face, like lovers, and Akkersbreath stank of unwashed teeth.
They strained silently, shifting like dancers to balance each other's
heaves and thrusts.
David felt the knife hand twisting in his grip. The man had hands and
arms like steel, he could not hold him much longer. In seconds it would
be free, and the steel would be probing into his belly.
David braced his legs and twisted sideways. The move caught Akkers
off-balance and he could not resist it.
David was able to get his other hand on to the knife arm, but even with
both hands he was hard put to hold on.
They swayed and shuffled together, panting, grunting, straining, until
they fell, still locked together, against the bonnet of the truck. The
metal was hot and smelled of oil.
David was concentrating all his strength on the knife, but he felt
Akkers free hand groping for his throat. He ducked his head down on his
shoulders, pressing his chin against his chest but the fingers were
steel hard and powerful as machinery. They probed mercilessly into his
flesh, forcing his chin up, and settling on his throat, beginning to
squeeze the life out of him.
Desperately David hauled at the knife arm, and found it more manageable
now that Akkers was concentrating his strength on strangling him.
The open windscreen of the truck was beside David's shoulder, the glass
had been smashed out of it, but jagged shards of it still stood in the
metal rim, forming a crude but ferocious line of saw-teeth.
David felt the fingers digging deep into his throat, crushing the
gristle of his larynx and blocking off the arteries that fed his brain.
His vision starred and then began to fade darkly, as though he were
pulling eight G's in a dogfight.
With one last explosive effort David pulled the knife arm around on to
the line of broken glass, and he dragged it down, sawing it desperately
across the edge.
Akkers screamed and his strangling grip relaxed, back and forth David
sawed the arm, slashing and ripping through skin and fat and flesh,
opening a wound like a ragged-petalled rose, hacking down into the
nerves and arteries and sinews so that the knife dropped from the
lifeless fingers and Akkers screamed like a woman.
David broke from him and shoved him away. Akkers fell to his knees
still screaming and David clutched at his own throat massaging the
bruised flesh, gasping for breath and feeling the flow of fresh blood to
his brain.
God Jesus, I'm dying. I'm bleeding to death. Oh sweet Jesus, help me!
screamed Akkers, holding the mutilated arm to his belly. Help me, oh
God, don't let me die.
Save me, Jesus, save me! Blood was streaming and spurting from the arm,
flooding the front of his trousers. As he screamed his teeth fell from
his mouth, leaving it a dark and empty cave in the palely glistening
face.
You've killed me. I'll bleed to death! he screamed at David, thrusting
his face towards David. You've got to save me, don't let me die. David
pushed himself away from the truck and took two running steps towards
