by West, Sam
Her gaze flitted to the window to check on Jessie’s progress – she was half-way down but she couldn’t see Marjorie because the fog was too thick.
Her gaze snapped back to her husband and Colin.
Where the fuck is Jeff?
Except she knew full well where Jeff was, and her heart lurched in misery and terror.
He’s gone to get Jessie.
Tears sprung into her eyes and she willed her legs to move but they were like jelly. She could only stare at them in mute terror, knowing she was trapped.
Knowing that her darling Jessie was also trapped.
“You bastards!” she screamed at them. “Why are you doing this?”
They looked at her in silence, their heads cocked to one side like dogs. Their eyes were empty, devoid of anything except for the glint of animal hunger.
They want to rape me. Or kill me. Or both.
In that moment, the full realization hit her that this was no longer her husband. It looked like her husband, but the man that she loved was gone. This thing masquerading as him was a monster.
It’s the fog, it’s turned them into this…
And then they were on her like a pair of wolves. They whooped and hollered, ripping the cut-offs and t-shirt clean off her body, the aerosol can that had been tucked into the waistband of her shorts clattering to the floor.
“Get off me!” she screamed, but her objections only served to inflame them further.
They ripped and clawed at her underwear until she was completely naked.
“Alfie,” she sobbed, staring up into her husband’s face. “Why are you doing this? What’s happened to you? Darling, it’s me.”
He was straddling her chest with her wrists pinned to the mattress high above her head, leering down at her with spittle dripping from his snarling lips. She flinched when he actually growled at her, like a rabid dog.
“Alfie! Please…”
Her words gave way to sobbing when her thighs were suddenly and violently wrenched apart by Colin. Alfie was obscuring her view of him, but she could feel his face buried in her bared vagina. His breath was hot and moist and she squirmed in disgust. Then the pressure lifted from her vagina and Alfie’s torso jerked forward, like Colin had shoved him hard from behind. In the brief second that he lost his balance, she was able to yank her wrists free and she brought her knees up hard, ramming Alfie in the stomach. She scooted up the bed away from them, but her newfound freedom lasted all of two seconds.
Colin threw himself at her husband, landing on top of him so that he in turn landed awkwardly over her leg, pinning her to the bed.
It suddenly occurred to her that they were fighting over her.
“Please,” she sobbed, kicking and writhing beneath Alfie’s weight.
The fourteen stone bulk of solid muscle that was her husband bore down on her, causing sharp pain to shoot up her crushed leg.
Mustering together every last scrap of strength, she rolled free, landing with a thump on her side on the floor. As she lay there, a high-pitched scream from outside reached her ears.
Oh God, please not Jessie, please let that be Marjorie.
She crawled away from the bed and got to her feet. Fragments of broken glass glittered on the floor and she winced in pain when she trod on some.
On the bed, Alfie was straddling Colin with his hands around his neck, squeezing hard. Colin bucked and writhed beneath him, his face a bright crimson. Just when Amber thought Alfie was going to throttle him to death, he removed his hands and turned to look at her.
She froze in terror, her legs refusing to budge.
It’s because he wants to rape me before Colin, whispered the dark little voice in her mind.
Well, fuck that.
Her gaze latched onto the chainsaw right by her feet and she scooped it up.
“Stay back,” she shouted at her husband, brandishing the cumbersome and heavy piece of machinery before her.
Now how the fuck do I turn the damn thing on?
She screamed and almost dropped it when her finger happened upon the switch embedded in the inside of the handle and the circular blade whirred into life.
Alfie froze in place, one leg off the bed, one leg on. Behind him, Colin coughed and spluttered on the bed and rolled into the foetal position, nursing his traumatised windpipe. Alfie took a step towards her, his top lip draw back in a snarl. She jabbed the chainsaw at him.
“Stay back.”
No matter what her husband had become, she knew full well she didn’t have it in her to kill him, and tears blurred her vision.
“Don’t come any closer,” she screamed.
She edged backwards, keeping the chainsaw going, trying to ignore the shattered glass that split open the soles of her feet.
Oh, fuck me, that hurts…
She cried out when her bare rump bumped into the chest of drawers and she edged around it, heading ever closer towards the door.
At last she was in the doorway, the distance between her and her husband widening with every step. The hallway and freedom beckoned…
She screamed in shock when one strong arm suddenly snaked around her wrist and another hand clamped around her right forearm and tugged it sideways.
It was a good job that Amber was left-handed because instead of dropping the chainsaw or resisting, she simply went with it and allowed her hand to be dragged off the handle. She clung onto the chainsaw with her left hand which was the hand that held the thing on, and it dipped dangerously low. She would’ve dropped it or worse if she hadn’t of pushed into the motion instead of fighting it, and she pirouetted in her assailant’s arms, allowing the weight of the chainsaw to spin her round.
It shuddered violently in her hand when it made contact with the pair of legs standing behind her and a blood-curdling scream reached her ears. The arm around her waist and on her forearm disappeared and she regained control of the chainsaw, clamping her right hand on the handle with grim determination.
