NaNoWriMo 2012 - Dizzy

I thought my 2012 nano was going to be a mainstream, chick-lit, travel adventure, but it is becoming more like 50 Shades of Gray meets Twilight. heh.

At least it will be interesting - to me at least. here's Chapter One

Dizzy

Chapter One – Night Run

She had been running tempo for two kilometres now. She sucked great lungsfull of air with every stride. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her thighs burned as the slope varied, more acutely with the increase in gradient. The asphalt path was dark. It was a long way between streetlamps here on the south side of the Bow River approaching Bowness. She crested the rise and saw the last hundred metres before the rail crossing. It was a gate wide enough for two baby strollers to pass side by each, a metal post in between to stop the passage of cars. She trotted down the slope cautiously, wary of the dampness underfoot. She didn't want to fall out here on her own, and have to crawl all the way back to her car, or worse, to have to use the cell phone tucked in her windbreaker. Then she heard it, the unmistakeable sound of footfalls.

She jogged down to the gate and paused under the streetlamp. She glanced back up the path knowing she would see nothing in the gloom. A mist came off the river. It crossed the tracks and crept up the slope towards the path. She knew he could see her now, standing beneath the streetlamp. Her lip curled into a sneer. Her gloved hand gripped the pole and she stretched her calf absently, taking her time.

Soon now. Soon he would be at her mercy.

Across the tracks, the path wound through a copse, mixed deciduous trees, now in full autumn colours but hidden in the dark of night. The mist infiltrated the copse, tendrils of it winding between the trees, filling in gaps and false trails, trails she knew like the back of her hand. She jogged across the tracks and entered the shadows of the nearest trees. A fifty metre sprint, then she ducked into a misted gap on the right. She crouched and drew deep, measured breaths, controlling her breathing to help her hide. He would have to run hard to catch up.
Good, he will be out of breath when he gets here. She licked her lips. Her tongue snaked around her fangs.

She crouched in the darkness, one hand on the tree beside her, one hand on the ground. The earth here was damp, she could smell it. Her senses were heightened by the chase and the adrenalin rushing through her veins. She heard a rustle in the bushes even as she strained to hear footsteps. It was some small mammal. She sniffed the air, muskrat perhaps. Fall rains had already turned leaves to mush, the forest floor was soft, quiet; there was no rustle of leaves with every step or breath of wind, not like last week..

She was dressed all in black: black Puma running shoes, black running tights and windbreaker over a t-shirt and sports bra. She could feel the chill of the damp air on her cheeks. She was cooling fast, her light clothing wouldn’t keep her warm for long but now she was warm, fluid.

Let him come.

His heavy tread was easy for her to pick out of the night, as keyed up as she was by the chase. He was running hard, but she heard a difference in his steps; one was lighter than the other, just slightly. Other people wouldn’t have heard it, but Jane was different. She held her breath as the man sped by her where she hid in the shadows. He couldn’t smell her but his scent came to her, redolent with male hormones which interested her. She also smelled his body odour, residual cigarette smoke and alcohol and his curried supper. She could follow this oaf in pitch black if need be. She rose and looked wide-eyed down the trail behind him, pausing to listen for any other. They were alone.

Good.

A stray beam of light from the distant lamp caught a reflection in the undergrowth. It was the rat. Two small shiny eyes glowed at her. She bared her teeth at it. It fled. She turned onto the path, careful not to disturb the bushes. She ran.

He couldn’t hear her footfall behind him, as fast as he was running, but if he paused.. Jane would be ready. She stared ahead. The path wound through the trees following the curve of the river bank. She could hear the water flowing over rocks near the shore. She could dump his body in the water here. It would be well downstream, over the weir, maybe submerged there, by morning. It just depended.

She caught up to him easily. He must have slowed. She watched his faltering stride and eased up. Should she duck behind a tree? She wanted to let him run, to tire. It would make him easier to deal with if he was worn out. He stopped. He was looking for her, wondering if she was still ahead of him or had he overshot her? She slowed to a lope, judging every step as she closed the distance between them, careful to avoid being silhouetted by light from behind her. He turned. She froze, clinging to the edge of the trail. She dipped her head and breathed into her gloved hands, hiding her bright face, shiny with sweat. She peered down the path at him through her eyebrows with her hands before her face. He didn’t see her. His scent was in the air and she thought she could smell fear.
He coughed and looked ahead. He walked on. He must have assumed that she was still in front of him. He was resting, she didn’t want that. She hurried. Jane sized him up as she approached. He was about 5’9” or 10” tall, maybe one hundred and seventy pounds, but a little thick around the middle, and he smelled of cigarette smoke.

Stupid. How can you run and still be a smoker. Put down weak-willed too. Still..

She cautioned herself not to underestimate him anyway, but there was that misalignment of his gait, what was that about? He stopped.

