Few pedestrians walked this sidestreet, although traffic still made its way towards Queensway where it was as busy as ever. This area of Bayswater was always vibrant, whatever the hour (except for the very early hours of the morning), but the further we moved away from the main thoroughfare, the fewer people we saw. The three men had quickened their step now, almost dragging the woman along. They crossed a narrow sidestreet and one of the men gesticulated, pointing towards the darkness at the end of it, but the one in the leather jacket shook his head and growled something in their language.
I was quite close to them, guessing their intent, but unable to do a thing about it. They soon reached another narrow sidestreet and this time Leather Jacket nodded and indicated with his head. He probably knew the area well.
How could this be happening? I repeatedly asked myself. The woman was dead, her heart had been stopped by a long sharp knitting needle. How was it possible for her to walk and talk, how could Moker manipulate her so? I could only reason that once the soul, the spirit, the vital spark of life itself, whatever, left the human body, it still took some time for it to run down completely. It was as if a dead battery had been replaced by a working one. Absolutely crazy, yet here was I, witness to that craziness.
There were no moving vehicles in this little street, only parked ones, and the further we went, the blacker it got. Several of the overhead lamps were out of order, and this was why there were so many inky shadows.
The group reached a junction and one end of it was a cul-de-sac, unlit shops on one side, darkened commercial buildings on the other. The woman was dragged in this direction and she did not resist, the slowness and awkwardness of her pace the only reason for leading her. When they reached a recess that was the entrance to one of the commercial buildings, they pushed her into its pitch-black shadow.
She tripped over the wide stone step and once again they hauled her to her feet, this time roughly. I moved in closer, knowing what was going to happen, wanting to help the woman – her, not Moker, the man inside her; he knew what he wanted – desperately thinking of what I might do. If I’d been flesh and blood I’d have waded right in, three of them or not. But I was just . . . nothing! I couldn’t scream at them, I couldn’t touch them. Dear God, I couldn’t even frighten them.
The leader of the pack wasted no time. His hand went straight up the woman’s tight skirt, the triangular split at the side helping his wrist hitch up the material. I was used to the bad light by now – either my eyes had grown accustomed to it, or in my out-of-body state I could see more clearly than before – and I saw the other two men – the other two animals – pulling at her jacket. One paused for a moment to unzip his flies and release his aroused penis, a squat fat thing that should have been an embarrassment, and then Leather Jacket followed suit, the fingers of his right hand still busy beneath the skirt. The woman was laughing, an eerie hollow sound in the darkness, her head back against the metal door behind her. She twisted her face from side to side, her eyes half-closed, pupils hidden by the drooping upper lids.
Leather Jacket, his member standing proud from his trousers, yanked at her panties and tights, and they came down to her knees. His right hand disappeared again and her upper body fell forward, then shot back against the door, the back of her skull smacking against the metal. Still she laughed, an insane roar that seemed hardly human, and the two other men ripped open her jacket to crush her breasts under feverish hands.
By now their leader had hitched up the skirt to her waist and was attempting to thrust himself inside her, his knees bent, one hand on her hip, the other guiding his swollen penis. His two companions were becoming frantic, pulling at her blouse to expose her breasts. The bloody wad of material that had helped stem the flow of blood from her dead heart fell to the ground.
I heard Leather Jacket, who had found his way into her, exclaim something in Arabic, probably a curse, as he wondered why he was suddenly becoming wet. He pulled away from her without withdrawing completely and touched the dark running stain that was soiling his white shirt. I’m not sure if he could see the blood in the poor light, or if he smelt it, but he seemed to know immediately what it was. The blood had not yet had time to cool or begin to congeal in her veins and now it flowed copiously, overwhelming the needle’s round blunted end, running down her front, between her spread legs, soaking her panties and torn tights, spattering onto the stone step beneath her.
Leather Jacket pulled away completely, his penis catching the blood flow. He made a sharp disgusted sound and instantly struck out, slapping the woman’s face hard. A moaning kind of laugh came from her and the two Arabs on either side quit their rough, fumbling fondling and stared at her. Then they looked towards their leader and angry words were exchanged between them all.
I could just make out their expressions in the darkness and they were ugly, maybe as ugly as their souls. One studied his hands and saw that they were darkly stained with what could only be blood. He struck out at her, and now his bloodied fist was clenched, the blow a hard punch. She tottered against the Arab on the other side and he angrily pushed her away, back into his companion, who punched her again, catching her upper arm. Whether she – Moker – felt any pain, I’ve no idea, but her low laughter became sharper, which seemed to annoy the Arabs even more. They started to flail her body with their fists, the leader, his penis still in evidence and still hard, stepping back to kick her. The first kick hit her knee, which buckled, the other two assailants whacking her as she went down. When they discovered that their nice light summer suits had become bloodied, they really lost it. They began pounding her, kicking her as she sank into a corner of the recess.
