By Bev Vincent
August 2005
Something primal within me sensed the clenched hand approaching my
face. With no time to turn away, my eyes clamped shut of their own
volition and I tensed in anticipation of the impact. I couldn't blame
anyone else. The fault was entirely my own.
* * *
On Saturday afternoon, I saw him on the bus, sitting three seats
behind me. He tried to hide behind a newspaper, but I knew he was
watching. Trying not to let panic overwhelm me, I pretended to look out a
side window every few minutes to see if he was still there.
He sat at the back of the repertory theater where I spend Wednesday
evenings watching Hitchcock movies. Monitoring him there was harder than
on the bus. I checked my watch and looked over my shoulder from time to
time-as if expecting someone to join me-until the lights went down and I
had to rely on my intuition to know that he was still behind me.
Each time I saw him, he looked a little different.
I
encountered him again in the produce aisle at the grocery store, where he
was examining tired spinach leaves. A few minutes later, I saw him peeling
back the husks on corncobs to inspect the kernels. He asked the
greengrocer a question, but I couldn't hear what he said.
I
knew why he was following me. Somehow he had discovered my forbidden
passion and had made it his duty to ensure I kept my distance. Determined
to free myself of his pursuit, I tried to speak with him on the street one
day, to tell him that I knew she could never be mine, but the moment I
turned toward him he vanished into the crowd.
When he showed up at my workplace, delivering boxes of doughnuts as
a gift from one of our regular vendors, I stared at him in amazement. He
furrowed his brow and looked away. I had to do something.
On a dark street corner near a bus stop, I waited. The sound of his
leather soles against the concrete fell upon my ears before I saw him.
After he passed, I crept up from behind. He stiffened when my knife
pressed between two ribs.
The bus arrived on time. "Get on," I said. I even paid his fare. He
tried to glance at me after we took our seats, but I pushed the
knife-hidden beneath my overcoat-into his side hard enough to part cotton
and puncture skin, and ordered him to look straight ahead. He opened his
mouth to respond. I twisted the knife. He sucked air between clenched
teeth, but remained silent.
The bus's air brakes chuffed and hissed after we disembarked at my
house at the edge of town.
"What do you want?" my pursuer asked. "I don't have much money."
His voice was thin and uncertain. Sweat beaded on his brow in spite of the
evening chill. His hands were clenched at his side.
I
didn't answer. With my knife pressed into his back, I directed him toward
the back shed. Before we got there, I grabbed a thick limb from a stack of
firewood and swung, making solid contact with his head. He collapsed with
a grunt that sounded like the word "truth."
Anxiety gripped me, and I was suddenly suspicious that someone had
followed us. I heard footsteps among the nettles and turned.
Nothing.
Someone whispered my name. When I peered into the woods, I was sure
a figure moved from behind one tree trunk to another. I stood completely
still to make myself invisible. Five minutes I stayed like that, but I
heard and saw nothing.
Yet, when I returned my attention to the task that lay before me, I
couldn't shake the sensation that someone was creeping up on me. My heart
pounded. My throat and mouth were dry. I won't look, I told myself, but I
couldn't prevent the occasional glance over my shoulder. My body was so
charged with adrenaline, my nerves so on edge, that if someone had laid a
hand on my shoulder, I would have collapsed from shock.
The job, gruesome as it was, remained. I convinced myself that no
one was watching me. No one was calling out my name. That was just my
head, telling me lies.
I
decided to start small and work my way up. I placed his limp arm on the
chopping block and swung a mighty blow with the axe, severing his clenched
hand at the wrist.
That's when it hit me.
THE END
[Story prompt: Begin a tale with a punch in the
face.]
