Pushing. Pushing. Harder. Ignoring the pain, she pushed on. Left after right, right after left. Lift and stretch as far as her will could force her legs to in the rapid succession of a jog.
She’d hit her wall on the East side of the Island . The other side had to come soon. She ran on, past Fisherman’s Wharf and up the hill away from False Creek towards Vanier Park
The sun had set as she was leaving for her run. Now, blocks from home, twilight was dimming and she was cursing herself for going as far as late as she had. She had yet to get her second wind and was coming to Burrard Bridge
Don’t run under the bridge at dark. She told herself. Don’t be a fool. It’s too dangerous for a woman to be alone under the Bridge in the dark.
But it’s not dark, rationalized another part of her brain. It’s just dusk. I’m a healthy, fit woman and anyone desperate enough to come after me under the bridge is under-nourished and homeless.
The operative word is desperate. Desperation buoys a strength within. Don’t do it. She kept arguing with herself.
Don’t be a fucking baby. Just fucking run.
Her view of the bridge inched out from behind an apartment as she turned off of Creekside Drive and ran around the sloping bend westward.
This is a major public fucking walk-way. People walk or bike past here all the time – at all times of day. Giving in to paranoia is simply allowing the margins of society to control your life.
The bridge blocked out most of the sky as she stepped underneath it. It was marginally darker under the bridge, but it was already dark enough that the additional shadow of the bridge was nominal.
Left, right, left, right, lift, stretch…
And there he was – coming right out of her blind spot. Dirty, bloody and charging down the slope from the piling right at her.
She panicked and dodged inland, away from him – off the path, underneath the length of the bridge.
Fuck. I should have kept going in the same direction - towards the road. I’m only going further from where people would be. Fucking foolish girl.
He charged after her with speed and strength that belied his filthy sanguine appearance.
If he really were hurt he’d be calling for help. Fuck… Help.
“Help! Somebody help me!” She screamed.
That’s pointless. The closest people are in cars, way overhead.
He was gaining on her – one, two arm lengths away at most. At this rate she’d never make the stairs to the street before he caught her. Not even close.
I should have listened to myself. Jesus , give me my second wind.
“Somebody! Help!” She knew it was fruitless.
Oh god.
“Oh God! Somebody help me!”
Oh god. I’m going to be raped, killed, both, worse.
“Oh God! Oh God! Somebody please hear me!”
She didn’t need to risk a glance back to know that he was practically on her. She tapped into her own desperation for the last reserves of strength. The tiniest joules not depleted by her ninety minute training run.
Push. Push harder. Ignore the pain. Your life depends on it.
She screamed from the pit of her viscera at the sound of a sudden crack. She knew that was the end. The splash of scattering gravel around her ankles. She closed her eyes and ran blind knowing that within a split second the true beginning of the end was here.
But it wasn’t.
She kept putting one foot in front of the other. She opened her eyes and recognized that the only feet she could hear were her own.
Still running, the stairs to street-level a dozen paces away, she chanced a look behind.
Nothing.
No one there.
The empty gravel beneath the bridge stretched on into the failing light.
Her heart was pumping with desperation and adrenaline pulsed through her veins, but the tank was truly empty and there was no threat remaining. Her feet came to a stand-still at the base of the stone staircase.
Was it my imagination? He couldn’t just disappear.
Her eyes scanned the gravel.
Where did he go?
And then she saw him – a heap twenty meters away. Eclipsed by the shadow. Not moving.
Not understanding her own instincts she took a few steps forward towards his inert body.
Don’t be a fool. You just dodged a bullet.
She stopped. She knelt down and felt for a weapon – a jagged softball sized rock. She stood again.
“Hey.” She called, “Fuck head. Are you alright?”
No response.
“I’m not helping you.”
She took a step closer.
He was going to kill me. He was going to kill me. If he hadn’t tripped and fell, that son of a bitch would be raping me right now.
“Fuck you. You hear me. Fuck you, you fucking sick fucking asshole.” She barely said beyond a whisper between furious panting breaths.
Her feet carried her within a few meters of him before discretion took over her judgment.
“Fuck you. I win.”
She took two quick steps toward his heaping shape, raising her hand, and then in one movement heaved the rock where her wrath judged his head to be.
The rock struck his skull, cracking through the bone as if it were glass, and out the other side with a soupy splatter of blood and brain.
Oh god.
2 comments:
hey! I didn't know you were back writing this ! Have fun with it!
Meg
Ah Meg...
How appropriate that you should leave the first comment ever!
Yeah, this has been banging around in my head ever since we quit discussing it years back. You will find it familiar... yet very different. But I can't talk about that... too many spoilers!
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