It was a sweltering hot day, without even the most impotent of breezes to cool her skin, which was slick with sweat. She swiped an arm across her forehead to whisk the perspiration away, but not before the saltiness ran down into her eyes, stinging them. With a heavy sigh, she arched her hand above her eyes like a visor, shielding them from the unrelenting brightness of the sun, and began scanning the horizon intently.
Something was up. Something that made her heart beat too fast and time move too slow. She’d felt it in the air the moment she’d stepped outside, just the way she had felt all those times before, when her bitter enemy – her most insidious antagonist – had intruded into her life with all the courtesy of a derailed freight train. He had the malicious determination of a guerrilla army cutting through the jungle, and he’d gotten her in his sights, like a sniper with a chip on his shoulder, patiently biding his time until he could shoot to kill. A quick movement caught her attention, accompanied by a foreboding quiver down her spine, and so, slowly, she looked up.
There he was. Leering down at her with dark, beady eyes that were always full of contempt. He had the confident look of a predator smelling fear, and she wasn’t sure what intimidated her more: his arrogant expression, or the unspoken loathing that crackled between them like diabolical electricity. She wanted desperately to run, to escape the evil that he intended for her, but she was trapped like a mouse under a serpent’s hypnotic gaze, and her legs had turned to stone.
Sensing her distress, he took his cue, and settled into position with the familiar ease of someone who has performed this routine so many times that it has become second-nature to him. Oh yes. He’d seen that deer-in-the-headlights look before, and he knew that the time had come to execute his plans for her. She almost made it too easy for him, really, the way she stood frozen in place, and he glared at her fiercely, hoping to make her jump a little, to mix things up a bit. He liked it better when they tried to get away. He got to show off his skill then, and the adrenaline rush of the pursuit further heightened his speed and accuracy. She looked away from him, just for a split second, and he knew it was now or never.
Like an Olympic runner, she bolted at the first indication that he was going to pull the trigger, and if an official had been around, she’d have been penalized for a false start. It didn’t matter, though. She was never meant to win this race, he’d known all along, and as his ammunition hit his target with stealth-bomber precision, the victim fell to the ground with a primal groan that seemed wrenched from her body, and lay gagging in the dust as it settled all around her.
When a man finally came to her aid, having heard her guttural cry, the grisly scene that he came upon was one he would talk about for years to come. The woman had been struck squarely on the top of her head, which had the splattered appearance of a paintball target, and her body shuddered with silent sobs. Hoping to redeem the situation, the man looked around for any clues that might cause the perpetrator to be apprehended, but justice was not to be had on this tragic day. He could only wonder about the identity of the woman’s attacker, for he was nowhere to be seen. However, on the ground a few inches away from her, the villain had left his calling-card, of sorts: a graffiti-like splash of gritty white, surrounded by a flurry of feathers.
*written by Sarah M. Fox on 11/9/07*
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