Chapter 9

Cars rarely appeared on the distant road in this stretch of the desert. When one did come into view he covered her mouth with his hand so that her screams couldn't be heard.

He could have gagged her, but he wanted to hear her cry and whimper and moan when there was no danger of others hearing.

He had slept during the night and he assumed she had, too. But by morning she looked haggard nevertheless. She lay on her right side with the sun cooking her flesh, her muscles strained and taut in the solidity of the position of her limbs.

Her lips were swollen. So was her tongue. He could tell that because it was hard now to distinguish her words. They were thick and garbled.

By early afternoon she no longer looked the same at all. It was funny how even the shape of her body had changed. She had been a pretty girl when he had picked her up the night before and here it was only the next day-and look at her!

He wanted to vomit in disgust. So this is what these women were, once they got out of their cozy shelters and faced a little suffering ... thin, peaked, their bones showing, the flesh falling away ... ugly ... ugly ... ugly.

They all deserved to die, every last woman on earth. And eventually they would all be dead, anyway, even though new ones were born everyday. And why? Simply because there were men who found these creatures desirable and screwed them. That was why more women were born, women to turn ugly and horrible like this one before his eyes now....

The man shook his head. He couldn't understand it; he just couldn't understand it.

He watched her carefully every minute. He even watched her when he was eating the food he had brought with him and drank the water. She looked especially vile then as she babbled something through that parched mouth, and looked hungrily at him like some mangy, bitchy cur.

Tied up like that, she didn't even look human any more. She seemed stunted, dwarfed, like some thing without limbs, only a torso. The muscles and nerves seemed more strained than ever with the flesh shrinking away from them. He could count the bones if he wanted to, especially her ribs.

And the sun. It was scorching, blistering everything in sight. When it became too hot for him he got into the car, leaving the doors and windows open to catch any slight breeze, and watched her from there, humming softly and endlessly, a lullaby to the desert, peaceful and quiet.

And unseeing.

That was the best part of it. He could relax and enjoy this and no one saw him do it, no one barged in asking what the hell was going on, spoiling the beauty and serenity of the occasion with rough, crude words and a mean, displeased voice.

No one else saw, as he did, what the sun was doing to the girl's flesh and hair. The hair was like dried straw, hanging limp and lifeless and bleached in the sun. And her flesh was cooking, and blistering, the reddish, sickly skin peeling and curling so fast he could see it happening.

It made his own flesh crawl to think of how she had tried to beg off by offering him her body, thinking that all he wanted was that ugly, sickening thing between her legs. Even though she might be a whore, he was no whore-monger. But that type would never learn simple things like that. They thought that all they had to do was show men their boobs, invite them to foul themselves by screwing them, and then women could get anything they wanted out of men.

Oh, it worked all right. Many men made fools of themselves over whores. He saw it happening all the time. But not to him. He was above all that.

"Ohhh!" the girl moaned.

He had been staring at her and thinking his thoughts as he sat in the car. Now he rose, stretched his legs and walked to her. She was even more disgusting up close, every detail of her raw flesh exposed to him.

Her eyes were bleak and hollow as they gaped at him; her mouth sagged open, her cheeks were drawn. She ran her puffed tongue weakly over her swollen, parched lips and made a sound. He hummed loudly to drown out whatever she was trying to say. He could not have his thoughts interrupted by anything, least of all by her words.

The ropes, he saw, were still as fast as ever, tighter, even. The sun seemed to have bleached the rope too, and made the knots even more firm. Bending close, he saw the twine cut into the raw flesh. It didn't seem real to him. It was more like a statue or a still photo, without life or meaning. And without feeling.

It was too hot out under the sun so he went back to the car. The short walk and the exposure had dried his throat and he drank from the canteen of water he kept close to him. But he kept his round eyes on the girl as he drank, saw her stare at him, then roll up her eyes until he could see nothing but white.

Was she dead? He got out of the car again and examined her. The heart was still beating, even though faintly. She was too healthy to die so quickly. Another day, maybe, and then even her youth and strength couldn't help her.

He regretted having hit the old man with the shovel, but there was nothing else he could have done. He much preferred it this way, letting the person die all by herself, slowly, as he watched the bound body, watching life leave it, seep out of it like the grains of sand from the top of an hour glass.

How many other people were so lucky as to watch such a phenomenon? Only he, shunted by life at home, laughed at by the men he knew, scorned by the women, was now so powerful, so mighty, that he could bring something like this about, and watch life-man's most precious possession, fade away.

And then, when it was all gone-he felt himself trembling in anticipation-he would know the strange ecstasy that engulfed him, that thundering, smashing, lightening-like sensation that was surely better than anything known by any other human being, surely better than whatever it was other men sought when they visited those foul whores and paid them money so they could share the foulness. This was beauty; this was purity. And only he would know it.

