Page 12 of Torment

I made a mental note to make a police report about the creepy notes as soon as I got home from my hike. Right now it was far too early.

Before I left, I fed Buddy and stuck a note in my landlord’s pigeonhole in the foyer, requesting a lock change for my apartment. There hadn’t been any signs of breaking and entering at my place, and while the explanation could be as simple as me forgetting to lock the door last night, I needed to ensure it wasn’t something more sinister. Like someone with an extra key they weren’t supposed to have.

I stepped briskly toward my car, my head held high. After starting the library job a few weeks ago, I was feeling much better about myself and my future. I was drinking less and keeping a positive attitude as much as possible. I’d even enrolled in a short accounting class at a night school, just to add a skill to my résumé. I wasn’t going to let some creepy prick drag me down.

Still, just in case, I checked the back of my car before I headed out. It was empty.

Maurepas Swamp was an enormous wildlife sanctuary near Laplace. It took around half an hour for me to get there with zero traffic. On the eastern side, there was a short hiking trail just off I-55, and I always walked that half mile into the swamp to watch the sunrise. It never failed to make the early rise worth it.

Today was no different. By the time I arrived just after six-thirty, the sky was streaked with the strange light of a false dawn. That soon deepened into a purple horizon, and eventually rays of sunlight began to peek through the clouds. The early morning humidity acted like a prism, painting colors all over the sky, and the swamp waters were covered with a rainbow pattern. I once read that the rainbow effect had something to do with films of natural oils from decaying plants. Whatever it was, it was perfect. A place like this was heaven on earth.

I sat down on a fallen log and listened to the birds. The swamp was filled with them, flitting amongst the moss-draped cypress and tupelo trees as they sang out their chorus.

Many people I’d spoken to over the years avoided swamps like this, fearing the dark, impenetrable reaches, clouds of mosquitoes, and huge alligators lumbering around. Others told legends of ‘bad vapors’ drifting out of the waters, making people sick or giving them years of bad fortune. Sometimes I even heard children telling tales of the wetlands being a home to all sorts of evil creatures. Werewolves, vampires, witches.

I wasn’t afraid, though. I’d seen evil monsters in person, and they weren’t out in nature reserves like this. They were the people you trusted. The people you thought were your friends, family, or lovers. Despite the common belief that strangers couldn’t be trusted, most violent crimes occurred between people who knew each other.

When the sun was well and truly up, I walked back to my car and headed back onto the main road. A dark metallic gray car pulled out behind me and sped up, almost nudging my rear bumper as if to tell me to hurry up.

“Just overtake me, idiot,” I grumbled, throwing up a hand. I couldn’t see the driver of the other vehicle properly in my mirrors because of the glare from the early morning sun shining right at this angle, but whoever they were, they were deluded if they thought I was going to speed up just because they’d decided to tailgate me.

I’d heard horror stories of people going a little too fast along roads like this before slipping and careening right off the edge into murky bayous. I wasn’t going to become another statistic.

A couple of minutes later, the car behind me accelerated again. This time they slammed right into my bumper, throwing me off guard to the point where I almost lost control of the steering wheel.

“Hey! What the fuck?” I shouted. Did this impatient idiot not realize they’d almost caused a serious accident?

I decided to pull over and let them overtake. That was obviously the only way I’d get this speed-demon off my back.

They sailed past me, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The breath caught in my throat when I saw them swing around up ahead, though. The car came hurtling back down the road toward me, and then the other driver veered sharply to their left, knocking my car right down the embankment on my right.

I screamed as I careened down the bank. Images of my car rolling over and somehow trapping me as alligators gobbled me up filled my head, but luckily, I rolled to an anti-climactic stop only a few seconds later. Twenty more yards and it would’ve been a different story, however. There was a dark swamp right up ahead.

Shaking, I got out to survey the damage. Aside from a dent where the other car bumped me off the road, everything was fine. I looked to my right, squinting into the sunlight as a silhouette appeared on top of the embankment. It had to be the other driver. It looked like a man, given the towering height and broad shoulders, but it was difficult to tell anything other than that.

“Everything’s fine,” I called out. “Sorry, I…”

I trailed off. Why the hell was I apologizing? This asshole just ran me off the road. It was entirely his fault, and he was a total prick. I had no reason to utter the word ‘sorry’ in his presence.

Deep down, however, I knew exactly why I was apologizing. It had been deeply ingrained in me as a child. Always smile. Always be polite. Always apologize. That was what good girls did. Especially when the other party was a man.

Fuck that.

I was about to make a snarky comment about the other driver needing to pay for the damage to the side of my car, but then he came closer and the words dried up on my lips. He was no longer a dark silhouette but a fully-formed person, dressed in jeans and a black jacket. His head was covered by a thick black balaclava.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered as this morning’s creepy note immediately flashed in my mind. The man striding toward me wasn’t just some asshole with road rage. He was the one who’d been stalking me.

I dashed back over to my car and whipped through my purse, quickly locating my mace and knife. “Don’t come any closer!” I shouted, brandishing them in front of me.

The man let out what sounded like a muffled chuckle. He took another few steps toward me, his gait breezy and confident.

“Seriously, stop!” I said, holding the mace higher. “Trust me, you don’t want me to spray this in your eyes! I’ve heard it makes you feel like your face is on fire. Bet you don’t wanna know what that feels like, do you?”

He laughed again, louder this time, as if I’d told a hilarious joke. Then he suddenly jerked his hand to his left, hitting the mace canister out of my hand before I had a chance to react. He came for my other arm next, twisting it behind my back and forcing me to my knees. I screamed as pain radiated from my elbow, forcing me to loosen my grip on the knife. It fell to the mossy ground with a soft plunk.

Adrenaline flooded my veins, and I tried to wrestle out of the man’s grip, desperate to reach either the mace or the knife again. I was no match for him, however, even when I applied every technique I remembered from a self-defense class I took a while back when I made my vow to never be a captive again. He just chuckled and held on.

Hot tears of defeat sprang to my eyes as I shrieked and kicked. I was failing miserably. No matter what I did, I could never match a man’s physical strength. Especially not a man as tall and muscular as this one.

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