The Woman by David Bishop

but nothing at their place looked any different. The neighbors played their television loudly. They had not heard anything. These madmen had already killed six people so they would not hesitate to kill two more.
    The man just stood there. Listening. Watching. She imagined his hand above his eyes as he strained to find her running across the sand. She expected he would soon abandon that effort and drop down off her deck that had no stairs to the beach.
    Linda kept her eyes upward while easing backward to the wall, then sideways, scooting her flat hand across each masonry block, down into each mortar line, then out and across the rough texture of the next block.
    The sky went dark, a fleeting cover in the moon’s nightly hide-and-seek game with the earth. Her next move would take her out from under the deck and across open sand before she would reach the first patch of sea grass. That position still a full twenty yards from where she had left the gun wrapped in her sweat hoodie.
    Damn it. I should have listened to Ahab, kept the gun with me.
    She scooted forward on her belly the way she had seen soldiers do in the movies. Then stopped and parted the grass. The man was down off the deck now. Standing. He had not panicked. He had not rushed off in one direction or another. He had again paused, anticipating his eyes would soon find his prey. Her.
    Like her hunter, Linda didn’t move. She wanted to. She felt eager to touch the cold of the gun. Turn it warm with her hands, feel its hardness. But to move now, would mean he would reach her before she reached the gun. She needed him to move a few yards farther, just a few yards. She again cursed herself for not having kept the gun. Had she slept with it, she could have flipped on the lamp and confronted him. But that wasn’t her reality.
    Move. Damn you. Move.
    Then, as if her will alone had been sufficient, he moved. He didn’t run, just a brisk walk toward the surf.
    He wants to get beyond the sea grass, where he can look up and down the beach. He’s guessing he’ll see me running along the harder packed sand, and feels confident he can catch me. When he doesn’t see my tracks, he’ll know I’m here in the knee-high grass.
    She rolled over twice before stopping to find him with her eyes. He was standing close to the surf’s edge. She glanced at the sky to confirm the cloud cover would hold a while longer, and then rolled twice more. Then she looked again. He remained in the same position, hands on his hips. She glanced at the sky. Then she focused on the nearby terrain. She had looked at these berms many times from her deck, watched the wind move through the sea grass, at times rhythmically, sometimes violently. Those same berms looked different from down below. Then her eyes found the goal, the clump where she had cached the gun. Ten yards, nine, maybe. No distance at all if a casual pursuit. But he was a hunter and she the prey. She raised enough to see that he had turned. He was now facing down-beach. Like the two in the alley, this man was a stranger, with one common bond with the two in the alley. They had all come for her.
    She still hated guns, but right now getting that gun was the only thing in her mind.
    She glanced again. He remained statue steady, staring. He was smart and careful. Without moving himself, he could more easily detect her movement. After another minute, the man turned quickly twice, each turn one hundred eighty degrees. First down-beach, then immediately back to up-beach, away from her position.
    Linda moved through one more patch of sea grass. Then she rolled down the far side of the berm nearest the gun. There, she frantically dug the sand away. The gun was still there, right where she had left it. She pulled the hoodie open and looked at the gun without disdain. She clutched it tight, crawled up the berm and parted the grass. The man had turned, his concentration again down-beach.
    Linda knew the pattern of the berms, where she would find the