likely to be causing the trouble. But the phone in her aunt's room could have been left off the hook by either her aunt or herself. She would have to go and check.
He was waiting for her in the hall.
The breath backed up in her throat to choke her, and she couldn't make a sound. She stepped back.
He stepped forward, closing the space between them.
Ellen managed to find her voice and, conquering for the moment her nearly instinctive fear of this man, said, 'Peter, you must go get a doctor for my aunt.'
'Your aunt has said she doesn't want a doctor,' he said. His voice came almost as a relief after the ominous silence.
'It's not a matter of what my aunt wants anymore,' Ellen said. 'She's dead.'
The silence buzzed around them. In the darkness of the hall Ellen could not be sure, but she thought that he smiled.
'Will you go and get a doctor?'
'No,' he said.
Ellen backed away, and again he followed her.
'Go and see her for yourself,' Ellen said.
'If she's dead,' he said, 'she doesn't need a doctor. And the morning will be soon enough to have her body disposed of.'
Ellen kept backing away, afraid to turn her back on him. Once in the kitchen, she could try the phone again.
But he didn't let her. Before she could reach for the receiver, his hand shot out, and he wrenched the cord out of the wall. He had a peculiar smile on his face. Then he lifted the telephone, long cord dangling, into the air above his head, and as Ellen pulled nervously away, he threw the whole thing, with great force, at the floor. It crashed jarringly against the linoleum, inches from Ellen's feet.
Ellen stared at him in horror, unable to move or speak, trying frantically to think how to escape him. She thought of the darkness outside, and of the long, unpaved road with no one near, and the deserted beach. Then she thought of her aunt's room, which had a heavy wooden door and a telephone which might still work.
He watched her all this time, making no move. Ellen had the odd idea that he was trying to hypnotize her, to keep her from running, or perhaps he was simply waiting for her to make the first move, watching for the telltale tension in her muscles that would signal her intentions.
Finally, Ellen knew she had to do something — she could not keep waiting for him to act forever. Because he was so close to her, she didn't dare try to run past him. Instead, she feinted to the left, as if she would run around him and towards the front door, but instead she ran to the right.
He caught her in his powerful arms before she had taken three steps. She screamed, and his mouth came down on hers, swallowing the scream.
The feel of his mouth on hers terrified her more than anything else. Somehow, she had not thought of that — for all her fear of him, it had not occurred to her until now that he meant to rape her.
She struggled frantically, feeling his arms crush her more tightly, pinning her arms to her sides and pressing the breath out of her. She tried to kick him or to bring a knee up into his crotch, but she could not raise her leg far enough, and her kicks were feeble little blows against his legs.
He pulled his mouth away from hers and dragged her back into the darkness of the hall and pressed her to the floor, immobilizing her with the weight of his body. Ellen was grateful for her jeans, which were tight-fitting. To get them off — but she wouldn't let him take them off. As soon as he released her, even for a moment, she would go for his eyes, she decided.
This thought was firmly in her mind as he rose off her, but he held her wrists in a crushing grip. She began to kick as soon as her legs were free of his weight, but her legs thrashed about his legs, her kicks doing no harm.
Abruptly, he dropped her hands. She had scarcely become aware of it and hadn't had time to do more than think of going for his eyes, when he, in one smooth, deceptively casual motion, punched her hard in the stomach.
She couldn't breathe. Quite involuntarily, she half doubled over, knowing nothing but the agonizing pain. He, meanwhile, skinned her jeans and underpants down to her knees, flipped her unresisting body over as if it were some piece of furniture, and set her down on her knees.
While she trembled, dry-retched, and tried to draw a full breath of air, she was aware of his fumbling at her genitals as scarcely more than a minor distraction. Shortly thereafter she felt a new pain, dry and tearing, as he penetrated her.
It was the last thing she felt. One moment of pain and helplessness, and then the numbness began. She felt — or rather, she ceased to feel — a numbing tide, like intense cold, flowing from her groin into her stomach and hips and down into her legs. Her ribs were numbed, and the blow he had given her no longer pained her. There was nothing — no pain, no messages of any kind from her abused body. She could still feel her lips, and she could open and close her eyes, but from below the chin she might as well have been dead.
And besides the loss of feeling, there was loss of control. All at once she fell like a rag doll to the floor, cracking her chin painfully.
She suspected she was still being raped, but she could not even raise her head and turn to see.
Above her own labored breathing, Ellen became aware of another sound, a low, buzzing hum. From time to time her body rocked and flopped gently, presumably in response to whatever he was still doing to it.
Ellen closed her eyes and prayed to wake. Behind her shut lids, vivid images appeared. Again she saw the insect on her aunt's dead lip, a bug as black, hard and shiny as Peter's eyes. The wasp in the sand dune, circling the paralyzed spider. Aunt May's corpse covered with a glistening tide of insects, crawling over her, feasting on her.
And when they had finished with her aunt, would they come and find her here on the floor, paralyzed and ready for them?
She cried out at the thought and her eyes flew open. She saw Peter's feet in front of her. So he had finished. She began to cry.
'Don't leave me like this,' she mumbled, her mind still swarming with fears.
She heard his dry chuckle. 'Leave? But this is my home.' And then she understood. Of course he would not leave. He would stay here with her as he had stayed with her aunt, looking after her as she grew weaker, until finally she died and spilled out the living cargo he had planted in her. 'You won't feel a thing,' he said.
VENGEANCE IS
Theodore Sturgeon
'You have a dark beer?'
'In a place like this you want dark beer?'
'Whatever, then.'
The bartender drew a thick-walled stein and slid it across. 'I worked in the city. I know about dark beer and Guiness and like that. These yokels around here,' he added, his tone of voice finishing the sentence.
The customer was a small man with glasses and not much of a beard. He had a gentle voice. 'A man called Grinny…'
'Grimme,' the barman corrected. 'So you heard. Him and his brother.'
The customer didn't say anything. The bartender wiped. The customer told him to pour one for himself.
'I don't usual.' But the barman poured. 'Grimme and that brother Dave, the worst.' He drank. 'I hate it a lot out here, yokels like that is why.'
'There's still the city.'
'Not for me. The wife.'
'Oh.' And he waited.
