"When a Man's Hungry, he Eats."
Moe delighted in the wriggling, struggling thing he had seized into his grasp.
The only thing which might have made her impotence more delightful was if she was crying, too. But she was too frightened now for a good cry.
That might come later.
Nearer to the end of things.
It was dark in here, and it took him a moment to realize this was the blind girl he'd seen about the house. Her hair in his face helped clue him in. The feel of her curves and bumps in his arms helped, too. And her night clothes. They were all much as he'd imagined them while tugging at himself in the dark, planning his day of fun.
But then he'd seen the other one.
Nevada.
She was scrappier-looking. More fun to break.
And she was being very scrappy just now.
A knife moved in the dark. Moe's work pants were made of thick fabric, intended to stop brambles and pointy weed-seeds before they could prick his skin. But a knife- and a sharp one- was a more serious affair. The pants did their best, but the steel sliced through the thick fabric, leaving a thin scarlet line across Moe's knee. Not deep enough to disable him, but deep enough to give him notice.
He made a strange grunting animal sound and shifted his wriggling prey to use her as a shield against further attack- her dangling and kicking legs hopefully dissuading another sharp swipe.
"You fight me, and I'll kill you, break her flimsy spine, and do her rough. So rough she'll bleed and cry and vomit and till she dies of the doing I'll give her," his voice was deep and oily, seeming to leave filth inside the ears that heard it, "she'll die with my cooze in her cooch. And maybe she might can't see, but she'll see it all inside her head. She'll take it with her to the Hell I send her to."
He knew the things inside his head were often more vivid than the real world he lived in.
"But you drop that knife and go inside that room, and lay back. Open up and lay back. I'll do it to you without breaking nothing. I'll be soft and sweet. And I won't touch her at all. You can save your friend, but not with a knife. You can save her by giving me my jolly. Then you can both live with it."
He tightened his grip on Frances in the hopes she'd scream a little, and push the point.
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows" - Helen Keller
Frances was in complete panic now, sobbing as she struggled impotently. She sensed that Tully had tried to do something: the monster reacted, but she had no idea what she had done or how she herself was in as much danger as the intruder from the flashing blade. The only part of the man's threats that hit home was the bit about breaking her spine. She imagined herself a cripple. "NO!! No! Please don't hurt me!! I'll be good! I'll be good! Please! Don't hurt me!" she begged breathlessly.
"But you drop that knife and go inside that room, and lay back. Open up and lay back. I'll do it to you without breaking nothing. I'll be soft and sweet. And I won't touch her at all. You can save your friend, but not with a knife. You can save her by giving me my jolly. Then you can both live with it."
"Don't do it Tully, run. Just ru... Aaaaahhhhhhh!" Frances tried to warn the streetwise waif not to listen to his obviously false offer of 'mercy' but yelled with agony as he cracked her ribs.
He tightened his grip on Frances in the hopes she'd scream a little, and push the point.
There was nothing in the blind girl's head now, her life was just one continuous scream.
Tully might be uneducated in some ways, but she wasn't stupid, she had no delusions that the man would be in any way charitable, regardless of her cooperation.
She barely left time for the man to finish his rambling, much the less for Frances' pleas, or call to run...no, Tully rushed back in, nearly hugging Frances as she reached around her friend to stab at the man's side -- his ribs, his arm, his neck, his face -- anywhere she could find an opening, unrelenting, driven...she knew the stakes, and knew what she needed to do.
"When a Man's Hungry, he Eats."
The small blade hooked around and punched into Moe's torso, just under the bottom rib on his left side.
Moe wasn't one to worry too much about pain, most times. Life was pain, and as much as he was often the cause of it, he had taken his fair share of it, too.
But as small as the knife was, that Nevada girl had swung it with the devil's own frenzy. It sunk right in, and the surge of pain was a real, rare thing.
But pain? That could be dealt with. The fear which sprang up in Moe wasn't about pain. The fear was wrapped up in questions:
How deep had she stabbed? Enough to get through his layers of fat and muscle? Enough to prick a vital organ, and set him on an inexorable course towards death?
He roared, and wielded Frances like an oversized, human club made of frail womanhood. He shifted his grip and swung her through the air, smashing at Tully in a display of ludicrous strength and barbarity.
This wasn't fun any more.
Blood was pouring down his left side. She'd gotten him more than once.
Was he going to die?
Had these fucking cunnies killed him?!
If so, they'd die long before he would.
He'd beat one with the other until they were both bloody mash.
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows" - Helen Keller
Frances felt the stranger swing her around and her legs crash into what must be Tully, but the movement also caused her cracked ribs to send bursts of pain to her throat where it erupted in yells and shouts of "OWWW! OHH NO! OWW! LET ME DOWN! PLEASE LET ME DOWN!!" she shouted, as if the devil who had her in her grip were a real sane person who would listen to her entreaty. Her blank white eyes were staring blindly into the dark as He used her as a flail to mow down the girl who had trailed this monster, this demon out of hell, into her safe, nice house; like a visitor trailing dog dirt in and onto the best carpet on the sole of her shoe.
