After Golden Hour

When she first began her slow walk home she was in a wonderful mood. It was her favorite time of day, just before the sun set for the day. 

  It was breathtaking watching the golden light of the setting sun paint the countryside. She loved how it seemed to make the grass and leaves glow. Loved to watch the warm light flitting through the trees. 

  So despite leaving her friends house later than she meant to, she found her self in no rush. As she walked she listened to the croaking frogs and the chirping of the birds. Beneath her feet she heard the crunch of gravel, and above her head the clouds sat soft and motionless. The sky was a swirling mixture of pinks and oranges. 

  Her light blissful mood was nice and it last for majority of the walk home. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that her light happy mood began to ebb away, replaced with the feeling of unease that sunk low in her gut. It could have been when the sun disappeared over the treetops, or possibly when she could no longer hear the birds over the lawn mower hiding behind one of the few scattered houses. She also didn’t hear the sound of someone approaching behind her until she felt a tapping on her shoulder. 

  Jumping, she whipped around and before her stood a man. He was tall, plump, and his skin was red and wrinkled clearly due to overexposure to the sun. Subconsciously taking a step away from the man to avoid the cloud coming from the cigarette dangling from his mouth. 

  He gave her a crooked smile revealing his brown rotted teeth and said, “Wander to far out of the city girl? You’re lookin lost.” 

  She sat there moment still bewildered by the mans sudden appearance, feeling strangely like a scolded pup. “Not at all, I live nearby.” Her words came out weak and mumbled and for some reason she felt like she had said the wrong thing. 

  “Well I’d like to help you if I can.” He pause glancing around, “do you need some water or.. you could use my phone if you’d like to call a ride.” 

  His grumbled accent was thick and hard to understand but his tone seemed almost urgent. That’s when she noticed that he kept glancing nervously towards the source of the lawn mower that was still hidden out of sight. 

  He started wondering towards his house motioning for her to follow him. However she didn’t move, just stood there unable to think of the right words to say to politely get away from this man. 

  She followed his gaze over to the house where the sound of the mower was coming from. The beautiful two story home was surrounded by open fields and blooming flowers. However she looked over at the mans house that more of a shack. It was worn and covered in shadows from the tall trees surrounding it. An uneasy feeling began to wash over her when the man finally realizing she wasn’t following had halted and glanced back at her. She began to feel her hairs rise when the man started pacing back towards her. 

  She began to take a step away, every instinct screaming at her to run. Then his smile had turned to rage and he lunged towards her faster than she ever anticipated he could move. He grabbed her arms hard and she screamed out from the pain, trying to fight against him but he only held her tighter. He began to drag her hard against the road towards his house, pavement ripping at her skin causing her legs to bleed. 

  Then suddenly he dropped her, her head hit the pavement hard but she didn’t hesitate she scurried to her feet and began to run. She was running toward the house with the mower barely registering his confused, “what the hell?” 

  Finally when I had almost reached the porch I glanced over my shoulder and what I saw happened in less than a flash of a second. She register 3 or 4 masses rushing towards the man before hurdling him against the ground. 

  When she reached the door she threw it open, thankful it wasn’t locked. Once inside she heard gunshots from outside. 

One. Two. Three. 

  She counted the shots in her head as she sprinted up the stairs two at a time. She ran into the first bedroom at the top of the stairs and practically threw herself under the bed pressing herself as close as she could to the wall. 

  It was silent for a moment, not even hearing the mower. What she could hear however was her panting sobs, she clamped a shaky hand to her mouth trying to stifle the sound. 

  She didn’t understand what had just happened. She was sure that man was going to try to rape her. Although she couldn’t make sense of what had attacked the man. When she had glanced back she register that there were people running towards him. But something wasn’t right in the way they ran. The way they threw themselves on him didn't seemed.. human. 

  She was terrified of the man and of those things outside. None it seemed real, though it felt real. She had never been more petrified in her life. 

  She flinched when she heard a woman scream from downstairs followed by two more gunshots.

  She tried to press herself harder against the wall as she realized that those things must be inside. 

  There was another loud commotion from downstairs and then she heard it. It sounded like there were more than one person sprinting up the stairs towards her and she sent a silent prayer that she could remain hidden. 

  She watched from under the bed as the door burst opened, it was a pair of old dirty boots and she somehow knew it was that man that had tried to grab her on the road. 

  Seconds later two more pairs of feet ran into the room. She could hear them attacking the man and him fighting back. The sound that came from them was absolutely not human. 

  They knocked the man to the ground causing the gun to skid under the bed directly in front of her. 

  Before her mind even had time to process what she was doing she had grabbed the gun and crawled from beneath the bed leapt got to her feet.

  One of those things was laying motionless on the ground already, but the other was over the man trying to.. bite him? 

She aimed and took the shot.

  The body rolled off the man and slumped onto the floor. She watched the pile of blood of the floor growing thicker and darker over the wooden floor. 

  She barely registered the mans grunts as he rose to his feet placing his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. 

  “Thanks, darlin.” He grunted and it snapped her out of her daze. She glared at him in disgust. She could no longer feel the tears streaming down her face or the shakiness of her hands as she held the gun to her side.

  All she could feel was the mans hands on her. She remembered what he had planned to do with her and she shuddered to think of what might have happened if those things didn’t come. What he still might do. 

  Numbly she lifted the gun in front of her. She paused just long enough to see the fear register in his eyes. She allowed him a second to beg for his life and only had a moment of realizing to herself that she had rather liked the site of him cowering in front of her. 

Then she pulled the trigger. 

-BDS