Gingerly touching the side of my head with my fingers, I scraped away gravel that stuck to my skin and hair. There was a little blood but nothing seemed to be currently bleeding.

I righted my bicycle where it had tossed me off like a prize winning bronco and looked it over. My Huffy was worse off than I was. Both tires were shredded and flat. Somehow the chain was gone. There was no way I could ride it in its current state.

Wind picked up, scattering dry leaves around me. The way that they skittered and crawled across the ground reminded me of a swarm of spiders. The weatherman had said it was going to rain. I didn’t believe him then, but looking at the gray clouds that billowed across the sky, I did now.

It didn’t take long to check the ground for my bike’s chain. I was pretty sure it had spun off into the deep ravine that ran next to the road. I didn’t find the chain but I did find a jury-rigged spike strip made out of a hose and rusty nails.

Who would lay something like that across the road and why?