Short Crime Stories.

During the lockdown.

Anna was emptying her bag while sitting on the couch in her living room, when she saw in the news that a woman had been raped and killed. They were saying that in the last months, there were many similar cases in the city. The information scared her a bit but she decided to not spent more of her time, thinking about it.

During that period, because of coronavirus, the government had enforced a strict lockdown in order to protect the citizens. That's why, Anna after work had to go straight to her home and to not come out till the next day that she would go to work again. 

At the night, she realised that she had forgotten her cellphone at her car. She never had a good relationship with technology, so didn't understand it earlier, that she didn't bring it with her. 

She thought for quite some time of what she should do, when she finally made a decision to go as quietly as possible to her car, that was parked in a parking lot close to her house, to take it.

When she reached her car, she opened the door and started looking for it. It must have fallen at some point because she couldn't find it, where she puts it most of the times. After some minutes, her search ended up being successful. She took in her hands and placed it in her bag but before she could do anything else, she heard a noise.

Her mind travelled to the news she saw in the morning, about that man that is raping women and then is killing them and the blurred image of the woman on the floor flashed through her eyes. She grabbed from her bag, her keys and held them like a weapon. If it was this man, she could throw him her keys that were heavy enough. That would give her a head start and she would begin running.

But suddenly her keys slipped from her hands and went under the car. The man after hearing the noise, ran fast her way. She didn't know what else to do, than running too, the other way. Terrified as she was, she rushed as fast as she could out of the building. 

While she was outside, she hid behind some parked cars and looked out for him. Only a few minutes passed, till she saw him coming out of the parking lot with a piece of wood in his hands. He was approaching her slowly but steadily and she could hear the sound of the wood rubbing the cars as he moved closer. She tried to leave from there, without stopping hiding behind the cars. He instantly came in front of her. 

She sprinted down the road away from him when she remembered something that she saw in a documentary, about how you can protect your self from rapists, that is better to scream fire instead of just screaming for help because people would think that their property might be in danger and come out to check and that way he might leave. So she screamed fire with all her strength. 

She went to a gas station nearby that was closed at that time and hid again behind some barrels that were there. It seemed that a group of people came down after hearing her screams and were searching around trying to discover what happened. Anna, felt much better after she saw all these people and left her safe place to go to the parking lot to take her keys. 

Anna abruptly jumped off her bed, her hands were shaking and she thought her heart will come out of her chest. She stared around the dark room and she realised that it was just a dream. She layed down and pulled again the blanket over her.