Friday, April 20, 2012

Getting Even

This is an excerpt from my next story - so far I call it Getting Even but I want to change that, just haven't come across the right fit at this time. It's hard to find the right wording without giving everything away! It is almost done and it was very hard to write. I hope by the end of this month it will be ready to send to my publisher.

     The tall, thin old man kept his head down, concentrating on the wet, slippery side walk. The rain ran off his slouch hat in streams and the strong wind blew it under the brim into his face. A cold trickle ran down the back of his neck under his Aussie Oilskin coat and joined the cold tremor running up his spine. The wind wrapped the long coat around his legs making it difficult to walk.
     Normally he would have found the wild weather exhilarating and his little dog, Scruffy loved it as much as he, but now he had to hurry. He shuffled carefully, he couldn’t take a chance of falling, he would have the devil of a time getting back onto his feet. His daughter wanted him to use a cane and he refused. Pride, he snorted, goeth before a fall.
     Even with his failing eyesight he knew what he’d just seen. And his stomach lurched like it did back during his days as a cop. Long years of retirement and a heart attack had turned him into a stooped old man with shuffling gait and quavering voice, but he knew that little girl just got pushed into the van.
     When she didn’t jump back out he figured that she was in big trouble. The fear twisting in his gut threatened to turn his bowels to water.
     Knowing the guy in the van could knock him out with one blow and nobody would find him before morning left him with no choice. He shuffled down the street as fast as he dared, cursing his sore knee and slipping mind, he’d left the bloody cell phone sitting on the hall table again.