Stephen Nakomo led us into a quiet, dirty shed at the timber mill where he works in Marondera, 80 kilometres east of Harare. It was one of the few places where he felt safe to describe the perils of canvassing for the opposition in Zimbabwe's first contested elections for 20 years.
"I was coming home with some pamphlets and posters when the gang attacked. We dropped everything and ran, but they got my friend and broke his arm. Then they burned all our posters and placards," he said.
Other campaigners for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party have suffered worse, he added. Friends were forced from the houses and beaten with sticks and bicycle chains.
Now Stephen has moved both himself and his family out of their home and into a safe house, at least until the polling tomorrow and on Sunday is over.
Using six trucks donated by white farmers, the MCD activists made night-time runs into housing areas, dropping bundles of leaflets and then taking off as quickly as possible. They have given up on gluing up posters that only get ripped down, so instead spray the letters "MCD" on the roads and signposts leading to Marondera.
Yesterday the MCD said that another activist had died, bringing to 32 the number of people killed by land invasions or political intimidation since last February. The man Stephen is canvassing for, Mr Didimas Munhenzva (38), a trade unionist daren't even show his face in the constituency. He has taken his children from school and fled to Harare.
"They are hunting for me and they want my head," he said, speaking on a mobile phone. "On two occasions police intelligence officers held pistols to the heads of my guys to force them to show where I was staying."
The night before, the two men named as his polling agents had been badly beaten after their addresses were published in the national papers, he said.
Mr Munhenzva might have more to fear than most because he is challenging Dr Sydney Sekeramayi, the incumbent MP for Marondera and, more pertinently, Minister for State Security.
Yesterday morning Dr Sekeramayi stood in the centre of a large, quiet meadow outside Marondera and addressed a rally for President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.
With a disarming smile, Dr Sekeramayi explained patiently to the crowd that, really, the entire problem with land allocation was the fault of the British. "The international community has been misled by the British and is now following their line," he said.
Behind him sat five white farmers, their legs crossed as they smoked cigarettes beneath wide-brimmed hats.
Afterwards, the white farmers explained that they were representatives of a "task force" set up after violence flared last April with the aim of smoothing relations with the war veterans. "Our guy [the war veteran leader] has been very good to work with and we've had little trouble since then," one farmer remarked.
Glancing around to see if anyone was listening, another farmer offered a different explanation. "Most of the people you see here work on our farms, and we're forced to come here this morning. And that guy [the Minister] is a dangerous bastard."