Dark Angels

Chapter One There was the snap of a twig and her insides lurched, but she kept going. The rustling in the dead leaves could be a harmless gray field-mouse, a wayward squirrel perhaps. Probably nothing. God! What was she doing here? Sheldon Park was officially closed for the day; sundown had been hours ago but she was here, in the gloom, amongst the trees, blindly picking her way along the gravel path. This is Margret’s fault, she fretted. All of it: The party. The elicit drinking. The shortcut home. Why had she listened? Why did she ever listen to Margret? She glanced at her watch and groaned inside. Her mother was going to nail her hide to the wall. She was nearly three hours late, her head was swimming in vodka and if she’d had a moment, she would have crawled into the bushes and tossed up the contents of her stomach. All because of Margret and her stupid ideas. This is how you meet guys? She heard the noise again. Louder this time. Closer. She ground to a halt, the blood pounding at her temples and her breath clenched within the bands of her chest. “Hello...?” She might have heard a swearword, lightly exhaled. She looked behind, eyes trying to penetrate the shadows but she couldn’t be sure. Her mind felt locked in dust; sweat bursting from her pores. She turned and she ran! But her high-heels slipped; she lost traction in the gravel. She heard the foot-falls, just behind. Pounding persistently. Gaining. She cried out and turned wildly into the darkness but it was no good. She felt the hand twist in her collar; felt her head snap back. And suddenly she was falling, being wrenched down, dropping, her bare knees biting the gravel. She screamed again as he rolled her over; his crushing weight slamming into her, pressing the breath from her lungs. Her hands came up instinctively to protect her face. But she wasn’t strong enough. “Fuckin’ cunt!” He hit her so hard her head collided with the rocks and rebounded; bouncing up to meet his fists. “No!” she cried as he took her by the hair; lifted her. She sensed the hand slicing through the darkness but there was nothing she could do. He swung down and hit her a vicious blow. For a second time she felt the back of her head grind into the sharp edges of stone and when he drew back a third time she did her best to turn away. She wanted to vomit but there was only stomach bile. She wanted to disbelieve but there was only another fist. Blood erupted from her nose. His breath was in her face. “b***h! I’m gonna f**k you hard!” He grabbed her by the neck. He smelled like musty shoe-leather and the glove tightened around her throat. There was a rush of light behind her eyes and the sound of far-off insects in her ears. He slid down along her tummy, rubbing against her. She could feel the hardness; his arousal. A profound sadness settled over her: She had tried, done her best, but she had come up short. Wasn’t strong enough; wasn’t invincible. It was done. She knew she was about to lose her life and having been raised a good Catholic girl she wondered why the Lord had forsaken her. She fell back; hands empty at her sides. The humiliation and denigration didn’t matter now. She was only concerned with how much it would hurt to die. She didn’t worry about what her friends might think when her body was found, naked and twisted. Nor what her mother would say; but her little sister was different: Don’t think badly of me. And then his voice broke into her sorrow and oddly, it gave her hope. “Be still, now. Not a sound or I’ll have to cut you. Please. Don’t make me cut you. Be still.” Please let me be safe. She lay quietly, then. Let him take what he wanted. Sue held out her hands, willingly, to be cinched up in twisted wire. She let him place her panties into her mouth. She let him roll her over onto her tummy, push her dress up and move her legs apart. Sue felt his hands on her buttocks; lifting, separating. Oh no! He did things to her that she had only ever read about. And she bore the pain through grinding teeth; watched as her knuckles turned ugly-white; watched until she crumbled and squeezed her eyes closed against the nightmare. Sue retreated; rolled her consciousness up into a ball along with the pain and humiliation; squeezed it smaller and smaller and shrouded it in the back of her skull. Be still. And she dreamed of angels. Then, when he had finished with her, left her lying, bleeding and seeping fluids into the gravel path, she thought for a moment that she could hear a high-pitched laughter. A girl’s laughter. Margret’s laughter. Sue strained to listen; but there were only the night-peepers. No... she set it aside, ignored the implication. Couldn’t have been. But what she couldn’t ignore was the heaviness low down in her belly. Silly... What did she know about it? But there was a difference, inside. She felt it; knew right then that she was pregnant. There was no logic to it; but all the same, she knew. She thought about having a baby. Sue thought of the Angels.