The day passed slowly, leisurely. The few cars that sped along the far road kept right on going, not seeming to pay any notice to his car parked in the sun. He had another snack toward evening, humming between bites and watching the girl.

She seemed to be shrinking before his eyes, shriveling into almost nothing. It was a strange phenomenon and he made sure he missed none of it. She barely opened her eyes any more now and she didn't even try to talk, although toneless guttural sounds escaped her throat once in a while. He no longer thought of her as a human being, not even as a living creature. She was an object, a thing to study in transformation from a normal person to a strange microbe.

He considered himself most fortunate in being in such a position that he was able to study the perverse miracle.

The coming of night did not lessen the visibility as the moon was still bright, casting sharp shadows on the white sands. He removed his shoes and socks and stretched himself out on the baqk seat of the car. He slept for an hour, rose and examined Dale. She was still breathing in gasps and her heart beat weakly.

"She'll live till morning, at least," he decided, and went back to sleep, assured that he would not miss the supreme climax, the very instant of death when he would have his climax.

He was awakened by a long, low moan; it was morning. Up in a trembling hurry, he rushed to the girl. Her eyes were open but glazed and she was trying to talk. He leaned close to her, kneeling in the sand.

Her puffed lips moved soundlessly, the breath cut off by the swollen tongue, but she kept trying. Wincing, he put his palm to her heart. There was only the faintest of flutters.

Now a word came out of her mouth as she struggled to release it. "Note," she gasped weakly. Then in a rushing flow she finished, "Left a note ... about you...."

Her eyes were fixed on him now. And for all her weakness and helplessness, he saw in them a flash of triumph, a last damnation of him.

He had to make sure he heard properly, and he had to make sure she knew and understood that he was aware of what she had said.

"Are you telling me that you left a note for the other girl?" he asked. "You told her that you were going with me in her place? And you're telling me that I'll be discovered?"

The whisper that came from her was in assent.

The man smiled and reached into his pocket. He took out the note and held it before her eyes.

The eyes stared for an instant and then went totally blank. There was no further sound from her. The man felt her chest. There was no heartbeat. With his own heart beating harder, he pressed his ear to her breast. There was only the sound of his own harsh breathing.

He shot up. "She's dead!" he cried. "She's dead!"

Flames, red and violent, seared his mind. He shook with a spasm that gripped his entire body. He flung himself away from the corpse, falling into the hot sands, writhing and moaning as he sought to become one with the earth, digging into it as his mind escaped into a limbo of cataclysmic turmoil until there was nothing but escape, escape from reality, from sensation, into nothingness.

The vultures were circling in the sky when he awoke. He was weak but calm and refreshed. He looked at the girl's body. He felt nothing. He rose to his feet, waiting to catch his breath and steady himself, and then, moving faster now, he took the shovel out of the trunk and dug a grave.

The sand and earth were soft so it was easy for him to dig a deep enough hole. A car roared by on the highway as he stood in the pit but it didn't slow up so he kept right on digging. He wanted to hum but decided to save all his strength for the task before him.

When it was done, he dragged the body to the hole and let it drop in. He was surprised at how light it had become, not exhausting him at all. He was barely aware of it except for the burned skin that rubbed off on his hands.

But he was careful. He waited a few moments before filling in the grave. And when that was done, he rested again before leveling off the earth so as to remove all signs of a grave.

He examined the ground where she had lain. It was as it had been except for the marks made by her dragging body. He ran his feet across the marks and they were eradicated enough so that nothing showed.

Sweat was running down his face now and he rubbed it off with his shirtsleeves. The work had parched his throat. He drank a good deep draught of the water from the thermos bottle. It was only moderately cold but he knew it was good for him that way.

He looked around, checking everything. He gathered the picnic things, put them away neatly in the basket, opened the trunk of the car and put the basket and the shovel away.

"Is there anything else to do?" he asked himself. "Have I forgotten anything?"

He stood beside the car for a while, looking about and thinking, reviewing everything, studying everything around him.

"There's something," he said. "Something I've left out, something I've missed."

It disturbed him that he had this feeling. He knew he wouldn't leave unless he remembered what it was he had overlooked. He was taking no chances on fouling up now. His idea had gone too well for it to turn sour at this point, now that he had done what he had wanted.

Impatient with himself, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets ... and his right hand closed on a crumpled piece of paper. A thin smile formed on his lips and he started humming.

He took out the note that Dale had written and lit it with a match. When it was burnt to his fingers, he dropped it and watched it turn into ashes.

Then he ground it into the sand with his heel, got into his car and drove off, the toneless, tuneless humming sounding high above the steady hum of the motor.

The vultures soared off into the vast sky.