Three Days Missing
Hope
I’m not afraid of anything, which is why when the man lunged for me, I didn’t take off running. I didn’t kick him or clomp on the soft spot on the top of his foot like I’d been trained in a series of half-assed self-defense classes the school made the girls take for a P.E. unit.
Yeah, I saw the knife. It was an ordinary kitchen knife, and maybe it didn’t scare me much because my brain just wondered what the hell he was thinking of chopping way out here in the woods.
And then he was in the house.
He was inches from me, and I could smell him—sweat, dirt, something weird and metallic I couldn’t recognize. There was a sheen of sweat across his face that made the dirty spots on his cheeks glisten, and the hiss of his breath was hot and foul.
“Hey…”
He reached for me, his thin and papery fingertips catching me at my collarbone, then arching into claws and raking over the bare skin, his fingernails digging in, leaving a trail of hot fire. I stumbled backward, instinctively pushing out as he reached in. My palms slammed against his chest, and it was hard, solid, not what I expected. He was immovable, everything except the expression on his face. His lips curved up like a sick gargoyle, and there was light in his mud-brown eyes—and suddenly I realized he was enjoying this.
“Hope!”
He was fast too, faster than he should have been for an old, dirty, wrinkled man, and when I turned, I heard his hand slice the air a hairbreadth from my ear. The swoosh of it lifted the baby hairs that stuck to the sweat along the back of my neck. His other hand landed hard on my shoulder, slamming down so hard that I winced, a sharp, little Oy that came from somewhere way low in my belly. He was ripping at me, clawing at my jeans, at the hood of my sweatshirt. He caught me, and the zipper tightened around my neck, burning at my throat.
I clawed at my own chest, feeling my nails digging into flesh as I ripped at the zipper, wriggled out of my sweatshirt, and left him holding it as my feet registered on the hardwood floor. I slipped at first, and my legs went from heavy and leaden to thin and lighter than I’d ever felt them—and I was running for my life. My thighs burned and my fingernails dug blood from my palms as I clenched my fists and pumped myself forward, forward.
“Leave me alone! Get the hell away from me!”
It occurred to me that I didn’t know this house, that I didn’t know where to go. I was drawing a blank as I was running just back, just away, and he was gaining on me, kicking aside the coffee table and smashing into a chair that splintered against the edge of the fireplace. I didn’t think I stopped, but I must have, because he closed the distance and then I was flying, light again, sailing, until I heard the ugly crush of bone against hardwood.
My chin hit the floor. My teeth rattled and clenched against a flood of hot velvet blood. My head, my head… It was in slow motion. The last few inches of the tiny wood-flanked living room pitching sideways, the starburst explosion of pain behind my right eye, the cool rush of blood down my cheek, and then everything went dark.