One moment I had been cruising down the secluded forestry road, stereo cranked up, smiling...dreaming of drinks with a handsome stranger, and the next, everything went silent. In all the years that I'd had it, the Jeep had never died on me before. I coasted to a stop, put it back in park and tried to crank the motor over.

Nothing. The starter didn't even click.

I looked around, checking my mirrors. The road was narrow and had no actual shoulder so I pushed the hazard light button and not even those would come on.

"What in the actual...?" I cursed. Absolutely befuddled, I pulled my cell phone out of my bag praying that I had a signal...The booster could only do so much and if there was a hill or in this case, an entire mountain range in the way of a cell tower, I was gonna be completely out of luck. The screen of my phone was black. I tapped the screen and lock button.

Nothing.

How the heck could the battery have died already? There's no way. I'd had it plugged in for most of the drive. What the heck is going on? My mind began to race. This was bad...very bad.

"Well, shit," I mumbled to myself as I elbowed the door open and hopped out listening hard for the sound of an approaching car. I tucked my short, dark hair behind my ears and looked around. I was still on a paved road but I was also pretty far away from the more well-traveled areas. All I could hear was the chilly spring breeze through the conifers and the river running just beside the road.

"Shit!" I called out to the forest, my echoing voice bounced around the trees. I took a deep breath and whispered to myself, "Okay, don't panic, Amber. Think."

With fingers laced behind my head, I looked in the direction I had come from, then back to where I had been heading. A curving tunnel of trees bordered the pavement of the road, the broken, yellow line down the middle disappearing over a small hill. I was very alone. A deep sense of unease took root in the pit of my stomach.

Should I start walking? Should I stay put and wave the next car down? Should I try to hitch a ride back down to the old camp store I passed about a half hour ago? What the heck did people do when they broke down before cell phones?

I was completely stranded almost 100 miles from home on a deserted road with no idea what to do.

After a long talk with myself, I decided to stay put. The sunny breaks in the clouds had closed up and it started to drizzle even after the morning had been so beautiful. The weather always changed so fast in the mountains, especially in spring. At least it wasn't snowing though. The last thing I needed to do was head out into the weather and catch my death. The road was clear but there were several large patches of icy snow still clinging to the side of the road in places. Being cold was bad enough, but being wet and cold? I shuttered. Hard no.

I am a hopeless over planner deep down though. I always seem to pack enough food to feed three people for the weekend rather than just myself.

My ice chest and food tote were full of drinks, snacks and backpacker meals. I had my pillow, sleeping bag, an extra blanket, jet-boil and a cooking pot. When car camping without proper refrigeration, I only kept freeze dried backpacker meals, granola bars and other snacks. Water and shelf stable juice bottles filled the cooler along with a few pieces of whole fruit and a few bags of candy. The Jeep was the safest place to be and would be more than comfortable. I would just be doing my car camping while broke down on the side of the road.

Waiting would be easy. Someone was bound to pass by before too long, or before nightfall at the very latest. Forest service personnel or construction maybe?

I popped the hatch of the Jeep and opened the awning, giving myself a little more space while I waited. Sitting in my camp chair with my Jet-Boil rumbling away, I almost felt comfortable, but then I remembered that my car wasn't working at all, and the nerves inched their way back up.

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Somebody, anybody should have passed by during the hours that I waited, but no one did. When dusk approached, I told myself that I would head out walking back to the camp store at first light and try to get some sleep.

I hardly slept a wink. Every rustle of wind, every creaking tree, every tiny sound in the night had me poking my head out of my blankets to peer out the windows of the Jeep. I couldn't risk missing a potential car passing, but it was always just the wind.

I'm not sure what time it actually was, but it felt like it was close to midnight when the thick bank of clouds broke, and the night sky seemed to light up and absolutely glow. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Through the breaks in the trees and clouds, the northern lights danced across the sky in yellows, greens, pinks and purples. Shooting stars, several every minute, flashed bright in the unpolluted darkness, some even appeared to trail fire as they streaked through the sky. Even through my anxiety I couldn't help but marvel at the sight, wondering what on earth would cause the northern lights to be visible this far to the south?

I was sure that Google would have known but my phone was still not working, so all I could do was wonder. After staring at the sky for hours, I finally drifted off fairly close to dawn.

