MILK COWS, KITTENS AND BALL BEARINGS!

(Write a story told entirely through one chase scene.)

As chase scenes go, this was not much of a thriller but it was intense and in my mind dangerous!

What I have going for me stealth wise is I look so common, so innocuous! Should anyone actually see me, I’m the kind of person you write off as too boring to bother with right off the bat. I’m easily forgotten! I am middle age, female, and I have all the trappings of a housewife. Plain and overworked looking. I even have a cotton wash dress, a shopping bag and the requisite black leather granny looking pocketbook. I guess they would say purse nowadays!

I spotted my victim or subject as he left the neighborhood bar. It was near closing time and he had been thrown out into the street earlier and had laid in the bushes being sick. I watched him closely. After peeing on the corner of the building, he went back in for one more for the road.

This gave me time to stash my pocketbook and shopping bag in the hedge near the school. I would pick them up again when this is over.

Wait, here he comes now! He is a sorry excuse for a man, always picking on women and other men smaller and weaker than himself. He has been on my list for awhile.

Damn, I wish he was a little drunker as he is moving pretty fast. Not much traffic at this time of night, so he is off walking down the centerline of the highway.  

I call this the chase as it will take all the energy I have in my tank to keep up with him. My short stubby legs are giving it their best. I figure he is headed about two miles out of town on a dirt road to the south. I need to get him somewhere between here and his dirt road. I don’t want his MaMa finding him in the morning on her way to church.

I’m running now, I can still see him but the distance between us is increasing. I don’t want to lose this perfect opportunity to eliminate this scum from our town. He is an eyesore worse than the derelict hog slaughtering facility nearby.

I’m making progress, closing on him but my breath is about gone when he staggers off the edge of the pavement and steps into a pothole or a place the pavement has crumbled.

His groans fill the air, he is cussing up a blue streak as he hobbles along, he and his ankle are complaining loudly. I hear him trying to blame everyone since Christopher Columbus for his bad luck and hard times.

Now he dips down into the overgrown ditch and swears some more. His left side is full of stagnant ditch water and he is furious.  

Just then the glow of oncoming headlights tops the hill ahead and my victim crosses the ditch and climbs over a barbed wire fence, I hear the tearing of his pants as he gets hung up and pulls himself free.   

I’m running out of time and distance, I’d better get this chase over!

I too duck through the ditch and over the barbed wire. He is stopping again to cough up his guts. They never learn those drunks and women beaters. This is a perfect place to learn one of life’s mean lessons.

I have a sock full of ball bearings and if need be, an ancient old fishing knife, you remember them, part of the blade was bumpy to scale the fish with, anyway I try not to use the knife, blood is uber messy! Icky and disgusting!  

I run as fast as I can now, I love this excitement, when I am closing on them. Closer and closer! Sometimes they hear me panting and turn to see if they are being chased by a ruptured whale or what, that’s when I surprise them between the eyes with my loaded up wool hiking sock.  

The sound is kind of like thwack! Soft tissue giving way to something hard and unforgiving!  

When I’m about two strides away from him he turns toward me, right on schedule, almost like we rehearsed this scene for a play. My arm swings back, I judge the arc and swing my ball bearing sock with all my might! I want him right between the eyes but this lands off center and I laugh knowing if he still breathes in the morning he will have one hell of a shiner on his left eye!  

He staggers back, falls to one knee, hikes himself up like a football player and moves away from me half running and half falling. I know I’ve got him either way but I want this over soon!

The dumb shit is trying for the road again so I catch up to him right at the barbed wire fence and this time I get him on his right temple. He stops dead still, then begins to waver moving side to side. I shove him over the wire fence head first and he falls about ten feet into a pile of rocks in a deep culvert! I hear the crack of vertebrae and/ or skull or neck...it doesn’t matter, really, he’s a goner.

I stand looking at his crumpled body. Yep! Looks like an accident! Sure could be a drunk falling a few times too many and ending up dead! No knife marks or fingerprints or blood. Just an unfortunate pervert drunk who deserved to have a little culvert accident.

I look at my watch, need to get home now, need to milk the cows at dawn and give some fresh milk to the kittens. It is true, a woman’s work is never done! But this is one sorry mistake who won’t be slapping women around any more.

I pick up my stuff from under the hedge by the school and walk the opposite way out of town. Before I can really see the barn, I can hear the old girls milling about knowing it is almost time for milking and fresh water and feed. It is a peaceful sound, the cows and early morning birds. A couple mourning doves are cooing in the pines and by golly, all is right with the world!