ten minutes off campus, to the southeast. Every day, I would cut through the woods, walk down Jessica Street for three blocks, then go left onto Highridge Road, and home. Three blocks south, four blocks east. Three blocks south on Jessica- I scolded myself, feeling incredibly stupid now- left onto Highridge. Left onto his turf. Suddenly the binding lease and the dependant roommates and all the thoughts that had helped me rationalized living here were irrelevant and I knew in my core that I should have fucking moved. I was in the man’s favourite killing zone. I lived there. Shit, maybe he uses that forest like a hunter uses a stand; maybe I’m just a deer to him. Suddenly I didn’t feel like walking straight down this road for three whole blocks. It felt like a very long way to go, like I was too exposed out here somehow. I know what you‘re thinking- I should have liked exposure, I should have ran down the middle of the street singing at the top of my lungs just to get more exposure. But I didn’t do that. I turned on the first right I came to, even though I had never once been on this street before. I’ll admit it: I was panicking and not thinking clearly.
A half a minute after I turned onto this new street, I gave a look backward. The man in the long jacket had turned onto this street behind me. I looked around. The neighborhood was full of townhouses and low-rise apartments- student housing. The streetlights all seemed like they were placed too far apart now, the spaces between the illuminated circles were too wide. There was too much darkness for me to cross. There were no restaurants, no Laundromats, no places that I could go into and kill time and wait for the man to pass. I had to keep walking.
I slowed down just a little, just enough to quiet the sound of my own footsteps so that I could focus on the sound of his. I listened to every step the man took and I could tell that they were gradually coming closer together. He was speeding up, closing the space between us. When I was right in the middle of the darkness between two streetlights I chanced another look behind me. The man had been back over fifty feet when I saw him rounding the corner, but now he was maybe twenty paces behind me. I slipped my hand into my front pocket and was reassured by the hard object that I gripped there. I needed a plan, dammit. I couldn’t just run, just break out into a sprint. I’m a heavyset man, always have been, and this guy in the trench coat looked tall and slim. If I ran he’d catch up to me, or at least stay close enough to follow me home, to see where I lived. No, I couldn’t run.
I also couldn’t just choose a door and knock on it, hoping that some stranger would be home and would let me in. It was too risky. What if nobody’s home and all I do is corner myself on somebody’s stoop, away from the protective light from the street? I looked at the windows nearby. Plus, what would I say if someone opened up? That I’m a coward and that there’s a scary man behind me. Last thing I need is people saying I’m a chicken. Besides that, there were no lights on anywhere anyway. It was ten-fifteen on a Friday in a college town, so everyone who lived here was out having fun somewhere. And I was alone on this street with this stranger behind me, following me, and gaining on me.
I made my decision then- I would slow down, I would time it so that just as I got beneath the next streetlamp he would catch up to me, and in the light I would see his face and he would be a normal guy and he would pass by me and it would be over. I could relax and walk home then, telling myself all the way that I need to stop being so paranoid all the time, that I’m not a chicken.
I started slowing down. My steps became shorter, and I took them less frequently. The man behind me didn’t slow at all. He kept charging right toward me. His rushed steps were getting closer and closer now. I leaned to the right, shifting to the edge of the sidewalk so the man could pass me on the left. But he didn’t weave to the left. I could hear his steps mirror mine, heading to the right. He was ten feet away.
I reached for my pocket again, seeking whatever strength and small assurance of safety that the object inside offered me. I stopped where I stood and glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see the reassuringly indifferent face of some neighborhood stranger. Guess I was wrong.
The man was five feet away and coming right at me, still not crossing to the other side of the sidewalk. He was reaching into one of those deep front pockets on the coat, closing his hand around something. I had made a bad call. I figured I’d let him get close and it would prove that he was a normal guy. But he wasn’t a normal guy. He had eyes the colour of blood and a sneer on his lips. And now Highridge was drawing his blade. My heart was so loud I couldn’t hear anything but its beating. The guy was right there, it was me or him and I was so God-damn scared, so paralyzed by fear and I realized that he was going to get me. I was going stand here like an idiot and die, and the maniac would keep on going, killing someone else some other day. I didn’t want to give him the chance. So I didn’t. Something turned on in my brain that said “kill” and I pulled my hand my hand from my pocket, flipping the blade from the old switch. As fast as I could turn I drove the blade into the maniac’s stomach. I withdrew the blade and stabbed again, feeling hot oil spray my fingers. I leaned into him and whispered into the killer’s ear and let him know that I wasn’t afraid of him. I wanted the last thing her learned before he croaked to be that he wasn’t going to scare anyone in this town again. I stabbed and cut as hard and as fast as I could and thank god- he never managed to get his own knife out of that coat. He dropped to the grass beside me, twitched his leg, and went limp. I took off running now, positive that he couldn’t catch up to me, but with no idea if I’d killed him or not. No matter what, I knew now that he wasn’t going to get me. I was safe. The Highridge Killer wasn’t going to get me. I got him first, the son of a bitch.
Nobody can ever call me a chicken again. I faced death, I faced a death worse than most, and I stood up against it. I’m still standing and the maniac who followed me home that night in September is six feet in the ground somewhere. I know I should just be relieved or traumatized or something, but honestly I like the way that makes me feel.
You know, this wasn’t the first time I’ve had to conquer my fears. I once had a guy with a gun come at me in an alley and I wasn’t afraid of him, either. And there was this guy in the park one time, a huge guy hiding under a hoodie who tried to sneak up on me. No one can sneak up on me though. I’m too good at spotting them. The one that got closest was this girl outside my place right after I moved in. She had a gun beneath her sweater, and she was so sneaky that I didn’t even hear her coming up on me. The only reason I’m alive today is that from five feet away she reeked like bad coffee.
It’s a good thing I always carry my old switch.
*****
Also by Shaun Tennant:
Novels:
Enemy Agents
After a secret branch of the CIA is compromised by someone leaking dangerous information, young agent Chris Quarrel is brought in to root out the traitor. The job is even harder than it seems, because the only people who could possibly be the mole are also the greatest spies in the world. So Quarrel does the only thing he can: he sends the world's top secret agents to hunt each other down.
Blood Cell
In the aftermath of a brutal riot that sees the inmates take over their cellblock, the convicts of Pittman Penitentiary realize too late that they have barricaded themselves in with something inhuman. Something with a thirst for blood. The warring gangs of C-Pod must turn to Josh Farewell, a three-time escapee, to find a way out of the prison, and out of the nightmare.
The Hex Breaker Trilogy (as S.D. Tennant)
The Hex Breaker’s Eyes
The Hex Breaker’s Heart
The Hex Breaker’s Soul
Short Stories:
Stray Woods
Bone Soup
Good Fortune
Heads Up
Killing Machine: The Duel
Killing Machine: The Chase
Killing Machine: The Rescue
Killing Machine: The Escape
Killing Machine: The Revenge
Killing Machine: The Complete Collection
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