HER NOSE THROBBED AND BURNED; the skin in the back of her throat was torn. Joanna thought of the time she had been dragged out to sea and dumped repeatedly on the sand. She had thought her neck was broken then, too.
The keys were her only stroke of luck. She was going to use it just as soon as the feeling came back into her legs. Where was the knife? The skinny one was sitting on the cement, watching them and stroking that moustache like a pet rat. He had taken his shirt off in preparation: there was no sense in getting blood everywhere. Joanna turned her head to look at him straight on. She could see the end of herself in his eyes, her body a raw slab like the meat under the glass at the FAMILY BUTCHERS.
I don’t have to feel this. I don’t have to feel any of this. It’s not happening.
The tattoos ran over his whole body. They disappeared into the top of his jeans, which he was keeping on against the cold until it was his turn with her. Each organ had been delineated on the surface of his skin. There they were on his torso: liver and lungs in exact replication. He’d been turned inside out.
Oh, God! He’s showing them to me! He wants me to see them!
Except that they’re not all there, are they? said Doctor Renfield. There’s one missing.
Where the thin man’s heart should have been there was a blank space. In it there was an elaborate pentacle, and from the centre of it stared a man with the horns of a goat. He had been rendered in full colour, his eyes a direct and burning yellow. Joanna felt her bladder go.
She closed her eyes, and then opened them again as the heavy one lay down clumsily on top of her, a boulder crushing her chest like the stones over the bodies in the cave.
She choked out, “I can’t breathe!”
“You’re not supposed to,” said the thin one. He shook his head. Stupido.
The heavy one sat up again, as if she’d given him an idea. He put the knife to one side, well out of her reach, and then he laced his fingers around Joanna’s neck and choked her until she felt the little vessels pop behind her eyes.
I’m drowning. He’s holding me under the water of the uThukela. Demane, Demazana: wait for me!
He let go, and the air rushed back in through her mouth.
“That’s just for starters, you cunt,” he said.
He lay back down on her, the rivets on his jeans catching and tearing her skin. Joanna felt his hard-on through the cloth, so hot and alien that it seemed to cauterise the flesh on her thighs. Now he was letting go of her again to undo his belt buckle. Joanna felt the cold places where his hands had been braceletting her wrists.
He moved on her, searching for any slickness that would help him.
The dick I could live with, but he’s going to put his fingers inside me. I can’t let him put his fingers inside me!
How do you fuck a fat chick?
Roll her in flour and look for the wet spot.
Now! Now! Now! If there’s any magic left in the universe, I’m using it now!
She twisted her hips to the side and he slid off her – Boo! – his jeans cocooned around his knees. Joanna struggled up and then fell onto her own knees and screamed as the blood finally surged into her feet, but she found the keys – she found them – in the remains of her shorts. She grabbed the bundle and tried to get up again. The heavy one was swearing and pulling on his pants, stumbling backwards against the stairs, blocking the exit.
The thin one picked up the knife. He didn’t rush.
“No,” he told Joanna pleasantly. His chest was bloodless under the tattoos. He held out the knife and the horned man’s eyes winked at Joanna. “No, no, no. Get back down.”
On all fours, she held the ragged boxers to her chest and felt for the sharp ends of the keys.
Where have they gone? Oh, Christ! They were just here! I had them!
She shook the tattered boxers out and the bunch clinked onto the cement. There!
Joanna retrieved the keys and waved them at the thin man, her ticket to freedom. Up the steps. That was all. Her car was ten metres away, waiting for her in the road. So close!
He smirked at her and moved closer, cagey, as if she was an animal.
I am! I am an animal! I’ll rip him to fucking shreds if I have to, just the way they were going to do to me!
He lashed out suddenly at Joanna and she fell backwards into the bottle of turps, shuffling absurdly on her feet like a wind-up toy. He lunged at her and easily pushed her flat with those tortured, wiry little arms. She felt the alcohol turn her shirt cold.
They’re going to set me alight. They’re going to burn me like an offering.
He sat on her sternum and leaned down into her face.
“You’re making me do this,” he told her sadly, and then he slit her throat.