Spider - Michael Morley [93]
And so the thoughts torment her, never letting her rest, always crushing any sign of hope, always making her imagine the worst. And when they’re done with her, then the guilt moves in.
You’re getting what you deserve; this is God’s way of punishing you for the sinful life you’ve led. Count them up, Ludmila, all the sins you’ve committed; the thefts, the lies, the adulteries, is there a single Commandment you’ve not broken? Murder was the only one that stood out, and right now she’d gladly kill the freak that was putting her through this living hell.
Lu’s vision is now permanently blurred and her eyes are so painful that she can’t close them. The head restraint has come loose from her straining against it and it is possible to move from side to side, but the strap has badly chafed her flesh. Most of her skin is completely numb. It has lost its natural oiliness and elasticity and is starting to shrivel. At times the numbness fades and her skin tingles. Only this isn’t the pins-and-needles type of tingling that she’d experienced as a child. This is a high-voltage cattle-prod tingling, the type that stuns her so deeply she feels as if she’s going to croak.
Lu wonders whether she is already so sick that even if the cavalry arrived right now, right this minute, she would still die from what he’s done to her. She’s fully aware that she’s being killed by her own body; that it’s been turned into a weapon to murder her.
It’s justice, Ludmila, for the life that you’ve led. Sell your body to strangers and God will punish you appropriately – an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; you should have remembered that. You really should have remembered that.
Lu tries to lick her lips but it’s an effort agonizingly beyond her. Her tongue has swollen and cracked painfully. Her throat feels permanently blocked and it is hard even to swallow air. In the last few hours her broken nose has started bleeding again. Part of the cause of the haemorrhaging is the beating that he gave her, but the continual rise in her body temperature isn’t helping matters, nor is the fact that the lining of her nose has completely dried up and cracked like plaster. The congealed blood almost blocks both nostrils and Lu feels as though she’s breathing through a damaged straw.
She tries again to think positively. There is the cottage in the country, with the children playing by the river, and maybe there’s a dog too, a long-haired golden dog jumping and barking for its ball to be thrown.
And then it happens.
The cattle prods are at her again, sizzling into her flesh, stabbing at her nerves. This time, they’re stronger and more painful than ever.
Lu’s entire body goes into convulsion.
The world turns black.
And she stops breathing.
Spider sits by the monitor, watching the series of spasms with the wide-eyed excitement of a sports fan on the edge of his seat. He leans towards the screen, his chin resting on interlocked fingers. It looks as if she’s going to die much earlier than he’d wanted, but that’s okay, he can adjust his plans.
He stretches out a hand and runs it gently over the screen and a crackle of static flows over his fingertips. He’d chosen her for a purpose, for a reason beyond lust or longing, but right at this moment he wants her, just as strongly as he’d wanted all the others. Give up the fight my sweet, sweet Sugar. Breathe out your final breath and go to the Better Place.
He watches the screen as her body shakes uncontrollably, her muscles snapping tight and then relaxing just as suddenly. The camera’s wide shot shows her whole frame shuddering like a rag doll, bouncing up and down on the hard leather table in a fleshy muscular ripple from foot to head.
She’s at death’s door and he wants to be there to press his lips and flesh against her and feel that precious last spasm of life spurt from her body.