She moved cautiously down the first aisle
to her left. Two doors were shut but a third at the far end was open and as she
illuminated the room to investigate, she thought she would die of fright.
Within, overhead, an indescribable,
heart-stopping 'thing' was coiled as though to pounce upon her. She thought she
saw a dead white face, black insect body and not only two arms reaching for
her, but tentacles waving snakelike and glittering wickedly in the torchlight.
It was so unexpected, so monstrous, so unbelievable, so imminent that her limbs
froze and her throat constricted choking off her scream.
Then she was seized from behind in a
relentless grip, paralysing her with cold terror. Her light was knocked from
her hand, but before it went out it flashed across the monstrous thing on the
ceiling, still immobile, and she was aware that it was another pair of arms
that had embraced her. She had not heard the soft footsteps or breathing behind
her. It was this knowledge that kept her from fainting; this embrace was human.
It took her, spun her about and pinioned her down. A hand was forced over her
mouth.
She felt herself thrown violently upon her
back and with the hand still cruelly pressing her lips to prevent outcry, a
body, a something, a someone lay on top of her in such a manner that she was
unable to move.
Strangely she was able to separate the two
horrors now; the 'thing' from the ceiling and that other pressing her down,
imprisoning her limbs and her will. She felt helplessly immobilized not only by
the one holding her but by the weight of the darkness itself enveloping her. A
hand tore at her underclothes and not until she felt the sharp internal pain
did she understand that she had been pierced and entered - was being violated,
abused, defiled and taken.
Oddly enough the word 'rape' never entered
her mind. She was aware only that something was being done to her and that she
was powerless to move or cry out, helpless from hurt and the awful indecency of
the jostling. The smothering hand pressed so hard that she felt her teeth
cutting into her lips. Darkness, evil and pain!
The agony continued. She wanted to shed
tears like a child who is being beaten, but could not. Sounds reached her ears
but not like any she had ever heard before; hardly human but frightening in
their intensity and so, in the end, she could only lie there filled at last
with knowledge and recognition, wondering when he would have done with her.
The sounds and the movements ceased and the
body still lay upon her. The physical pain diminished but transferred itself to
somewhere within her being at her very centre, an anguish of grief. The hand
was removed from her face but she no longer cared about or even thought of
calling out or giving vent to any kind of cry. She was lost; the blackness was
a bottomless pit into which she was falling, falling, from which she would
never rise again.
--
Hurting in
every part of her body, within and without, Susan picked herself up off the
floor, retrieved the torch and arranged her clothing. She did not bother to
examine herself. It was all being done by that other Susan that had been born
out of that moment of darkness and with whom she must now get acquainted. She
walked painfully to the entrance of the alley and as her torch flashed across
it, she was once more picked up by the beam of the big lantern.
She heard her father's voice echoing down
the long alley, 'Hello there, Susan! Are you all right?'
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