by West, Sam
A thumping noise made her jump and she staggered backwards, holding the secateurs away from her body at a ninety-degree angle.
Oh God, that sounded like my gate opening.
Sure enough, a figure loomed towards her from the direction of her house, their identity obscured by the fog. But Amber could see enough of them to know who it was; the silhouette was tall and gangly and could only be Colin.
Her paralysis broke and she turned heel and ran. Behind her, she could hear male laughter. Every time her damaged feet connected with the gravel she wanted to fall to her knees and howl to the invisible sky. But she didn’t give up. Jessie was the only thing on her mind, she had to find her…
She could feel herself slowing down; her ruined feet betraying her. She powered forward through the pain, but it wasn’t enough. The laughter was now a hot gush of air on the nape of her neck and she felt fingertips graze the expanse of her naked back that the apron didn’t cover.
Hands grabbed her and she stumbled – she would’ve nose-dived to the ground and smashed up her face if Colin hadn’t of been holding her tight, his front pressed against every inch of her back with his powerful arms wrapped around her middle.
Oh no, not again.
She struggled in his arms, dropping the garden-scissors in the process. He lifted her right up off the ground.
“Get off me!” she screamed, kicking her legs and writhing in his grip.
But her legs alternatively peddled thin air and dragged across the ground as he half-carried, half-walked her over to one of the waist-height, flat-topped concrete posts that framed either side of the wooden gate of the last house at the end of the street.
He bent her over it and she cried out in pain as the unforgiving concrete dug into her stomach. The thick material of the apron protected the skin of her stomach and breasts from being ripped to shreds, and for that small mercy she was grateful.
She thrashed on the post, scraping her knees as she tried to scramble off it. Colin continued to push down on her back, mashing her tits painfully into the surface.
It wasn’t long before she gave up trying to propel herself upwards as all it achieved was for her forearms and elbows to get cut to ribbons.
“Why are you doing this,” she gasped, clawing the side of the post and shuddering in revulsion as she felt the all-too-familiar sensation of a hard cock probing her arse-crack, guided by a hand.
Colin just grunted in reply, intent on the job at hand. His cock shoved past her anus, heading straight for her vagina and without ceremony it plunged into her dry centre.
The rape was perfunctory and over in less than a minute. There was very little pain, but inside she felt as if her heart might break. Tears slid down her face as Colin simply pulled out of her, zipped himself up and left her there, dangling over the post.
She went to right herself, but her legs wouldn’t work and she crumpled to the ground. She hugged the post like it was a person and gave in to the gut-wrenching sobs.
“Why,” she gasped between choking sobs that gave way to a bout of hiccups.
Using the post to haul herself to her feet, she straightened out the pathetic excuse for a dress and fought to get herself under control.
Amazingly, her secateurs were in the same place where she had dropped them, less than a foot away from where she stood. She hobbled over towards them, wondering why the hell Colin hadn’t used them on her like Jeff had used them on Marjorie.
It didn’t make sense.
Nothing makes sense. Nothing will ever make fucking sense ever again…
Why aren’t I dead, she wondered, as she bent down to retrieve the secateurs. Yes, her body ached and burned from head to toe, yes she had been brutally raped, not once, but twice, but there was no real physical damage done. She hadn’t been tortured or beaten up for the sake of it. Neither of them had attempted anal, and each encounter had been over in seconds. Each and every injury was self-inflicted; if she had of cooperated with them instead of fighting them, the only sore part of her body now would be her vagina.
Not like Sara and Marjorie…
I’ve been impregnated.
The strange thought slammed into her mind and was the equivalent of a light-bulb switching on. She thought of how both men had disappeared as soon as they’d orgasmed without so much as bruising her...
The more she thought about it, the more sense it made, in a really fucked up kind of way.
Marjorie was menopausal and Sara was already pregnant. I’m the only fertile one.
But where would Jessie fit into this theory?
Thinking of her daughter reinvigorated her and she forced herself to move in the direction of town.
She came out on Porthmeor road with the beach on her right and The Tate Modern on her left just a few feet ahead. Not that she could see these landmarks, but she recognised the railing and bench she was currently leaning against.
Distant screams reached her ears. At first she thought it was seagulls, but a fog like this would trick them into thinking it was night and they would be silent.
That isn’t seagulls….
She was reminded of being in Jessie’s bedroom less than an hour ago, when she had initially mistaken Sara’s screams for seagulls.
Just thinking about her daughter caused her heart to give a painful lurch and she resisted the urge to cry out her name. She was on the outskirts of town now, there were people around.
There were men.
The screams came again, louder this time, the unmistakable cries of women. Half of her wanted to run in the opposite direction – she was here to find Jessie, not help strangers – but the other half knew she would never be able to live with herself if she ignored those cries for help.
For the first time that night, she was grateful for the fog. Silently, she followed in the direction of the screams, the secateurs brandished before her, unable to see no more than a metre in front of her face.
