Catchee Monkey: An excerpt (just for fun)

Well, I’ve finally taken the advice of so many writers and decided to put up an excerpt from one of my novels on my blog as a way to alert interested readers to my content and style of writing. Perhaps a psychological thriller might just be your genre.

Excerpt: Catchee Monkey

At 3 am something woke me. I lay still. The house was silent. I could hear the faint rumble of intermittent traffic on Bayswater. Restless, I eventually slid out of bed and went to fetch a glass of water. Instead of going back to bed, I crossed the room and went to stand at the window. There was a silvery, overcast gloom in the sky, ethereal under the light of an invisible moon. The moon. In Scorpio. I thought of all the people out there who would be taking extra precaution because of an unfortunate configuration of celestial bodies. It made me shiver. As I turned to go to bed, a figure came through the doorway.

There was a disorientating moment when I thought it must be someone I knew. Jeff’s name slid and died on my tongue as the shape, dressed head to toe in black, including a black stocking over his head, moved towards me. I had time for no more than a stifled squawk as he reached for me and grasped my wrist in a bone-breaking grip. In a second he had swung me against his body, the hard power of one arm holding me steady while he raised the other high and I glimpsed a metallic gleam.

Everything took place in silence. I don’t know if that was the worst part. If he had spoken, threatened, grunted or even sworn at me, there would have been some perspective. But he uttered no sound, just a sense of elevated breathing as though he was excited or nervous. Or in a hurry.

I was aware of my hand clasped around his forearm, my legs kicking out, the wind knocked out of my body. I fought for breath. His hold was suffocating. He lifted me against his chest to ensure I couldn’t regain balance by bracing my feet on the floor. Terror raked through me like a hot claw, slicing away rational thought, closing my mind into blank disbelief. I had no power, no voice, no sense of comprehension. It was as though everything had been sucked out and I was left with nothing but air where my body had been – except for the reality of the pain in my throat where his arm pressed me relentlessly back, forcing submission.

He took one step away from the window. As we turned in a struggling mass, the cupboard door swung slowly open like some creepy scene in a ghost movie. It was the same door that caused Richard and myself to tumble onto the bed on that earlier and memorable evening.

Except now, the man holding me lost momentum. For one split-second he must have thought someone else was in the room. His hold loosened fractionally but enough for me to break away. I slid to the floor. As he reached for me again, I rose up and smashed the spiky heel of a shoe into his face. I had aimed for an eye but had no idea where the heel landed, only felt the satisfying thump of connection. Now he made a sound – a sharp intake of breath. I leapt up, grabbed the cupboard door by the handle and slammed it against him. There was another good sound – wood connecting with bone. I spun round and ran.

I reached the landing, the head of the stairs. Respite would be momentary. He would be behind me in a second – and enraged. I began screaming before I hit the hallway. Terror drove me, hampered me. My feet felt like blocks of lead, my legs moved as though I was traveling through water. My heart felt as though it had swelled to the size of a football and was stuck at the base of my throat. One gut-wrenching thought pulsed through my fright. It couldn’t be happening to me. Not really. It must be a dream.

In this half-conscious state, I raced for the front door. I was scrambling and stamping, but hardly moving. The front door seemed like a mirage at the end of a tunnel where gravity had lost grip, taking me ever forwards to something I would never reach.

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Catchee Monkey is available on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/55929

And will soon be on Amazon

Follow me on Twitter @MallaDuncan

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