Sam was fading fast, but he determinedly fought against the blackness that was threatening to wash over him and watched as the men took his pregnant girlfriend to the tall tree some fifteen feet away from where he lay.
Then, as Locke strode towards the others, the swarthy man handed him a rope which had been fashioned into a noose.
With his good eye now almost closed and his face white from blood loss, Sam had a terrible premonition of what was about to happen and his stomach filled with dread.
He tried to scream, tried to get up but the effort was futile as he was almost done for.
Then something strange happened.
A dog appeared at Sam’s shoulder. A labrador. It sniffed him inquisitively for a moment or two and licked his broken hand. Then, just as quickly as it arrived, it ran off. It was almost surreal and Sam thought he must have imagined it. Was he delirious?
However, the voices of Claudette’s attackers snapped him back to the dreadful reality of what was about to happen.
Powerless to prevent it, Sam watched horrifically transfixed as Locke placed the noose around Claudette’s neck.
Then, as four of his associates held her upright, he withdrew the long-bladed knife with the brass knuckle guard from its sheath down the side of his boot - the same knife he had used to stab Sam in the arms and legs.
Locke studied the keenly sharpened edge for a moment as it glinted murderously in the sunlight then, without further consideration, plunged it deeply into Claudette’s abdomen, murdering both her and the baby she was carrying.
Her eyes flew wide and she emitted a blood-curdling scream as her body convulsed with pain, but the men held her tightly until at last she was still.
Then, on that beautiful cloudless afternoon, with the sun beating down and the birds twittering merrily, they strung her up so that she might become carrion for the crows.
As her filthy, blood soaked corpse hung limply from the thick branch overhead, the man named Finchy inflicted one last humiliation upon her; carving a large bloody swastika across her naked breasts. He chuckled to himself as he worked, as if it was all some marvellous game.
But it mattered little as her suffering was over.
Sam felt Claudette’s pain as acutely as if it was his own and the grotesque sight of her hanging there utterly abhorrent. Yet, as his eyes closed at last, he did not have enough strength left to even cry.
Indeed, as he lay there about to die, his last thoughts were of Vasily and Miriam and how they would be expecting to meet up with him and Claudette later that evening to celebrate.
Now they would be left disappointed.
Finally, as he drifted away, Sam heard one of the men ask, “What about her boyfriend?”
“Don’t bother,” another replied. “He’s already dead,”
And as the six men left the glade, Sam felt sure that he was.
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