Damn! He must have heard me.

She rushed in at him as he turned to look back. She yelled.

“Hey!” Her opened hands hit him squarely in the chest with straight arms. Her charge jolted him off his feet and he fell backwards on the shale path. She stood over him.

“You looking for me!?” she yelled.

He looked cowed. Maybe she wouldn’t have to kill him.

“What the fuck?” he exclaimed as he scrambled away from her, rising to his feet. “Are you crazy lady?”

His eyes looked left and right as if assessing his situation. He reached into his jacket pocket. Her hackles rose. Maybe he was going to be tougher than she had first thought.

Sometimes you can intimidate the bastards and they give up if they think you aren’t an easy mark.
That’s what she told the ladies in her self-defense class: show them who’s boss.

“You think you’re following me? Jerk! It’s over, take off!”

His eyes narrowed as he produced a small knife.

“Oh, it ain’t over, bitch,” he snarled. “You just knocked me down. This is self-defense. Now it’s my turn!”

Jane took in the elements of her surroundings. There was barely any light. Their breath showed as puffs of white in the dim glow of the lights of Memorial Drive from across the river. She could tell he was winded. The path here was about 3 metres wide and shale. In places roots from the trees made ridges and bumps in the path. Footing was treacherous even in the daylight. Jane figured that cut both ways. She lowered her stance and angled herself away from his left hand, in which he held the knife.

Southpaw. Don’t let him catch his breath..she told herself.

Suddenly, he lunged at her. She decided to run. Her first step was enough to avoid the stab he had made. Now he was moving and she made sure he was committed to the run. She concentrated on the footing, mustn’t fall here. Jane could hear his breath loud in the still night. His footsteps sounded like drumbeats, heavy and clumsy. There was something in his gait..

She kept just far enough ahead of him to avoid the knife. Her fitness and adrenalin-pumped muscles made it almost too easy, but there was always the unexpected. She kept reminding herself not to underestimate him.

That’s when you get caught.

Ahead there was a curve in the path as it swept between two big chestnut trees. The spiny husks of the chestnuts littered the ground. She stepped on one. It split and her foot slipped turning her ankle. She yelped in pain, but didn’t fall. Her pursuer closed, knife extended. He heard her cry out.

“Got you now, bitch,” he panted, lumbering in for the kill. But he didn’t want to kill her. He wanted to cut her, watch her bleed and beg for mercy. He wanted to pin her to the ground and look into her eyes as he spread her legs, just like the others. Maybe she would even like it. Then he would kill her.

Jane hobbled a few strides past the chestnut tree, narrowly avoiding the root as it made a ridge across the path. She stepped to the left. The man veered left to follow her and she heard him stub his toe on the root. She turned quickly, planting her good foot firmly on the soft shale. It held firm. She saw the glint of the knife in his left hand and swatted it across her body with her right hand, catching his wrist as it passed. She didn't even feel the cut of the blade as it sliced across her palm. With a fierce jerk upwards, Jane caught his hand with her left hand and she turned the wrist in on itself. Using his momentum, she tripped him and heaved upwards with all her strength. She heard the bone break, felt the vibration of its shattering through her gloved fingers. She released him and he went down in a heap.

Then, unlike most movie heroines who, having momentarily gained the upper hand on their bigger, stronger assailants, run, allowing the killer to recover and resume the pursuit, Jane raised her foot and stomped hard on his knee. He screamed out as it crunched against the root of the tree. She stepped back nimbly to avoid his thrashing. He clutched alternately at his wrist and then at his knee as he writhed in pain. The knife, forgotten for the moment, lay on the ground near his hand. She tried to kick it up the path away from him, but he realized what she was about to do and he grabbed at her ankle.

Perhaps she was careless, had made a spontaneous, ill-considered move, or maybe his male strength augmented by adrenalin, was superior, but Jane went down with a thud and it knocked the wind out of her. The tree root caught her across the back and a jolt of pain made her teeth rattle. Her head snapped to one side and what she felt was like a bolt of electricity running from her lower back up her spine to her neck. She saw stars, bright lights and her head spun. Driven by his anger and sensing an advantage the man flung himself over on top of her. He slammed his good hand, his right hand against the side of her head and drove it into the shale pathway. She felt her cheek scrape across the gritty shale and she tasted blood.

Up until now, Jane had kept her fear in check. By taking the initiative, by confronting her stalker, instead of running, by using her wits and not inconsiderable self-defense training, she was able to sublimate her fear. She was highly motivated to keep her fear in check, because when she didn’t bad things happened. Fear led to anger; anger led to rage, and rage.. well, rage was a place she dare not let herself go. When she did that she left a string of bodies behind her, like in Wisconsin, but she couldn’t dwell on that now. Now, she had to deal with the animal on her back.

He ground her face into the shale by pressing down with his forearm. The buttons on the cuff hurt her ear and she yelped.

