short story (hunted)

Hunted

By Bronwyn Heeley

A Halloween short story

YA

There’s only really one thing you can do when you escape from a mad-man, its run.

You just gotta hope the ass doesn’t catch up to you!

[Side Note: this was written for this blog and has not been edited, had any one check it for grammar mistakes or even read threw by me more than once]

I actually wrote this on the drive up to Byron Bay (well, just past) when I was heading with my family on holidays.

~~~

“Come on girly, it ain’t gonna hurt for long,” the greasy voice is like a hatchling of spiders crawling up your body. “Sooner or later ya know I’m gonna find ya.”

  Shhh, the only thought inside your head, but your mind races.

  Your breath is too loud, this isn’t good. So loud the puffs saturate the air.

  You can’t let him get you! You’ve already gotten this far. You have to get further!

  The trees around you are loose but there are many, so many. You can’t see him. You can’t see anything but what’s right in front of you.

  Can’t get caught!

  Not again. Wish you hadn’t the first time. Wish you had known to run but you didn’t. You didn’t think much of him. Didn’t this him a treat.

  Your mistake.

  You should have known! You’d watched though shows, the ‘how’s how of serial killers’. You knew what to look out for, but you didn’t see.

  You didn’t see the evil leaking in the deaths of his eyes. You didn’t even look, not really. He wasn’t worth it. No wonder he took you. The argents of you not to notices your fellow man in front of you because he didn’t have the shoulder span that you liked. He didn’t have the face that was curved just right.

  Deep down you know you deserve this. Deserve to be running bear foot threw trees at the side of the road. In trees filled with snakes and spiders. You kinda wish one will find you. Then it will be over. But you’re not desperate enough to go looking.

  This was his fault. Your escape. He was too cocky, thinking he had you completely captured, completely knocked out. But you’re stronger than that. You woke up, you got free, and then when he pulled over because you made sounds, half vomiting, half suffocating—you knew that would make him check—you kicked and you hit and you got free. He isn’t a large man. He isn’t anything resembling a man.

  You were lucky. Next time won’t be the same. Next time you will be used and buried in some ditch somewhere in these trees, somewhere were all the others are. Somewhere they will never find you.

  You know this, you aren’t stupid. No matter how much you feel so.

  You have to get moving, you can’t hear him, but then the cicadas are so loud you can’t hear anything, nothing but your heart as it beats inside your ears, a thudding so fast and loud it’s little wonder that it’s not vibrating the world around you.

  The trees aren’t that hard to negotiated, holding on to one as you move around it. Man, you really wish you had shoes one. And when the wishing comes you guess you things would help if you had one something other than your shorts and tee.

  It was a hot day yesterday, today you feel is probably the same, but you feel nothing but the ice cold chill of his breath as it licked down you spin, when he held you to close, rubbing himself against your back as he started telling you what he was about to do. How much you were going to love it, and how he was going to live with giving you it.

  You shiver bracing yourself on a tree, your feet hurt. The shrubbery isn’t that kind to them. You legs buckled too, kicking him hurt you more than you thought it would. A crap has set up at the top of your thigh.

  There isn’t anything to do about it. You have to run. you have to get out of here. He could be right behind you!

  You look, holding your breath. There isn’t anything, but still you’re not sure. You open your ears up; trying to hear what isn’t there to here. Still you find nothing, there isn’t anything. But your heart won’t slow down. You need to move!

  Starting up again is hard, your body just wants to collapse your brain wants to keep on going. It’s a fight to see who gets what it wants first.

  Your seem to feel everything that goes on in your feet, like they are screaming for you to lay off them. But you can’t. You have to keep on going. There isn’t time. You can stop when you find somewhere safe. You can stop when you find someone that isn’t the bastard chasing you.

  Maybe he’s not....?

  You can’t believe it, but something like hope tightens up your chest slightly, your lips loosen a bit, wanting nothing but to believe that thought that you are safe that he isn’t chasing you. But you can’t let that be true. You’re not safe until you are talking to the police. Until you are out of these trees.

  Just get out of the trees.

  Just find civilisation.

  Breath, pull, breath, pull. You make your way through the trees. Your eyes sting, you’re not sure what it’s from, but you know its tears. You just hope it’s because of the ordeal and not from the fact that your body has had enough, that it can’t do this anymore.

  But you have to, so you keep on running, even though that’s not really what you’re doing. You know you’ve slowed down to nearly a crawl, but you can’t speed up, there isn’t anything in you left.

  Your next step lands you in water, it’s nearly knee deep. You squeal so loud that the whole world would have heard you. But it wasn’t something you planned. it wasn’t something you could help. The water was a surprise.

  But know he will know where you are; now he will find you, unless you hurry!

  Wading through water, you try not to think about what could be in it. You can’t see anything, its grey, weeds brush up against your thighs, curl around your toes. You can’t think of anything but what could be in here. Water snakes, frogs, fish. Snakes. Every shift in current makes you cringe, makes you want to cry harder. You don’t want to be in here. You don’t like it. You can’t see. What if there’s...

  You can’t think of this.

  Snake!

  No, it was just a weed, had to be a weed. Please let that be a weed?

  You force yourself to keep on moving, you hadn’t realised until that point that the sensation had made you stop, but it had and that isn’t good. You need to keep moving.

  Always moving.

  The mad on the other side is slippery. You have to pull yourself up into it using the long grass. Your arms are tired. They had taken the most damage mostly because you had to get the tape off your wrists, not the easiest thing in the world. And it’s painful. Slow and painful.

  You get up the side of the creek. Falling into the mud when you’re done. It doesn’t matter you don’t mind a bit of dirt, not when it’s for a good cause. But you have to get up again and all you body seems to want to do is sleep. Already you limbs a loosening up, relaxing into the mudded ground. You eyes have hung down, nearly closed.

