A3: Walk along to the gas station
The overcast sky provided some shelter from the summer sun today, but the threat of rain weakened the feeling of relief that the cooler temperature was providing. As they walked along the gravel shoulder to the road, Andrea and Orrin were relatively silent. While Orrin had been snippy and short-tempered with Andrea earlier, he sensed that she might be feeling some shame for being so careless, and didn’t want to be too hard on her.
Looking at her, he noticed that she was walking with her eyes on the ground, and appeared to be sulking to herself. He reached over and took her hand. She seemed to like that. They walked a few more yards in silence, making use of the time they had before them to enjoy their company rather than to skulk over their current situation.
It was odd that they hadn’t seen any vehicles all this time they’d been walking. Andrea was the first to break the silence.
“It sure is a quiet afternoon, isn’t it.”
“Yeah,” answered Orrin. “I guess nobody was planning on reviewing the bridge plans at the open house this afternoon,” he laughed. “I knew nobody would show up to that thing. What a waste of time.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Andrea replied. After a brief moment, she turned to face him and said, “You were right, Orrin. I shouldn’t have kept going. I should have listened to you. I messed up and now we’re stuck out here and I mess everything up and ..”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Orrin interrupted, trying to soothe her. “It was just a mistake. These things happen to a lot of people. Don’t beat yourself up about it. And … to be honest, I was too hard on you. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have reacted like that.” In an effort to lighten the mood, he joked, “I’ll bet it never happens again, though,
eh?”“No, you’re right. I’ll be ready next time,” she giggled.
“That’s what mistakes are all about,” he said cheerfully.
They both smiled at one another. This wasn’t turning out to be so bad after all. Perhaps they hadn’t found an adventure this afternoon, but at least they managed to get some quality time in together. Orrin stopped walking and pulled Andrea in close
to him, and he hugged her long and hard. She hugged him back, and when they finally parted, it was only enough so that they could share a moment, and then a
kiss.As their lips met, a small sprinkle of rain landed across their shoulders, and dampened their foreheads. It didn’t distract them, until a few moments later, when the drizzle began dumping water and hail down on them.
Amid cusses, Orrin scanned the surrounding area for some shelter from the torrents of rain that were crashing down on them. The sound of the rain slapping against the asphalt beneath their feet was almost deafening. Grabbing Andrea’s hand, he pulled her towards a small farmhouse about 200 metres in. There was a long gravel driveway and a small gate, but they managed to cover the distance in under a minute. They were laughing a little, and their shirts were soaked, clinging to their skin.
They reached the small farmhouse and got in underneath the balcony, which provided shelter from the hail but not from the rain, which was splashing back up at them from the ground. The icy pellets were collecting all over the farmer’s green lawn.
“Jesus! Where did this come from,” panted Orrin.
The rain was so loud that Andrea could barely hear him. She responded by saying something, but Orrin couldn’t understand her for the sound of the rain. When he went to ask her to repeat herself, he was drowned out by the loudest bang of
thunder he’d ever heard.The crash of the thunder shook their bodies, and it rolled like a mountainous entity across the fields and into the distance.
“Holy shit!” laughed Andrea. “That must have been close! I’ve never heard the thunder so loud in my life. It was, like, scary.”
Orrin put his soaking arms around her shoulders and pulled her tight. The breeze was cold and biting, but she was warm and soft, and so he cuddled for a moment longer.
“We’ll have to wait for this storm to pass,” he said. “This is way too much for us to walk through. Man, I didn’t think this was going to happen.”
"Ooohhhh,” whined Andrea. “I just thought of something. I don’t think I rolled the windows all the way up on the car.” She pouted a little longer, but wasn’t too distraught about it. No doubt, her interior would be drenched if the windows were indeed down.
“We’ll have to see if any of the hail collected on the floor of the car when we get back, eh?” teased Orrin. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. This is just a little setback. We’ll be okay.”
He turned around and knocked on the door of the farmhouse. Perhaps someone was home and they could get some shelter, or perhaps even some gas while they were here. There was no answer at the door, so Orrin knocked again. When no one came to the door once more, he shrugged and put his arm back around Andrea.
“I guess we’re stuck out here till the storm passes.” Just as he finished his sentence the rain began to thin, and the clouds dispersed somewhat shining some light down on them. While there wasn’t any rainbow yet, they didn’t have to hide around the farmhouse anymore. “Well how do you like that?” Orrin said with satisfaction.
As the clouds cleared a beam of light illuminated a small congested area by the silos, and right in the centre of them was a large gas tank. “Would you look at that?” smiled Orrin.
“What is it?” asked Andrea.
“It’s just a gas tank. Farmers have them on their properties to gas up their tractors. I think it’s because the tractors would run out of gas if they had to drive back from the station. Or something like that. Anyhow, there should be enough in there to spare for us. We’d just have to get a small canister and pump it out.”
The two of them strolled over to the pumps and found a rusty old can laying nearby. Still dripping with water and kicking hail pellets around with their feet, Orrin gave it a shake to see what was in it. The can was empty, but he could just fill it up and there wouldn’t be any problems at all. They weren’t even all that far from their car. Then it was a simple jaunt back over to the gas station, and their adventure would be done.
“Are you just going to take their gas?” asked Andrea in a scolding manner.
“It’s not like that. We need this. We can come back and repay them later, once we’re okay. I promise, we won’t just steal it. This farmer is doing us a big favour.”
As Orrin pumped some gas into the can, he scanned around, making sure that there wasn’t a dog hunting them down. Oddly enough, the farm was quite quiet now. With the storm gone, all that could be heard were the energetic and busy noises of birds swooping down and around the puddles and mud looking for a bath and something to eat.
A faint noise sounding like a girl’s voice could be heard briefly. It startled Andrea who immediately clung to Orrin’s arm and she asked if he’d heard the call. Orrin hadn’t. He heard nothing other than the charming birds. But he perked his ears and concentrated on the ambient noises around him. He was concentrating so much that he didn’t realize that the canister was full, and began to overflow. The gasoline spilled into a puddle and a rainbow-like stain swirled through the puddle as the gas splashed down into it.
Orrin jumped a little, trying not to get the gasoline on himself, although his leg
became freshly damp with the warm spilt gas. The noise rang out again, and this time it caught his attention.“Yeah, I heard it that time,” he told Andrea. The two of them stood silently, straining to hear the noise again. What could it be? It sounded like a girl, but any other details were hard to discriminate. He strained, listening carefully, squinting and gleaning towards the barn. “We should just get out of here, Andrea,” said Orrin. “We don’t need some lunatic farmer storming after us with a shotgun!” He picked up the gas can and looked Andrea matter-of-factly. “Come on!”
STICK AROUND AND FIND OUT WHO’S THERE – TURN TO PAGE: A4
JUST GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE – TURN TO PAGE: B4.1
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