The Guardian

drove by her all cautious, and stuff. After a short ways, it just pulled off to the side of the road. She looked up and saw the side door open slowly, just a bit.
    Her heart was racing. She wasn’t sure if she should just turn around and walk the other way or what. She moved over to the far edge of the sidewalk. As soon as she got even with the van, the man had jumped out at her. If she hadn’t been thinking about it, she would never have been able to react so quickly. As soon as she saw him, she lashed out with her right hand, curled firmly into a tight fist. She swung as hard as she could. She knew it had hurt him because she could hear him cussing as he stumbled back. She knew it was her only chance and she shot off running across the empty field next to her.
    She could almost feel his hot breath on the back of her neck as she pumped her skinny legs for all they were worth. Running for all she had, her lungs were burning. She was gasping for air as she sucked in as much air as she could through her clenched teeth. Her arms swinging madly, legs pumping feverishly, she didn’t stop until she got to the 7-11 on the next block over.
    Running inside, panting for air, trying to catch her breath, the young girl stopped. She hung onto the counter where the clerk, a large breasted, big round, black lady looked down at her, “My Lord Jesus child, what be wrong wit you? You look like you done seen a ghost or sumtin’.”
    “Help….Pl…please. There’s…there’s….this man. Grabbed… tried to…man tried to grab me.… help me please.” She was all out of breath. She kept looking back over her shoulder through the door hanging onto the counter.
    The big black lady came running around from behind the counter. She knelt down taking the girl into her arms. “There, there, now, it’s okay. We’ll call the police and get them here right away.”
    Taking the girl by the hand she led her to the back room, “You just come back here with me” the lady said. She sat her in the chair at the small desk, and said, “You’ll be safe back here, ain’t nobody can see you back here.” “Anybody come in here, they got to deal with me.” The lady then went to the phone and dialed 911.
    Chapter 58
    Halloway and Griffin arrived shortly after they had gotten the call.
    Ms. Maple, as her friends called her met them at the door.
    John and Laura flashed their badges, “Lieutenant Halloway and this is Detective Griffin. Are you the lady that made the 911 call?” John said.
    “Yes sir, I sure nuff did. The little girl, she is back here in our back room.” She said and led them to the back room.
    The small girl sat at the desk. Her hands were in her lap, head down, deep in the thoughts that ran around in her head.
    “Hi there, I’m Lieutenant Halloway and this is Detective Griffin. We’re here to help you with your problem.” John said. He knelt down in front of the girl.
    Laura pulled up the small chair that sat next to the desk and sat down next to her.
    “Can you tell us what happened out there?” Laura said.
    “I was comin’ home from the club, down on the corner there. Like I always does. Some man jumped out of this van and tried to grab me. But I punched him and ran away.”
    “Good for you. I’m very glad that you got away from him. We’re going to need you to be a little more specific so we can figure out who he is and catch him. Can you do that?”
    The young girl looked up at Laura and then at John “I didn’t see too much. It all really happened really fast, you know.”
    “Ya, I’m sure it did. So tell you what, we’ll just ask you a few questions, maybe that will jar something loose and help you remember. Maybe you will think of something you didn’t realize that you’d seen. How would that be?”
    “Okay, I’ll try.” The girl said.
    “Great, now you said it was a man. Was he a black man, a white man, what?”
    “He was a white man.”
    “Did you get a good look at him? Was he a big man, a small man or just somewhere in the middle?”
    “Gee I don’t know. He was kinda in the middle I guess. He wasn’t real big, that I do know.”
    “Okay that’s good. Did you see what color hair he had, or maybe the color of his clothes?”
    “Well, like I said, it all happened really fast. But I think he had red hair, and he was wearing some kinda rubber gloves.I only know he had gloves because I saw them when he tried to grab me. I don’t remember seeing his clothes.”
    “That’s fine.