She stumbled backwards into the hallway, staring in disbelief at the damage she had wrought upon Jeff. He had collapsed on the floor, his right leg streaming blood from the gaping wound just below his knee. His screams of agony made her skin crawl – he didn’t sound human. It sounded computer-generated, like a load of screams of different frequencies had been lumped together for effect.
“Stay back,” she screamed at her husband above Jeff’s wailing and the chainsaw’s engine.
She edged backwards to the top of the stairs, her heart pumping hard. Once at the top of the stairs, she let go of the ‘on’ switch and bounded down the stairs two at a time. She stumbled out through the shattered patio-doors, yet more glass viciously slicing into the soles of her feet.
The fog was as thick as ever.
Will it affect me too?
Terrified that her husband was right behind her, she ran onto the grassy lawn.
“Jessie!” she screamed.
She stopped and hunched over her knees. Her body was a trembling wreck and she could hardly catch her breath. The fog swirled around her, caressing her bare skin. It felt a little cool and damp, but otherwise no different from the air on a drizzly day. She twirled around on the spot, searching for signs of her daughter but the fog was so thick she couldn’t see a damn thing.
She realised she could no longer see the house.
Shit!
Fear clenched around her chest like a giant fist, making her go weak and dizzy.
I’m going to die here. My husband’s going to creep up on me and then he’s going to rape me and kill me…
She sobbed in relief when the fog parted for a second like curtains in a theatre to reveal the house. Just as quick the vision vanished again, and she half-ran, half-stumbled in the opposite direction towards the front gate…
Until she went sprawling face-first into the damp grass. Something had tripped her up, something solid and heavy. She lay there unmoving in the grass for a second, dizzy and confused and hurting from head to toe. She raised her h
ead, the handle of the chainsaw a few inches in front of her nose.
Thank God I didn’t land on that.
It took every last shred of willower to haul herself into a sitting position.
“Oh, Jesus, no,” she cried, kneeling over the body of her friend.
She picked up a limp wrist and felt for a pulse. Nothing. But that was hardly a surprise, considering there was a large pair of garden secateurs sticking out of her throat. Her wide-eyes stared lifelessly up to heaven and her mouth was twisted open into an ugly, silent scream. Amber’s gaze travelled the length of her slender body.
She’s still wearing her dress.
The dress, however, was rucked up around her waist, revealing the fact that her knickers were missing. Instinctively, Amber reached out to gently push her friend’s legs together. She had the strong sense that Marjorie hadn’t been raped. With a shudder, she remembered how Colin had buried his face in her vagina and sniffed. Marjorie’s lack of knickers suggested that the same thing had happened to her, but there was no other sign of rape – no bleeding or swelling around her vagina, no signs of trauma to her flawlessly smooth inner thighs.
A thought she couldn’t quite catch danced on the peripherals of her mind before vanishing again. But she was too muddled and terrified to dwell on the hows and the whys – there were far more pressing matters at hand like the fact her daughter was missing.
Oh God, what if Jessie’s lying dead somewhere in the garden?
“Jessie,” she cried, picking up the chainsaw and scrambling to her feet.
Please let her be hiding somewhere, just please God…
The fog had thickened again, disorientating her, leaving her with no idea from which direction she had come. She scanned the garden for signs of the narrow path that ran down the middle of the big garden to the front-gate, stifling the rise of panic when she couldn’t see a damn thing apart from her dead friend.
On legs that felt as sturdy as jelly, she lurched in what she hoped was the general direction of the gate. She screamed when something heavy slammed into her back, sending her sprawling to the ground once more.
The air knocked out of her lungs, and she panicked, unable to draw in a breath. Twinkling lights danced in front of her eyes, and her midriff blazed in agony.
Landed on the fucking chainsaw, could’ve cut myself in two…
She was beginning to hyperventilate when she reached under her stomach and dragged out the chainsaw, grunting in pain as she did so. Holding grimly onto the handle with both hands, she pressed down on the starter button.
As soon as the thing screamed into life, it was wrenched out of her grip. She heard the engine splutter then die, then the only thing she could hear was her own ragged, terrified breathing and whimpering.
That, and her husband laughing.
Oh no, please no.
Strong hands fisted her long hair, pulling her throat taught and she felt the wet heat of a mouth on the side of her neck, followed by the sharp graze of teeth. She tried to claw her way forwards on the wet glass, but the hand in her hair pulled tighter, making her scream out in pain when her head snapped even further back.
“No, Alfie,” she cried, but it came out as a low moan.
Weight pressed down on her back and bare rump, making the air whoosh out of her, effectively ending her struggles. Still laughing, her husband bore down on top of her, pressing her front into the dewy grass. He writhed on top of her, dry-humping her backside, his cock rock-hard and straining against the scratchy material of his shorts.
Suddenly, his weight lifted and she could breathe again. One arm snaked around her middle and scooped her up, the other hand pressed down on the back of her head, pushing the side of her face into the grass. She tried to wriggle free, but he held her firmly in place with her arse in the air and her face in the wet grass.
The familiar sensation of his hard cock probing between her butt-cheeks made fresh tears spring to her eyes.
Just relax and go with it, a voice whispered in her mind.
