With my belly full I took up my position and used a small pair of field glasses to gaze across the park. I saw her step out of her house right on time in that red track suit (she also had a blue one, she alternated) and a matching fanny pack, where she zippered her keys away after locking her front door. I smiled, this would be easy I knew. I took a minute to walk down the little gully, which I had explored thoroughly before choosing my holding, a small area near the stream where I had reworked the branches of living bushes and added some brambles, climbing weeds, and dead wood here and there to form a small tight screen. The park was only lightly trafficked this early in the day by dog walkers and like minded joggers, and the place I had chosen, a steep path bounded on one side by the gully, was not a place where one lingered with their dog, but only moved through. The light misting of skunk musk I had laid upon the grass at the top of the embankment might pass unnoticed by human senses, but any dogs passing through would avoid the gully like the plague.

I took a moment to ensure that the area I had swept clear was ready to receive her, the briefcase with my emergency weapon undisturbed and the backpack full of supplies stashed where it would be easy to grab while I controlled her with the sharp knife I had in my pocket. It was just short enough it might be called legal, but the purposes I would put it to today would be anything but. I smiled to myself as I made my way back to the top of the gully, expecting she would arrive momentarily. I wore a new pair of heavy jeans and a light corduroy jacket which was a size too large, the better to fool her as to my harmlessness. The boots were an old comfortable pair I had taken from the storage space I rented in Brandon, where I had the other supplies; I keep such places all over the world, so as to have quick and easy access to equipment for my entertainments.

I heard her before I saw her, huffing lightly. A man walking a dog had passed by only ten seconds before, not seeing me where I causally leaned against a tree just off the path. Hands in my pockets I carelessly strolled up the path to the top of a slight rise, and I saw her there. I had my eyes on the distant ballpark, which could be seen through a break in the trees a few hundred yards away, and I raked my eyes casually across her as if only now coming back to myself. I saw her slow, assess me as a woman alone does automatically with any approaching stranger. To show her my harmlessness I stepped off the concrete path and onto the grass, my side pressed into some brush and I slowly took my hands from my pockets, at the same time I released the handful of paper and change I had been holding. Two receipts in my left hand neither of them from purchases I had made, a bus transfer and a cigarette butt culled from the trash in my right, a single two dollar coin a pair of loonies six quarters and a dime the change from my breakfast.

I let these items fall, made sure at least the twoonie hit the pavement with a dull ring which could be mistaken for nothing but change being dropped. Hunching just slightly so as to appear smaller than my five ten frame really was, I hissed 'shit!' under my breath just loud enough she could hear me and turning away from her, my eyes intent on the ground I swept my hand through the grass looking for change.

I sensed her take her eyes off me, an animal prickling at the base of my neck fading away, and I smiled to myself as I turned my head just enough to see her shadow on the ground as she jogged past several feet behind me. In the cinema, when the innocent heroine is attacked by the Beast, and I was a Beast, the horror which walks might bruise and batter her, rip her clothing from her, scare her into a screaming inchoate terror, but she always survives the initial assault. Survives, to escape, regroup and finally defend herself.

I rose silently from my squat taking two quick steps, she had absolutely no idea as I almost gently allowed my momentum to carry my shoulder forward into her side just beneath and behind the pit of her arm. She made not a sound as she careened head over heels down the gully, her breath driving out of her with a soft whoosh as she fell. Rolling to came to rest in the bottom of the weed choked ditch face down, her legs pointed in one direction and her torso twisted in the other with an arm pinned beneath her. Looking dazed I saw her lay there blinking as I slid-walked smartly down behind her drawing my blade from its sheath on my belt, there was no one in sight up or down the path the short distance I could see, but I knew that might change at any instant.

As I approached I heard her moan softly, an animal noise, and she stirred to roll onto her stomach. She shook her pinned arm a few times and she braced her other arm on the ground, about to lever herself up to her knees. Head hanging down, she breathed rapidly not seeming aware of my approach and I acted with savage instinct. I threw one leg over her prone body and dropped all of my weight down onto the broad middle of her torso, forcing her flat onto the grass as I let myself settle atop her. Her breath went out again as I pinned her in place. I leaned my body low over her and grabbed a tight handful of her soft hair, yanking it back so she wheezed sharply as her vocal cords constricted in the tight angle as I exposed her vulnerable arteries, where I pressed the sharp edge of my blade to it firmly enough she could feel it resting there.

"Don't you dare struggle you bitch!" I hissed sharply into her ear, freezing her body beneath me, prey pinned by my commanding irresistible Presence, prey which knew it was caught and helpless now as I shifted my feet back so my hips rested along the lower slopes of her buttocks and I covered her form beneath the weight of my own.

I let go of her hair as I kept the knife properly in place across her throat, reaching down I grabbed a fistful of her jeans at the small of her back and gripped her hips beneath my thighs, my feet firmly on the ground to either side of her knees. I hissed a harsh command into her ear, playing my part as the predator. "Crawl forward you fucking bitch! Right the fuck now!"