hidden in a false bottom of a planter. I shoved it into the deadbolt and unlocked my door before shutting it behind me and locking it as fast as I could. I pressed my back against the wood and I collapsed to the floor. I exhaled a held breath but didn't get a chance to inhale seeing as Kipper decided to come and check up on me. Probably smelled the blood. He nosed my wound, causing me to wince, he even licked it for a little while. Probably not the most sanitary thing I've ever done but I appreciated the affection. I scratched my little fella behind the ears. Kipper whined slightly and curled up in my lap. What a good dog. I continued to pet the little protector as I drifted off from exhaustion forced on me by an adrenaline rush. Let the record show that the road less traveled can kiss my ass.

I woke up the next morning when my alarm clock went off from my room. Surprised I could hear it from the "kitchen". I put air quotes around the kitchen because I'm not sure a mini fridge, a few feet of counter space, a microwave oven, a small electric stove, and a toaster oven counted as a kitchen. Just as my couch plus coffee table didn't really count as a dining room... or a living room… still I used them as such. When I opened my eyes I was greeted by Kipper with his paws against my chest and barking in my face. What an adorable little dog!

Actually, he doesn't bark well. He just yips. Which just makes him all the more scrumptious. I brought up my right hand to pat his head when I saw the profusely bleeding wound on my arm. It had long since dried but it didn't make it look any less nasty.

"Goddamn it!" I yelled before standing abruptly and running into my miniature bathroom. I started to run the hot water from my faucet only to realize that I HAD no hot water, "MOTHER FUCKER!" I yelled. I kicked the pipe underneath my sink, damaging my toe. I don't do the most planned out things while I'm panicking. I'd like to see one person who does, now that I think about it.

So, with nothing but cold water and a bottle of antiseptic I cleaned off all of the dried blood that had caked my arm as well as my hand. Actually, I more like scrapped it off. It was like a layer of paint on my skin and tugged at my arms hair as it crusted off. Hurt. Like. A. Mother. TRUCKER. Finally I was free of the blood covering my arm so I was able to look at the wound that had scabbed over. Yep, it was definitely a bite mark. But not in any shape I had ever seen. Not that I was worrying about that at that moment. I was worrying about what I was dreading, opening the wound to put the antiseptic acid shit on my arm. I let out a sigh, grabbed my washcloth from the shower, and rubbed the scab profusely.

With the scabs successfully… OWWWWW! With the scabs successfully ripped from my skin I was able to be covered in blood again. That's just great. I washed out that washcloth, put it in my mouth, bit down, uncapped the antiseptic, and poured it all over the wound. And man did it burn. I felt tears of pain come to my eyes. In the agonizing pain I dropped the bottle in the sink as I hunched over it using my elbows to balance myself. I spat out the washcloth and started to scream. Not one of those girly shrieks when you're watching a scary movie and you want the guy you're with to feel all masculine and manly, one of those blood curdling screams that resonates from your core.

Seriously. Ow. Once that huge scream was out of my system I ripped open my medicine cabinet and pulled out some gauze and medical tape. I placed the gauze around my arm where the bite was and I quickly wrapped the tape around it to keep it in place. Then I decided to wrap an ace bandage around my arm as if I broke my wrist or something. Fewer questions… well, I did work in a car garage, random scratches I could explain. Random bite marks: not something I want to explain to my father-in-law. Since his son was never the "kinky" sorts. Yeah… today was going to be a long day.