It had taken Amanda a long time to get to this point. To go for a run on her own, on a route she loved in the Dark Peak. She hadn’t told anyone she was going because she knew her friends would have responded with doubt, not support. They would have told her to be careful. They would have mentioned crimes they’d read about. The strange people around, the killers at large. It was meant to help, but only succeeded in holding her back.
About a year ago she had started to go for lunch in towns and villages she had never visited before. Each time she had returned feeling refreshed. Excited at what the world offered, not by what it threatened. Throwing off the fears and anxieties imposed upon her by a couple of men armed with a bread knife and a rusty hatchet.
For the last few months she had run with others, in groups, but she had always preferred solitude. The ability to let her mind wander and expand. To lose herself in the open air, the scents of farm and flower. In a couple of hours, when she was exhausted and splattered with mud, she would go for a chip butty at the local pub. That was what she had done before the attack. It is what she would do again.
She parked her car near the old campsite. She wiped at the fogged windows and took a moment to examine the scars on her hands. The tips of her fingers were covered with fabric plasters. She put on a waterproof jacket over her burgundy fleece. Her black lycra shorts, her running shoes were the same ones she always wore. Muddy and comfortable.
She put her purse in the glove compartment and took a moment to breathe deeply, reassuring herself she had nothing to worry about. Her attackers wouldn’t spring out behind boulders or bushes. They wouldn’t emerge from caves or the sky. She would be on her own. Solitude in nature, with all that entailed.
When she got out of the car the rain began to come down hard. She lifted her face to the sky and enjoyed the sensation of the cold and the wet. It gave everything immediacy. It brought her into the present. Safe from the pain of the past and the fears for the future.
She passed through the kissing gate. The hinges creaked and whined in the silence. It set her teeth on edge. She left the path quickly, following the route she had run scores of times before. The first part of the run was steep. Her feet were quick over the slick grass. Avoiding the tussocks and loose rocks, she splashed through the little streams that had formed after the recent downpours. Her legs felt stiff and tense.
She caught sight of a bloodied handkerchief snagged on the barbed leaves of a gorse bush. The blood was almost brown. It made her think of corrosion, of decay. She ran on. Focusing her attention on what was in front of her. After the attack the sight in her right eye had never quite recovered. Objects appeared flat and sometimes it was as if she was looking at a collage or a landscape fashioned from fuzzy felt.
The mist was getting heavier. Flowing around the rocky peak. It swallowed up the village a couple of miles behind her. The hills and the roads were quickly obscured. She splashed through puddles and ran across the sward. She reached a stone wall and clambered through a small gap. The usual landmarks she used for her chosen route were no longer visible. The muscles in her legs were tightening. She pushed on. Making smaller strides. Still in control of her breathing. Unzipping her waterproof she felt the cold air against her chest and stomach. She coughed and spat into a clump of heather. The pale phlegm clung to the coarse stems and the delicate purple flowers.
She forced herself onwards. Muttering words of encouragement as she passed through the churned mud. Fighting against the gradient, she tripped on rocks and loose earth, but had enough momentum to carry her forward out of the stumble. The force of each footfall hurt her ankles, but she put the ache out of her mind. Imagining soaking her feet in hot soapy water. She had a friend who insisted on sticking his feet in ice to aid the recovery process. He often boasted about how much it hurt, and how much good it did for his recovery. Fuck that; no need to be masochistic about it.
She was beginning to find her rhythm. Enjoying herself at last. Thrilled by the growing sense of freedom. Thrilled, too, by the normality of it all. She was being allowed to be herself again. Free of everything that had happened over the last two years. The images of that night suddenly less well defined. Overexposed and filled with scratches and hairs so that the skipped frames only provided a vague idea of what had happened. In place of that she sometimes thought what she could have done instead of lying there. Run. Fight back. It might have made things worse for her, but it’d have made things worse for them too. It might have evened the score.
“You give us no choice. You give us no option.”
“We don’t want to do this.”
“Talk and this’ll be over.”
