The first thing he heard was the scream.
It rang out cold and desperate, echoing far across the golf course and over where he knew was the shoreline.  The road ran straight through the course with home being still half an hour away.  He tried to peer into the dark to make sense of what he heard.  Nothing moved out there.  Ever direction was still.  The air itself froze until the cool sky.

Then came footsteps behind.
He could tell someone was back there.

He started walking faster, daring himself to glimpse back.  Behind him was just the road and the night which was liquid black.  Before him was the long winding road through the Oak Bay Golf Course.  He knew if he got through the course it would stop.  Nothing told him that but he knew.  Snubbed again at another house party and now this.  He walked fast.  Ashma wouldn’t let him run.  He needed his puffy as it was.  He looked into his coat for it as he walked faster.

He fell.  Something tripped him.  He hit the earth with his hands out to break his fall.  He went to rise and something shoved him hard down as he attempted to rise.

“Why?” a woman’s voice hissed in his ear on one side.

“Why?” that voice shrieked again but on the other.

He got up and ran.  Behind him he heard the sound of running.  He could barely breath.  His heart was bursting.  Tears ran down his face.  To one side he heard a shriek.

“No!  Don’t leave me damn you!”

He looked over.

The shape of a woman in tweed running was just a few feet beside him.  It ran through the brambles on the edge of the course, bursting through and then running ahead of him only to vanish and reappear on the other side.

The edge of the course neared.  He closed his eyes and ran like his lungs would burst. 

Suddenly a car sped around the corner.  He glanced in horror and dove out of the way.

Last thing he saw was the woman’s face, miserably sad as the world burst with pain, then black.

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