Keep running!
Don't stop!
Don't you dare stop!
This played over and over again in her head as she ran, and ran, just as fast as her legs could move her though the unforgiving darkness of the forest.
Her heart was pounding so hard it felt as if it was trying to break free of her chest.
Her lungs burned, trying to fell her with life-giving oxygen.
Her legs felt heavy and ready to fall off.
Her eyes were stinging from the sweat pouring into them. And from the branches and leafs that tore at her face, making it even harder to see where she was going.
" Okay… I need to stop…just for a second." She said to herself breathlessly.
She was leaning over, her hands on her knees. Her butt pressed against a tree for support.
She jerked upright suddenly, when she thought she heard a noise. She turned in a slow circle, looking back and forth…trying to see what was out there.
There! She heard it again! A soft rustling sound coming from her left side. She stood as still and quietly as she could, with her back to a tree for cover.
Again she heard it. The sound of twigs snapping from whatever this is chasing her. But this time it was off to her right.
It's closing in.
Again her brain began screaming 'RUN!' But her body is frozen from fright.
She hears the sound again…even closer now.
This time her body listens to her brain, and she turns to run, but slams into the tree she was hiding by, sending her to the ground with w loud thud.
The sound!
She starts moving again at a fast crawl, and then slowly gets to her feet. She runs full out, looking back over her shoulders every time she hears a crack or a snap.
Looking ahead she has new hope. She is having a hard time believing what she sees.
'LIGHT!'
" I'm going to make it! I'm going to make it…" she keeps repeating to herself. Willing her legs to go even faster now.
A car zips by just seconds before she clears the trees and makes it to the road.
"Stooooop!"…She yells out at the car, as she jumps and wave her arms around in the middle of the street, " Please Stop!"
But it is already to far away. She takes a few steps forward to follow the car, and then change her mind, thinking it will be better to meet and stop another car coming at her. Looking up and down the street, she couldn't see any headlights coming her way. Then remembering that something was after her, she turns and starts to run the way that the car was going. She ran for maybe a quarter mile or so before she slowed down. In all that time nothing drove by her from any direction.
Just than hope started to build up in her once more, as the top of ridge started to brighten up with a white glow. That's when she see the most beautiful sight she ever beheld. Two headlights coming at her down the hill. Again she stood in the middle of the street, jumping and shouting.
"Here! Hey, stop. Help me…PLEASE!"
Then just as the lights of the car started to bathed her in its glow…
IT STUCK!
" What the hell was that?" the driver of the car yelled out hitting the brakes.
" It must have been a deer." The girl next to him said. " I told you to slow down going down these dark streets. Deer's are always running out and about when you least expect it…" she continued looking out the side window. " I hope no more are out there ready to jump.
" I could have sworn I saw someone standing in the middle of the road, just as we cleared the hill…" the guy was saying, looking from one side of the road to the other.
" Yea, right. Who in their right mind, would be out here…the girl said still searching the woods.
" I'm telling you it looked like a…"
" It wasn't. It was a deer. Now lets go.
With that, they drove on. Not seeing the line of blood they just passed through.