based on
Excerpts from e-mail to my cyber lover
Prologue
***As I walk pass you in the crowded streets, I brush against you, My hands lingering a moment on your rear, giving a slight squeeze before I disappear into the crowd***
A casual brush against a stranger in a crowd may turn into being followed by the stranger, or being stalked. You may turn into the prey of a hungry predator, hunting you down to satisfy some primal urge.
*
Chapter One
It's the first day of a short vacation, a few days off from work. This first day was spent window shopping, just wandering the crowded streets looking in store windows and daydreaming about the outfits you'd buy if your next pay check was a little bigger. As you walk through the crowed streets, a man brushes against you, which isn't that odd, after all it is a Crowded street. His hand lingers a moment too long on your rear, giving a slight squeeze. Quickly, you spin around to slap the little pervert, but he has already disappeared into the crowd. And the little incident is quickly forgotten as you continue your day.
When you've had enough of window shopping, you decide to take a short cut home. You turn down a quiet alley way, away from the busy street. The sounds of the crowd diminish as you get farther down the alley, until the only sound you hear is that of your heels clicking on the pavement.
After a while you notice another sound, and then another. The first is the soft sound of boots stepping lightly on the pavement somewhere behind you. The second is the sound of your own heart beating as you realize your not alone in the alley.
You turn to see what's behind you and you see, about 15 yards behind you, a man in a black trench coat. You can tell he's wearing sunglasses and boots, but you can't tell much more than that, the alley is dimly lit, and his image is silhouetted by the lights on the bright main street that you left behind.
His gait doesn't waiver when you turn to look at him. He shows no acknowledgment that you have seen him, he just keeps walking, toward you. Your fear takes control and you start to run. With out looking back, you reach the corner and turn and keep running. After a while of running, you take a quick glance behind you. There's none to be seen. Full of adrenaline, you find the energy to run all the way home.
When you get to your front door, you take a good look around as you fumble with your keys. There's no one in sight, and no sounds except your own heart pounding in your chest. Once you get in your house, and lock the door behind you, you might chuckle nervously to yourself, rationalizing the he was probably someone else who decided to use the same shortcut as you, and wasn't after you at all.
Your still a bit uneasy, and still breathing a bit hard, from the run home, till a lone car drives by, and then your breath stops in a slight gasp. It wasn't the car that caused this, but it's headlights, because as it drove by, it momentarily lit up the street. In this brief flash of light, you noticed through the slit in your curtains, a man standing across the street. It looked like the same man as in the alley. He was just standing, facing your house.
Being a rational person, you reach for the phone to report to the police. You've already started dialing before you realize that there's no dial tone.
Chapter Two
Panic fills you. With no phone, there's no way to call for help. You can't run for help, because he might be waiting just out side for you. He could be waiting for you to fall asleep, so he could sneak in and...you stop the thought there, not wanting to think about what he might do.
You rationalize that the best thing would be just to wait till morning, and in the daylight you could run to a neighbor's house for help. All the doors are locked, and if he breaks in, you should hear him and be able to leave the house through another door. You get a large carving knife from the kitchen and sit in a chair half way between the front door and the back door, so if he comes in one, you can go out the other.
It's late, and your already tired from all that running. As you sit there, your head tips a bit. You nod off for just a moment. You awake with a start, and shake your head trying to drive away the sleepiness. You decide that some coffee might help keep you awake till daylight. You go into the kitchen and put some water in the coffee maker. After you put the coffee in, you sit down to wait for it to perk. Looking around the room, something seems odd, but you can't quite put your finger on it.
The coffee maker is gurgling. The clock on the microwave is silently ticking away the minutes. You didn't realize before how late you'd stayed out tonight. But everything seems normal, there's nothing out of place. Every dish is put away(you washed the dishes before you went out tonight), and every cup is in the right spot. In the right spot... you now realize that the knife you took out is now back in the knife rack. You had forgotten about it when you had nodded off.
You look to the door way to the room you were sitting in before. The light is off. You had turned it on when you came in the house. But now it's off. It must have gone off while your back was turned to make the coffee. He must be in the house. You pick up the knife, again. You move slowly toward the back door, watching the doorway to the other room.
With out turning toward the back door, you reach behind you to unlock the deadbolt. And you notice something else wrong. Your deadbolt latch is missing. You turn and glance at the door quickly. Your deadbolt has been replaced with another, you now need a key to open it from this side. You're now trapped, the only way out is through the darkened room to the front door.
You move around the room to look through the doorway. From the light in the kitchen you can just make out the glint from the doorknob on the front door, across the dark room. The window over the sink is too small to move through quickly and the back door is too massive for little you to bust through it any time soon. You think your only chance is to run for the front door.
You inch toward the doorway, trying intently to peer through the darkness. When you get to the threshold, you jab blindly around the corner, but hit only air. You quickly reach around and flip the switch.
"click." Nothing happens. "click, click, click." You flip it repeatedly. Nothing happens. You move slowly into the room with the knife in front of you pointing toward the shadows. You walk slowly through the room, ready to stab at anything that moves. Nothing happens. You're ready to be jumped the moment you reach the front door. When you reach it, nothing happens. You unlock the deadbolt and turn the doorknob, and nothing happens. The door doesn't open. There's no resistance in the knob, you can turn it all the way around, around and around. It's not opening the door.
You were already somewhat in a state of panic, now you're utterly terrified. You start to feel dizzy and realize that you are holding your breathe. You force the air out of you lungs and try to take a deep breath. You find yourself concentrating on your breathing. Trying to keep it from being shallow. Now would be a bad time to pass out from hyperventilation.
The front window is large enough to jump through and only a couple of steps away. You decide to take the chance and run for the window. You dash forward and put your arms over your head to protect your face from the expected broken glass. You leap into the window and bounce away from it, falling to the ground. You didn't hit the window. Someone was standing behind the curtain. Before you can react, there's a ripping sound and you're covered by the curtain.
You stab out through the cloth, only to have the knife taken away, pulled through the hole it made in the curtain. Then the curtain tightens around you. You feel a rope being tied around the curtain, around your waist, pinning your arms at your sides. You feel a weight pressing down on you as you continue to struggle. Your legs are pinned down and your ankles tied together.
You feel your self being lifted up and thrown onto his shoulder, but your struggling throws him off balance and both of you fall to the floor. Now you feel strong hands grasping your shoulders firmly and dragging you. None of your wiggling seems to be making a difference. You're aware of every step that hits your butt as you're dragged up the stairs.
With one last heave, you are thrown up onto your bed. He rolls you on your face and sits on your feet. He holds one leg firmly and then you feel something cold on the back of the leg. It's steel. You hear the sound of scissors cutting cloth and know that he's undressing you, one stitch at a time. He's not hurrying this deed. Slowly and carefully, on snip at a time. Soon you feel bare from the waist down to your ankles.