Waiting

The man sat inside the tunnel atop a kids slide in Kenwood park. He huddled inside the slide tossing cigarette butts down the slide where they sank a bit and froze into the puddle at the bottom. He checked his watch and peeked out of the tunnel towards Douglas Street. It was just after midnight and he had been there a while trying to keep warm rubbing his hands together and blowing into them using the smoke from his lungs to try and warm them. 

The young woman using the park as a shortcut to shorten the cold walk home did not see him hiding there. He cupped the cherry on his cigarette from the darkness and stubbed it out on the slide and then stuffed the pack into his shirt pocket. She walked across the park cutting between paths, around the frozen merry go round, through the second and third swing, and past the now empty wading pool.

She used the ladder on the slide to stop an inadvertent slide as she walked by, pulling herself upright. She did not see the man above her as he quickly swung his leg down beside her kicking her in the face. She collapsed into the spot she had previously vision blurry to see only a shadowy figure jump down on top of her. The man swung his arm back and punched her in the face causing her to pass out.

The man straddled the woman and looked around to make sure no one was around. 

He dragged her by her legs to the wading pool dumping her over the edge and rolling her onto her back staring down at her and smiling. He reached down, opened her coat and fondled her breasts with both hands before ripping open her shirt. he pushed up her skirt and ripped off her panties and stuffed them into his pocket before standing up. He took one more look around and unbuckled his pants dropping them to the ground.

He was bent over preparing to climb on top of her when a bullet whistled its way across the park, past the swings and the merry go round finally finding it's mark between his temple and his ear. His lifeless body slumped on top of the girl and rolled off into the slush from the force of the bullet. The night moved on and the woman lay there unconscious next to the dead body of the rapist.