D A Novel (George Right) - By George Right Page 0,62
there, large bulges convulsively moved. The fetus was still alive–though, in principle, even a single stab should have been fatal–and each time when the knife pierced in, the fetus writhed and wriggled. Now a hand, then a foot stretched the mother's belly so much that it appeared just about to burst–especially taking into account that it already had cuts which drew as crimson holes; and at the moment when the car started moving again, Mike distinctly saw through the skin the features of a face with a wide-open mouth, pressing from within...
Nausea was rising to his throat, but the young man still couldn't look away. When they dived into darkness again, Mike closed his eyes and decided not to open them till the exit. But when almost at his ear a strange sucking-squelching sound was heard, he couldn't restrain himself and looked.
At first the beam of light was very narrow, and Mike saw only a tender girl's belly, pierced by a steel spike. This way the girl was nailed to a concrete column. Sweat flowed down her pale skin, mixing with blood below the spike. Then the beam slipped up, and the passengers of the car saw why the victim could neither scream nor even groan: her mouth and nostrils were tightly sewn up with rough thread. In order to let the unfortunate being breathe, her throat was pierced by a tube, like for a tracheotomy; this tube was the source of that sound. She began to breathe faster when she saw that the car stopped very close to her; her eyes looked at Mike and Jane with entreaty. It seemed to Mike, according to the movement of her shoulders, that she tried to stretch hands to them... and then the beam became wider, and the passengers of the car saw with shudder that she had no hands. Her right arm was chopped off almost up to the shoulder, the left one–a little above the elbow. Her legs had been cut asymmetrically as well–only there the longest stump was the right one, reaching the knee. The skin on the ends of the stumps was pulled together by the same rough thread. The victim stretched the remnants of her limbs in a vain attempt to touch Jane who was sitting closer to her; Jane involuntarily recoiled as far as the narrow car allowed. However, the stumps lacked several inches of reaching her anyway.
And then steps were heard from behind. Someone approached in a shuffling plod. Mike and Jane turned their heads round. At first they could not discern anything; then in the gloom a bulky silhouette appeared. From somewhere below smoldering crimson light beamed up; the face of the figure remained shadowed, but it was possible to clearly distinguish heavy boots, dirty jeans under an apron (once white, now covered with brown spots) and, the main thing, an ax on a long handle at the end of a brawny arm. An ax from which something seeming almost black in such lighting was dripping...
Strangely enough, seeing this person who was without any haste approaching the motionless car, Mike felt calmer again. A maniac with an ax, what a trite cliche... they could think up something more original... He looked at the heavy figure with a smile, even when the latter came very close and brought his ax over his head...
And then the ax fell upon Jane.
Everything happened in fractions of a second. The girl desperately screamed. Mike clumsily jerked, moved by opposite reflexes–to intercept the heavy edge falling on his girlfriend and to move as far away from it as possible... but in any case from such a position–pressed to a seat by the safety bar and turning his head back–he could do nothing. A bump, a wet crunch of a split bone, Jane's shriek...
Mike stiffened; his brain refused to process the events. Probably, about three seconds passed until he understood that his girlfriend was still sitting next to him, alive and unharmed. She had shouted just with fear. At the last moment the ax had changed its direction and fallen upon the mutilated victim on the column, having truncated the longer remnant of her leg by several inches. From a stump blood gushed, and from the tube thrust in her throat hoarse hissing came–the only sound that replaced a scream from her...
The butcher turned again to the passengers of the car, raising his ax. Now most of his face got into the beam of light directed at the nailed victim. Mike's