by West, Sam
He looks evil.
The thought took her by surprise, knocking the breath out of her lungs. Instinctively, she glanced over the table at Marjorie to see if she perhaps had picked up on his expression, but she couldn’t even begin to guess what she was thinking because of those damn, wraparound sunglasses.
She was still reeling from earlier, when Alfie had picked her up and spun her round so violently. That hadn’t been like him at all, either. He was so devoted to Amber, but she was sure he had copped a feel of her tits as he had set her down.
What the hell was with them tonight?
The guys began to eat with a ferociousness that left Sara stunned. Even Colin, whose impeccable table manners usually rivalled his wife’s, was ripping into his burger with wild abandon. They were attacking the bloody meat like starved dogs, and her husband had actually picked his up with his fingers, forgoing the burger-bap entirely. The tips of his fingers glistened with blood in the slanting, evening sun.
“Jesus Christ, Jeff, what the hell are you doing?”
Marjorie got to her feet, scraping her chair back across the wooden decking. “Sara, will you help me in the kitchen?”
She didn’t have to be asked twice. “You got it.”
Once in the kitchen, Marjorie removed her glasses for the first time that afternoon and Sara did the same.
“What’s wrong with them?” they said at the same time, then laughed together uneasily.
“God, I could murder a drink,” Sara said, cupping her plump stomach with her hand.
“Yes, well, so could I, and I fully intend to.”
She opened the fridge door and the light didn’t come on. She reached inside for an un-opened bottle of Pinot and got to work on it with a corkscrew. Sara watched her longingly, her mouth watering at the sight of the glistening, golden liquid sloshing into the frosted glass.
“Mmm, that’s good,” Marjorie said, her eyes closed in bliss.
Bitch.
The sound of laughter drifting from the patio filled the kitchen, and she flinched. Instinctively, both women moved away from the French-doors and over to the window above the sink. They gazed out at their husbands, safe in the knowledge that from this position they could see the men more clearly than the men could them. To anyone outside, they would have just been shadowy silhouettes in the window.
Marjorie broke the silence, her voice as cold and as matter-of-fact as it always was where Sara was concerned: “When I was over with the boys earlier, your husband slapped me on the bottom and whispered in my ear that if I ever got horny, I knew where to find him.”
Sara’s stomach dropped and her heart twisted painfully in her chest. Her words cut her deep.
Bitch, she thought once more.
No, your husband is the cunt, not her. I knew he secretly preferred skinny women…
She shook her head to dispel the paranoid thoughts. If she gave into them, they would run away with her and she wouldn’t ever be able to think straight. When she spoke, she made a huge effort to keep her voice steady. As much as she wanted to slap the bitch, good sense prevailed. Something didn’t feel right here, and the men were acting so fucking strange, it was untrue.
“Has my husband ever hit on you before?”
Sara stared at Marjorie’s profile and a knot of jealousy twisted in her guts. She really was quite beautiful with her icy blue eyes and angular jawline. She reminded her of a slightly older Keira Knightly and in that moment she hated her with a passion.
Come on, get a grip.
Marjorie continued to stare out of the window as if unaware of Sara’s gaze boring into the side of her head.
“No, it’s never happened before. Jeff loves you and he makes no secret of it.”
And that had to be the warmest thing that had ever come out of her mouth. To Sara’s frustration, Marjorie still refused to turn her head and look at her.
“When Amber told Alfie I was pregnant, he picked me up and spun me round. It was weird. And when he set me down, he groped my chest. Of course, I might’ve imagined it…”
Her words trailed off as she watched the men sat round the table. They’re acting like pigs.
“That’s not like Alfie. Maybe you did.”
Sara bristled. “So you’re saying that when a man gropes me, I had to of imagined it because I’m so fucking fat? Or that Alfie has so much integrity, and my husband has none?”
“No, that isn’t what I said at all. I just said that doesn’t sound like Alfie.”
Sara’s shoulders sagged and she leaned against the draining-board. She felt oddly deflated, like the fight had been knocked out of her.
“Why do you hate me?”
The question seemed to startle Marjorie as much as it had herself; she truly hadn’t expected to ask such a thing.
Marjorie’s head snapped round and she stared at her in surprise. She opened her mouth as if about to say something, when both their gazes were drawn back to the window.
“What are they doing now?” Sara said.
The sudden movement had grabbed their attention – Alfie had jumped on top of the table and was grabbing his cock through his long shorts. All three men were laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. Invisible icy fingers tickled the back of Sara’s neck and despite the warmth of the summer evening, her forearms broke out in a rash of goose-bumps.
“Oh, Jesus, are they on drugs?” Marjorie gasped.
Sara conceded it was a distinct possibility. They continued to watch dumbstruck as Alfie groped himself.
“We need to get Amber,” Sara said.
But she couldn’t move, her feet were rooted to the spot.
“Yeah,” Marjorie agreed, she too apparently glued to the scene unfolding beyond the window.
Sometime during this bizarre display, the sun had gone in. Sara was suddenly aware of the cloud coverage and the fact that it looked like as if it were about to rain.
