Ann Johnson - Writing Exercise #2

Ten days before the full moon, light only occasionally hit the road in patches between clumps of trees. In the first mile and a half there had been no cars, as there rarely are this late at night, and almost never a person on foot. Tonight, there was. Stepping to the side of the road, she watched as a tall figure moved out of the darkness and came toward her. With a dark scarf concealing all but his eyes, his footsteps crunched closer on the road. Something about his gate, the indirectness of his path on the straight road, the slight drag to his left leg, gave her the impression he’d been drinking. Her dog didn’t like him, ran out into the road and barked quick at his heels. “She won’t…” but she hesitated. Did she really want to tell him that her dog wouldn’t hurt him? She didn’t finish the sentence. He responded, but not such that she could understand. The slur to his speech, coming through the well-wrapped scarf, contributed to her feeling of unease. A few strides down the road she stopped, turned around, but already his figure had disappeared into the shadows of a thicker set of trees. His footsteps, however, she still heard, crunching in the layer of new snow over the winter of pack ice on the road. She waited, listening, expecting to hear his footsteps fade. Convinced they were moving away, they must be, she turned and began walking down the road again. But her own steps were loud on the snow also, and after only a few paces, she recognized that if he were to slip up behind her, she wouldn’t hear him coming. She stopped again, turned around, listened. Footsteps. She could still hear him. It had been at least a few minutes now since he passed, but she could still hear his footsteps on the road. It was possible the cold weather played tricks with sound. She was pretty sure his footsteps were going away. But why could she still hear him? Pulling the stocking cap from her head, she cupped her ears and listened again. He was coming closer. Turning around, she continued walking, faster, this time with her hat shoved in her pocket and her hood pushed back. She couldn’t hear much, but more with her ears uncovered. Stopping again, she turned around, took her gloves off, cupped her ears, and listened for his footsteps. They were still coming. Or going. He should have been a quarter of a mile away by then. Why could she still hear him? She was still a mile from home. A mile of long dark stretches and no one to hear her. Again she walked, calling the dog to her side, moving as quickly as she could on the packed snow. A third time, she stopped, turned, listened. No footsteps. Maybe he had been going away the whole time. Or maybe he had caught on to her listening and had stopped walking so she couldn’t hear him, wouldn’t know how close he was behind her. Moving a few feet down the road, into deeper shadow, she held her breath and strained to hear. Up the road, close to the main drag, lights came out of a driveway on the left and turned to the right, in her direction. Two bright lights, staring straight at her, the ass end fishtailing as the car made the turn faster than it should on a slick road. Anyone coming out of that driveway, anyone living on this road, should know to move slow. Anyone coming out of that driveway should also be turning in the opposite direction, to the main road, which leads to town. By taking a right, and moving in her direction, they were heading for a dead end. There was nothing down there but a few cabins, hers being the last. Walking fast for a stroll, but slow for her fear, she waited for them to realize their error, turn around, go away. There was no reason for them to be coming down here, coming up behind her. She had to turn her back to the car to get farther away, which she did as soon as she realized the headlights were pointing in her direction, and she cursed the bright orange coat she wears while walking so cars will see her. She didn’t want this car to see her. The dog was beside her, pressed against her leg, without being told. Together they walked, she watching her own shadow stretched out before her, her body outlined by the headlights that continued to follow, continued to get closer. She could her the engine now, see the lights bumping up and down as they took the frost heaves in the road without slowing. The lights still coming, nowhere for them to go but closer to her, she began to run. There was a driveway up ahead, not too far ahead, but the closer she got to the turnoff the more distinct became her own shadow as the light source came up closer behind her. She couldn’t look back, didn’t want to see how close they actually were, didn’t want them to see the fear on her face, didn’t want to lose a second by turning around. Coming to the driveway on the left, a long one, she turned off the road and kept running until she was closer to the house than she was to the road. The house was dark. Either they were asleep or no one was home. Stepping into the shadows, she turned around to watch the headlights go past. No headlights. There were no lights at all. No engine. No sound at all. Again, she put her hands to her ears, held her breath, listened. Were those footsteps? She held her breath, not easy after the running, but even the rustle from her coat was confusing the sounds around her. Maybe she hadn’t heard anything. Nothing on the road. But what about the woods? Could they be circling through the woods? Where did the car go, and the person driving it? She closed her eyes and turned her right ear toward the woods between where she stood and where the headlights must last have been. She remembered the mace in her pocket. She’d bought it a few months before, the day after the night she’d come home and found her dog outside when she knew she’d left her in. It’d been in the pocket of her walking coat ever since. She took it out now and tried to flip back the snap on the plastic casing with her thumb. Nothing happened. Maybe it was frozen. Taking the cylinder in her right hand, she dug the nails of her left under the leather flap and pulled. Nothing. The whole point of the casing was to prevent accidental misfires. Until she got that case off, it was useless. She grabbed the flap with her teeth, clamped down with her incisors, enough adrenaline pumping that she half expected to tear it to shreds. Nothing. A loosened tooth or two, but the cover didn’t budge. If she opened her phone she could probably see the snap well enough to figure out how to open it. But the light on the screen would tell them where she was. She didn’t know what to do. She could knock on the door at the house, but it was at least midnight and she didn’t know these people. Didn’t even know if they were home. She remembered a story from her hometown about a girl who was chased by a man faking a flat tire. She ran to a farmhouse, tried banging on the door, but the family was in the back room and didn’t hear her. They found her body on the porch the next morning. She could call someone, beg them to come pick her up, but how long would it take them to get there? Too long, after she’d opened her phone and the blue light like a beacon announced exactly which tree she was hiding behind. Plus they’d hear her, and in the time it would take to explain to her rescuer what was going on, she wouldn’t be able to hear them, moving closer. Or she could walk. She could take her chances, walk back out onto the road, take a left and head toward the dead end. Her cabin was still a mile away, and there weren’t many homes between, but it beat heading up the road in the direction the car had come from. Hopefully if they were waiting in ambush, they’d come after her before she got too far past this house, in time to bail off into the woods and circle back. But with all this snow, even in the woods, they’d have no trouble following her tracks. Slowly, cursing the cold that makes fabric crinkle like aluminum foil, she removed her bright orange coat. One at a time, she eased her hand down into the sleeves of her coat, grabbed the cuffs, and pulled them inside out. There wasn’t much to be done for the hood, but if she zipped the front up she wouldn’t be exactly what they were looking for, the black lining a strong contrast to the orange. She debated, with the hood up she’d be less visible, but she couldn’t hear as well. She couldn’t listen for the footsteps, know which way they were coming from, when they were getting close. The final debate, what to hold in her hands. The mace wouldn’t open, wouldn’t work, but she figured in a truly desperate situation she’d find a way to use it, though this was desperate enough and she was failing. The phone would at least dial 911. She put the mace in her left hand, the phone in her right, and walked up to the road.