Off Season - Jack Ketchum [72]
The cage door opened. Her eyes quickly searched the room but she saw nothing to help her, so her eyes registered nothing. She took no notice of the children huddled by the fire or of the two women, standing watching her. She did not see that Laura was dead now at last, her bowels lying beside her, spilling from the deep rictus in her side. She did not notice that the man was covered with blood now. He was only a shadow reaching out to her from the wide expanse of empty space, empty because it held no help for her and help was all she cared to see.
She held tightly to the boy and tried to wish the man away. He did not go away.
His long thin fingers closed over her forearm and pulled her slowly, almost gently, from the cage. It was a hard, callused hand, slick with dark blood. She tried to cling to the boy but he shook her free with something strangely like irritation, as if she’d interrupted him somehow, and he returned at once to his place in the shadows toward the back of the cage. Her hands went to the bars but there was no real power in them and he pulled her away like a baby from a crib. Tears blinded her eyes and flowed across her cheeks yet she made no sound. For a moment the cave seemed unnaturally quiet. Remembering how Laura had cried, she willed herself to stop.
Don’t fight him, she thought. Careful, careful now.
He stood her up against the wall opposite the broken carcass of her friend. She still refused to see it. He stared at her. The quiet deepened. He reached down between her legs. She turned her eyes to the dark ceiling and tried not to feel it, tried to feel nothing, yet he made her skin crawl, her nipples stiffen. Please be careful, she thought.
His hands moved over her body, describing a trail of loathing. She tried to stand firm and not to move away from his touch, to give him no reason to harm her. Then he slapped her lightly on the back of the head.
The sudden impact made her jump. He liked that. He laughed and slapped her again. Against her wishes she felt her anger returning. Oh no, she thought, take it easy; please don’t fight him.
He slapped her a third time and now she heard the women laugh too as she stumbled against him. He pushed her back against the wall, his hands on her breasts. Then he began to poke her in the ribs and belly. She put up her hands to fend him off and he slapped them away and poked her, hard this time, just below the rib cage. She stifled a cry of pain. She heard their laughter like the cawing of blackbirds, mocking her.
In front of her the man jumped back and clapped his hands with glee. He slapped her across the ear, and she winced and fell away from him. He poked her breasts, her stomach. He put his hand between her legs and clutched at her, dragging her painfully toward him, then released her and slapped her hard across the face. She fell back against the wall and when she gasped for breath, he broke into a roar of gibbering laughter. Something in her cracked beneath the strain and mockery. Her anger rose swiftly, unrestrained.
She balled up a fist and hit him.
It felt wonderful.
She was not a big woman but there was all the force of her body behind the blow. Her fist caught him just behind the ear and staggered him. He stared at her uncomprehendingly. Behind them she heard the women and children howl with laughter. This time not at her. She took a step forward and hit him again. She caught him square on the ear and the man began to yowl.
And then suddenly she was raging out of control. The blows came furiously. Her face hard and empty, her eyes cold and shining, she kept moving in on him, cutting off his amazed retreat, hitting him in the face and head, heedless of the pain in her own hands. She could do little to hurt him seriously, but the attack confused and astonished him, and instinctively he raised