THE CHASE

THE CHASE

Nolen stood in the doorway of the drycleaning shop. The light above the door had burnt out months earlier and had never been replaced. The darkness didn’t bother Nolen, he thrived in the gloom, did his best work in an inky atmosphere, and had always felt that the darkness mimicked the colour of his soul.

He checked his watch, 1:45 pm.  It was Last Call but the exodus from Grimball’s Bar had already started. Several customers had already begun staggering out the door and waving down the taxis that lined up waiting like ducks in a row, to pick up their drunken fares.

Nolen ground his cigarette out on the brick wall behind him and began walking casually towards the bar which was just down the street on the other side. He kept to the shadows, hugging the buildings as he walked along the sidewalk, keeping away from the street lamps as much as possible.

 He was dressed all in unrelieved black, and his black hoody was pulled low over his face, covering his handsome visage. He kept his head tilted downward obscuring his features as much as possible. 

The door to Grimball’s opened again and … there she was. He recognized her instantly though they had never met. It wasn’t necessarily who she was but rather, what she was.

The ingenue of his dreams. The yin to his yang, the opposite yet interconnecting force, the being that would complete him, the balance that would be the juxtaposition of her light and his evil. 

She was with a group of three other girls yet his focus went immediately to her.  She was young, of course, he liked them young.  She was short in stature, slender as a reed, looking like she might blow over in a stiff wind.  The runt of that particular herd. Her hair was a light brown, unadorned but he thought how soft it looked and he longed to touch it.  Her dress was covered with small dainty flowers and reached just above her knee, the neckline as modest as any mother would wish. Her only jewelry was a small watch on her left wrist and a small gold cross around her neck. Like that would protect her. She had a small smile on her lips and her nose was dainty and upturned, but it was her eyes that were her best feature. They were framed by thick lashes and were large and widely set apart.  A man could drown in her eyes. He knew that they would light up with laughter, flash with anger without a moment's notice, dance with passion when the time was right, and smolder with desire. Or cringe in fear.  There was something else in her eyes, something that he couldn’t quite identify.

 After watching her wait with her friends for the taxis, his gaze fell briefly on her companions. The other three were dressed provocatively, in short skirts, and flashy low-cut tops that did more than just show a little decolletage; they were dressed with sequins and sparkles that drew attention to their assets. They were definitely eye candy but he had no desire for the sweetness they may offer a man.  They wore chains and jewelry around their necks and wrists, bobbles dangling from their ears like some Jezebel.  Tawdry, tacky ploys to entice the undiscerning man. Their high heels led the eye to their impossibly long legs but there she stood beside them in her serviceable flats and blew him out of the water. The floozies had those tiny little sparkling purses that only had room for a hankie, lipstick, and a credit card; useless pieces of fabric that he despised. Hers was of a more substantial variety and looked like something a real lady would carry. Their sequined ensembles outshone her somewhat drab little dress yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her.  

Yes, she was the one, not those other three. Harlots, every one of them. Nothing but bedazzled harlots. He had no use for those strumpets with their painted faces. His eye was drawn to her scrubbed face, her innocence, her angelic demeanor, and what he perceived as her frailty.

The other three laughed loudly and pranced around as she stood there like a lamb, quietly, modestly, fresh-faced, guileless, without artifice or deception. She was who she was,  she was without the need of approval from the other occupants of the bar. She was small and meek and mild and the predator in him rose up fiercely.

She turned and glanced across the narrow street as he stood in the shadows, and he saw her eyes again. Not the eyes of a lamb, no, those eyes were not the eyes of a lamb, although the analogy of leading a lamb to the slaughter was an exciting concept.  Those were the eyes of a doe. He thought about all he knew about deer from his years living in the country. Deer had a proclivity for being active in the night, and here she was in the dead of night.  Deer were shy, not stupid as sheep were, they were clever yet wary,  the perfect quarry for a clever, confident hunter such as himself. But she was so tiny, perhaps not a doe but yes, a fawn.

She was the fawn and he was…the wolf.

Every predator knows that when it is time for the hunt, the object is to bring down the young, the old or the injured, or the meek and mild who won’t put up a fuss. His ingenue had just such qualities with maybe just a hint of feistiness, just to make a more engrossing challenge.

She was smiling awkwardly, looking uncomfortable, arms crossed over her chest, closed off from her friends as they paraded up and down the sidewalk like they were on a catwalk in Paris or Milan.

Suddenly several cabs pulled up in front of the bar and two of the girls,  after a flurry of goodbyes, and quick hugs, drunkenly clambered into the cab. 

The doe-eyed girl and one of the girls with a red and silver sequined dress started walking along the sidewalk, the fawn walking confidently in her flats and trying to support her slightly inebriated friend in her high heels. He watched until they were halfway down the block then crossed the street and followed slowly, ever mindful to stay at, what they would consider, a safe distance behind. This was a deliberate move on his part, he chose a non-threatening, casual pace, it was not that of a predator stalking or hunting his prey. Yet. The separation of the herd had not fully been completed. The small and the weak had not yet been culled.

