Ambushed While Bicycling

            I Dreamed I was biking along a twisty forest road with a little girl, 9 or so. She was giving me a tour of the mountain. At one point, just before a bunch of steep downhill switchbacks, she ducked onto a trail along side the road. “This is a shortcut!”

I shouted out that my 10 speed wasn't a mountain bike, but didn't want to be separated from her so put the brakes on and turned down the dirt path after her.

            The wheels of the 10 speed were not rolling, but the bike and myself kept picking up speed and sliding down the hillside. I finally had to put my feet down and bring the bike to a stop. The kid was a couple of turns ahead, just out of sight, but not earshot, when she started hollering for help. I dropped the bike to the side of the trail and ran down after her. She had crashed and her bike was a twisted wreck. She looked like she was OK, though.

            Something hit me from behind. A large animal, or a person, I really couldn’t tell, began striking me on the head and pulling me back into the brush by my arms. I shouted at her to run back to my bike and take the road home. "Use the small gear in front..."

            That was the last thing I said, not being able to finish the thought (and the large ones in back to go up hills.) She ran back up the trail to my bike. I kept wrestling with the thing in the bushes, trying to distract it long enough for the kid to get away, trying to keep it from knocking me out. I heard her push the ten-speed out of the brush over the sounds of my own struggle, but she was coming down the trail, not going up to safety. I think she was trying to save me, as the empty bike crashed into my assailant and then curled, broken, down the slope. The being barely seemed to notice, but it distracted it enough to allow me to get one arm free.

            I could see a home tucked away in the forest just a couple of dozen feet from where I was wrestling, but had the suspicion that the home belonged to whatever was attacking me. There was a large white propane tank with a bright yellow cap, or perhaps logo on it, the wooden screen blocked the view of it from the house, but not from this little trail. I found that detail intriguing for some reason.

 

            That one ended without any resolution.

 

Ad astra per technica,

FF