[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

shadowy shapes grouped around the clearing in a circle, some of them having
moved so that they ringed him completely.
Fear, searching for a gap in the circle through which to make a run for it but
there was none. Staring from one cowled figure to the next, trying to count
them and losing count; there were dozens of them!
'Who are you?' Jesus, they gave him the creeps just standing there looking at
him, pairs of eyes that seemed to glow balefully in the moonlight like a pack
of wolves that had crept up and surrounded an unwary traveller. 'I said who
the fuck are you? Are you dumb or something?'
As though at some prearranged signal the watchers began to converge on him,
the circle diminishing, crowding him. He backed away, turned one way then the
other. He wanted to scream. Suddenly they halted and a tall cloaked figure,
his face shadowed by his voluminous cowl, detached himself from the rest and
stepped forward a few paces.
'We were expecting you,' he said, his voice deep and resonant. 'For we are the
Oke Priests who rule this place and you have dared to trespass in our domain.
However, we have need of you. We knew you would come, that the old ones would
not forsake us. But there is plenty of time ..."
You're fucking nutters, James Foster thought, swallowed. Suddenly he was very
cold, shivering uncontrollably, felt an urge to urinate, to empty his bowels.
This lot were up to something, playing at black magic or some other kind of
cult rites. He'd read about them in the papers, how they desecrated
churchyards, sometimes dug up bodies. Ugh!
'Look,' he began, self-consciously because he was stark naked, standing there
with his hands folded across his genitals like an erring schoolboy facing his
headmaster, 'I don't want to interrupt your, er . . . meeting . . . I'll be on
my way, leave you to it.'
Foster had barely taken a couple of steps before he was seized from behind,
his attackers moving with unbelievable stealth and speed, cold hands grabbing
him, hurting him. He screamed, struggled, felt himself being lifted aloft,
carried; laid flat on his back on a rough cold surface. A flat rock of some
kind, rough so that it grazed his skin. Staring up into faces that were still
bathed in shadow, only those terrible eyes visible.
He ceased struggling because it was futile; even when they brought ropes and
began to bind him tightly; arms, legs, pinioning him to the slab across his
chest, the only movement remaining to him a slight raising of the neck.
He could lift his head a few inches but it was painful, pulled on his spine.
'What's . . . the idea?' he said not really wanting to know.
'The old ones are becoming impatient,' A flat intonation. 'It is a long time
since we offered them a sacrifice but now we can make amends. We now await the
rising of the sun. Lie still and repent whilst there is still time.'
Silence. If they had cursed him, threatened him with terrible atrocities it
would have been better than this awful stillness.
They had moved back into the shadows where he could not see them any longer.
They might even have left except that he sensed their presence, felt their
eyes feasting on his nakedness. Repent whilst there is still time. James
Foster knew that he was going to die.
For a time his brain seemed dulled as though he had taken some stupefying
drug, an anaesthetic. The lust and the anger in him were dead, a kind of
purification of his brain which allowed him to see things in perspective; his
own role that of a spectator. The girl, Carol, she was somewhere out here in
these woods, lost and frightened. Because of himself. These druids, for surely
that was what they were, might find her. And if they did ... guilt, fear. His
fault. He must not tell them about her. Lie if they asked him.
Torture of a kind he had never experienced before in his life as though he was
being forced to search his own mind, tell them what they wanted to know
although they probably knew it already. He could feel their power, sucking it
out of him like some heavy-duty industrial vacuum cleaner. Confess, for time
is running out. Cleanse yourself.
Don't tell them about the girl in case they go looking for her. They already
know. I liked her, I didn't want to hurt her, just couldn't help myself. She
wouldn't have gone with me if I hadn't made her, and I'd've killed her
afterwards so that nobody else could have her, so that she didn't go back to
that boyfriend of hers. You bastard! I wish I could tell her I'm sorry. Oh
God, if I could only see her for a couple of minutes to tell her. But it's too
late; she'll hate you for the rest of her life.
The one you killed ... he tried to push the recollection from him but it
wouldn't go. She had tried to plead but tightening fingers on her throat had
garrotted the words. He hadn't felt any remorse then but he did now. I want to
die so that I don't have to think about it any more but if the police catch me
they won't kill me because there isn't a death penalty. Everybody wants the
death sentence brought back because it's merciful, puts you out of your
misery. Instead they shut you away and you go crazy reliving every second.
You'll die, all right, but you won't forget because here the dead live on,
forced to relive their actions for eternity.
Remember the first time you ever did anything, the strange thrill you got? You
were seventeen at the time. Don't remind me about it. You will recall every
second of it. Foster squirmed, these bastards were really scouring him out
now. Confess, it isn't long until sunrise.
I tried to date Beth. She was only fifteen but her folks poisoned her mind
against me. You're a virgin, Beth, and you'll stay that way until your wedding
night, and you won't be marrying him. You can tell by the expression in those
eyes of his what he wants. We forbid you to see him. So James Foster had
waylaid Beth on her way home from school with all the precision of a carefully
planned military operation, He'd followed her, found out the route she took
when she got off the school bus, a short cut across the fields to the council
estate. Small and slim, mousy coloured hair, but well developed for her age.
Masturbating night after night just thinking about her. She had become an
obsession. And then he had struck.
She had backed away, given a little cry of fear when he had emerged from the
bushes to bar her path. She saw the bulge in the front of his trousers and it
frightened her like the look in his eyes did. You're a virgin aren't you,
Beth? I hate virgins. So frightened she had stepped back into the bushes with
him, trembling as he undid her clothing. No' I'm not going to fuck you, I just
want to look. And to feel. Tender young breasts, a sparse growth of pubic
hair, exciting him as he had never been excited before. Fingering her so that
she began to cry . . . You wouldn't even date me now Beth if your folks said
it was OK, would you? It's their fault that I've had to do this to you. But
before I let you go there's something I want to show you!
She hadn't wanted to look, had turned her head away so that he had had to grab
her by those soft wavy locks and make her watch. I'll bet you've never even
seen one of these before, Beth. Well, you have now and if you take your eyes
off it once I'll get really angry so that no boy will ever want to date you
again with a face like you'll have. Now watch, you virgin bitch! [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]