HOPE . . . because that's all there ever is.

by James Crow

  ‘I forgive you,’ she says.

  ‘Forgive?’

  ‘For sticking your fist in my twat without warming me up first. That fucking hurt, Pete.’

  ‘You said you like pain.’

  Sasha sighs again. ‘Let me sit on your face, babe. I really need to come now.’

  Pete doesn’t like the idea of freeing her feet from the scoops and allowing her to sit on his head. But he does like the taste of cunt. He reaches his hands under her fat ass and heaves her forward to the edge of the bed. He dips his head and flicks his tongue at the wet slit.

  ‘Oh God,’ Sasha says. ‘More babe.’

  Pete drops to his knees, pushes his face into the soft flesh, moves his head slowly up and down, licking all the way. She tastes salty, and creamy, a beautiful taste, aye. He pushes his face against the soft flesh with more pressure, parting the slit with his nose, his mouth, running his tongue up to an engorged clit the size of a button mushroom. Pete bites it. Sasha mewls, bucks against his slick-wet face. Her cream is up his nostrils and trickling down his throat. A taste so Divine, aye.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ says Sasha when his tongue pushes through her hole and probes about inside.

  ‘Fuck!’ she cries when he grabs hold of her fleshy hips and pulls her to him, pressing his face into her, tasting, nibbling, scraping, pressing harder – harder!

  She’s saying something. Crying something. Swearing something. And she’s squirming a whole lot more than she should be physically able to because Pete’s mouth, along with his nose, is inside her gaping hole. He applies more pressure and eases his chin up over the tight rim, uses the power in his muscles and grips at those hips and pulls into her.

  Sasha shrieks a piercing shriek that’s followed by more cries and curses. But no squirming this time. She’s panting hard, slapping a hand off the mattress. Pete gives another push, a good hard straining push and, with a sucking sensation followed by a tight snap around his neck . . . he’s in.

  It’s hot. Suffocating. And so very tight on his throat. Not that he can breathe anyway. Or see. But he can smell and taste. An image comes back to him, a documentary he watched where a hyena had its head up a dead elephant’s arse. Pete feels like that hyena. He moves his head from side to side, lapping at the cream inside her, and the elephant on the bed writhes a bit and some of her cream spills into his mouth.

  He can feel the vibrations through her from where she’s thumping the mattress. Can hear her muffled cries through the flab surrounding his ears. He does it again, moves his head from side to side, licking as he goes.

  He senses something then. Something internal. A vibration running through her. She’s shaking. Her body trembling. Her hand slapping the mattress faster and her scream is loud . . .

  Pete’s head is ejected like a boulder from a geyser. Sasha screams again and the creamy liquid leaves her gaping hole like water from a power-hose. Pete opens wide, catches a good lot of it.

  ‘Did that really happen?’ Sasha asks after a breathless minute. ‘Or did you take me through the k-hole, babe?’

  Pete’s staring at her hole. It’s gaping so wide he can see her pink insides. Can see a pool of cream. It’s closing up, though. Slowly, the ragged and sore-looking edges are shrinking. Pete gets to his feet. His beard is dripping. His shirt is soaked. His straining cock is soaked. And he smells Divine.

  The lump on the bed groans. ‘God, Pete. My cunt’s throbbing so bad. I really need your cock in there now, babe.’

  Pete steps up between her legs, positions the tip of his straining cock at the ragged slit where the bejewelled butterfly looks the worse for wear, and pushes in a little. Sasha moans. ‘Do it, babe.’ He reaches over her flabby belly, takes hold of the cord at the base of her tits and pulls himself inside her sloppy wetness, her hole still shrinking around him. There’s a golden hum that feels sweet, a vibration within. ‘Nice,’ Pete says.

  ‘God aye,’ the lump on his dick replies.

  A shadow appears to his right, whisper-whisper. Pete looks but there’s nothing there.

  ‘This K is so fucking good,’ Sasha says, ‘I can’t feel my legs anymore, but I can feel you inside me.’

  Pete can feel himself, too. The tentacles that made themselves known in his gut are creeping through his cock and reaching out into Sasha, and now she’s moaning, purring, asking for it hard.

  ‘Fucking do me, babe. Fucking do me like the god you really are.’

  Rhythm comes easy for Pete, as easy as the whispers in his ears and the shadows growing through the walls.

