The Blue Hour (31 page)

Outside it was still moonlit. I had to watch my step on the walkway down into the main town. The descent took five minutes. As the bus depot was just a minute beyond the city walls, I'd be there easily with ten minutes to spare.

When I reached the end of the descending pathway I spied two figures leaning against a wall, smoking. As I came into their field of vision, they both tossed away their cigarettes. Suddenly I noticed the two matching baseball caps and realized these were the two guys who flirted with me last night.

“Hello there, pretty lady,” the talkative, arrogant one said. He and his friend were now positioned directly in front of me. A red warning light went off in my brain.

“You're up early,” I said, trying to keep my tone light while simultaneously glancing frantically from side to side, desperate to find a way to squeeze by them. But this was a narrow pathway and they had comprehensively blocked the way forward.

“We wanted to say goodbye,” Mr. Arrogant said.

“Goodbye, then,” I said.

I immediately tried to dash past the other guy, who had a jar of some liquid and a rag in one hand. As I made a break for it, Mr. Arrogant caught me by the arms and pinned them behind me. I tried to scream but his friend had the rag over my nose and mouth within a nanosecond. The rag was sodden in a liquid that gave off a high chemical aroma. Kicking out with my feet, connecting with nothing, I tried not to inhale its toxic fumes. But the rag was forced down on my face with such force, while my hair was simultaneously being yanked backward, that I could no longer hold my breath.

When I exhaled the chemicals hit me like a sucker punch to the head.
This is not happening, this is not happening
.

And then the world went black.

WHEN THE WORLD
came back into focus, I wanted to jump back into the darkness again. Because to be conscious meant facing my imminent death.

I was nowhere. I was being bounced up and down. Tossed from side to side. My head felt as if it had been split in two. Nausea was consuming me. But even if I wanted to be sick, that was impossible, as a rag had been tied tightly around my mouth. To vomit would be to risk suffocation. My hands had been bound to my feet. Movement was impossible.

I had been thrown into the cargo area of an open-back truck. It was still night outside, though a small hint of dawn was beginning to cleave the sky. I forced myself up for a moment and spied nothing but emptiness around me. Until another bump in the terrain slammed me back down against the floor of the truck.

I was being driven into the Sahara. Once they had me at a place far away from any hint of civilization, I knew what they would try to do with me. I also knew that two against one meant that, once they had raped me, they would then have to kill me. And bury my body deep within the desert. And return to their road gang job by sunrise and act as if nothing had happened. When my absence was eventually reported, what trace would there be of me? I saw my backpack out of a corner of my eye. It had been thrown into a corner of the cargo area, near a plastic jerry can that had slid down and was bumping against my face. From the fumes emitting from its cap I could tell that it was filled with spare gas.

They are going to rape me. They are going to then strangle me. Then they'll use the gas to burn my body and bury its charred remains deep in the drifting sand.

I began to scream. I screamed through the gag. I screamed like a lunatic. I screamed in the desperate absurd hope that someone would hear me. I screamed with rage and fury and disbelief. I screamed with hatred. I screamed with terror.

I tugged at the ropes that were binding me. My hands had been so fiercely tied to my feet, the knot pulled so tightly, that there was absolutely no way of loosening it, let alone undoing it without a knife. I pulled and yanked and desperately tried to get my fingers—gone numb owing to the pressure on my wrists—to deal with the knot. But it was impossible. Every time I yanked my hands, the ropes seemed to apply more pressure, increasing the numbness, making me wonder if the lack of circulation would . . .

This is not happening . . . this is not happening
.

But this was definitely happening. With the sky beginning to lighten, I was pretty certain it was going to happen very soon. That would be their logic: fuck and strangle her before sunup. Cremate the body, bury the remains, be back on the road with the new day dawning.

I struggled and struggled and struggled. My muzzled screams turned into hysterical crying as I began to realize there was no way out of this.
I am doing to die. Before that happens I am going to suffer the worst sort of degradation imaginable. A monstrous death by strangulation.
There was nothing I could do to stop them.

The truck began to slow down, then came to a halt. The motor was cut. I heard both front doors being opened, then slammed shut. Footsteps. Then a voice.

“Sleep well, pretty lady?”

He climbed into the back of the truck and began to stroke my hair. When I began to struggle, he slapped me hard across the left ear. The effect was like being instantly concussed, ferocious pain coupled with a profound echo effect. I screamed in agony, and was rewarded this time with a fist to my cheekbone. I blacked out for a moment. When I came to again, it felt as if the cheekbone had been fractured. The little shit now was brandishing a knife in front of my eyes and yanking my hair at the same time.

“You fight me again I will cut you,” he hissed. “Cut off your tits, maybe gouge your eyes. You want that, cunt?”

I shook my head many times, fear making me whimper. Now his fury turned into a broad frightening smile.

“You fight me, you will get hurt. You no fight me, everything will be very nice. Understand?”

To give emphasis to the last word, he yanked back hard on my hair. I whimpered again, nodding many times.

“Good girl,” he said, stroking my cheek. Then he shouted something in Arabic and his accomplice came over, a knife in hand.

