by Linda Berry
His footfalls crushed the earth behind her, breaking through brush, snapping branches, his breathing thunderous. Any moment, he would yank her by the hair and pull her down.
Ann’s world narrowed to a pinpoint. Everything except survival ceased to exist. She darted off the trail, skidded down a steep ravine, hobbled and splashed across Deer Creek, heard the man bulldoze through thickets, plummet down the slope, stumble, fall, curse, regain his balance, resume crashing after her like a bear through a woodpile, heaving, staggering, steps slowing down as he splashed through the creek.
Ann ran light-footed and sure, shoes springing off the deep mulch of the forest floor. She understood the features of the marsh that lay ahead. The smell of peat moss and a current of frigid air guided her steps. Her footsteps sank deeper into wet earth and soon she was wading into the black shallows through dense clumps of reeds. When she reached a monstrous fir that lay like a great beast across the wetland, Ann crawled beneath the carcass of rotting wood. She backed into the hollow where Bailey once hid and refused to come out. Jagged wood scratched her skin and cold water swelled through her clothes and hair, shocking her flesh. Imprisoned, she listened, trembling. No sound. Then the heavy weight of a man splashed into the marsh and sloshed along the full length of the fallen tree, circled back, and stopped.
Ann’s body went rigid. Threads of nausea reached up around her throat and she tasted bile on her tongue.
With a short guttural sound, the man hoisted himself onto the trunk of the tree and it compressed a few inches into the bog. The ceiling of Ann’s hiding place pressed down upon her. Water crept higher, and with effort she kept her nose in the desperately thin space above the water line. The weight of her prison shifted as the man marched up and down the length of the tree. Agitated. Did he know she lay within? Was he taunting her? Or was he using the tree as a lookout to scan the surrounding wetland and woods?
A ghastly creeping terror rose from a place beyond thought. Her heart knocked so furiously against the cage of her chest she felt certain the man would hear. She heard him jump off into the shallows with a big splashy crescendo and the tree bounced up higher above the water line. For a breathtaking moment she didn’t hear him move, and then he waded away and the tree settled firmly into the oozing earth. Silence sealed itself back over the forest.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As one of five children in a military family that traveled the U.S. and Europe, Linda Berry spent her childhood exploring new cultures. A professed bibliophile, her life-long love of reading and writing culminated in a twenty-five-year career as an award-winning copywriter and art director. Now retired, Linda writes fast-paced mysteries and thrillers. She currently lives in Oregon with her husband and toy poodle.
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