Following the slope of the hill upwards. Breathing through gritted teeth. Waiting to come up to the rocky peak of the hill. Her mind swirling from the exertion. A touch of dizziness. Still no sign of anyone else. She saw shapes in the distance. Trees. A small wood. She didn’t recognise it. She stumbled a couple of times and told herself to refocus. Heather shivered in the breeze. Droplets of water hung on the flowers. She checked her watch. Eleven. She should be at the peak by now. The brittle crunch of dead leaves underfoot conjured the smell of wet soil, the dampness of the dew. For a second or two she was back there again. In the dark. A knee in the small of her back. A hand on her shoulder. Pushing her into the mud.
The memory distracted her and she ran across a patch of sodden grass. She slipped and felt her feet give way. She fell to the ground, rolling a couple of times. She heard a pop. A brittle crunch. There was a sudden sharp pain in her ankle that made her shout out. She lay there for a few seconds. Breathing heavily. Afraid to look at her leg in case she saw a nub of bone poking out from her Hello Kitty socks. She’d passed out from the pain last time she’d fallen. That pain had been much worse. She whispered to herself — this pain was not that pain. Not even close.
She blinked a few times and looked into the greyness. She reached into her pocket for her mobile phone. It was not there. Lost or misplaced. Idiot. Carefully she got up and put weight on the injured foot. It was okay. She took a few steps and absently brushed at her behind. She walked for a little while and saw the silhouette of a squat shape. As she approached it, she realised it was a stone bench. Rocks were piled on it. It resembled a stone age altar. She had never seen it before. Pissed off, she sat down and tried to get her bearings. She examined her ankle again. It had swollen up. There was a dull pain.
She heard a car. It was perhaps a mile distant. Her heart lifted and, ignoring the soreness, jogged towards the sound. If she was lucky, she’d get to a road. Perhaps she’d be near a sign post. Three miles this way to Hathersage. Four miles to Glossop. Better still she’d find a cafe or a pub. One that sold chip butties. She would order three or four. A beer. Sod the calories. She’d had a bad morning. But she had no money. Her purse wasn’t with her. Fuck.
Ahead of her, towards the top of the hill, she could see two dark shapes. For a moment, she thought they were moving towards her.
“Where is he? Tell us where he is.”
“I know he’s here. Don’t make us fuck you up.”
The memory made her hands tremble. She heard a cry. Muffled and distant. It was animalistic. Full of agony and sorrow. She opened her eyes. The shapes were no longer visible. She told herself she was on her own. It was time to go back. She’d had a good run. A good stretch. The peak could be reached some other time.
Jogging was getting painful. She talked to herself. Words of encouragement. Words of assurance. She came to a group of beech trees. The branches creaked like arthritic bones. She put her hand on the rough bark and tried to centre herself. She was sweating, despite the cold. Trying not to think of what she should have done differently during that long, dark night. She tried to conjure the fantasy of being in control. The fantasy of using their weapons against them. Cutting their throats and watching them die while she waited for the police to arrive. No need to rush, lads. No need at all. I’ll put the kettle on.
She peered into the mist and thought she could see light. She slowed to a walk. Eyes down, hoping to pick out something that would lead her back to a footpath. Thinking again about her two attackers. Feeling almost like they were close. Whispering their threats.
She shouted out. She told herself to stop thinking that way. She told herself to remember where she was. This is now. Concentrate on the path. Concentrate on the gradient. She came to some more trees, tightly bunched together. The wind picked up. She hobbled along the lip of a shallow dell.
The mist was getting thicker. The trees retreating behind the grey shroud. Her ears stung from the cold. All she had to do was to find a wall. A wall could be followed. A wall would lead somewhere. A gate.
“Tell us where he is.”
To her left a beam of headlights punched through the fog and she saw a row of beech trees. The bloodied handkerchief caught on the spiky gorse bush. Her heart lifted with the relief of familiarity. She found the path and soon reached the kissing gate. Casting glances behind her. She was back in the cold of the park. Moments before she felt something sharp held against her throat. Moments before she found herself on the ground with two figures standing over her. The same wind blew. The same cold chilled her bones. She got into her car and locked the door. The fogged windows blotted out the view of the outside. She put her head on the steering wheel and listened to the rain tap gently on the car roof.
[Image Credit : Photo by Rene Böhmer on Unsplash]
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Trevor Mark Thomas
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