Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Cornered

She stood beneath the streetlamp, eagerly searching for the bus that would take her from this dark, squalid street corner to her home in a vastly brighter suburban neighbourhood. She had been keeping tabs on the stranger across the road, watching him intently in the darkened doorway. His Yankees cap was pulled down low and she couldn’t see his eyes; his hands were in his pockets, perhaps from the cold, but her mind pictured something else entirely. She glanced around, hoping to catch sight of other late night commuters but she was seemingly alone on the deserted street. Alone, that is, except for the stranger.
Finally, the bus appeared in the distance and she found that she had been holding her breath and, exhaling slowly, she dared another fleeting look at the man in the shadows, only to find him making his way across the street. As a single passenger alighted from the bus, she felt the stranger standing directly behind her, touching her, rubbing himself against her and it took all her will to stop herself from screaming in disgust. A sudden agony gripped her chest as she turned and found the passenger unhurriedly removing a blade from her chest, dripping her sanguine fluids onto the pavement. Her knees buckled, her vision starting to blur, her determination gone as she screams; shrieks of pain and fear and of sudden understanding. The last thing she sees is the two men standing over her, rifling through her belongings and the stranger smile and say “Same time tomorrow night over on Jackson?”

2 comments:

David Barber said...

Nice one again, Paul. Short, direct and believable.

Regards, David.

Harry said...

Just another day at the office. Is the bus driver in on it?