THINGS THAT COME OUT IN THE DARK

The clear moonlit night sky illuminated the trees and shadows and the little creatures of the small City Park in an almost effervescent glow, as all around the area, things that slept in the daytime, suddenly began to come to life.

The light danced along the crevices and peered down into the burrows of the park's inhabitants. The shadows cast by the small furry animals, who were busily munching the grass, now darted left and right as first the scream and then the crashing noises aggressively descended upon their once quiet home.  

One startled rabbit watched from a nearby bush, as the drama unfolded around him. He weighed up in his little rabbit mind about whether there was a chance to run to his burrow. The rabbit moved back on his rabbit paws as he felt the tremors below him in the earth. Something was coming towards the clearing, in the center of the park.

Suddenly, and with a great crash, a thing came through the trees and bushes and landed in a dense thicket. Leaves and branches exploded outwards from the scene, as the woman jumped straight over the dense foliage. It was as if some wild deer was rushing through the park at two am on this Summers July morning. The sight could not have been more out of place.  

The rabbit turned on its heels and ran for cover as the woman finally landed and then fell through the ditch, her forward momentum taking her two steps after the crash through the foliage. The thud of a thump upon the ground reverberated through the planet and in one scramble for some traction, the fallen person was up again and running.

Her pursuer was grace defined, bounding through the trees, and landing upon the grass like a silent breeze. In a straightforward piece of human agility, a hand had grasped the trunk of a sapling, and propelled the attacker back into that very same stride, away and towards the first assailant.  

The predator gained upon the person like a wolf upon a startled human deer.

The woman got to her feet and tried to run, exhaling some oxygen, and trying to throw away the twigs from the bushes that had caught in her hair. She started to lose control over her breathing and could no longer resist the searing pain in her lungs and chest. She had run as fast as she could, screamed her heart out, and now merely, ran out of puff. She grounded herself in the dirt and panted heavily, while on all fours.

He mumbled, incoherently, as the woman, rifled through pockets and threw her wallet, and then her watch at the maniac.

‘Here, take it all. I don’t have anything else.’ She said.

He walked towards her, more casually now, still mumbling, but with murderous intent.

He grabbed a fist full of hair as he sprang at her, and then threw her face hard into the floor of the grassy park, stunning the young woman into silence.

The brute began to walk, menacingly around the fallen figure, exaggerating his steps and toying with her. He was living on her fear, as she began to choke on her tears.

The shaken, hurt, and distraught young woman began to brace herself for one final scream. She felt an impending death arrive upon her but not without one last fight would she let him complete his murderous act. She looked up, opened her mouth, but then for a moment, lost her voice.

The attacker had kidnapped the young woman, not far from where she now lay so very still. He had brought her to this precise location, before he had simply let her run away, through the park. The bastard, had only one thing on his mind, and that was to kill, but he wanted to make a statement by doing so.

He had slipped on his mask, and now looked through it, at her distressed facial features contorting up at him, and he smiled and realized that she would be his first.  

It would start tonight.

She stared deep into the dull eyes of the cow-face mask, a black and white dairy cow by any other name. The killer stuck his tongue through a tiny slit in the mask, to terrify his victim yet further.

The plastic from the mask reflected a little moonlight on the temples, but also on the six-inch Bowie blade that the attacker held in his hand. Still, her eyes were transfixed on the murderous blood lust from the eyes beneath the mask.

The blade went deep into her left-hand side with a forceful push, filled with effort. He let out a blood-curdling grunt, and then slit her throat. He hurriedly stabbed her fifteen times in rapid succession around the chest and abdomen. The murderer grunted and huffed little breaths from his mouth as he did so.

The young woman lay dying on the grass, and from her porcelain skin upon her face, there sat a single tear, which fell into the pool of blood, and dissolved away. The life ebbed away from her young body and the wildlife came to stir again, and there descended an eerie silence upon the park once more.