CHAPTER ONE
1867 Words
CHAPTER ONE
Michelle's feet found the slots between the train tracks, her hands spread on either side of her as if she were keeping balance. Alone, in the dark, she felt uneasy. She could feel the eyes on her. She'd spotted the three men in the construction site earlier. At first, she'd hoped they'd let her pass without incident.
But now, they were leaning against the chain fence of their job site, chuckling to each other and making comments that were best left ignored.
Especially so late. So isolated.
She continued to totter along the tracks, refusing to display fear. With these sorts, fear was like the scent of steak to a pitbull.
“Hey there, pretty!” one of them called out. “Mind giving me a twirl?”
The other two hooted like a couple of gorillas. Their fingers pressed through the mesh of the fence, their eyes wide in the dark, beneath the glare of the moon. Behind them, a couple of LED security lights illuminated the construction zone. Fluttering, orange construction tape flapped on the wind from where it was attached to traffic cones set around an open manhole.
The men were greasy, dirty. All three wearing orange vests.
“Hey, sugar!” another one said. “You look cold—let Uncle Ritchie keep you warm, hon.”
She turned, flashing a middle-finger—which elicited another series of howls—and picked up the pace, still along the tracks.
As she hurried away, she glanced back. The men weren't chasing. They were still laughing, still taunting. What some might call some good old fashioned fun.
Her eyes narrowed. The sort of “fun” that would leave her terrified for months about taking this route home. Very, very fun.
But she shook her head, reaching a curve in the tracks and hopping off onto the dusty trail that ran alongside. She had problems of her own to worry about. She couldn't linger on the bad behavior of a few goons.
Their last howled comment had stung. Indeed, she wasn't warm. Nor did she really have a place to get warmth. Ahead, she spotted the trainyard she called home. Others might have just called her homeless. As she moved towards the trainyard, across the dusty path, her eyes were drawn by the glass bottles shattered at the foot of a brick wall.
How many of those bottles had she contributed? Too many. Far too many.
Her hands trembled as she stared at the glass, but she forced herself to look away. “The first step,” she mumbled to herself, “to solving a problem, is admitting you have one... Wait, no, that's not it.” She frowned, trying to remember what the AA leader had said earlier tonight. She'd been attending the group for two weeks now.
She hadn't had a sip in nearly five days. A record for her.
She reached for the metal gate which she'd left unlocked. A rusted chain wrapped around the bars, securing it to the wall. But the padlock was busted. The chain rattled as she pulled open the gate. Ahead, along the edge of old tracks, beneath a curving platform, she spotted her small tent, the cheapest kit she could find at Walmart and hardly more than a little cardboard and Styrofoam.
Home sweet home.
It would be nice to get some sleep at least.
She began to pull the chain back into place.
And that's when she heard the sound of footsteps. Chills erupted up her spine. A steady, loping gait. A jogger, she realized. Running along the path next to the train.
She glanced through the dark, making sure she was safely positioned on the other side of the locked gate. Her fingers shook as she adjusted the chain. She couldn't lock it—she'd broken the mechanism to enter the first time. But she draped the chain in such a way that it appeared locked.
Michelle's heartbeat kept time with the patter of approaching footsteps.
A swishing headlamp bobbed up and down as the silent runner drew nearer. She draped the chain through the bars, wrapping it around the gate, then stepped back. She shot a quick look towards her hurried bluff. It looked locked. Didn't it? It had lasted for nearly six months now, ever since she'd moved into the abandoned trainyard.
The less attention the better, she realized. She began turning to hastily move back through the yard.
“Hang on!” a voice suddenly called. A high-pitched, almost feminine voice.
The sound of footsteps went quiet. The bright light shone through the bars. She couldn't make out the man's face—couldn't make out his features. It was a man. That much was clear due to his sheer size. Though she couldn't make him out in the dark... he was big. Very big.
“Hey, Michelle!” the voice called.
The shivers spread from her neck to her arms. How did he know her name? How did he know her damn name?
“H—hello?” she said. Someone from group? Maybe she'd forgotten something—but this thought was laughable. How could she forget something? She didn't own anything.
Suddenly a hand grabbed at the chain. It pulled. The sound of metal clinking against metal was like the slither of a snake. She stumbled back now, quickening away.
The man didn't even hesitate. He pulled the chain off and cast it aside. She heard where it struck the smashed bottles. The gate opened slowly, creaking on rusty hinges.
