My sneakers made small squeaky noises on the worn blacktop as I crossed the road. Deep in the woods to the west, I heard a bobwhite sound its cry. Not a car was in sight.

After a second’s hesitation I entered the woods, following the unmarked road. It hardly deserved the name.

It was really two bare tracks with grass growing up between them, some old gravel pressed down into the ground marking where the last load had been leveled years before. My progress was quiet, but not silent, and I slowed involuntarily. The path curved slightly to the right, and as I rounded that curve I saw the source of the flash of color.

It was a car-a Taurus-parked facing away from Farm Hill Road.

Someone was sitting in the front seat. I could see a head outlined on the driver’s side. I stopped dead in my tracks. My skin rose in goose bumps up and down my arms. If I’d been apprehensive before, now I was truly frightened. Somehow, that unexpected glimpse of another human being was more shocking than the discovery that a car was parked out here in the woods where it had no business parking.

“Hello?” I said quietly.

But the person in the front seat of the red Taurus did not move.

Suddenly I found I was too scared to say anything else. The woods seemed to close in around me. The silence had taken on an oppressive life of its own. “Bob- white!” shrieked the bird, and I nearly leapt out of my skin.

I stood stock-still and fought a fierce internal battle. More than anything, I wanted to walk away from this car with its silent occupant-wanted to forget I’d ever been here.

I couldn’t.

Despising my indecision, I marched up to the car and bent to look in.

For a moment I was distracted by her nakedness, by the bareness of breasts and thighs, by the alien protrusion between her legs. But when I looked into the face of the woman in the car, I had to bite my lower lip to keep from crying out. Deedra’s eyes were halfway open, but they weren’t returning my gaze.