How many times had they done it in this position? A thousand? Two thousand? Three? Snot bubbled in her nose and the tears just wouldn’t stop.
It’s just sex with my husband, it’s just sex with my husband…
Except it wasn’t and was impossible to convince herself that it was just that. Alfie was no more her husband right then, than the green fog was something that came from nature. She felt only one thing as he pounded away on top of her and it wasn’t pain, or fear, or hatred. It was loneliness; an overriding feeling of soul-crushing loneliness that left her bereft.
It was over quickly and as soon as he let go of her, her body flopped to the ground. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the first blow. She just prayed that he would be merciful, that she would die quickly.
She waited. And waited some more. Nothing happened. Tentatively, she lifted her head. The sound of the front-gate creaking on its hinges reached her ears.
He’s gone. Why didn’t he kill me?
The realisation that he had spared her life left her light-headed and weak. A strange noise escaped her lips – she thought that perhaps she was trying to laugh, but the sound was nearer the high-pitched mewling of a dying cat.
Clumsily, she hauled herself up onto her elbows, wincing in disgust at the feel of Alfie’s hot semen trickling down her inner-thighs. And then she was on her feet, swaying like a drunkard. She bent over to pick up the chainsaw and pressed the switch – the bloody thing no longer worked. Grunting in frustration, she chucked it to the ground.
The fog cleared a little and warily she eyed the house. Should she go back inside, pick the glass out of her feet, find some shoes and clothes and something to protect herself with whilst she was searching for her daughter?
And then she thought of Colin and Jeff, still inside the house. Perhaps she had caused sufficient damage to Jeff, but Colin must be recovered by now from Alfie strangling him.
No, she couldn’t risk going back inside, it would be suicide. Gingerly, she lowered herself back down onto the grass and picked up one foot, peering at its underside.
Jesus, what a mess.
She began to pick out the little pieces of glass, wincing at every single extraction.
I really need some bandages on these…
But there was no way on God’s earth she was going back inside.
When she had seen to her poor feet as best she could, she went against every natural instinct she possessed and placed one foot on Marjorie’s chest, pulling out the garden-scissors that were rammed in her throat. They came out with a wet pop that made her want to vomit. Turning her face away in disgust, she closed her eyes and took deep, shaky breaths.
Wincing in pain, she hobbled in the general direction of the front-gate. She was going to find her daughter.
CHAPTER SIX
On the ground next to the barbeque grill was a discarded black apron. Luckily, it was material rather than plastic, and she wrapped it sideways around her body, using the strings to secure it firmly against her torso.
Her new dress in place, she let herself out of the gate. Next to the gate was the double-garage, but she couldn’t open the sliding door without a key. Not that it mattered, for all the power-tools were kept in the toolshed round the back of the house, anyway.
Which way would Jessie go?
To her left, the gravel-road abruptly ended, a hedgerow separating her house from the wild clifftop beyond. Opposite, a short path led down to the narrow cliff-path which hugged the coastline. Could Jessie have gone onto the cliff-path and either turned right into town or turned left and taken off into the wilds of the Cornish coastline?
It’s so foggy, she wouldn’t be able to see, what if she plunged over the edge?
Her blood ran cold just thinking about it. If she was scared enough, she might have turned left to get away from Jeff and from people in general. Had it occurred to her that if her dad and Colin and Jeff had ‘turned’, then maybe it had happened to other men, too? Was she
mature enough to make that connection?
Or maybe she had turned right and gone into town to seek out the safety of others. Or maybe she hadn’t gone on the cliff-path at all and had stuck to this road…
Her head throbbed going over the possibilities, trying to put herself in her daughter’s place. Some innate instinct told her that Jessie probably went into town on this road to seek help. Despite thinking this, she headed for the cliff-path – she had to check out every possibility.
The rocky path cut her feet to ribbons and each step was agony. She stumbled onwards, the green fog showing no sign of abating. She stopped walking and strained her ears. All she could hear was the roar of the ocean.
Where are you, Jessie?
“Jessie?” she called out.
Her voice sounded dull and muffled by the fog – even if she was nearby there was a good chance she wouldn’t even hear her calling.
No, she couldn’t think like that.
She called her name a few more times, stumbling blindly onward. Then she stopped dead.
She didn’t come this way. I’m wasting time.
She headed back the way she had come, being very careful not to turn around on the spot because it would be all too easy to lose which way was town. She went back up the path which took her onto her road, pausing at the gate of her first neighbour in the row of six.
Would Jessie have run next door for help?
This house was mainly used as a holiday-let. The owners, Mr and Mrs Greaves very rarely made an appearance, and usually only in the winter. As with her house, the double-garage was right next to the front-gate. The garage-door was rolled-down, so there was no way of knowing if anyone was home, or even if the house was currently occupied.
She couldn’t remember seeing anyone arrive next-door, but then, it wasn’t like she paid attention. People came and went all the time in St Ives, and her own house was sufficiently isolated so it didn’t affect her.
She stared hard at the place where the house should be, but all she saw was the swirling green. Fresh tears of frustration welled in her eyes; this was all so bloody hopeless, there was no way she was going to find Jessie, she could be anywhere…