All of the houses in the terrace looked the same, with only slight variations of exterior decor. But the rooms were big and high-ceilinged, and there was plenty of space for the kids.
No space for Banks's car, though; his garage was one of a dozen in a low, asbestos-roofed block of badly constructed concrete boxes at the end of the terrace. This made for a walk (or a run when it was raining) of a hundred yards after he'd locked up. And when the weather was really bad, as tonight, it pissed him off to have to go rushing into the house spraying droplets |ike a hosed-down dog.
These were some of the thoughts that occupied his mind as he switched off the motor, snatched his keys from the ignition, rammed the door open with his elbow and made a dash for the up-and-over garage door. And this was another:
Fuck it! Why can't I ever remember to take the garage key off the fucking keyring? Now (as usual) he'd have to start up the car again to drive inside! Standing under the leaky garage guttering, he finally fumbled the correct key into the release handle and turned it - only to discover when he yanked on the handle that he'd locked the damned thing!
But even as warning bells commenced their mental clamour, as suddenly and as sinisterly as that, he was there again! That ominous presence watching and waiting, his silent snigger grown to a snarl now in the back of Banks's mind!
God! Banks thought in a moment of panic. / must really be losing it! And: Bastard, bastard, bastard! as he concentrated on what he was doing, turned the key the other way, and hauled on the handle to swing the door into its up-and-over position. Inside the garage it was night-dark, cluttered with household junk at the back. And the light switch ... wasn't working!
Shit and damnation! But it was okay; the car's headlights would give him all the light he needed to park up. But. . . was that movement back there?
A pair of dark figures moving forward, silhouetted against the greater darkness behind them; and Banks frozen to the spot, transfixed by the utterly unexpected! But in that single moment he put the whole thing together, and the warning clamour in his mind - and the sniggering -went up several decibels.
The garage door: he always checked twice that he'd locked it. But you could buy these fucking cheap keys in any hardware store. And the light: he'd replaced that bulb just a week ago! And that sniggering in his mind: it wasn't in his mind anymore but ... but right here in front of him! First the sniggering, and then a low warning growl!
Banks unfroze ... but too late. The figures coming toward him out of the darkness of the garage converged with him, fastened on him! One of them, briefly illumined in the rain-lashed glint of a street lamp, was
Skippy, Banks would swear. But in the next moment an arm went round his throat, and the scorpion-tattooed hand swept a glittering knife on high! Then -
'No!' said the second figure. 'He's mine. This piece of... filth is mine!' But the voice itself was filth - full of bile and phlegm and hatred -and Banks knew that this was the nameless mental intruder. No longer a bodiless, spying, sniggering spectre but a living, breathing reality. And to corroborate it, coming to him in his mind again, but audibly now: Your balls are mine, you stinking cop scumbag!
Then Skippy's knee in Banks's back, thrusting him forward onto something that ripped him open like a paper bag. Pain!
Unbelievable pain! And the slash, slash, slash of silver-flashing steel as sharp as razors ... the hot surging wetness of Banks's blood from his face, chest, belly and genitals as he went down. In just a couple of seconds he lost pints of blood. That alone would suffice to stop him, the shock alone: of feeling his face torn open to the bone, his belly in ribbons, his manhood shorn from him in a tearing of upward-swinging scythes!
And the slashes not stopping but continuing to rain down on him where he slumped, then crawled, then collapsed.
But the pain . . . miraculously the pain was going away, like a dull ache receding; so that only the tearing of shuddering but no longer protesting flesh remained to remind him of his murder. Because Banks knew that that was what it was: The