Nightwalk

                                                        Nightwalk







          The young girl appeared to be no more than twelve years old. She stood still with the exception of her trembling knees. She had just stepped outside the door. It was dark outside. It was eerily quiet. Oh you could hear crickets chirping, and the occasional rustle of tree branches as the warm summer breeze blew across them. It was the lack of human sound that made goose bumps rise on her flesh. She had to walk one mile, one mile through an almost deserted part of town. The road was narrow and twisted, encased on both sides by tall trees. Where there were no trees there were thick high growing weeds. As she started out she wished that it was at least dusk. At dusk, one could still see pretty good…and be seen.

          The girl forced herself to start walking. She was walking at a brisk pace. Her heart started beating fast. She forced herself to slow down before she got one of those awful side stickers that would make her double over. This part of the road was narrow but farther down the road there was a curve and as the girl was walking she saw the headlights of a car that had just entered the curve on the road. She felt relief that she was not alone in the dark. That there were other people in this dark night. She let her pace slow down and her breathing returned to normal. Up ahead she could see the headlights suddenly slow and then stop. The girl continued to walk at a normal pace and as she continued she wondered why the car had stopped. Had it seen her walking on the road? So what?

        The car began to move slowly forward again. The girl stopped. As surely as she knew that the twinkling lights in the sky were stars she knew that the car on the road ahead carried death. The girl looked to her right, she was at a part in the road where there were no trees, just the thick high weeds. She ran as fast as she could into the growth of weeds her heart beating so hard she thought surely that it would explode. When she felt that she had run far enough she flung herself on the ground not caring that there were rocks and mud covering it. She did a little crawl on her belly to turn herself around so that she could watch the progress of the car. She could no longer see the headlights and was too afraid to lift her head to check. But in the still night she could hear the car slowly moving forward. Then suddenly the lights were there….and she could see that when she had run into the overgrowth, she had left a trail of broken stalks and tramped down weeds. A path for anyone to follow that led right to the girl that was lying on the damp ground trembling with fear.