The Old Vengeful

But then nothing happened. The hands released her shoulders— and she was sobbing again. But nothing happened.

' Sss o . . . very nice, Miss Loftus! So . . . just listen, then.'

Still nothing—nothing but the pounding of her heart, which hammered the blood in her ears in the darkness, and the sweat on her face.

'Did you hear that? No? Well... I was striking a match to light my cigarette. . .which is strange, because I don't smoke, you know.' The voice was animated by pure pleasure. 'Smoking is bad for you—and particularly bad for you, Miss Loftus.'

Still nothing.

'Evidently you don't understand—or you're very brave—

brave and foolish.' More pleasure. 'Nowadays they have lots of equipment—microchips too, I shouldn't wonder—but I'm old-fashioned. In fact, although they say the Gestapo got it down to a fine art, I believe it was the Okrana and the Cheka who pioneered it... Apart from which it's highly cost-effective

—even now, with cigarettes the price they are. One packet and a box of matches, and you're in business.'

Just as the unbelievable dawned on her, and she opened her mouth to scream, something soft pressed through the material of the hood between her lips—something soft which dummy3

was then pulled tight as the gag was fastened, so that she could only make incoherent sounds of hysteria, doubly muted.

'Ye sss ... I know you want to tell me everything now—of course you do! But you didn't take me at my word the first time, and I don't want you to have second thoughts again, so I propose to demonstrate the technique just a little in order to concentrate your mind absolutely on my requirements.'

A hand gently parted the wreckage of her clothing.

'There now!' The voice and the hand both caressed her.

'And I see that you don't much indulge in sun-bathing. . .

which is really just as well, because you won't feel like wearing your bikini for quite a long time to come, if at all, you know.'

Elizabeth wanted to faint, but her senses refused to leave her.

If anything they seemed to have become sharper, even to the gossamer touch on her skin.

'Wait a mo'—'old on.' The rough voice came suddenly from above, just behind her.

'What is it?' Irritation harshened the snake-voice.

'I thought I 'eard somethin'.'

'Heard something? Where?'

'Out back. Just 'old on a mo', like I said.'

They were listening, and Elizabeth listened with them, yearning for any sound, but above all for Dr Mitchell's knock on the front door. It didn't matter to her now what might dummy3

happen to him if he fell foul of the gorilla-man—nothing mattered but her own deliverance from those other hands, which had crawled over her with such sickening gentleness.

'I can't hear anything,' hissed the snake-voice.

'No, nor I can't neither—not now,' the gorilla-man admitted grudgingly. 'But I could swear I 'eard somethin', an' that's a fact.' The pressure on Elizabeth's shoulders slackened.

'Better 'ave a look-see, I reckon—just to be on the safe side, okay?'

The snake-man sighed. 'Very well—if you must. But make it snappy. We don't have all the time in the world at our disposal.'

Time, thought Elizabeth desperately. Like them, she had heard nothing. But just as the hood disorientated her sense of place, so the dark tide of fear within her had swamped her sense of time, and what had seemed like only a few minutes of nightmare might in reality have taken much longer.

The pressure lifted altogether, and she could move again within the painful constraints of the bonds which held her wrists and ankles.

Time was what she had to hold on to—she had to think of ways to spin it out: she had to hold on to it, and get control of herself.

Then, out of the darkness, he touched her again, and the control she was striving for slipped from her mind in a wave of sick revulsion and instantly-revived panic. The chair dummy3

rocked and the bonds cut into her flesh agonisingly.

Whatever it was that she had been on the point of thinking vanished from her mind, and all she wanted to scream was Please don't— please don't!

But she couldn't scream, and even the incoherent sounds she started to make were stilled as it came to her with a flash of bitter clarity that all pleading was useless, and worse than useless: please don't had been the ultimate encouragement he wanted from her, adding spice to what he was going to do, and had always wanted to do . . . and nothing she could say or do—there was nothing she could say or do—would change that. She didn't even know any of the answers to his insane questions, but resistance or submission was all the same to him now.

So ... there was nothing left to her but helplessness and terrible numbing fear in the dark—and the quiet of his silent enjoyment of her terror, which joined him to her.