The fog distorted noise more than she realised, for she happened upon the source of the screaming much quicker than she had expected to.
She found herself at the foot of the stairs that led up to the Tate Gallery and through the fog she was able to discern four figures close together. Going from past experience of this hellish night, she quickly grasped what was happening; two men were on top of two women.
Abruptly, one set of screams stopped, and the woman on the left stopped thrashing. The spare man joined the other man, and the three figures writhed together in the thick air.
Amber saw red. She was sick of this and without thinking she lunged for the man that was thrusting on top of the screaming woman. Mustering together every last ounce of strength she possessed, she rammed the secateurs into his back. The man jerked, then went slack.
Not wanting to lose her weapon, she tugged out the garden-scissors and stood there panting, staring in disbelief at what she had done. The sobbing woman beneath him must have pushed him off her because he flopped onto his back next to her on the steps, his lifeless eyes staring into space.
He looks so normal, came the fleeting thought. He was a middle-aged guy in spectacles and a tweed jacket – one of those arty, academic types that St Ives was stiff with.
For a split second, Amber had forgotten about the other guy. She soon remembered him when he roared at her like a wounded animal, and lunged for her down the steps.
“Stay back,” she cried, jabbing the blood-soaked secateurs at him.
The sight of the weapon made him pause for a second, then suddenly he wasn’t standing there anymore.
“Move!” cried a feminine voice, hoarse from crying and screaming.
The man’s legs crumpled, then he was tumbling headfirst down the steps. Amber only just managed to dodge him in time.
She pushed him she had time to think before the woman grabbed her by the arm. “Come on, let’s go, now.”
Amber allowed herself to be pulled along by the naked stranger, almost losing her footing on the steps, more than pleased to put some
distance between her and the man she had just murdered. Fleetingly, her gaze settled on the older, naked woman lying dead next to him before the fog swallowed her whole.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The two women lurched forward, clinging clumsily to each other.
“Where are we going?” Amber panted.
“For help,” came the breathy reply. “It’s only the men, the women are helping each other.”
“I need to find my daughter.”
Amber skidded to a halt, her feet killing her. She was disorientated, confused and badly winded. The woman jerked on her arm, but right then, Amber was done.
“We have to keep moving, the bastards are everywhere but we’ll be safer in town. There are women that will help us.”
“My daughter,” she repeated, hunched over her knees.
The naked woman gently placed an arm over her defeated shoulders. “Look at me.”
Slowly, taking deep breaths, Amber straightened up and looked into the woman’s kind eyes. She was her age, perhaps a few years younger. She had a short and funky, bleach-blonde hair-cut, and if it wasn’t for the black-eye and scratches on her face, she would’ve been a beauty.
Amber dropped her gaze, and found herself staring at the woman’s small, bare breasts. Despite everything that had happened that night, she looked away, embarrassed. It just wasn’t bloody right.
“We need help, and we need shelter. It will be getting dark soon and can you imagine this fucking fog in the dark? We won’t be able to see a thing. The side-road just up ahead will take us into town. We need to get inside a house, and quick.”
“Where are we?” Amber asked, frantically searching for familiar landmarks but seeing nothing.
“At the end of Porthmeor Road. Look up, I think that’s the sign for the café on the corner.”
When Amber looked up, she recognised it too.
“You go, I have to find Jessie.”
“How old is your daughter?”
“Ten. Why?”
The woman smiled and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I was out drinking with my boyfriend in The Sloop beer-garden when all this happened. Every single man just turned, it was chaos. Me and a few women managed to get away and barricade ourselves in the Sloop’s office opposite the pub, and this one woman had her kid with her, a girl, about your daughter’s age. Anyway, some men broke into the office. They raped me, killed the other three women, and let the little girl go without harming a hair on her head. I was chased out here after I was raped the first time and I’ve been raped three times now. But I don’t think they touch the children.”
I don’t think they touch the children…
The stranger’s words made her knees buckle in relief. That statement was something she had not even dared to hope before. But it made sense – if Jeff had wanted to kill Jessie, then he would’ve done so. Amber felt sure she would’ve found her daughter’s body near Marjorie’s.
But he hadn’t killed her, he had let her go because the men simply weren’t interested in children.
“They’re impregnating us,” Amber whispered. “Infertile women are just slaughtered…”
“And the children aren’t old enough. Yet,” the woman finished for her.
Amber’s blood ran cold – that was something she hadn’t thought of.
Because it’s going to happen again when the little boys and girls are all grown up...
“So come on,” the woman said, “can we please bloody go now?”
Amber, strengthened by the new-found hope that Jessie was, God willing, still alive, managed a smile for her new friend.
“Sure.”
Together, the two women pushed on, lurching down the side-street that led to the town-centre. This street had lots of houses on it – mainly cottage holiday-lets – and so far no men had chased them.
“Help us,” her new friend cried.