  He fucks her good. Flesh slapping flesh. Her jutting torpedo tits wobble and the fat fuck grunts with every thrust.

  ‘Fuck, you’re so fucking big, Pete. I swear I can feel your cock growing inside me.’

  Pete grins as he fucks her. He can feel it too. And not only that, he can see it, can see her belly rising.

  11

  ‘One hundred and thirty nine,’ Beth says as the last sparrow goes silent and falls from its perch with a flutter of wings. It swings on its string, twitching.

  ‘Did you say something?’ The wood spirit’s eyes are glazed, her pupils grey and distant.

  ‘The sparrows,’ Beth says. ‘I can hear each tiny heartbeat. It is a wonder.’ You’re starting to sound like her. Stop it!

  ‘Then, why can’t I? I want to hear them, Bethy.’

  Beth looks to the windows and the wood spirit follows her gaze.

  They’re back in the room with the yellow banners. Fourteen chairs and fourteen men in suits. Despite the white lace veil each man wears, Beth can see their faces. The girl whose mind they’re inside is carried around the circle of suits. Hands touch at the legs beneath the yellow dress. Beth cannot feel this, cannot feel her legs at all, even though she’s standing firm inside the dome with the wood spirit by her side.

  ‘Master’s heart is taking us, Bethy. There’s a warmth in my breasts like no other. Can you feel it too? Please tell me you can.’

  Bethy groans, ‘Yes, I feel it.’

  The wood spirit squeezes her hand. ‘I feel your heart, too, Bethy.’

  Beth returns the squeeze and the dome wavers. Whispers snake through the air around their heads, fortunate, fortunate, fortunate.

  Another journey around the circle of fourteen men. Hands stroke and fingers nip.

  The wood spirit giggles. ‘He’ll love us soon, Bethy, and when He does, everything will change, you’ll see.’

  ‘Change?’

  ‘Yes, a change for the better.’

  A third circle of the suited men. Each takes a pin from the collar of his suit, each pricks at bare legs and toes. Beth does not feel a thing.

  ‘When He loves me, loves . . . us . . . the high is the power that feeds Him. He will grow, change into the Supreme Being. If you’re really fortunate, you may catch a glimpse of His enlightened form before your great salvation.’

  ‘Explosion?’

  ‘I said salvation.’

  ‘But your mind said explosion.’

  ‘Stringy worms, Bethy. That’s what you’ll see. Glorious stringy worms. Look!’

  Outside the windows the view changes. Elizabeth is laid on a hospital trolley, one small foot appears in each window, settled into a scoop, Master at her front, the windows fall back and the view becomes the ceiling and a huge painted eye.

  At first they’re whispers, fortunate, fortunate, and Beth can’t see the fourteen men but she knows they’re on their feet and the whispers grow into new words, Supreme, Supreme, Supreme.

  Master’s hands come into view and slide down her unmoving legs and beneath the hem of her yellow dress, and Elizabeth is lifted and moved towards him.

  Beth feels the pressure of his big hands on her backside and she yelps and almost falls as both her and the wood spirit are shunted forward. She gives the wood spirit’s hand another squeeze. ‘I am so fortunate,’ she says and builds an imaginary wall of golden bricks around her thoughts.

  The bricks protect her thoughts, keep the
m safe and private for a vital moment. Beth had yelped not because of anything Master was doing, but because she’d been stuck with a pin. And it wasn’t a pin from the men outside, not this one. Beth knows this pin. It has a round blue head. It’s one of Muriel’s from her sewing case and it’s sitting beneath the mustard-coloured triangle on her bramble-spike skirt, mistakenly left behind after sewing was complete. This blue pin will be her salvation.

  The chanting grows loud, Supreme, Supreme, Supreme and the sparrows on strings are vibrating. Beth slips her free hand to the mustard triangle at her side, feels for the pin and finds it straight away. She slides it free and holds it between two fingers, with her thumb behind the pin’s blue head, as if she’s about to stick it. This will be her freedom. She smiles from the sudden feeling of joy and the golden wall momentarily drops.

  The wood spirit turns to look at her.

  Beth readies her thumb behind the pin’s round head.

  ‘What was that?’

  Beth laughs again.

  ‘You’re hiding something.’

  Beth throws more bricks to the wall but knows it’s too late.