That was the funny thing. If, and it was still a big IF at this point, she did survive this, would she somehow blame this whole ordeal on Tully?
That remained to be seen. All she knew now was pain. even fear was gone: pain was King now, pain had won.
@[Cuban Writer]
The man's angered cry spoke volumes, it was feral and unrestrained, telling Tully that she had pushed past his restraint. The careful calculation was gone, replaced with rash reaction, and that could easily lead to mistakes...Tully knew that well enough.
Frances' screams cut through her, making nausea rise in her throat, but it was far too late to go back now -- the only hope either girl had was for her to keep fighting, to double her efforts and not stop so long as she could keep fighting.
What she hadn't counted on was the man actually using Frances as a weapon, but the poor girl wasn't much of one. Her feet swung into Tully, a bit bony, but mostly soft, and while Tully was knocked to the floor, she wasn't hurt, and the man had to hold Frances with both arms, hopefully one of those mistakes...
From the ground, Tully scampered forward and wrapped herself around his legs, out of reach of Frances' feet, then stabbed up with her little knife, up the front of his leg, where she hoped the blade would find his balls.
"When a Man's Hungry, he Eats."
The blade was aimed to sever Moe's stem and berries, but he was a moving target.
Moe swung little Frances like a baseball bat. Or, given that she had flailing limbs of her own, perhaps more like a screaming cat of (less than) nine tails. Shifting during the moment of contact, he saved his manhood, but lost his life. The little knife went into an artery. When Tully pulled it out, a pulsing stream of red blood followed the withdrawing steel.
Howling like the wounded and dying animal he was, Moe threw Frances aside like an unwanted rag doll.
There was no doubt, now.
He knew his minutes were numbered. He knew those minutes could be counted on one hand, possibly with fingers to spare.
Another man might have stopped. Reconsidered his life, ruminated on his choices. Grappled with his faith, the possibility of life-after-death. Sought some last-minute redemption. Expressed some measure of contrition.
That was not Mortimer Green.
He did not clamp his hand to his leg, attempting in vain to staunch the deadly blood-flow. No, he accepted death. And he decided to spread it around.
His hands curled into big fists. Fleshy mallets rained down upon Tully Nevada.
Moe would hammer that bitch into the floor.
He refused to die alone.
The knife had hit something, she could tell by the feeling, but Tully wasn't sure where, exactly. He was bleeding, she knew that much from the slick wetness on the knife and her hand, but she didn't know how much, nor where she had hit him. But in a moment, that was a moot question as blows started raining on her, powerful and angry.
Tully curled into a fetal position, drawing up her knees to protect her stomach, and covering her head with her arms. Desperately, she tried to scoot against a wall to make her back harder to get to, but she knew she wouldn't last long like this. At least, she hoped, she'd given Frances a chance...
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows" - Helen Keller
Frances gave a scream of pain as she was thrown down onto the floor by Green, one of her fractured ribs piercing her left lung, deflating the pleural sac that allowed it to fill with air. She didn't feel any extra pain from that, and anyway, she had enough pain to deal with already.
Still, she wanted to live, and though inexplicably short of breath all of a sudden, she dragged herself along the floor, sobbing and moaning, trying to get under the bed where she thought she might be safe. Maybe a the man would go and leave her and Tully alone and her ribs would start to feel better in a little while and everything would be all right...
"When a Man's Hungry, he Eats."
She curled up. She went to the wall.
That wouldn't save her. She couldn't get away from him.
And neither would the fragile blind girl he'd tossed away. He'd eat her in a minute.
His hands rose and fell like the massive pump of an oil derrick. But instead of leaving black smudges of oil in his wake, he left thick smears of blood wherever his fists landed.
Gradually, his big hands slowed down. At first, Moe wasn't aware of the change.
Soon, though, even he began to notice it. His arms were becoming heavy. Light gradually leeched away from the already dark room, leaving nothing but memory with which he could target his blows.
The girls in the room would see him slump over, then. Pale and dying, his eyes no longer seeing the world he was leaving behind.
For Moe, the room brightened anew. Strength returned to his limbs. His punches began to land with titanic force, crunching bone and pulverizing the girl into the floorboards.
He was a god among men. A master predator. Standing, he saw the bloody pulp of her, the fruit of his labor. The blood no longer seeped from his leg. He was above mortality. He grinned, turning to poor, frightened Frances.
He'd use her for a good long while.
For the first time in recent memory, Moe was well and truly happy.
He reached under the bed to drag her out... but she was gone.
Surprised, he turned, wondering how she could have escaped without him noticing. That's when he saw that the bloody pulp of Tully Nevada was also gone.
His happiness boiled away like a thin pour of water on a hot stove.
He noticed something new, then. Something impossible. Long blonde curls flowed from his head. There was a dress on his body.
A thin, girl's body.
She heard the sound of heavy breathing.
She turned, her eyes going wide.
Mortimer Green was standing there, in a room that now had no door. No window. No exit.
He was salivating as he reached out to her with those hungry, hungry hands...