Threnody (008).

(This is a 300-word-a-day novel project.)

She scrambled up the side of the bank, losing her footing once in the soft mud and sliding backward, thinking of how many times she had seen those movies and wondered why the brainless twit couldn’t seem to stay on her damned feet, and that if such events were ever to befall her (because that’s what people do when they watch horror movies, they critique them, like old football highlights on how to stay alive when being stalked by a slasher), she would be able to get away. And yet – here she was.

The man coughed up black blood as he took shuddering steps through the water, each one threatening to topple him. Jesse grabbed handfuls of tree roots and hauled herself up the bank by force of will, smearing her front with grime, the cold of it soaking down to her skin. Just as she started to stand the man snatched her ankle, his grip painful.

Hey, he said. Where you going, I’m talking to you.

Jesse lashed out with her other foot, kicking him in the place where his nose one had been, and with a sound much like a pumpkin landing on blacktop her foot punched a hole right through it – now his one eye looked inward on itself crazily, and his jaw jutted forward in a broken underbite.

Fushin’ bish, he said, twisting her ankle hard, forcing her to turn over as he drug himself onto her. She punched at his sides, breaking his ribs and flooding the flannel with gore; his hands were on her throat now, closing off her air. His face, or what had once been his face, was inches from hers, fetid air whistling through his jaw as it worked convulsively, shouting at her over and over, FUSHIN’ BISH! EW FUSHIN’ BI –