Immediately, a female voice called to them through the fog: “Over here, quickly.”
Both women ground to a halt, searching the fog-laden air for the source of the voice.
“Over here,” came that same voice from somewhere off to their right.
They stumbled in that direction, a cottage with a stable-door looming into view. A plump, shadowy figure stood in the doorway, waving her arms in the air.
Once Amber was sure that the woman would make it to the door and that she would be safe, she gave her the briefest of hugs.
“Go. Look after yourself.”
“What? You’re not coming?”
“I can’t.”
“There’s nothing you can do for your daughter right now. Do you want to stay out here, and be raped, over and over?”
Amber extracted herself from her grip. “Good bye,” she said firmly. “And good luck.”
The woman smiled sadly, like she knew she was beat. “Okay. Thanks for trying to help me, and everything. I hope you find your daughter.”
Amber stumbled blindly away, chiding herself for not going into that cottage. She was done in – she needed to drink some water before she passed out from sheer lack of fluids and she needed to do something to her feet. But her mother’s love spurred her on and she knew she would sooner die before she stopped searching.
Where are you Jessie? Please be safe…
She heard movement behind her, and she cringed in terror – it was the unmistakable sound of male laughter and approaching footsteps. She picked up her pace, lurching blindly on.
But the very same sounds were coming from in front of her, too and she ground to a halt.
I’m surrounded.
Maybe she could retrace her steps, seek help from the woman she had just parted ways with. She bit down the howl of sheer frustration.
This is all a big mistake, I should’ve gone inside that cottage when I had the chance.
It suddenly occurred to her that it was getting lighter.
My God, I actually think it’s lifting.
She stopped dead. No, she wasn’t imagining it; the sky was definitely clearing and she could see far more than she could just a few short minutes ago. She turned around on the spot, taking in the familiar surroundings. She walked down this narrow, cobbled street most days on various errands into town, but right then it felt like a different world.
It wasn’t until the fog lifted some more that she saw the figures standing statue-still in the swirling air. She panicked – most of them were men, but none made a move towards her.
Then she saw the dead bodies lying on the cobblestones. She counted four of them; all were women and all looked to be over fifty.
With every passing second the air was clearing, like speeded up footage from a nature documentary of a flower unfurling or day and night merging. The low, evening sun broke through, the cottages casting long shadows in the street. Everything still had a green tinge as if she were looking at the world through green-tinted sunglasses.
Everyone remained motionless, squinting in the slanting sunlight. The men looked confused and disorientated, like they had awoken from walking in their sleep. The women just looked terrified.
The air felt charged, making the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickle.
Something’s about to happen. Something bad…
Although for the life of her she didn’t know what. No one made a move to communicate, and no one moved.
They all feel it too…
The air began to hum. At first she thought it was just her, that she was suffering from a bout of tinnitus brought on by severe trauma, but it got louder.
There was a subtle, but distinct vibration in the air around her, reminding her off the buzzing of an electricity pylon. The air seemed to shimmer, and suddenly she was aware that the sky was much brighter than it was before. Too bright. The green-tinge had gone, and in its place everything glowed a brilliant white.
She raised her hand to shield her eyes, her heart beating uncomfortably hard and fast. There was the strangest sensation deep in her gut; a squirming and a tugging, li
ke a mix of nerves and hunger and…
And something else she didn’t understand.
That’s when it happened – the moment over ninety-million women the world over disappeared into the sky.
All along the length of the street, doors opened. Women stepped out onto the cobble-stones, blinking myopically. Women that, up until this very moment, had survived the horrors of the night.
Amber wanted to run, but her legs refused to obey the command that her brain sent. This was more than mere paralysis brought on by fear – her legs simply would not work. Somehow, she just understood that the invisible force that drew those women out of their houses was the same one that kept her rooted to the spot.
Helplessly, she stood there, watching.
Waiting.
But waiting for what, she did not know. That pulling sensation in her stomach intensified, like she was thundering down a rollercoaster ride.
A naked woman just a few feet from her was the first to go up. She was a plump brunette and wore the exact same expression that Amber could feel in in her own eyes; one of helpless terror.
A tube made of light encircled her. That was the only way Amber could think to describe it – a tube. The end of it stretched as far as the eye could see, narrowing to nothing high up in the sky.
It was almost like the woman was under the glare of a beam of a giant torch, but Amber had never seen light shimmer like that.
Within this tube, the woman’s form ever-so-slightly undulated, like Amber was viewing her through a crystal-clear sea dappled with sunlight that made her body stretch and distort. Whether this was from the glittering, distorting effect of the light, or whether it was actually her changing shape, she couldn’t tell.
With her mouth agape, Amber watched the woman slowly rise up. The woman’s mouth was wide open as if she was screaming, but no sound reached Amber’s ears. The distorting effect grew more pronounced, then when she had reached perhaps six feet off the ground, she disappeared.