“That’s right,” he snarled into her ear. Jane could smell the stench of his breath, feel his spittle on her cheek. “Scream, you bitch!”

She was hardly screaming, she thought, more like whimpering. She didn’t panic just because a man was lying on top of her on a damp shale pathway in the forest darkness though. She could feel his weight and used all her strength to breathe when he shifted his weight as he fumbled to get his hand under her clothes. He couldn’t find his way into her pants because she was wearing stretch nylon running tights and they had a strong waist tie which she cinched up before setting out on her run this evening. He couldn’t break it with one hand and her struggling. He could feel his erection against her ass as he struggled from side to side.

How can guys have a hard-on at times like these? I mean, really?

She twisted her hips to avoid his clutches and he kept his full weight on top of her. She tried to dig her feet into the earth to get leverage to use her legs but he countered her movement. She had been a jock at high school and at St. Francis High School there had been a good boys wrestling program. She and her friend Teresa had insisted that girls had a right to wrestle too. They were partly interested in wrestling, partly interested in insisting on their rights as women, but just as interested in rolling around on the mats getting sweaty with the boys. She held her own in her weight class and developed some good techniques as well as a lot of basic strength. Against heavier opponents, like this asshole, she had to find leverage, but he was forcing her head down with his forearm and it was sharp, hard, gritty shale, not a rubber mat. Then she remembered - he was pressing her head down with his left arm the one with the broken wrist. She forced her right hand up to grab her assailant’s left wrist where it dangled across her head. She grabbed and twisted as hard as she could. Her grip was slippery with her own blood but it worked. He screamed in agony as the shattered bones were wrenched apart.

As she released his wrist and he fell off her, writhing and moaning, her hand fell on the knife. Forgotten in the darkness it had just lain there inches from her face. Now she had it, cold steel in her hand, a razor sharp stiletto, long enough to end her present trouble in an instant. Jane let her hate vent itself just a little. She imagined plunging it into her attacker’s neck, feeling his hot blood gush around her fingers. She wanted to see the fear in his eyes as he died. She could almost taste it. Her jaw clenched and flexed. Her fangs extended a little..

No! Not now! Not ever again!

She forced her face muscles to relax, twisted her head left and right and felt the bones in her neck grind and snap. She looked down at the man on the ground, clutching his wrist, his good leg bent under him, his injured knee extended. On his face was a look of sheer horror. He wasn’t sure how much he had seen in the dim light, but it had scared the bejeesus out of him. She smelled the rich stench of his urine. He had pissed himself. She was leaning over him, knife still clenched in her hand. Her mouth was open, her teeth bared.

Did he see? Will he remember?

Her eyes narrowed. He was pale, ashen, probably close to shock from the pain in his arm and leg, breathless from the pursuit, the fight, her struggles – wrestling took a lot out of you and he wasn’t as fit as she was. Jane thought for a moment.

Naw! He won’t remember anything and if he does no one will believe him.

She kicked his leg. He screamed. She leaned down towards his face. Her eyes gleamed ferally. She held the blade against his cheek, then she twisted the edge, and drew a thin red line from his cheek to his jaw, mixing their blood. His bladder let go again.

“Will you remember this, asshole?”

He lay on the cold ground, beaten, shaking. Jane stood away from him and laughed. She folded the knife and pocketed it. Reluctantly she unzipped her inside pocket and pulled out her cell phone.
“I should just leave you here to crawl back to whatever rock you call home, but the police would only track me down and then I’d be in shit. We can’t have that now, can we? It’s going to mean a lot of paperwork though, time spent giving statements, testifying at your trial, - which will take a year just to schedule, don’t you know? They are probably going to insist that I submit to a rape kit, to protect your fucking rights! Maybe I should just end you right now! “ She shouted down at him. Her adrenalin still raced. “Toss your body in the fucking Bow River. What do you think, eh?”

He shook his head. Somewhere in the miasma of pain and humiliation, lying there in his own urine, his bones broken, his blood running down his face and onto his neck, he still wanted to live. Jane stared at the hot, fresh blood on his neck and paused. He probably had a car near here, a job he would be missed at tomorrow, maybe even people he had told he was going for a walk along the river.

No. He can’t be that stupid, can he? Not given what he had intended to do to her. Or had that just been spontaneous? Jesus! Was she now inciting men to act all homicidal-rapist on her?

"What the fuck did I ever do to deserve this?"

She decided that tossing him in the river - after sucking the blood from his throat - was just too big a risk. If she really wanted to continue down that path she could do that anytime, and on her own terms. No, this guy had to go to the cops. She thumbed her keypad.

“I better have bars here, because I’m not carrying your piss-soaked ass back to the car park. You better hope I have bars, or you’re going in the river after all. Jerk!”

He was lucky. She had bars.

***