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Tonight, of course, there was no storm, but the wind was a whip racing in out of the north, angry with the force of winter to come. It screamed at her and sliced through the chinks in her jacket, and turned her lips and cheeks numb. Her eyes watered, and at first she wiped the tears away, but afterwards she just let them trickle down her cheeks for the wind to dry.

Already, at this hour, the streets were virtually deserted. Even the furtive-looking figures in raincoats she had seen earlier had vanished to their various lives. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, a repetitive tinny sound, and an occasional car drove past at speed, its headlights washing across trees and buildings like diluted essence of sun.

She walked quickly, her head down, hands thrust into the pockets of her jacket, down past the petrol station where the red-and-blue uniformed attendants had been known to whistle at passing girls when there was no work on hand and no supervisor peering over their shoulders. She walked past the little patch of park, a triangle of grass fenced in with concrete benches, a slide and a set of swings, and then the department store with the parking lot to the side. The store was still open, of course, but the door was closed against the wind and there were only a few vehicles in the parking lot, probably the property of the employees themselves.

After that she came to the place where the new buildings were being constructed, planned hotels and offices overlooking the sea. Her father had helped to design some of them, and had said that the sight of the sea alone would drive the rent up three or four times from what it would otherwise have been. She cut through the space between two of the half-built buildings, dodging concrete mixers and  piles of bricks, seeing her way by the filtered and smeared moonlight, and then she came down to the highway where the big lorries rushed by each night with their loads, down to the port and back again.

When she was down at the highway, of course, it was just the highway by the sea, and she swiftly lost all desire to scramble over the railing and walk down the rocks to the sea’s edge and wash her face in the salt water. Suddenly, she felt overwhelmingly tired, and regretted having come out at all. She decided then that she would just go home and sleep.

It happened while she was making her way back through the construction site. The moon had almost disappeared, and the shadows were thick and clotted. Something had been gnawing at the corner of her mind from the time she had passed through the first time, on the way down to the road; a feeling, as if she was being watched. She had shrugged it off then – who would want to watch her of all people? – but now it was back again, stronger than ever.

She stopped, turning quickly, but couldn’t tell from where the danger came. Danger? Yes, there was danger – whatever was watching her was dangerous, she knew that as instinctively as she knew that she was being watched. Whatever was watching her was so dangerous that the ordinary dangers of her life were as nothing compared to it.

Her nerve broke then, and she ran.

It came out of the darkness, hurling itself across the space between the buildings, crashing into her back and knocking her over. She went rolling, brought up short by a pile of construction sand, and it was on her, snarling gutturally, teeth meeting through the sleeve of her jacket and raking her arm, dragging her along the ground. She could feel heavy fur and smell it, a wet-animal smell, overwhelming at close quarters. All she could see was a pair of faint greenish circles, which she realised were its eyes, glaring down at her. She tried to scream, but the voice died in her throat, and all she could manage was a whimper.

She felt it drop her, release her arm, and tried to rise, to roll over and crawl away, to escape however she could, but it struck her, knocked her flat on her back, and she could feel its teeth again, lower down her body, ripping away her jeans and panties and the sanitary napkin she had put on before leaving home. And then she could feel it, a hot shaft of pain between her legs, piercing her, violating her, thrusting. A final slam of its body on hers, a warm flood inside her, and it grunted and rolled off her.

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