  ‘In your hand. Give it to me!’ The wood spirit holds out her palm, ‘Now!’

  Through the windows, Master loosens his robe and lets it fall.

  ‘Now, Bethy. I won’t let you spoil this. Give it to me!’

  Beth doesn’t have to focus. The pin knows where it’s going. It strikes the wood spirit’s palm dead centre. Beth’s thumb drives it straight through.

  One hundred and thirty-nine sparrows shriek back to life, wings flapping, pulling at their strings. As the windows blur and the dome melts away, and Beth and the wood spirit fall to the floor.

  They’re back in the dimly lit room where water drips, and in the far corner a pink rucksack rests at the bottom of stone steps that lead up to a circle of grey. Beth can smell the early morning air from here.

  She gets quietly to her feet. The wood spirit is still down, sobbing. She holds out a skeletal hand, the blue pin sticking from it. When she raises her head, Beth knows what to expect. ‘You’re dead,’ she says and the wood spirit’s face crumples to bone and dried flesh. ‘And you stink really bad.’

  A sob and the wood spirit’s neck buckles and shrinks. Her eyes ease from their sockets and hang down her cheeks. Her yellow dress turns grey and torn; her legs become mangled and twisted and bubble with maggots.

  Beth backs off as the corpse struggles to get upright, but upright it gets, first to its knees, then to one foot, then another. It moves one bony foot forward. As the other foot drags into place, a wooden handle materialises in the wood spirit’s grasp and the handle extends into a rusted metal pick. Another step, another drag. Beth backs off some more.

  The corpse raises the pick behind its head.

  ‘No present like the time,’ Beth says. She runs for the steps, leaps over her rucksack and hears the whoosh of the thrown pick as it spins through the air behind her. She clears the top step as the pick clatters off the step below and she’s free, running into the grey of dawn, a breeze through her hair, spots of cool rain on her face and the speed of galloping horses in her feet.

  She clears a low wall with a whoop and gazelle-like grace, slips through the gap in another wall and she’s onto the yard and sprinting across the wet grass. Fourteen rabbits are up ahead. She can only see two and the ears of another but knows there’s fourteen. On towards reception, a strange white car with traces of purple bricks hanging around it like a bad smell. Now, she’s running down the side of the reception hut and onto the hill, not slowing and never slipping and never missing a step or a jump and at the bottom she leaps onto the track and sprints onwards. ‘I am so fortunate,’ she says and knows that she is fortunate. She’s no freak, nothing simple about Bethany Black, she’s special. ‘I am so fortunate,’ she repeats and then hears excited squealing that sounds like a farmyard piglet. The squealing is coming from cabin 1. Beth knows not to stop. A crow on cabin 1’s roof watches her run by and gives an approving caw and Beth says, ‘Dooly-cooly,’ as her bricks shimmer into golden feathers and on she runs, breathless, but that doesn’t matter because this is the fun do of a lifetime. Sixteen birds in the trees up ahead, a hidden deer in the thicket she’s passing, forty-seven crows, all hidden, all watching, a badger somewhere, now it’s beneath her feet, too quick, Beth laughs and leaps over a dip in the path. Now passing cabin 3, in darkness. A pair of squirrels somewhere up high. Another exhilarating leap and cabin 4 comes into view. The lights are on, the door’s open and there’s a woman outside holding a cup in her hands. Beth races straight at her.

  12

  Rose switched the main light on. It was her bangle all right, jammed into the cracked casing of the smoke alarm. Two or three specks of blood on the plastic casing as well. Must have taken some force to do that. She climbed onto the bed and reached for the bangle. A pull, a shove, a waggle and the bangle came free along with half of the casing which fell to the bed. A small black eye looked at Rose from within the alarm’s workings. At first she saw a crow’s eye. But the hairs on her neck prickled when she remembered a character in one of her books, a nanny whacking a kid on the head with a wooden spoon, the scene caught on a camera hidden in a clock. A camera just like this one. She pulled at the casing and it came away without much bother, the tail of an antenna slipping from a small hole in the ceiling. She got down from the bed and sat on its edge. Pervert Pete had been watching her. She thought back, trying to remember what she’d done as she’d lain on the bed. How much had he seen? Maybe he’d watched the crows attacking her? Was he still watching now through the lens in her lap? And what about the other cabins? A camera in every one?