Several blocks down from the pub the girls stopped in front of a small apartment building, hugged each other then Miss Flash as he had begun to think of her, tottered off towards the door of the building. The Doe, no, the Fawn, Faline, yes, that would be her name; waited till her friend was safely inside the front door before continuing down the street.

He pursued silently. At one point she turned and glanced over her shoulder, she saw him a ways behind her and sped up her pace.

“Careful are we, " he thought, pleased with how observant she was. He did so love a challenge.

At the corner of the next intersection, the light changed to red and she stopped. It was now after two o'clock and there was virtually no traffic on the road, only the odd cabbie driving his fare home. She could have made it safely across but obviously, she wasn't a rule breaker. This too he liked.

She took another quick look over his shoulder and saw him advancing on her. She pushed the pedestrian button on the nearby pole and when he drew up beside her, she stabbed it hurriedly a few more times. She was nervous. Good! He also liked this. His heart began to race a little in anticipation. He completely ignored her, his gaze focused on the light that was about to change. When it changed to green he strode off in front of her with his long strides. He could almost feel her relief.  How misguided it was. It was a few steps further when he pretended to stumble. He knew she would be watching him. He then bent over as if he had tripped on a loose shoelace, and as he pretended to tie his shoelace she passed by him, confident now as he had thus far made no move against her.

But this was a waiting game for him, he knew how to play the game, even though he did make his own rules. He had played this game before. He had honed these skills for almost a lifetime in the forests of the far north. At first, it was just squirrels that were his quarry, then rabbits and foxes, and coyotes. Then he moved to the city, the urban jungle, where only the strong survive. So far, none had been stronger than him, so none had survived.

There was a game he liked to play, each segment had a different name. There was “The  Fox and the Hound.” It had been his first concrete jungle game and had found it very titillating, and stimulating. He loved the stirring and the thrill that ran through his body. It was orgasmic. His quarry that night had been a lovely redhead, he had named her Foxy Lady.

Then there was the game, “ The Lion and the Antelope.” Stimulating, but the hunt had been too fast and he had learned since then to pace himself. He decided that tonight's adventure would be “The Wolf and the Fawn,”  sometimes simple was just a better way to go. There were of course other games but reminiscing was pointless now, a predator needed to focus on the task at hand.

He was half a block behind now. He had learned from the past, that the expression, “slow and steady wins the race,” was more than just an old adage. It brought intense anticipation and expectancy and culminated in a climatic release. 

He was still a ways behind her when he passed a small church in the middle of the block. It was well-lit, having lights on the steeple and several spotlights illuminating the cross on top. His footsteps slowed involuntarily until he was standing still directly in front of the main doors looking up. There was a strange tug inside his chest, something that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. The strange feeling started to overwhelm him.

Was that a feeling of remorse, regret, indecision? Those feelings were almost strangers to him.  He was starting to feel an inner peace within.  How bizarre. His soul was never at peace. He glanced towards his prey growing smaller in the distance but turned and took a step towards the lighted cross, then another. The pull was strong, like a huge magnet drawing him forward. His soul lifted inside him and a feeling of something light started to fill his shriveled soul.

 Suddenly a taxi swept by giving a loud honking greeting to another taxi passing by on the other side of the street. The nearby blast jolted him from his reverie and he took his eyes off the cross. He gave his body a huge shake, then he turned away from the church and saw his prey in the next block and he quickened his stride as he loped behind her and resumed his hunt. The light flickered in his soul and was quickly snuffed out.

 When she reached the next intersection she made a left turn into a residential district. There was no traffic and due to the current energy crisis, very few houses had their porch lights on, the street lights were few and far between. The Wolf turned off and narrowed the gap between them. He coughed loudly, a ploy he liked to do, to alert his prey of his presence. It made the game more … interesting. Of course, she turned and her pace increased in response to his advancement. 

The chase was on in earnest now.  He felt his hackles rise. She was almost at a run now. She turned once again and he broke into a run. She did likewise, she was fast, he’d give her that; she ran like a deer. Her flat shoes enabled her to run quickly and at one point she lowered her head and fumbled with her purse, she looked like she had almost dropped it, but she somehow managed to press on.

He knew she could hear his breathing behind her. The Wolf was almost on top of her. At the last second, she dodged and pivoted, and turning, she stopped cold and she looked him in the eye, those mysterious eyes that he couldn’t quite figure out. He saw, in that instant, that her eyes were dark and formidable, but he could see no fear. The Wolf knew that she wasn’t a lamb, she wasn’t a fawn, she was a  she-wolf. In that split second, he realized that maybe her cross had protected her and that that unreadable look in her eye that he so mistakenly had misread, had been perseverance and victory. She leveled a small gun at his cold, dark heart, and pulled the trigger.