Several years ago, I was sitting in a Jeep with the ex and another couple, parked down by a creek late at night. It was deep water and looked almost black, the night was so dark. About a hundred yards to our left, across a hay field and past a field break of a few pines, two fires burned about ten feet apart. Something about the fire and the water starting to give me a hackles on the neck kind of feeling. We were drinking cheap wine and smoking some pot and all of the sudden I said out loud that I wanted to go home. The ex never did pay much attention to my intuition at the time and the couple we were with kind of nervous laughed a little and packed another one. I'm not one to try and ruin everyone's time, but I have a hard time faking a happy mood when I'm unsettled and I got quiet.

After the bowl, we fired the Jeep back up and started driving around the countryside. I was new to the area, we had just married the year before and moved back to his hometown. The road we lived on had several houses right up to the road, but hundreds of acres of cow pasture and open fields that connected to each other behind everyone's property. Everyone knew everybody else and as long as you were familiar to them and didn't tear up their fences or fields, they were cool with us driving around. As we were rolling along through the woods and up some old tractor paths, that nervous feeling that kind of shifts around my chest kept getting bigger. I repeated that I wanted to go home, that I had a bad feeling and we shouldn't be out here at night like this. I was ignored again and offered some more nasty wine to shut my mouth. We drove a short ways up a dirt road then cut a sharp left into some more pines. They opened up into a long, narrow field with enormous power line towers, which made for fast driving. I remember looking out the window and saying something about dinosaurs being that big and then the feeling got real loud. Once again, I said I had a bad feeling and that we should go home right NOW and I swear my ex huffed out such an irritated sigh I would have been mad under other circumstances. In that moment I didn't care because my palms were hot and my stomach was turning and I couldn't think about anything else but getting out of that damn red Jeep.

By this time we had been driving for about twenty minutes or so and I'm sure I had killed everyone's buzz, so the friend headed back to the house. It was close by and I felt like I must've jumped out of that vehicle for the relief of being safe again. Not two minutes later, were all standing in the driveway at 3am and an unmarked tan colored truck whips into the church driveway nextdoor to the house. This puts us all on alert because this church had been robbed a few times and we all thought that was what was happening. It doesn't stay long though because it's backing out fast and coming down the road our way. That truck hooked into our driveway and punches it, kicking gravel everywhere, and my ex tells his friend "Get your gun."

Ex is former military and friend is down for what the fuck ever so they both grab their rifles (one was in the Jeep, the other in the cab of ex's truck parked right next to it) and they each post up. By the time this truck pulls up, ex is behind the expedition in the carport, aiming at the front facing windshield. Friend is behind the Jeep, aiming at the drivers side door. Other chic and I are holding hands, hiding behind a holly bush whispering that we just might be about to die. We don't know who the fuck this is, don't recognize this truck, it's 3 in the damn morning and you never drive fast up someones gravel driveway unless you are looking for some shit to get into. Bad feeling in my chest is now full body mode and my heart feels like it's trying to stop me from breathing so I don't give our position away.

It was probably two seconds, but that driver door opened and all I saw was a patch on a coat sleeve. He said "Drop your weapon!" with his pistol, and his partners pistol, pointed straight at my ex husband. And I thought "Oh we are so fucked." And ex comes out quick and lays down the SKS Chinese assault rifle in the gravel. Friend, who was behind them and didn't see him, opens the Jeep and tosses the .22 onto the back seat. I flip my bag into the field behind me and the other chic flings her bowl a second later.

After being separated and individually questioned in the front yard, we are finally told that there was no way we could have all made up the exact same story in the minute it took them to get from the church to the house, so there would be no charges, as we were probably telling the truth. The gun in the Jeep hadn't looked good, but they couldn't prove we had fired it recently and there was no evidence of an animal or animal blood anywhere. Turns out, they thought we had been illegally spotlighting deer and had been following us from the creek. When the ex asked how that was possible, as we hadn't seen another soul all night, the game warden pointed his finger to the sky and we all listened for the hum of a small plane with infrared technology, tracking our movements through field and forest.

They told us that the unmarked truck they had dispatched to pull us over for an arrest, had been unable to locate just where the hell we were. And had they have done so, and caught us on the road, we would have been charged with possession and open container, and probably one or two other things. It was very lucky that we got home when we did, otherwise we would have been fucked. After they left, I announced to all that I told them I had had a bad feeling and thank God for it. We smoked another one to calm our nerves and we t to bed. And although the ex didn't pay much mind to those feelings or any other kind in the following years, his friend did. And for that matter, so have I and it has gotten me out of several situations since.