Blood Storm – Read for FREE
Cars hurtle past Clarice, their taillights painting red streaks across her eyes. Stereos thump bass, and she can feel it in her chest. In the distance, the neon lights of countless tourist shops burn brightly.
She has walked for almost an hour now. Lost and afraid. Feet ache. The discount heels aren’t helping matters.
The late summer heat is a second skin she can’t peel off. It weighs her down. Slumps her back and makes her knees heavy.
As she passes a vacant storefront, she sees her reflection in the glass—the dark, curly hair matted to her head as the sweat pours off in buckets.
The sun is below the ground now, the blues and magentas of gloaming rapidly draining to black. She sneaks a glance over her shoulder but no one is following. Just her mind playing tricks on her, turning every shadow malevolent.
She abandoned her car after the temperature light spiked and steam rolled out of the hood. Of course, the phone is dead. Damn battery drains if she looks at it wrong.
Clarice stumbles through the wrong side of Sunset Island and thinks she knows where she is. If she is correct about her location, the boardwalk is only five blocks away. There the lights will be bright, the streets lined with vacationing families. Safety. Someone will help her.
The faraway blinking lights become a beacon. They pull her forward and make her legs not so weary. She will be all right.
A dark sedan slows to a stop, and a man leans his head through the passenger window. Another man sits behind the wheel. She considers asking them for a ride before she notices the passenger leering at her. A catcall. For a second, Clarice thinks she hears the door latch opening, then the car spins its screeching tires and jets up the road.
She brushes the sweat off her forehead and moves off the sidewalk and into the grass. Slips off her shoes. Ahead lies a vacant parking lot of shattered glass and oil residue, but she takes advantage of the grass while she can, the soft carpet heaven under her feet.
Clarice is almost to the parking lot when she hears the big truck motor crawl up from behind. She walks a little faster, and the truck keeps pace. It’s a rusted, shabby Ford F-150. A dark color she can’t make out in the failing light. It follows along, falling behind then jerking forward. Her heart is in her throat when the motor guns and the truck disappears into the night.
Except that it doesn’t disappear. After she slips her shoes on and hurries across the parking lot, she sees the truck pulled to the side of the road. The engine is off, the dead-eye taillights extinguished. She looks for a side street, an alternative route that avoids the truck. There is none. It’s either go forward or turn around and risk the rundown section of Sunset Island again.
As Clarice approaches the truck she doesn’t see the driver. The windows are tinted but she can see a vague outline of the steering column. She breathes faster when she is even with the bumper, head on a swivel. A row of houses sprout up around her. Though many are derelict with sagging porches and broken windows, she takes solace that the worst of the resort city is behind her.
She is almost to the end of the block when she sees the man behind the hedgerow. He watches her approach, then steps back into the shadow and vanishes. It could be anyone, she thinks. A homeowner. Someone who might call a tow truck or drive her to the boardwalk. Her intuition tells her otherwise. It’s the truck driver. She senses him.
The darkness is almost complete when she stops. Perhaps the best course of action is to turn around and wait until she is sure the man is gone.
No, he will still be here no matter how late the hour is when she returns.
She veers off the sidewalk before she reaches the hedgerow, intending to cross the street, when the shadow breaks out from the bushes. He’d been standing beside her the whole time without her noticing.
Before she can scream, he covers her mouth and clamps a forearm over her chest. As she flails in his grip the man drags her into the bushes. Thorns reach out and tear her skin. Clarice bites down on his hand, the only defense she can think of, and the man hisses.
Then anguish as he strikes her in the back of the neck. A club of some sort. She pitches forward onto her knees and he clubs her again. The world spins as she splays out on her stomach. She feels a hot trickle of blood on the back of her head and neck and knows she must remain conscious if she is to survive.
Clutching at clumps of grass, she drags herself forward. Across the lawn of the unlit residence. Somewhere a box air conditioner rattles, and another vehicle passes. Nobody sees or bothers to help.
He follows her. She sees his shadow enveloping her own, a predator stalking wounded prey.
The man grunts and brings the club down on her head again. Her eyes flutter shut.
She can feel his hand around her ankle, grass and stone under her stomach as he drags her deeper into the darkness.
And then she feels nothing at all.
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