Maybe.
She stooped to pick up the candle, then unbolted the cubicle door. Her arm was outstretched, pushing the light into the darkness as she stepped through the door.
Sharon paused, listening once more. The blackness around her was more oppressive; the feeling of confinement, the sensing of millions of tons of broken concrete bearing down on the underground theatre, was almost unbearable. She suddenly felt that the air itself had become thick, somehow sluggish in her lungs, but sensibly told herself it was all nerves, that distress was the instigator and her own imagination was gullible to its suggestions.
But someone was in there with her.
She could hear breathing.
A harsh, short breath and the candle was out. Acrid smoke from the expired flame. A scuffing sound against floor tiles. A quavery sucking in of air. The stale smell of another body.
A hand Touching her face.
Her scream was cut short as strong fingers covered her mouth. Another arm reached around her, enclosing her ribs. The expired candle fell to the floor as a head pressed against her own.
'Don't struggle,' came the urgent whisper. ‘Ill hurt you if you do.'
It was then she knew the intent.
She panicked, her legs kicking empty air as her body was lifted. Sharon tried to scream again, but the grip over her lips was too tight. She bit down hard and tasted blood.
The man who had followed her from the cinema, the man who had covertly watched her through the traumatic weeks of their forced internment, who knew that civilization was at an end, that there was only death awaiting them all, who
knew there was no law to punish him, nothing left to prevent him taking what he wanted, cried out in pain, but did not relax his hold.
One of Sharon's feet touched the edge of the washbasin and she pushed backwards with all her strength, sending them both crashing back into the cubicle she had just left. The man grunted as they went down, his head cracking against wall tiles. Yet still he clung to her.
The girl struck him with her elbows, squirming her body in an effort to wriggle free. His hand had left her mouth and his forearm was locked around her throat, squeezing her windpipe, frightening her even more.
'Please don't...' she managed to beg, the sound wheezing, the words barely audible. 'Please ... don't...
kill... me.'
His other hand was fumbling beneath her sweater, reaching for her uncupped breasts. Fingers closed around one risen nipple and the pain was excruciating as he squeezed. That same pain galvanized an instinctive reaction.
Their two bodies were half-slumped against the toilet wall, the back of Sharon's head against her assailant's chest. Her heels pressed hard against the floor, sending her body upwards and back in a violent motion, the top of her head cracking against the man's jaw, sending his head snapping backwards to hit the wall yet again. He howled and his grip loosened.
Sharon slid away, slithering along on her back, brushing off his clutching hands. She turned, was on her knees, her hand reaching out to feel a wall for guidance, the total darkness confusing, adding to the terror. Her fingers curled around the edge of a urinal and she pulled herself forward, making for where she knew the main door had to be.
She screamed loudly as his weight bore down on her.
He had landed on her legs and was slowly crawling up the length of her body, using his weight to pin her against the floor. She felt his hands on her back, on her shoulders, fingers now curling in her hair, pulling her head back. Then down, her nose bursting against the hard floor tiles. And again, her senses reeling with the blow. Resistance momentarily left her, although her arms still flailed limply. His hot breath was against her neck, his staleness smothering her. He pulled her round to face him and her nails tore at his eyes. He slapped away her hands and pulled at her sweater, exposing her body though it was unseen in the impenetrable blackness. She screamed again and a fist squelched against her already bloodied nose. Sharon groaned as invisible hands groped at her clothing.
Neither of them heard the scratching at the door.
The man lowered his head and his teeth found the soft flesh of her stomach. He bit her and she shrieked. His mouth left a sticky trail of saliva across her skin as his lips sought her nipples. A hand pulled at the button of her jeans and they opened, the zip descending halfway. Trembling fingers pushed it further. The same hand probed and she tried to squeeze her thighs together, but his leg, thrust between her knees, thwarted her. A new pain as the rough fingers entered.
In the darkness behind them, the door leading into the foyer slowly opened under the gathered pressure of the black-haired creatures. A sleek, hump-backed body crouched low against the floor, eased its way through the gap. Others, excited by the fragrance of sweet, running blood, pushed from behind. The corpses on the far side of the foyer, their curtain shrouds torn away, their white bodies covered with smaller, moving shapes that chewed and gnawed their rotting
flesh, were now forsaken for something more alluring, a sustenance the vermin were becoming familiar with: the moist freshness of living organs.
The man had raised himself to his knees and was tearing at his own clothing, ripping off buttons, shoving underpants and trousers down over his hips in one movement, the total darkness stimulating him to an even greater frenzy, his mind creating the image that lay beneath him, his touch realizing its substance.
Sharon's eyes were closed, though it made no difference in the absence of light, and blood flowed into her mouth. She heard his movements above her, his grunts, the murmured animal sounds. And part of her was aware of the draught that tickled at her scalp.
The man began to lower himself and she felt his warm, dribbling penis settle against her stomach. She moaned and turned her head away from his foul breath, her cheek scraping against his rough beard.
'Please ... don't...' It was almost a whisper, a last desperate pleading. Briefly, and in a distant area of her mind, a place where situations can be considered with detachment, aloofness its own protection, she wondered why she cared after all that had happened. With so many hundreds of millions dead, why should her single feeble body be sacrosanct? The answer was obvious, and she knew it before the question was really begged. Because it was hers! They could kill off the whole fucking world, but her body belonged to her!
As the tip of his penis pushed against the tender opening between her thighs, one hand grabbed at his hair and yanked, twisting his head round; the stiffened fingers of her other hand jabbed wildly for his eyes. She felt sickened when the untrimmed nail of her index finger sank into something soft and movable.
He lurched away, his turn to scream, his pulped eye popping from its socket as the girl's finger withdrew. The eye lay on his cheek, hanging there by the threads of its retaining muscles. He fell into the space beneath the wash basins, hands reaching for the dangling eyeball.
But the rat reached it first.
The muscles were severed by a clamping of jaws and a rapid shaking of the vermin's head, and the eye was swallowed virtually unscathed. The creature, whose natural habitat was darkness and shadows, lunged with barely a pause for the opening from which bloody juices streamed. It buried its pointed snout deep into the empty socket.
Sharon thought the man's screams and thrashings were because of the injury she had caused him. She kicked out at his body, not realizing she was striking other, scuttling forms. Sobbing, she pulled at her jeans, tugging them back over her hips, her back against the smooth floor. Something sharp snapped at a leg and she thought he had bitten her again. Her other foot struck out and connected with something solid. Her leg was released.
She staggered to her feet, a urinal giving her support. Blindly, she hurled herself towards the door, praying
