"Shit. Is everyone OK?" Once she realized it was over, Caroline turned back from the driver's seat to check on the others in the van that had just made a rather abrupt and very rough stop into a tree trunk.
"Jesus, I thought we were going to die!" Fiona cried.
"That's why we have seat belts," quipped Jill from the third row.
"Jill knock it off, can't you see she was scared to death?!" admonished Alexandria from next to her. "And so was I for that matter!"
"Car, what the hell was that about?!" shouted Rachel, who was seated directly behind Caroline. "I thought you passed the driver's test first out of all of us!"
"There was some animal that like shot out of nowhere -- I don't know where it came from!" Caroline replied back as she opened the door to get out and inspect the damage. "Oh, God, Dad's gonna kill me..."
"Easy, Fiona -- it's over now," Erica said, reaching from the front passenger seat to reassure Fiona. "Jill, Rachel, knock it off -- we're just glad no one got hurt, alright?"
"Yeah, except we're now stuck in the middle of freaking nowhere," Jill retorted. "And the van's probably busted. God, I should have stayed home instead of gone on this stupid camping trip."
"Jill, enough! Complaining isn't going to help now -- at least we brought tents and alot of food."
"Yeah, and useless cell phones because none of us can get any signal."
"Rachel!"
While the other girls continued to argue, Caroline returned to the driver's seat and attempted to start the engine to no avail. "So much for getting out of here. It's already afternoon -- no way are we making back to the highway on foot before dark. I think our best bet is to camp around here for the night and then one or two of us walk back towards the highway to get help tomorrow morning."
"Don't we have flashlights?" Alexandria asked?
"Yeah, but no way are we going to be able to figure out how to get back here if it's dark even with a flashlight -- too easy to get lost with all these trees. Better stay here and wait for morning."
"That's probably our best bet now," Fiona added, having calmed down a bit.
"Alright, guess we should set up the three tents and get a fire going," Erica suggested. "At least we can something out of this trip, right?"