Dancing with the Dead

31

After the macabre dance, he wrestled her to the ground. That was when she gave up. Her gaze darted around and found only darkness. He’d been clever, waiting for her here. There was no one to help her, no hope.

She could feel him sense her surrender. Grinning down at her in the dim light, he raised his body slightly, keeping a tight grip on her hair, pressing her head tight against the ground. He held the knife up where she could see it, moving the blade in a lazy circular motion.

“All right,” she gasped, still out of breath from her struggle. “All right, whatever you want.” And she was sure she knew what he wanted; she’d felt his erection seconds ago as he’d brought his body down on hers.

Or did she know? The knife darted to her throat and she felt the cold kiss of the blade.

When she looked into his eyes and saw a darkness blacker than the night, she knew she was going to die.

Suddenly he moved, pulling the knife away and granting her a reprieve. Through paralyzing fear and a strange gratitude for sparing her momentarily, she felt his free hand groping beneath her skirt, yanking down her panty hose, then her panties. A fingernail scraped the back of her thigh. She was glad he was going to rape her; she’d live that much longer, anyway. And where she was, so near to death, every second of life loomed huge and of monumental importance, the difference between being and not being.

He surprised her once more, though. She realized what he was going to do when he grabbed her hair again, then adjusted his grip and moved well to the side, obviously so he wouldn’t get blood on him, and jerked her head back unbelievably far to expose her throat.

He said something she didn’t understand, his words floating to her from another universe. It didn’t matter what he’d told her. She knew she belonged to the dead, even before she felt the slash of the knife, breathed in but drew no air, and prayed for it to end soon after all.