Self-Defense?

I live in a quiet town. Recently, though, a man was trying to "abduct" girls while they were walking. Needless to say, I walk A LOT. And I'm worried because this happened only a couple streets away from me and I have to cross it to get to the other side of town....Yikes! So, my question would be what are some good and (semi)easy self defense moves that I could use on an attacker? Ideally, it would be something that I could do to make someone unable to use strength against me (temporarily paralyzed? Does that sound wrong?) and make them stay put while i got help, called someone, etc. etc., depending on the situation. Thanks!