  What to do? The police, of course. Pack the car, drive away to safety, call the cops. Let them deal with him after that. ‘Fucking hell,’ she said to the room. She dressed quickly and threw her belongings into her case.

  At the front door, Rose hesitated. What if the crows attack again? Not only that, but what if Peter had been watching? He might have been staring right at her when she tugged it free. He might be right outside, running down the path. The word rape came to mind and Rose’s stomach gave a hot clench. She should arm herself, a knife, there was a bread knife in the kitchen drawer. Then she remembered her trusty six-inch knife tucked in the lining of her suitcase. Trusty? She’d never used the bloody thing, always packed it, just in case she ever needed to defend herself. Could she stab someone? You’re not Lara Croft, Rose, you’re wasting time. Just get the hell out of here, while you still can.

  She took her car keys from the hook by the door and slid the bolt free. She opened the door and looked outside . . . no crows, no incoming rapist. With a hammering heart she stepped outside, went straight to the Corsa’s boot and dumped the case. Head down, fast steps, another trip, small bag, handbag, into the boot, slammed shut. ‘Fuck!’ the lucky cup. She hurried back inside, to the bedroom, grabbed the lucky cup from the bedside drawers and ran outside, head down, car keys in hand, towards the Corsa. The sudden sound of fast footfalls made her freeze. Rose spun around. A girl in a yellow dress exploded through the mist, pigtails flying, and she wasn’t slowing down. The girl was grinning.

  The contact was hard. Rose flew backwards and the lucky cup went spinning through the air. She landed on her back with a thump that knocked the breath out of her and made stars twinkle before her eyes.

  ‘That was lucky,’ a sweet voice said.

  Lying by Rose’s side was the girl, propped on one elbow, a bright smile on her face and the lucky cup swinging from her thumb by its handle.

  Behind the girl’s elbow Rose saw the Corsa’s rear tyre. It was flat. And beyond that she could see the flattened base of the front tyre.

  ‘Shit,’ she said.

  1

  A flash-flare of golden light from outside is bright enough to pierce through the drawn curtains and light up the whole room, but only for a second, as footfalls go rushing by. Pete freezes on the out-thrust and a shudder runs
through him. The light dies. The footfalls are gone, replaced by urgent whispers at his ear.

  fortunate, fortunate, fortunate, fortunate

  The urge to chase after the light is strong. But the cunt wrapped around the knob of his cock clenches like a vice and snaps him back.

  ‘Petey, don’t stop, babe,’ says a voice belonging to a man, not Sasha White.

  Pete pushes into her with a cock that feels thicker than his own biceps, accompanied by the feeling that it’s still growing, expanding inside the fat slut. Pressed against her, he reaches for the upright warheads that are now closer to black than purple, and parts them to see her face. But it’s Mr Wood who looks back at him, his greying hair combed over, his smile twisted. The laugh that escapes Pete’s mouth feels good. ‘K-hole,’ he says and laughs some more.

  ‘You give me the horn, boy,’ Mr Wood says, before his smiling face changes back to flabby dough and piggy eyes. ‘Petey? What’s so fucking funny? Get me fucked, will you!’

  Something moves in the darkened kitchen area. A grey form brightens to white and floats forward. It’s Mr Wood in his lab coat.

  ‘Peter Harding with a hard-on. Well I never,’ Mr Wood says, and sits on the bed by Sasha’s side.

  ‘Aye,’ Pete acknowledges him with a nod.

  A gasp and a giggle from Sasha, ‘Petey, there’s a big fat worm on the ceiling. I mean real big. Really fucking huge. It’s only got one eye, and it’s got a mouth and pointy teeth and it wants my pussy. Fucking amazeballs.’ She giggles again.

  Pete looks up to the ceiling but sees no worm.

  ‘Fuck me sideways with a gatepost,’ Sasha says, ‘my nipples are sprouting mushrooms. Ohhhhh, this is so fucking cool. I can feel them, babe. I can feel their roots tickling inside my boobies. Fuck me, Pete, fuck me hard, baby!’

  ‘What’s the matter, Peter?’ Mr Wood says. ‘Get her done, and give her one up the shitter while you’re at it, there’s a good lad.’

  Pete starts up again. The slut’s cunt is so tight around him. ‘I’m no homo.’

  ‘What’s that, babe?’ Chubby fingers part Sasha’s tits and she’s looking at him.