“Michelle, Michelle,” he murmured in a gentle voice. About an octave too high, a jarring voice. All she could really see were his hands—the only part of him extending past the bright, LED runner's headlamp. Enormous hands. He was gesturing at her to draw nearer.
Her own throat was dry. Her heart was making a bid for freedom up her neck. She stumbled over a cement curb, but caught herself against an old, moldered train car. Splinters fell; one of her fingers indented the water-damaged wooden box on wheels.
She steadied herself, shouting, “Go away! Leave me alone!”
But the jogger wasn't moving now. He'd gone still in the center of the gate, his headlight moving up and down as if he were nodding.
She pushed off the moldered train car, stumbling over metal ties, hastening towards her small shelter. Little more than a tent and cardboard. It wouldn't provide much in the way of protection, but the small three-inch blade she hid under her pillow would.
“Michelle!” the voice called after her. “How about I race you?”
“Go away!” she screamed, louder. Never before would she have imagined that she'd wanted the attention of those construction workers. But now, any witness would do. How the hell did this creep know her name?
“I'll race you!” he shouted, still standing by the gate. “If you can make it to that railroad crossing ahead of me, I'll let you live!”
Her eyes bugged. Now she was in full panic mode. She couldn't afford a phone, couldn't afford a g*n. Pepper spray had been used last week on a handsy maintenance man. She was unarmed, isolated. Her knife—which she didn't take to group out of fear of being kicked out—was under her pillow. s**t. What did he mean let her live?
She broke into a sprint, racing towards her tent.
The man behind her let out a loud guffaw. And then a burst of wild movement. Thumping, rapid footfalls. Fast, faster.
Far faster than her.
She was fifteen feet from the tent. Ten.
She heard breathing, but it didn't come ragged or gasping from behind her. It was a regimented, disciplined inhalation followed by an exhalation.
She shot a wide-eyed look of panic back over her shoulder. The man was coming after her like a freight train. His body like a machine, arms moving like pistons, legs pounding the ground. He'd switched off his headlamp now. She could just make out a corded, muscled physique—a mountain of a man, hastening in her direction.
Five feet to the tent.
She sobbed, lunging towards it. Her knife was beneath the pillow. It would be there. She knew it would be there.
She hit the tent, scrambling into it. The zipper ripped, but she didn't care. He fingers darted beneath her pillow, desperately searching for her only—
Nothing.
She panicked. She skimmed her fingers across the ground, over the bed, beneath the thin foam mattress. Nothing. Nothing at all.
She spun around, one leg still jutting out of the tent flap she'd ripped through, her eyes bulging in her skull. A shadow fell across the tent. A large, hulking figure.
“Tsk, tsk,” the man tutted. His high-pitched voice still sounded feminine. “Is this what you're looking for?”
She stared through the flap. Glimpsed a flash of silver. A knife dangling in her tent flap. “Now Michelle, I'm really disappointed. Also, I said I'd race you to the railroad crossing. You went the wrong direction...”
The voice was jovial, friendly. Almost like a doting mother or a playful older sister. She didn't have fond memories of such people in her life, though, so it only filled her with more horror. She tried to kick out, to knock the knife loose.
But she missed, and he caught the foot through the tent.
“Stop struggling,” the man demanded, his voice going deeper, suddenly, rumbling. “Stop it—I don't want to damage you! Please, just stay still.”
She screamed as loud as she could, kicking again and again.
But out here, among the junk and abandoned trains, no one would hear her except the looming shadow.
He sighed. “I really, really don't want to hurt you.”
And then he tugged at her leg, pulling her bodily from the tent.
Her eyes bugged; her heart skipped. It was like she was a twig in the grasp of a tornado. She couldn't resist—the strength of the assailant was overpowering.
She tried desperately to kick, but it was like stomping at granite.
A thick hand pulled her from the tent and lifted her bodily, holding her upside down. She screamed, but the blood was rushing to her head, her throat constricted as she swung, staring at two, massive legs.
“I don't want to damage you, Michelle,” the voice repeated, gentle again.
And then she was lifted suddenly, higher. She felt a sharp pain along her neck. A sudden warmth.
“Just calm down, honey,” the voice whispered. She felt something pat her cheek in a consoling gesture. “Calm down, dear. It's all going to be okay now. I'm here to help.”
The pain gave way to more panic and terror. Warmth spread from her neck, dripping along her chin. She heard a quiet tapping sound against the ground where she dangled upside down. Her vision swam, her head pounded.
And then she lost all lines of thought.
- Writer
