I tried to intervene, tried to grab the leader, whose vicious kicks were aimed at her head and shoulders, but my efforts were in vain—as I knew they would be. I won’t tell you the names I called them but they were very politically incorrect. I think I was more disgusted with them than they were with this gibbering bleeding woman. Okay, I knew the woman was dead and that it was the deviant Moker who was taking the hammering (did he feel any pain? Not by the sound of her sniggering and delighted shrieks) but somehow respect for the woman before she’d become this thing remained with me. If only she would stop taunting them their violence might stop. Unfortunately, inside her Moker was enjoying himself too much.
She cowered on the doorstep, but only under the pressure of their attack, not because she was afraid. The deranged sniggering that came from her revealed that.
Finally, she was flat out on the concrete, lying half on her side, knees held together by the bunched panties and hose, but ankles and feet spread wide. Her skirt had dropped enough to cover her pubic hair; blood continued to dribble but not pump from her wound. The three men kept kicking her prone body.
They stopped only, it seemed, when they had exhausted themselves. They muttered to one another as they stared down at the woman, who was still moving and still mocking them, although her sniggers had become quieter and punctuated by short silences.
Leather Jacket barked at the other two and, after looking at him in surprise, they grinned. The leader and one of his companions were already exposed and it seemed that their violence had strengthened their erections even more. The third paunchy man unzipped himself and the other two laughed and pointed when they saw that he was flaccid. He grumbled something, I don’t know what, and prodded the woman sharply with the toe of his shoe. The only reaction he got was another snigger.
I already felt sickened by their treatment of the woman—they must have assumed she was either drunk, drugged or a nutter; she certainly didn’t look like a hooker—but what happened next forced me to reel away in utter disgust.
Standing over the fallen woman, Leather Jacket began to pleasure himself using his hand. The other two moved in closer and followed suit.
I went to the other side of the narrow cul-de-sac, shaking my head and cursing these men for their vileness, refusing to watch, but reluctant to leave the woman. But even when I didn’t look I could hear the grunts and moans of the Arabs as they masturbated over her.
Their noises quickly reached a crescendo as first one, then another, reached climax. They didn’t even bother to curb their cries. I tried not to listen to their sighs and their mutterings in Arabic, only turning back when they started laughing again. They were gesticulating at the third man’s limp organ as he frantically worked at it. He swore at the other two—at least, it sounded like a curse—and they laughed all the more. The flustered Arab gave up and took his hand away, leaving his flabby penis dangling.
He appeared to have a bright idea, for he suddenly chuckled. Saying something to his companions, he took hold of his penis again, this time in both hands, and made straining noises. The other two urged him on enthusiastically. It took him less than a minute to start urinating and he aimed the stream directly at the woman on the step, drenching her exposed thighs, her jacket, her face and hair.
I was shocked by the degradation, the sordidness, and I backed further into the shadows, filled with rage and despair.
I wanted to kill.
31
Her three abusers had gone, but I lingered. Soul-destroying though the whole squalid business was, I remained curious. And angry. What was Moker’s intention now that the once presentable woman—she’d been an executive type, I thought—lay defiled and bedraggled in a pool of piss inside the recessed doorway? He had humiliated her, brought this presumably respectable woman down to gutter level, and it occurred to me that this was part of his purpose, to possess his victims (there was no doubt in my mind that he had put his previous victims through similar humiliation), degrade them, and make them carry out acts they would never have considered in their normal lives. I guessed it was all part of his revenge on society, a society that probably had always turned away from him. I had no idea of his background or history, but I was willing to bet his early life had been in various institutions, perhaps even in hospitals where they had tried to fix his face (if its present condition was after surgery, what must it have been like before?). His childhood must have been torment, his young adulthood torture. Had he always been a loner, or was it only when he became a man that he was an outcast? Did he have a family and had he been rejected by them? I knew so little about Moker.
But don’t imagine I was beginning to feel sorry for the guy; I couldn’t, not with that pathetic bundle lying in the doorway opposite. Moker was evil. His very presence somehow exuded malevolence and I had felt that from the first moment I’d discovered him. Hell, even his aura was nasty. He was evil and he had to be stopped. No matter that he was grotesquely deformed, either from birth, or through some horrendous and freakish accident: he was a killer without mercy.
He had to be stopped, but I didn’t know how.
I stayed in deep shadow, watching the dead body, thoughts, doubts, tumbling through my mind. The three men had been laughing and clapping each other’s shoulders as they departed the scene, and I loathed them for what they had done. But I loathed Moker more.
Just when I felt I’d waited long enough and was about to approach the recumbent body, something stirred. At first, I thought it was the woman herself—I was sure she had moved—but as I peered closer, I realized I was mistaken. Once again I backed away, retreating into deeper shadow. Without doubt, I was afraid of the monster who had possessed his victim. As before in the underground car park, a nebulous shape, a configuration that was transparent, was slowly evolving into something recognizable, and even in the darkness, and despite its limpid nature, I could tell it was Moker leaving the body.
The gauzy form thickened, took on more solidity, and began to arrange itself into something more human—except, of course, for the face. The body of flesh and bone beneath him was completely motionless, a lifeless corpse once more, as Moker continued to rise. There was no awkwardness to him now; his emergence was even graceful. I shrunk further back, almost passing through the glass of the shop door behind me. As I realized this I took another step backwards so that I was now on the other side of the glass, and inside the shop itself. There was the usual uncomfortable feeling for a nanosecond, a kind of claustrophobic thing followed by a sense of being at one with the glass, absorbed by its molecules, nothing overwhelming, just a natural transition spoilt only by the fear I had for the thing that was out there in the street.
The vision that was Moker stood upright in a fluid movement, and glanced back down at his victim. Although in shadow, he was clearly visible to me, not quite in solid form, but giving off a slight glow in the darkness. I wondered if I would look the same to him. In fact, his reappearance in this form caused me to wonder about his ability to float out-of-body. Was it the same ability that I possessed? It had to be—it could be nothing else. But he had left his physical self so quickly and effortlessly. Perhaps it was the very nature of the man himself that made it possible, the curse of loneliness giving time for the perfection of the pursuit of leaving his own body.