Side Street

As her foot slides on the cobblestones, Meghan regrets her decision to park such a distance from the restaurant. When she’d abandoned her car in the leafy sideroad after work it was still daylight, the wintry sun casting long shadows across the street. But now as the church clock strikes half past eleven, she shivers in the darkness and pushes her hands further inside her jacket pockets.

She watches a late-night bus head towards her on Southgate Street, the beam from its headlights making the icy pavements sparkle and shimmer. Meghan feels herself slip again and grabs hold of a lamppost that’s just within reach. She wishes she’d left earlier and then she could have walked – or perhaps skated – part of the way with Sally.

Meghan stares at the empty road behind her and realizes she’s probably the only person still outside braving these arctic temperatures. Pulling the collar up on her coat, she looks down at the ground in front of her before taking a tentative step. It’s going to be a slow and lonely walk back to her car.

She passes two shops with their windows hidden behind giant security shutters and she’s aware how different Southgate Street feels after dark. Usually, she only comes this way during the day when it’s filled with shoppers bustling in and out of the stores and delivery vans are parked haphazardly along the road.

Now it’s mostly in darkness and there’s only a few flats above the shops that have their lights on. But it’s the stillness that unnerves her and makes her move a little faster.

As she steps round a pile of flattened cardboard boxes that are propped up against a shop doorway, she thinks she sees something out of the corner of her eye. She swivels round and looks up the street. Nothing. She squints into the shadows again and shakes her head. She just needs to get back to her car.

She walks faster now, but she’s so focused on the flickering streetlamp ahead, that she almost collides with an old woman who steps out from one of the buildings. Her dog lurches forward and snarls at Meghan, baring its teeth.

“I’m so sorry, I…” said Meghan, but breaks off when the woman pushes past her without saying a word.

Meghan turns and watches her shuffle away into the gloom, dragging her dog behind her. Jake, her husband, would be furious if he knew she was walking on her own so late at night.

She takes a deep breath and checks behind her one more time. Nothing. As she walks along, she listens to the wail of distant police sirens and her shoes clicking on the pavement. But now there’s another noise too. It sounds like footsteps behind her. Steady and determined. Light and quick. Meghan freezes and glances behind her into the blackness. The street is quiet and empty. She trembles and feels sweat trickle down her back.

A text message shatters the silence and Meghan drops her phone in panic. It clatters loudly on the concrete. Her heart hammers in her chest as she bends down to pick it up from the pavement. She reads the message – it’s from Sally: “Are you back at the car yet? Text me when you’re home ok?”

She checks there’s nobody around before tapping out a short reply: “Nearly. Not too far to go now.” Meghan slides the phone back inside her coat pocket and tries to get her breathing under control. She’s being irrational. She knows it’s only because it’s so cold and dark outside that she feels so jumpy.

“Calm down, let’s just get back to the car,” she said out loud to herself, trying to quell the rising sense of panic.

But suddenly she feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Is that the faint glow of a cigarette butt? Can she really smell smoke or is it her imagination? No. There’s somebody there, she’s sure of it.

Meghan doesn’t wait to find out. She breaks into a run and doesn’t stop until she reaches Cannon Street where she left her car hours earlier. She lets out a sigh of relief as she sees her red mini parked underneath the streetlamp.

Her chest burns from the exertion of running and she steadies herself on a garden gate. The metal feels ice cold to the touch. She starts to relax as she sees her car lights flash and hears the welcoming beep of the car unlocking.

The car windows are iced up and Meghan digs around in her handbag trying to find her purse. She knows that Jake would go ballistic if he could see using her credit card as an ice scraper but... just thinking about her husband makes her feel safe and she can’t wait to get home and be cuddled up in a warm bed between him and their pit bull Tank.

As she finishes clearing the windscreen, the wind changes direction. Can she smell cigarette smoke again? No, she’s tired. It’s simply her imagination playing tricks on her. But her heart pounds wildly when she hears a loud crashing sound. As she looks up, she half laughs when she sees a cat skulking away from the overturned metal bin.

Meghan rubs her hands together to try and keep warm. She’s only got the driver’s side window left to go now. As she clears away the ice, she notices something in the glass. What is it? As she leans closer to the window, she jumps back when she realizes it’s a man’s face. He’s right behind her, the cigarette dangling from his lips.

The last thing she sees in the window are her wide, terrified eyes and an arm clamped round her throat before everything goes black.