Sarah was riding after dark toward home on a tree-lined paved path. Mom’s gonna be mad, I am late again. The darkness hid the tree branch laying on the path until too late to avoid it. It tangled in the tire spokes and dumped her.
She struggled to untangle herself from the bicycle. Sarah cried out as a sharp pain blossomed in her right leg. Touching it brought a groan. She struggled out of her backpack and rummaged for her cell phone. Damn! She left it on the hall table.
Sarah wrestled with the bicycle until she and it were upright. She gritted her teeth at the pain in her leg as she pushed the bike toward home. There was a rustle in bushes to her left and her head whipped toward the sound. Her heart beat a rat-a-tat in her breast, and she hobbled faster.
Cold terror gripped her soul when the man raised the machete. Sarah screamed.