She looked past the men and out to sea. It was foggy – she could no longer see the horizon.
“Weird weather,” Marjorie said, as if she could read her mind.
“Yeah. Weird fucking everything.” As she said it, the day darkened further. “Looks like a storm’s coming.”
At first, she thought she was imagining the fog, that her eyes were playing tricks on her. But no, the air appeared to be thickening with every passing second. It swirled around the garden and obscured the view of the sea completely.
And it was fucking green. Not a light green, or a muddy green, but a bright, pure shade of mid-green.
“What is that?” Marjorie said, so quietly that Sara barely heard her. “I mean, it’s green. This isn’t bloody London.”
“How’d you mean?”
Marjorie went into teacher mode. “I mean that London is prone to the type of fog known as pea soup, or just plain old smog. It can be very thick and often greenish or blackish in colour. It’s caused by air pollution, namely soot particulates and the poisonous gas, sulfur dioxide. But this is St Ives and we’re right on the coast, I can’t even begin to imagine why such a phenomenon would happen here, and the colour of the fog is just wrong…”
Her words trailed off when they saw Alfie had his cock out. Sara gasped, her hand flying up to her mouth in shock.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Sara said.
It was as if the men had heard her.
But that’s impossible.
Alfie stood still, holding his stiff shaft which poked out of the fly of his board-shorts. All three heads swivelled in their direction and three pairs of eyes latched onto them.
Sara shivered, disturbed on the deepest, most base level.
They look like they want to eat us.
But just as quick the moment passed, and Alfie resumed spinning his cock round. The other two remained sitting where they were, laughing at his antics.
“I’m going to get Amber,” Marjorie said, turning away in disgust from the window.
Sara saw red. “Fuck that, someone needs to rei
gn the stupid bastard in.”
“Sara, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Sara barely heard her as she strode over to the French-doors. It wasn’t the fact that Alfie was swinging his cock round like a fucking windmill that was upsetting her, it was that her husband was doing nothing to stop him.
“Hey, Alfie, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she said as she strode purposely over to the guys.
Dimly, she was aware of Marjorie in the doorway, calling her name, ordering her to come back into the kitchen. But there was no stopping Sara now – she was on a roll. A distant part of her mind acknowledged that she was being a hot-head, but it was who she was and she couldn’t help it; she was quick to blow-up and quick to forgive. So it was with no fear that she approached the men, with nothing else in her head except the desire to give Alfie a good ticking-off.
Nothing could have prepared her for what happened next. One second she was standing there with her hands on her hips, glaring up at Alfie, the next her husband and Colin sprang up from their seats and flanked her, each of them grabbing an arm.
Sara was stunned. She was beyond stunned. She could only twist her head to stare at Jeff in utter disbelief.
“What the fuck?” she managed to get out before they picked her up, sat her down on the edge of the driftwood table and pushed her backwards.
Her head hit the wood with a resounding smack, and stars danced before her eyes. Hands pulled and tugged at her dress and she was aware of air hitting her skin where previously fabric had covered her. She kicked and flailed her arms, writhing in their grip but it just seemed to have the effect of inflaming them further. She lifted up her head and stared down at herself, too shocked even to scream. Her pink sundress was hanging off her body in tatters, her sensible, flesh-coloured underwear on display.
With a smile, her husband curled his fingers inside a stretchy cup of her bra, and pulled hard. Her big tit popped out of the ruined bra, and she watched the wobbling flesh in horror. He did the same to the other cup, freeing her other breast.
She renewed her efforts to escape, twisting and writhing like a fish on a hook, but she was no match for their strength. Colin inserted his body between her legs and placed one hand on the centre of her chest to prevent her from sitting up. Her husband proceeded to rip her knickers clean off her body. The ripping fabric cut painfully into her skin, and she felt a rush of air on her exposed vagina.
At last, Sara found her voice and she cried out on a mix of indignation, horror and shame. The scream was cut short when her husband slapped her hard across the face. Something was rammed into her mouth and a distant part of her mind realised it was her shredded knickers. She felt a pressure against her vagina and her blood turned to ice.
She lifted up her head once more to peer down her near-naked body. The sight which greeted her made her eyes bulge above the makeshift gag, and her vision blur with tears. Colin had pressed his face against her pussy, and was sniffing her.
The strangest image slammed into her mind – that of a dog with its nose buried up another dog’s arse. Colin lifted his face away from her vagina, and they locked eyes over the length of her body. His top lip was curled up in a snarl and he looked more animal than human.
Like a rabid dog…
The deepest, guttural scream was wrenched up from her gut, partly muffled by the knickers rammed into her mouth. Dimly, the sound of someone else screaming nearby reached her ears.
Marjorie.
But the scream did not sound feminine. It sounded more like a man bellowing in rage.
But all thoughts of Marjorie were forgotten when her husband let out an almighty howl that made her skin crawl and her insides shrivel. She felt her bowels constrict when her husband reached for her exposed breasts and dug his fingers in deep. He was leaning over her, his expression identical to Colin’s. Saliva from his curled lips dripped onto her chest, and she stared up incredulously at the man she loved – at the man whose child she was carrying.
