Karolina Waclawiak - The Invaders

I turned to look and didn’t see anyone there. The whistling stopped. I briefly panicked, thinking the fisherman I had called the police about had followed me.

On the bridge, I was surrounded by marshes and beach, the water and islands in front of me. I saw the sailboats floating out, white and tall in the water. On the other side of the bridge were thick trees and underbrush. The whistling started up again, and I hoped someone would come through biking. A woman with a stroller, anything. It wasn’t a bird call and it wasn’t the wind. It was a distinct whistle. It was him. I knew it was. It had to be. He was following me. I was disgusted that Jeffrey and Bunny were right. I didn’t want to be called out as the fool, have them pity me because I was naive and still believed people were capable of good. I breathed in and out slowly. Maybe it wasn’t the fisherman, maybe it was a bird lover like me. I was just overreacting because I was alone.

I put my bird book back in my pocket. I could go farther down the trail, over the second trolley bridge, or head back through the marsh. Why would someone be hiding in the marshes and whistling? It didn’t make any sense. Calm down, Cheryl. Calm down. There were more nests down the trail and I didn’t want to go back home yet. I wasn’t ready to face the drive to my mother’s house. I was starting to lose my nerve.

As I walked into the wooded area, the whistling stopped. Thought so. Some stupid kids, that was all. I kept walking. Ahead was a small, rusted-out bridge covered in graffiti. Teenagers always wrote the dirtiest things. Like everyone wanted to know who they wanted to fuck or love. What did they really know about either? Branches cracked around me and I stopped, but I didn’t want to turn around. Wind rustled the leaves around me and the nature path seemed very empty all of a sudden. Where was everyone anyway? It was a beautiful day, high tide, birds everywhere. Where were the kayakers at least? I heard the rumble of a speedboat in the distance, but otherwise, just the wind and the crackling of underbrush.

I was scared.

I convinced myself that I didn’t have to look, that no one was behind me. I just had to walk a bit faster.

I felt the weight of my binoculars. They could harm someone. I gripped them tightly and kept moving toward the trolley bridge. There were more pebbles in my shoes, jabbing me through my thin socks. I decided to just keep moving.

I was hearing things. The stress of Teddy coming back, Jeffrey being upset. The situation with Lori had me rattled. That’s all it was.

I checked my pocket and realized I had left my phone at home. Of course, Cheryl. It didn’t even matter. Everything was going to be okay. I would be home soon, and in the future, I would ask friends to come on walks with me. Even Bunny!

I could see the clearing and the trolley bridge in the distance and I knew I would be okay. At the other end of the bridge, in town, there was open water and boats and people. A ball field. Maybe I would walk the streets home. It would take longer, but there were cars passing often.

The whistling started again. It was a tune I didn’t recognize and if I turned around it would be to accept that there was indeed someone behind me.

I wasn’t going to do it.

I could feel myself getting hot, sweating. Tinges of panic that I was trying to keep at bay. I started to power walk.

What was that tune? It sounded so familiar. I had heard it before.

On the ground I saw a rock, something that could fit in my hand, and I reached down to pick it up and then kept walking. If it was someone I knew, someone from the club playing a trick, and they saw me wielding a rock on the nature trail… Well, let’s just say I’d be a laughingstock.

If it was the fisherman, then everyone would tell me how right they had been all along and I would have to nod and admit that their hatred was not misguided. I would have to do that even if I was wounded; I would have to tell them they had been right all along.

I slowed my pace so the would-be attacker could catch up with me. I wanted him to think that he could get me and that he was winning. The whistling was getting closer and I couldn’t take it anymore, so finally I turned and threw the rock as hard as I could.

I saw it flying through the air and then it hit the man squarely in the face. He fell, crumpled, to the ground.

I covered my mouth with my hands. It was Steven. I had smashed him above the eye.

I screamed. “Oh God! I’m sorry!”

I looked around. How could no one be here? How could there be no one to help? I ran toward him and he was lying on his back, his face covered in blood and moaning.

“What did I do?” I said.

I looked at Fran Cronin’s teenage son, Steven. Lori’s bad house sitter Steven. Nice legs Steven.

What was he doing following me? I looked him up and down and inhaled sharply. I recognized his sneakers.

His penis was hanging out of his pants. He was going to do something to me. Or maybe he was just peeing. Maybe this was a mistake. Then Steven sat up and reached for me angrily, saying, “I know you.” Grabbing my arms hard, he said, “You want it.”

I looked down at his still-erect penis and black pubic hair blossoming out of the slit in his boxer shorts and zipper hole. I struggled away from him and in a panic I picked the rock back up and hit his face again. I heard the crunch of tooth and bone. His mouth was a bloody wound as I dropped the rock.

I backed away from him. He was lying in the middle of the nature trail, bloody-faced, with his penis hanging out. He wasn’t even circumcised. I kept backing away and he called out, “Help!”

I backed away and started to run. I wanted to get away from his moans and the plovers who were running now, too, back to their nests. I didn’t stop until I reached the inside of my house. I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it, breathing hard.

My feet ached from the pebbles and I pulled off my shoes, starbursts of blood coming through my socks from the small wounds.

I clutched my neck. My binoculars were gone. Jeffrey had had them initialed for me. I felt dizzy thinking that I had left them beside the body. No. He wasn’t a body. He was still alive when I left him.

“Hello?” I called out.

My voice cracked when I said it. Was I supposed to call the police? He had wanted to hurt me on the nature trail. I had to do what I did. I stared down at my hands. There were specks of blood on them. Steven’s blood was on my fingers. I went to wash them, limping.

“Hello!” I screamed again.

Where were my binoculars?

Jesus Christ.

There was hardly any blood. Maybe a little splatter. Splatter. What was I thinking? I scrubbed my hands furiously.

In the kitchen, my face was hot and I felt achy. I tore through the cabinets. Where was the bleach? I looked down and saw that there was a tiny bit of blood on my tank top and I ripped it off.

His penis was out, Cheryl. It was OUT. This was not your fault. It was his. And he counted as a full-grown man. He wasn’t some boy. He just had a young-boy face. He said that I wanted it.

I poured the bleach over my hands and my nostrils burned. I went back to the bathroom and dumped the rest of it down the sink, in case there was any blood there. I stared at myself in the mirror. He grabbed you, Cheryl. He wanted to hurt you. You are not a bad person. You were defending yourself. You didn’t want it. He was using the nature trail as his private jerk-off spot and that was unacceptable.

I had only seen him socially a few times, once possibly at a Christmas party. Had he been one of the carolers that had gone house to house last year? Yes, he had a sweet voice, the only one in the group who could carry a tune. He knew I took walks. And yesterday I had said he probably had nice legs to Lori. She would remember that. She would tell people I was asking for it and he was just a child. She was that kind of gossip. My hands were burning. Would there be fingerprints on the rock? I had no idea. Maybe I should have called the police. What if he told on me? Would I go to jail for leaving the scene of a crime? I gripped the sides of the sink and tried to hold myself steady. I found the hydrogen peroxide and poured it over my feet, listening to the sizzle and pop. I cleared out bits of dirt and sediment that had crusted onto my toes with the peroxide swell.