My sleep was violently interrupted by a deep rumble followed by a sudden, vicious shaking.

"What the heck?" I popped my head out of my blankets and looked out the window. Through the shadowed, blue light of dawn I could see the road actually rolling while the Jeep bounced and heaved on its shocks.

"An earthquake? You've got to be kidding me!" I yelled.

I watched in terror as the enormous trees trembled with the motion of the quake and my heart raced. The rolling asphalt buckled in several places then began to crack. Trees swayed then toppled across the road while dry fir needles and branches fell all over my car. A large branch bounced off the windshield, sending a spiderweb of cracks across it and I couldn't watch anymore.

I closed my eyes and hid in my sleeping bag like a terrified child. The quake seemed to last forever. My heart was thundering in my ears nearly drowning out the loud clatter of the debris hitting the roof of the Jeep.

"Shit, shit, shit!" I squeaked, fighting panic and threatening tears while my thoughts raced. "God, please don't let a tree fall on me."

In the midst of the chaos, all I could think was that I wasn't ready to die. "I don't want to die. God, please, please, please." I whispered into the dark interior of my sleeping bag.

The shaking ended as suddenly as it had begun and the forest grew silent.

I lay there for a moment just breathing, trying not to cry, waiting for an aftershock. When none came, I threw the car door open and frantically began packing my bag.

My heart still pounded in my ears as I quickly rolled up my sleeping bag with my pillow still inside. I strapped it to the bottom of my pack then stuffed the bag with as much food and drinks as it would hold. With all that I could carry slung across my shoulders, I closed the hatch of the old Jeep and took a deep breath. It was at least 8 miles back to the camp store but that was the best hope I had of finding someone to help. With all the trees down across the road, there was no way any vehicles were going to be able to make it up here let alone a tow truck. I would have to leave the Jeep behind.

I hadn't taken more than half a dozen steps from the car when I heard the faint echo of a human voice off the trees. My heart soared.

Oh, my God, I'm saved!

I listened intently for a moment suddenly realizing that the voice was male and sounded angry. It would be just my luck to run into a complete psychopath alone on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere...without a weapon of any sort. My heart dropped and an ice-cold sliver of fear settled into the place that had just been warmed by hope. I had to do something. I couldn't just stand there in the middle of the road waiting for my very likely demise at the hands of a possible psychopath.

Whispering expletives under my breath, I scurried back to the Jeep and threw my pack inside. I locked the doors and darted off the road and into the bushes. If he found me and I had to try and escape from him, the pack would just slow me down. It was too darn heavy.

As the sounds of the voice got louder, closer, I began running through every worst case scenario possible. The guy is crazy, he tries to break into my car. The guy is crazy, he finds me hiding in the bushes and murders me. Or he finds me in the bushes, tortures and violates me, then murders me.

My eyes darted around my immediate area searching for an equalizer of some sort. A stick or a rock maybe? The man's head bobbed into view over a small hill in the road. He had to be tall and he was walking so fast he was practically jogging. At that distance I couldn't make out any of his features, but he was waving his arms around in wild gestures while cursing every living thing on the planet.

Definitely crazy.

With my mind made up about this man's sanity, I sunk further back into the bushes and crouched, praying that he wouldn't stop at my car. He did though, growing quiet as he approached. I let out a quiet groan.

He looked at the Jeep and then spun in circles, eyes canvassing the surrounding area. I could tell that he did not notice me in the bushes, and almost breathed a sigh of relief until he cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the windows of the Jeep. He checked each one finally stopping at the driver side rear window. He had to have seen my pack.

Well, that was stupid, Amber. I should have just hidden it in the ditch somewhere close by. Damn it! I had panicked, and in my rush to hide, had made a very big mistake.

"Hello?" He called out, looking around again. "Is anyone still out here?"

I held my breath and stayed stock still. When no answer came he began trying the door handles. Finding them locked, he scanned the ground and picked up a softball sized rock, testing its weight.

What? A smash-and-grab? Oh, no you don't, bro.

Forgetting my fear and thinking only of my poor Jeep, I popped out of the bushes with a bent twig in my hand brandished like a sword and yelled, "Don't break my window!"