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 loo
k 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.
And what better incentive to leave his own wretched form than his own physical imperfection? What better motive than living as someone else for a little while, someone fit, attractive, wealthy – respected? (And in his twisted mind, who better to shame and humiliate – his victims the very type he had always envied, later wanting to destroy their faces and bodies to satisfy his own vengeful hatred of them? He despised them for the qualities that he, himself, had never possessed and so his final retribution on them was to render them in his own likeness by way of a chopper.)
How Moker had discovered he could leave his own body at will, there was no way of knowing, but there was no doubt he had developed the gift to a fine degree. And again, how he had learned to enter deceased bodies and possess them, there was also no way of knowing. But he did work in an environment of corpses, in a mortuary.
My conclusion was that Moker had put in the hours. To me, the OBE was an occasional habit; to Moker, it was both a release and a means of revenge. He’d obviously become adept at it.
His dimly luminous shape remained immobile as he continued to look down at his poor victim. Then he shifted and looked about him. For a tense moment I thought he might discover me hiding in the shop but, although his eyes lingered for a long second on the shop’s doorway, his attention moved on.
After a while, he himself moved on and, for a reckless moment, I wanted to chase after him. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to prevent him from doing this same thing ever again. But he terrified me and I held back. Besides, I didn’t know if I could make contact with him in our state of being. That was my excuse anyway.
I did have another idea though.
Moker had long departed before I ventured out of the shop. Before crossing the street to the doorway where the urine-sodden woman was sprawled, I checked to my right, making sure the killer wasn’t about to reappear. I waited nervously, ready to flee. The street was empty. I crossed over.
I examined the dead woman, checking that she hadn’t, by some miracle, started breathing again. No, she really was dead.
I wondered if her killer’s plan was to return in his car using his physical form then mutilate the body here, where it was dark and quiet, with little chance of being disturbed. Maybe that was how he always did it: kill, possess, leave the dead victim somewhere isolated, return and chop it; or maybe he would load the corpse into his car and take it elsewhere to mutilate. Whatever, I knew the nightmare wasn’t over, that he’d be coming back to finish the job, and that I didn’t have much time.
I wondered if I could pull it off.
After studying her for a few moments – her lip was cut, her cheekbones black with dirt from the undersoles of the three Arabs’ shoes when they’d kicked her, her previously smart business suit drenched with blood and piss – I squatted down next to her (I suppose in some way I was trying to get the feel of her). I squeezed into the gap (yeah, no need to squeeze in my form, but I did anyway) behind her on the step and, taking a deep pointless breath, I melted into her.
And it worked,
I seemed to fit.
But only seconds after I was enveloped by her flesh, the fading memories rushed at me. I experienced her life, just flashes, only moments in time, but it seemed to cover everything, from birth to death. I guess even after death, a residue of precious life remains in the brain and even in the flesh of the body. Like those old radios and televisions whose energy faded rather than stopped immediately when switched off, so this was an ebbing of power rather than a complete cut-off. Now, it seemed to me as I immersed myself into this cooling corpse, energies – at least, her memories – lingered in the substance of her form.
My own mind sapped up the remains of the woman’s lifetime experiences. It wasn’t focused enough to be overwhelming, but it was startling.
Images, sensations, thoughts: they poured through me.
A huge bright red ball with yellow spots, bigger than me, the observer, it seemed; absolute joy – a man, somewhere in his early thirties, I thought, although he seemed very old, giggling as he pushed me on a swing; it was a long time ago and this was my father and I was his little daughter (there was no question, no mystery, it was just as it was), and wonderful happiness spread through me, but it quickly left, a harsh sadness taking its place as the man was gone – a woman now, an unhappy strict woman, pleasant face, yet a severity to her eyes; mother, the dead woman’s mother, and there was love, but it was not the same as before; the woman was older, grey-haired, and she was angry, raising her voice, at me, and dislike weighed heavily on the love; but it seemed that in death, my death, forgiveness was granted and I ached with longing – still pining, the regret of having lost my father so many years ago—
Although I was experiencing the remnants of the dead woman’s memories, my own feelings continued to intrude, for my own mind was ensconced in this host of flesh and stilled blood, and I wondered if Primrose would mourn me for years to come. An image of my father came to me too, but he was like a stranger.