“My friend is going to cut off the ropes,” the little shit said. “You going to struggle?”

I shook my head many times.

“Good girl,” he said.

More shouts back and forth in Arabic as the cords were cut. Immediately the restoration of blood flow to my hands made me shudder. A hard clip across the ear was the punishment for that involuntary movement.

“I fucking told you: no movement,” the little shit hissed.

“Sorry, sorry,” I whispered through the gag.

“Tell me you want this,” he whispered.

I tensed and was hit again.

“Tell me you want this,” he repeated.

“I want this,” I muttered through the gag.

“You move you get cut.”

He threw my now untied hands behind me as he slid off the truck and, with his accomplice helping him, cut the remaining rope off my ankles, pulled off the gag, then proceeded to lift my buttocks up and unzip my pants, pulling them down with my panties at the same time. As he did so my free right hand quickly darted around the immediate vicinity of the cab, trying to find something I could use as a weapon. I knew I only had seconds—and nothing came to hand. Until my fingers connected with the jerry can. I managed to get my hand around its cap when I felt my legs being spread wide and I looked up and saw the little shit above me, his pants pulled down, his penis erect.

“You going to fight me?” he asked as he climbed on top of me.

I shook my head, seeing out of the corner of my eye his goon standing on the ground by him, folding up his knife, lighting a cigarette, frightened and scared and also waiting his turn. With my hand still on the cap of the jerry can I reached over with my left hand and touched the little shit's arm, actually stroking it in a come-on way. A huge smile came on his face.

“You want me, yes?”

I nodded. Another big smile from the little shit. I could now feel the head of his penis rubbing against my vulva, trying to gain entrance, but being defeated by the absolute dryness within.

“Open wider,” he ordered, and heard him spit into his hand then rub it against the lips of my vagina and force his way in. I felt as if I was being ripped apart; an agony beyond agony. But as I glanced upward at him I could see that he had his eyes snapped shut as he began to thrust wildly within me. My left hand tightened around his arm, and I deliberately began to match his thrusts with my own as a way of letting him think I was into it. Meanwhile, my right fingers were manically unscrewing the cap of the jerry can. As I could hear his moans rising, and feel his penis beginning to stiffen even further as ejaculation approached, the cap finally came loose enough that a small trickle of gas came spilling out. That's when I reached up with my free hand and stroked his face. He opened his eyes and I dug my nails directly into them, digging down, blood spurting forth, his screams deafening. I let go with the jerry can, drenching him with the gas. He jumped back, falling to the ground, his face in his hands, blood now gushing from his eye sockets. In a nanosecond I jumped off the truck, grabbed the Zippo lighter from the hand of his startled accomplice, ignited it, and tossed its flame directly at my rapist. All this took maybe three seconds. There was a huge conflagrating whoosh. The cigarette had ignited the gas. The little shit burst into flames.

His cries of agony were mirrored by a scream from his accomplice, especially as I was now gunning for him with my claws. As I sideswiped his cheeks, he caught me with a punch to the face. I fell to my knees. He kicked me with full force in the head.

And the world went black again.

THE HEAT BROUGHT
me back to life. Then it threatened to finish the job and kill me.

When I snapped back into murky consciousness, the pain was beyond ferocious. My head battered, my cheek fractured, my lips split, a reverberating echo in one ear, the throbbing in my skull unbearable.

I'd collapsed facedown in the sand. I knew this because when my eyes finally opened, sand cascaded into them, making me jump upright and then nearly fall over again as the pain hit. I held my head for several moments, eyes snapped shut. I became aware of the boiler-room heat. And the fact that I had no pants on. The entire exposed lower half of my body felt as if it was charred.

I tried to stand up. I failed. I sank to my knees, but the sand was so fiery that it forced me to somehow become vertical. That's when I doubled over. Because that's when I saw him. Or what was left of him. Still on his knees. Charred everywhere. Most of his features burned beyond recognition, but half his face still intact. The upper half, where his two eyeballs had been gouged so fiercely that one of them had dislodged and was dangling by his cheek.

I turned away, pulling off the gag. I was sick, the vomit disgorging from me with a ferocity and a vehemence that had me collapsing again. Until the scorching sand forced me back on my feet.

It all came flooding back now. Every appalling detail. From the moment they grabbed me. Everything that transpired. Everything they did. Everything I did. Evidence of which was right there in front of me. And the punch in the face and the kick to the head that blacked out the world. Blacked out everything. Until now.

All the vomiting left me with a ravenous thirst—though I was already severely parched from all the time unconscious under that pitiless sun. How long had I been left here? I instinctively glanced at my wrist, thinking they must have snatched my watch. But my father's Rolex was still there. So too were my engagement and wedding rings. The watch told me it was 8:23 a.m., the hands on the dial blurring before me, as my vision felt as if it had been knocked out of kilter with that final boot to the head. The vehement sun blanched the landscape. As I tried a step forward, my foot felt something soft underfoot. I stared down, almost crumbling again. The blurriness in my vision was alarming. But I could discern white pants in front of me. My white pants and underwear, stripped off me by the little shit before he forced his way inside me. Before I tore out his ability to see the world. Before I set him ablaze.