‘He got inside my head. He twisted it, danced around in it, leaving nothing behind but bad memories and bloody footprints.’

      31^st October

      She tasted the earth, the dead leaves and the damp as she crawled on her belly.

      The bitter wind rose. It raged through the trees like something possessed, scattering the last remaining dead leaves that had once clung to the skeletal branches. Shivering uncontrollably, she pressed her body harder to the ground, willing it to open and swallow her whole.

      Don’t let him see me from here.

      Was she hoping or praying? She didn’t know any more.

      God hadn’t been with her when she needed Him the most, not for a long time. Not since the accident. Nothing had come to ease her grief then and nothing would come now. Why wait for some divine intervention to carry her from this wretched place? She could only rely on herself, and look where that had got her. There wasn’t any hope of escape. Not now. The gash on her ankle had seen to that. Nothing left now except the time before he killed her.

      He’d desecrate her body, but not her soul. A soul that had already been ripped to shreds and lain broken, slowly dying a piece at a time since the day of the accident. The day her life broke down into nothing meaningful, just something wretched, languishing in self-pity.

      The man who was tracking her would be following the trail of blood, seeping from the wound on her ankle. For all she knew, he could be standing right behind her now, watching in silence, waiting to strike the final blow. The great calm before the storm.

      Her bruised ribs prevented her from rolling on her back. She sucked in a deep breath against the dank earth, soil creeping inside her mouth, between parched lips. She dug her fingers in deep, nails raking through the mud.

      She pulled.

      Just a little further towards the bushes. I can make it. I have to. Ignore the pain.

      Then she heard it. She froze with the fright and the possibility that death was coming even sooner than imagined. She wondered if it was delirium or if the noise close behind her was as real as the hot tears falling down her face.

      No, the sound of crushing twigs was much closer now. It was as real as the heat of his breath now upon her neck.

      He appeared almost from nowhere, creeping through the oily blackness.

      He was determined.

      He would kill her.

      The hairs on the back of her neck rose, gooseflesh puckering her skin. There was a moment there in the darkness when she thought he might speak to her. She heard his sharp intake of breath… but nothing more. She hadn’t the courage to look into his cold dark eyes again. The weight of his boot pressed down on her neck, burying her face deeper into the soil.

      Sweet Jesus, just let this be over quickly.

      He stooped down close, replaced his boot with an icy hand. She braced herself. Her eyes squeezed shut when she felt the sharp tip of the blade, the cold edge of steel.

      She felt no pain at first, just a forceful punch to the neck.

      Then came the pain.

      She felt her warm blood pouring down her neck, onto the ground, drenching the earth. Then the rain came. Icy fat droplets, pattering over her bare skin.

      As her mind took her beyond the pain, spiriting her away high above the violence below, the last thoughts that ran through her head were of her husband and their two children.

      She could see them clearly, as alive now as they had been a year ago. They were playing in the cornfield behind the house