The Fog - James Herbert [31]
He opened the door and stopped again, this time with shock. His mouth dropped open in a soundless scream, his legs almost gave way beneath him. The boys, most of them naked, were milling around something red and pink hanging from the wall bars. It looked like a carcass, a bloody, butcher’s carcass – and then he realized it was Osborne. Surely dead; the head hung loosely down towards his chest, the hands hung limply from the ropes that bound them. He saw now that the body was a mass of bruises and contusions, blood flowing down from a head wound. He could see that some of the boys’ feet were red from the pool that had formed on the ground. They turned to stare at him as he stepped forward, still unable to speak. He saw that some of the boys lay on the floor writhing in their own private ecstasy as they masturbated, and others were coupled together. He saw the damage they had done to the obscene-looking body, the beating they had dealt it. He saw the boys watching him, his boys, so pure in their innocence, so evil in their deviation. Standing before him, magnificent in their nakedness!
He suddenly felt a stirring. A stirring in a region that had lain dormant for so many years. He looked down, amazed at the thrusting bulge from between his legs. A cloud seemed to haze over his eyes and he shook his head jerkily. Then a smile formed on his lips.
He strode forward towards the silent boys.
‘Yes,’ he said urgently. ‘Yes, yes!’
Hodges walked across the playground, still holding the shears before him, his eyes focused only on the door ahead. He reached it and pushed it open. There was no reaction on his face as his eyes fell upon the bizarre scene before him, and only a dull reaction in his brain. Two men were tied to the wall bars on the far wall; one hanging still and quiet, his body now hardly recognizable as that of a man, as the other writhed and squirmed and moaned, not with pain, but with the pleasure pain brought. One arm was tied by the wrist to the wooden struts of the wall bars, the other was tied between the shoulder and elbow because there was no wrist. His feet were trapped inside the lower rungs, bent slightly at the knees so that the pelvis was thrust forward. Both men were naked so Hodges could see the huge, erect penis of the one who appeared to be alive. The boys were beating at the organ with wooden sticks, whlle others were lashing at the man with ropes. The man was Summers. His eyes gleamed with the excitement, his head twisted with ecstasy.
‘Captain Hook,’ said Hodges aloud.
All eyes turned towards him. Even Summers stopped his squirming to look. He walked forward, brandishing the large garden shears, snapping them open and shut. ‘Captain Hook, Captain Hook,’ he repeated over and over again as he walked towards the helpless figure, an evil grin spread across his features.
Summers also smiled as Hodges stood before him, saliva running from his mouth. His breath came in short, sharp heaves as he looked expectantly at the odd-job man. Hodges’ eyes travelled down the bare torso before him until they reached the huge, swollen penis. He grasped it with one hand and chuckled throatily, the laugh becoming insanely loud. Summers grinned back at him, his head nodding in a seemingly meaningless gesture.
Hodges released the throbbing member and slowly raised the shears, so that it was between the two sharp blades.
‘Yes, yes,’ Summers cried, his whole body now quivering with excitement.
The boys watched in silence as the two blades snapped together and the scream echoed around the gymnasium.
7
Holman impatiently stabbed at the lift button. He was breathing hard, having left the taxi in which he’d raced back to St John’s Wood, trapped in the inevitable traffic jam. The taxi driver’s look of astonishment had turned into one of delight as he clutched the couple of pound notes Holman had hastily thrust into his hand. Fortunately the snarl-up had not been far from Holman’s flat, but the sprint down the road had left him breathless