  No! You scream at yourself. Sleeping now would be giving up. You weren’t the type to give up. At least not when it was your life that was forfeited. You have to keep on moving.

  It takes a lot, but finally you are on your feet again, stumbling along, hitting as many trees with your shoulders as you are using to help keep you up.

  You are drain, so drain that your eyes have closing up as you are walking, your steps are getting sluggish. You can’t—

  A tree runs into you, your eyes snap open, this one was bigger, harder than all the other, it nearly had you on your ass.

  You look around, something was... all the trees are bigger, spread further apart, the land at your feet is softer, let sticks to get caught in between your toes, less bush rubbish to step threw.

  Something excited flashes into your chest. Giving you something more, something that has everything to do with your last bit of energy than anything else. You are nearly out of the trees, which means that there must be a farm or something around. You noticed there were a lot of them while you drove around. They were everywhere and normally the ones with trees near them, where close.

  You were close to being saved.

  Oh, god, you can’t believe it, you close, all you have to do is get out of these trees. Be out of these trees and then you will see the house, and it’s all about getting to it. You can do that, you have enough energy to do that.

  You start to run, picking up you pace, letting the feeling of hope excitement lean your feet.

  You only stumble of sticks twice. You still aren’t looking down. You don’t want to know what you’re stepping on. You don’t want to see what your feet look like. You know it’s nothing pretty but at least you can’t feel it. That’s always the plus side to all this, you can’t feel your body, other than the bone deep need to pass out. But the rest? All numbed out.

  The trees brake free, you see K’s and K’s of open land, but there’s a house, right there, in front of all that sugar cane.

  You swallow, but it’s no use, to get to the house you have to go through the cane, you don’t have a chose, do you?

  You look back into the trees, there isn’t anyone behind you. Good news.

  You start running, you are going as fast as you can, which isn’t much. There isn’t a lot left in you, but you will make it you have to. There isn’t another option for you. You will make it to that house, you will get help.

  The lands that this place owns are all cut off into squares; each square is at a different part of growth. Some the earth has just been tossed, others have little sapling type sprouts, nothing but green grass like plants sticking up, others are nearly as high as you middle.

  You can make most of the house with nothing more than the dirt, or open enough ground so you can see. But you have to go through one lot of plants. You’ve heard it’s the worse stuff to go through. That basically you shouldn’t. It’s said that when they burn it off they have to lock up there house, seal off any place that you can watch as the grass goes up, and the snakes come out looking for a new home. It’s also said, that Australia has the most of the most venomous snakes in the world. Or is it only two?

  You aren’t sure, but you aren’t looking forward to going into all that thick grass, it’s going to be a nightmare but at least you will get out and there will be people there to help you.

  The grass feels weird as you step in, making light work of your feet as you can, only stepping when you have to, you become quicker, the adrenalin of both being in a snake pit and nearly getting free, help as you move through the thick leaves. But still it’s slow work. They are all weaved together and yet are separate, they are thick and it’s slow moving, no matter who fast you work your feet and hands.

  You’re scared, more so than any other time so far. You have fears that are more ingrained than that of a man wanting to rape and kill you. Snakes are one of your big ones, and this is a test so strong that you should get a metal at the end of it.

  You went into a place that snakes would be, that you have been told would be and yet here you are, still, going through all these thick leave.

  More impressive, you’re doing it with bear feet.

  You get through the grass, taking deep breaths. More like gulps. Sweat is pouring off you. You can’t believe you did that. You want to jump up and down for the fact that you did. it’s not like it will ever happen again, but at least you did something on that.

  It clicks soon enough that this isn’t the end, though it feels so much like it. No, now you have to hope someone’s home.

  You move up to the house. Finding that the back door is a glass sliding door. This is good, you hope.

  You knock but no one comes. You knock again.

  You push your ear up to the glass, it’s cool and smooth under your cheek, there is the sound of a telly deep inside, it’s light. They should be able to hear a knock.

  You knock louder, shaking the whole screen with your fist.

  Still nothing.

  You feel a little desperate, you try for the handle. It’s unlocked....

  You open the door up, you smell something that isn’t quite right, but you don’t think much of it. You just want in. you just want a phone, to call the cops, to have someone save you from the man.

  You push aside the curtain. It’s warm. You call inside, seeing if they can hear you. if they are home.

  No answer.

  Still you can’t let yourself go away you need inside the safety of this house.

  You step over the line. your feet hit the smooth hard line of lino flooring. Its suck a relief that your eyes fill up with tears and you enter.

  It’s dead silent, something you really should listen to. But you don’t. All you hear is safety, the dull roar of the telly.

  You foll0w the noise you have to see if anyone’s here before you use their phone, not that you know why. And even if this wasn’t inside you. This need to check first, you look around and can’t find the phone. Yeah, the jacks there, but no phone.

  You follow the sound of the telly; your feet hardly make a noise on the way down the small hall.

  It opens up into a bloodbath.

  Your eyes aren’t quite sure what they are seeing. It’s a lounge room. Or you’re sure that’s what should have been here, only now it was just body pieces and blood. Blood over everything.

  You can’t think, all there is, is the blood.

  Your mind stops, along with your heart. You aren’t sure what the hell you’re seeing. You don’t want to know what you are seeing. It takes too long; this isn’t the place to be.

  You turn around and see him.

  “Hey-ya girly told ya you can’t run from me.”

 

The story, characters & incidents mentioned in this publication are entirely fictional