Hunted

by Bronwyn Heeley



  Hunted

  By

  Bronwyn Heeley

  HUNTED

  OCTOBER 2014

  Hunted COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Bronwyn Heeley

  Cover Art copyright©2014 by Bronwyn Heeley

  Cover content is for illustrative only and any person depicted on the cover is a model

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  ISBN: provided by vender

  Published by BonyDee Pree

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  [2015 edition]

  A BonyDee Press

  NSW, Australia

  bronwynheeley.com

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  HUNTED

  There’s only really one thing you can do when you escape from a madman; run.

  You just gotta hope he doesn’t catch up to you!

  NOTE

  This story was written back in 2011, on the drive up to Ocean Shore (which is about 30 mins north of Byron Bay)

  Truly though this is for that nighttime pit stop at one of the backpack killers more notorious rest stops locations where he’d kidnap and kill his victim. and you’re in the car all by yourself, only a truck nearby, and you’re not quite sure if someone’s going to come and take you, or if your partner, who’s just gone to use the loo, is even going to come back.

  And what are you meant to do if he doesn’t?

  Starts Here

  “Come on, sugar, it ain’t gonna hurt for long.” The greasy voice sounds like a hatchling of spiders crawling up your body. “Sooner or later, ya know I’m gonna find ya.”

  Shhh—the only thought inside your head, but your mind races.

  Your breath is too loud. This isn’t good. So loud and fierce the puffs saturate the air.

  You can’t let him get you! You’ve already gotten this far. You have to get further!

  The trees around you are loose but there are many, so many. You can’t see him. You can’t see anything but what’s right in front of you.

  Can’t get caught!

  Not again. You wish you hadn’t the first time. You wish you had known to run but you didn’t. You didn’t think much of him. Didn’t think him a threat.

  Your mistake.

  You should have known! You’ve watched the shows, the ‘how’s how of serial killers. You knew what to look out for, but you didn’t see.

  You didn’t see the evil lurking in his eyes. You didn’t even look, not really. He wasn’t worth it. No wonder he took you. The arrogance of you, not to notice your fellow man just because he didn’t have the shoulder span that you liked. He didn’t have the face curved just right.

  Deep down you know you deserve this. Deserve to be running bare foot through trees on the side of the road. In trees filled with snakes and spiders. You kind of wish one will find you, and then it will be over, but you’re not desperate enough to go looking.

  This was his fault. Your escape. He was too cocky, thinking he had you completely captured, completely knocked out. But you’re stronger than that. You woke up, you got free, and then when he pulled over because you made sounds, half vomiting, half suffocating—you knew that would make him check—you kicked and you hit and you got free. He’s not a large man. He isn’t anything resembling a man.

  You were lucky. Next time won’t be the same. Next time you will be used and buried in some ditch somewhere in these trees, somewhere where all the others are. Somewhere they will never find you.

  You know this, you aren’t stupid. No matter how much you feel so.

  You have to get moving, you can’t hear him, but then the cicadas are so loud you can’t hear anything. Nothing but your heart as it beats inside your ears, a thudding so fast and loud it’s little wonder it’s not vibrating the world around you.

  The trees aren’t that hard to negotiate, holding on to one as you move around it. Man, you really wish you had shoes on. And when the wishing comes you guess things would help if you had on something other than your shorts and tee.

  It was a hot day yesterday, today you feel is probably the same, but you feel nothing but the memory of his ice cold breath as it licked down your spine, while he held you close, rubbing himself against your back as he started telling you what he was going to do. How much you were going to love it. How he was going to love giving you it.

  You gag; vomit pushing at the back of your throat. You have to brace yourself against a tree, your feet hurt. The shrubbery isn’t that kind to them. Your knees buckled, kicking him hurt more than you thought it would. A cramp has set up at the top of your thigh.

  There isn’t anything to do about it. You have to run. You have to get out of here. He could be right behind you!

  You look, holding your breath. There isn’t anything, but you’re not sure. You open your ears up; trying to hear what isn’t there. Still you find nothing, there isn’t anything. Your heart won’t slow down, you’re not sure if you care. You need to move!

  Starting up again is hard, your body just wants to collapse, as your brain wants to keep on going. It’s a fight to see what part of you gets what it wants first.

  You feel like your feet are screaming for you to lay off them. But you can’t. You have to keep on going. There isn’t time to whine. You can stop when you find somewhere safe. You can stop when you find someone that isn’t the bastard chasing you.

  Maybe he’s not, that bitch, called Hope, starts at you. Maybe he’s given up on your arse. You can’t listen; you can’t risk the beauty of your thoughts, because he wouldn’t give up. You’ve seen his face, you’ve smelled his breath, but mostly you know that men like this don’t give up.

  You can’t believe it, even as hope tightens up your chest, your lips loosen a bit, wanting nothing but to believe the thought of the safety that he isn’t chasing you. But you can’t let that be true. You’re not safe until you are talking to the police. Until you are out of these trees.

  Just get out of the trees.

  Just find civilisation.

  Breathe, pull, breathe, pull. You make your way through the trees. Your eyes sting, you’re not sure what it’s from, but you know it’s tears. You just hope it’s because of the ordeal and not from the fact that your body’s had enough, that you can’t do this anymore.

  You have to, though, so you keep on running, even though that’s not really what you’re doing. You know you’ve slowed down to nearly a crawl, but you can’t speed up, there isn’t anything left.

  Your next step lands you in water, it’s nearly knee deep. You squeal so loud the whole world would have heard you. It wasn’t something you planned. It wasn’t something you could help. The water was a surprise.

  Now he will know where you are. Now he will find you, unless you hurry!

  Wading through water, you try not to think about what could be in it. You can’t see anything. Its grey, weeds brush up against your thighs, curl around your toes. You can’t think of anything but what could be in here. Water snakes, frogs, fish—snakes! Every shift in the current makes you cringe, makes you want to cry harder. You don’t want to be in here. You don’t like it. You can’t see. What if there’s...

  You can’t think of this.

  Snake!

  No, it was just a weed, had to be a weed. Please let that be a weed?

  You force yourself to keep on moving. You hadn’t realised until that point that the sensation made you stop, but it
has and that isn’t good. You need to keep moving.

  Always moving.

  The mud on the other side is slippery. You have to pull yourself up using the long grass. Your arms are tired. They had taken the most damage as you got the tape off your wrists, not the easiest thing in the world. Painful. Slow and painful.

  You get up the side of the swamp, falling onto the mud when you’re done. It doesn’t matter you don’t mind a bit of dirt, not when it’s for a good cause. But you have to get up again and all your body wants to do is sleep. Already your limbs are loosening, relaxing into the mudded ground. Your eyes have drooped, nearly closed.

  No! You scream at yourself. Sleeping now would be giving up. You aren’t the type to give up. At least not when it was your life forfeited. You have to keep on moving.

  It takes a lot, but finally you are on your feet, stumbling along, using the trees to keep you up.

  You’re drained, so drained that your eyes are closing up as you walk, your steps are getting sluggish. You can’t—

  A tree runs into you, your eyes snap open, this one is bigger, harder than all the others, it nearly had you on your arse.

  You look around, something was... all the trees are bigger, spread further apart, the land at your feet is softer, less sticks catching between your toes, less bush rubbish to step through.

  Something excited flashes into your chest, giving you something more, something that has everything to do adrenaline. You are nearly out of the trees, meaning there must be a