Agony exploded in her chest because he didn’t stop squeezing.
“Our baby,” she cried, but it came out muffled and incoherent.
He roared in anger and the infernal pressure lifted from her chest. When she glanced down at herself, she saw five perfect fingerprints on each breast – fingerprints ringed by blood.
A movement above her head drew her eye and she glimpsed the glint of a fork before it came plunging down at speed towards her face. She went to raise her hands, but her husband had her pinned down by the arms as Colin delivered the blow.
Sudden agony blazed in her eye and everything went black. The pain flooded her mind, washing away every last thought and every last little thing that made up who she was. Now her entire existence was one of suffering. Dimly, she was aware that her face was hot and wet, and that other, smaller hurts were joining in with the big hurt on her face.
Now pain completely blanketed her mind as every nerve-ending in her body twitched with the sudden onslaught of violence inflicted upon it. At first, the small hurts felt like annoying insect bites, but then they grew hotter and wetter and throbbed into fiery agony.
The tiniest, still comprehending part of her mind recognised that she was being stabbed over and over, probably with whatever cutlery that had come to hand on the table. But then even that part of her mind blinked out, too.
Everything was already black in Sara’s world, but now she was floating, as well. The searing pain lost its intensity and she felt herself drifting. She welcomed the sensation and let herself fall into it.
A few seconds later she was dead.
CHAPTER FOUR
By the time Amber had reached Jessie’s room, she was badly shaken. “Here’s your dinner,” she said, doing her best to keep her tone light.
Jessie was over by the window, staring down at the garden.
“Daddy’s just gone back out into the garden, and now everyone is sitting round the table. Daddy’s eating funny.”
“Move away from the window, sweetie. Come and have something to eat.”
She placed the plate and ice-cold can of coke on the bed and went over to Jessie. Refusing to look out of the window, she pulled it shut and instantly everything was silent. She was glad she could no longer hear the men laughing – the sound of it sent a chill down her spine. Placing her hands on Jessie’s shoulders, she steered her over to her bed.
Thank God for double-glazing…
“When is the power coming back on? Can I watch the film on the living-room telly later?”
“Yes you can, as soon as the power comes back on. Now eat.”
With a sigh, Jessie plumped up her pillows and scooted up the bed so that she was leaning against the headboard with her legs tucked underneath her. Balancing the plate on her lap, she took a bite of the burger.
“Why is Daddy being so strange?” she said through a mouthful of food.
Amber had to curb her natural instinct to lie, to say that there was nothing the matter with Daddy. But looking at Jessie’s sweet little face, she decided to be honest.
Well, not completely honest. Because the truth is I don’t know what the hell is wrong with Alfie and I’m bloody terrified.
“I don’t know, I think he’s just had a little bit too much to drink.”
“I don’t like it.”
No, me neither.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be fine tomorrow, but he’ll probably have a hangover.”
She reached out for her shin to give it a reassuring pat. It suddenly occurred to her that the bedroom was getting darker.
But it’s ages ‘til sunset.
She glanced over towards the window and her eyes widened in shock. From this position on the bed all she could see was sky – sky which was now a bright shade of green.
Perhaps something’s burning on the barbeque and it’s filled the air with green smoke…
No, since when is barbeque smoke green?
Just as she thought that, she heard a scream. Amber fli
nched, her fingers involuntarily tightening around Jessie’s leg.
“Ow, Mummy, you’re hurting me.”
“Sorry,” she said, removing her hand.
That wasn’t a scream, you silly cow, it was a seagull.
But when the noise came a second time, there was no mistaking it. Jessie stared up at her, her face pale despite the tan.
“What was that, Mummy?”
“I don’t know. Don’t move.”
She hurried over to the window and peered down at the patio, her heart thumping hard in her chest. At first, it was hard to make out anything because of the swirling green fog and her husband and friends were nothing more than indistinct shapes amidst the dense, green air. As for the rest of the garden, it was completely smothered by the green mist.
What the hell is it?
She had never seen anything like it before. A primal sense of dread curled deep in the pit of her stomach. Whatever it was, she just knew it didn’t come from nature.
Two possibilities flitted through her mind: A terrorist attack? An alien invasion?
The last one almost made her smile, and if her face hadn’t of been frozen in fear, she might have done so.
It’s just a bit of fog...
If only she could believe that.
Then the swirling green fog parted a little, just enough for her to see what was happening on the patio below.
What she saw defied comprehension, and at first, her brain simply didn’t accept what her eyes were seeing. She went to open the window, wanting to hear as well as see, then stopped herself.
It’s the fog that’s making them do it.
She understood this on the most base, primal level, even if the rational part of her mind didn’t believe it. Even so, she kept the window firmly shut.
She stared down in horror at the writhing shapes that were still largely obscured by the fog; at poor Sara forced onto her back on the table, being stripped naked by Jeff and Colin… And was Colin giving her oral sex?
No. This was no orgy, it was rape, pure and simple. Frantically, she scanned the patio for her husband and Marjorie, but there was no sign of them.