‘Oh God … no …’ she desperately panted, too scared to look behind her.
Exhausted, she started running again. She didn’t hear the foghorn forlornly bleating in the distance, or feel the wet sea fret as it wrapped itself around her painfully thin body. All she heard was the threatening footsteps of her pursuers.
Somewhere down by the promenade muffled, drunken shouts were followed by the roar of a car’s engine. Seconds later a hazy orange glow appeared at the bottom of the dark street as a car turned up from the promenade. Shallowly panting, she ran as fast as she could towards the glare of the oncoming car, grazing her bare feet against the jagged, uneven pavements. Her long, dark hair clung to her waxen, ghostly face as she ran out into the middle of the road.
‘Stop! Stop!’ She shouted frantically waving her bare white arms at the approaching headlights.
The car suddenly slammed its brakes on barely avoiding hitting her.
‘Help me, please … help …’ She gasped in short breaths.
She hunched over, gulping in air as the driver aggressively punched his horn to make her move out of the way.
She straightened up, wildly shaking her head.
‘No! You’ve got to help me!’ She implored as the driver banged his fist on the horn again.
Desperate, she ran round to the driver’s door and frantically tried to open it.
The doors were locked. She hysterically started pounding at the window.
The driver, a dark-haired man in his late twenties looked at her with contempt.
‘Please …’ she stuttered, panicking. ‘You’ve got to help me … please …’ She begged. ‘These men … they’re trying to take me … they want to …’
‘Piss off you drunken cow!’ He spat in disgust as he scowled at her dishevelled appearance.
Her face was covered in a sheen of cold sweat as smudged, black eye-liner and mascara trailed down her cheeks. Her short, strapless black dress was ripped halfway down the side, immodestly showing her naked body underneath.
‘No, you can’t leave me here! You don’t understand! They’ll kill me!’ She screamed, banging furiously on the window.
‘Fucking right I can, you slapper!’ He answered before revving the engine and then screeching off up the street.
‘No!’ She yelled, feeling physically sick as the car disappeared.
She stood alone, feeling utterly helpless.
Panicking, she looked at the Victorian terraced row of houses on either side of her.
Realising that there was a light coming from the secondfloor of a three storey house further down the street, she ran as fast as she could towards it. She pushed the ornate cast iron gate open and ran up the pathway towards the heavy, red panelled door. She repeatedly pressed the old fashioned doorbell. There was no answer. She then started to bang furiously on the door.
‘Please … Anyone … Help me!’ She desperately called out.
She waited a moment, but nothing happened.
‘Come on! Someone! You’ve got to hear me! Please … anyone …’ She shouted.
She froze, recognising the voice. She knew it was over. She had tried her best to outrun them, but they wouldn’t give up, not until they had her.
Trembling, she slowly turned around. His six foot two, threatening body was stood by the gate. The shorter one was stood behind him, waiting with his muscular arms folded.
‘No …’ She whispered.
Seconds later a car idled down the street, coming to a stop behind the two men.
‘No … please …’ She begged.
‘As
She shook her head as tears started to trickle down her face.
‘No … no …’ She muttered.
‘Fucking bitch!’ He cursed in a thick accent as he strode over to her.
She turned and started pounding hysterically on the door.
‘Help me! Someone! Help me!’ She screamed as loud as she could.
He brutally grabbed her from behind. She attempted to struggle, but it was pointless.
He covered her mouth with a leather-gloved hand and dragged her backwards down the path. Her heels scraped, ripping the skin as she tried her best to resist.
Still with his hand over her mouth, he took her to the idling silver Mercedes. The passenger window buzzed down and a heavily set man in his late forties looked at her.
He roughly tilted her face towards the passenger window.
Tears trailed down her cheeks as she realised that the drunken voices on the promenade had faded into the blackness of the night. She was completely alone with them.
She waited, hardly daring to breathe as the man in the car decided what to do.
Seconds later he nodded at the man holding her. Then, without a word the electric window buzzed shut.
She was unsure of what it meant.
‘Please … please … let me go … I promise I won’t talk …’ She begged.
Her captor seemed to relax his grip on her.
‘I promise I won’t say anything.’ She continued, hoping that he would let her go.
The pungent smell of strong, stale tobacco lingered on his sour breath.
His hands gently encircled her throat and slowly started to squeeze.
‘No … no … please?’ She begged as her fingers tried to prise his hands from her neck.
She questioningly looked towards the dark tainted glass of the Mercedes’ passenger window. But she couldn’t see anything. She then looked at the other man who was silently stood by the car with his arms folded, impassively watching.
She caught his eye, but he looked past her, as if she didn’t exist.
Terrified, she struggled, clawing and scratching at the hands around her throat.
But he pressed deeper into her malleable flesh.
‘I … I … can’t breathe …’ she gasped, suddenly realising what was about to happen.
He grunted with satisfaction.
She frantically tore with bloodied, broken nails at his unrelenting hands as her lungs began to burn. As the exploding pain became unbearable she suddenly thought of her sister and her mother, realising that she would never see them again.
Ten seconds later she felt the fight leave her body.
Shivering, a woman in her late-thirties hid behind the heavy curtains as she tentatively looked out of the bedroom window. It was eerily quiet now. She had been startled awake by someone banging on the front door. Followed by hysterical, drunken screaming.
She watched, relieved as a car disappeared down the road and presumed that the girl who had been drunkenly screaming a few minutes earlier had been picked up. She looked down at the street below. It was empty. She thought about calling the police again and thought better of it. Whoever it was had gone now. And what could she say? That some drunken girl had been banging on her door at 3AM, ranting and raving? To the police that was a normal occurrence in Whitley Bay on a Friday or Saturday night.
