Other heads lifted themselves from their stupor and turned towards her. The figure came nearer. Two rheumy, yellow eyes gazed at the bottle she now held with two hands.
‘Come on, Mary, it’s me - Myer.’ The eyes took on a crafty look as they realised it was nearly a full bottle of Scotch. ‘I know what youlike, Mary, gimme a drop, and I’ll do it for you.’
‘You,’ Mary jeered. ‘You, I remember last time. You couldn’t even find it, could you?’ Mary began to giggle, her shoulders jerking with the effort. ‘You!’
The old man began to snigger, too. ‘That’s right, Mary, but it’ll be different this time, you see.’ Grimy fingers began to fumble at his trousers.
Mary laughed now, rocking backwards and forwards, drinking freely from the bottle.
‘Just a minute, Mary, I’ll soon have it.’ Myer was laughing, stopping now and then as a concentrated frown swept over his face. ‘Don’t drink it all, ‘Mary.’ His puzzled look turned into a smile of triumph as he finally produced the object of his search.
Mary’s laughter reached a hysterical pitch as she pointed at his limp penis.
‘You couldn’t fuck a polo mint with that, you daft old sod,’ she cried.
Just then, a hand grabbed at the neck of the bottle.
‘Give us that, bitch,’ a man loomed over her, his face almost hidden behind wild, curly hair and beard.
But the hand had no strength and Mary was invigorated with the Scotch and the laughter. She pulled it back, crouching over it, clutching it between her thighs. The bearded man struck weakly at the back of her neck, but Mary laughed even more.
Old Myer tried to grope between her knees to reach the bottle but she clasped it tightly. ‘Just one, Mary, just one,’ he pleaded.
The other man suddenly kicked her,then grabbed her matted hair, pulling her head back, screaming obscenities.
She struck out with one hand knocking him on to his back, but Myer made a lunge at the bottle. He doubled up in pain as a bony knee hit his groin.
The three other old warders crouched and watched, slowly edging forward, eyes never leaving the bottle.
The bearded man struggled to his feet and came staggering towards her, like a degenerated bull in rage, but she clawed at his eyes, drawing blood, sending him to his knees. She turned to face the other three and they drew back in fear.
‘Bastards!’ she shouted at them. She turned her back on all of them, Myer on all fours, tears streaming from his eyes, still pleading, the bearded man rubbing at his eyes, the three on the ground cringing. She sucked noisily at the bottle, then grabbed at her skirt, missed and grabbed again, hoisted it to her waist, and waved her bare arse at their faces. Then she disappeared into the bushes and all they could hear was her mocking laughter.
She stopped by an old tomb, still giggling and muttering to herself. Men, she thought, all the same. All weak, every one of them. She’d enjoyed herselftonight, she’d made fools of them all. She thought of Myer and his tiny prick, like a little white worm in the moonlight. Pathetic. She’d never known any man who - no, there had been someone. Now who had that been? Years ago... she drank from the bottle and tried to recollect who it was that she’d once loved, who was it that had once given her something? But what? What had she been given? She couldn’t remember.
The rock’ struck her exposed throat as her head tilted far back to drink from the bottle. She fell forward and the bearded tramp pulled it from her grasp. He drank deeply, while the others kicked the moaning form on the ground.
Myer took the bottle next and greedily gulped at the fiery liquid only releasing it to another when the burning in his throat caused him to splutter and choke. The man with the hairy face swayed from side to side and looked at Mary’s writhing body. He knew this bitch, seen her laughing at his friends before, even laughed at him once when he’d tried to do her a favour. He picked up a large brick and brought it down hard on her face.
He grabbed the bottle off a thin little man who’d only just got it into his possession, and drank. They all sat round in a circle, only a few feet from Mary’s still body, finished off the Scotch and then returned to their meths.
Mary Kelly wasn’t quite dead, but she was close to it. Her skull had been fractured by the brick, and was bleeding profusely. Two ribs were broken and her throat had a deep gash in it. She had lain in the dirt for a long while, her life-spirit slowly ebbing away, and in a short while she w6uld be dead. All that moved were her lips which seemed to be saying some soundless prayer, over and over again and her fingers that tried to count to ten endlessly.
Quite nearby lay the slumped bodies of her five companions, huddled together in disturbed slumber.
The first rat approached her cautiously, the smell of blood overcoming any fear, but never blurring its cunning. It was much larger than the other rats that followed it, and darker in colour. When it was a few feet away from Mary it stopped, its hind-quarters bunching up, its whole body tensed and quivering.
Suddenly it leapt at the open wound in her throat, sinking its huge incisors deep and drawing out the blood with violent spasms of its powerful body. Mary tried to stir, but she was too weak from blood already lost, the rat now biting deep into her vocal chords. Her body shook, but suddenly another furry form buried half its head into the matted hair over the wound in her skull. Her back arched as her nerve-ends mutinied and she fell forward again. Another rat pulled at her ear. Suddenly, her whole body was covered, teeming with squealing creatures as more scurried from the darkness, the smell of blood much stronger than it had been before. So Mary Kelly’s unfortunate life ended. The priests had never managed to save her soul, but then it had never really been lost. Only her mind.
The rats drained her body of blood and gnawed her flesh until not much more than bones and pieces of skin remained.
It didn’t take long, for there were many of them. So many, that not all had been fully-gorged. Their hunger for human flesh had been merely inflamed - they wanted more. There were several larger rats amongst them now, and those began to move towards the five human shapes sleeping nearby.
There was no caution now as they swarmed over the bodies. Two men had no chance, for their eyes were torn from their heads as they slept. They crawled blindly around amidst the carnage that was taking place, rats clinging to their bloody flesh.
The bearded man had risen to his feet, pulling a wriggling body from his face and tearing mostly hair from his cheek in the process. But as he stood, one of the larger rats leapt at his groin, pulling away his genitals with one mighty twist of its body. The tramp screamed and fell to his knees, thrusting his hands between his legs as if to stop the flow of blood, but he was immediately engulfed and toppled over by a wave of black, bristling bodies.
Another dishevelled figure buried his head in his hands and rolled himself into a ball, his frail body rocked with sobs and pleadings. The rats bit off his fingers and attacked the back of his neck as well as his exposed behind. He stayed in his foetal position as the rats ate him, still half-alive.
Myer ran. He ran faster than he’d ever run before and he almost made it. But in the dark, and in his panic, he ran into a gravestone. He somersaulted over it, landing on his back.
At once, the rats were upon him, their razor-sharp teeth soon tearing his feeble old body to shreds.
Outside the ruin, on the main road, a crowd had gathered.
They’d heard the screams and the commotion but none dare enter the dark churchyard. They couldn’t see through the foliage, but they knew the type that made those old bomb-sites their homes and were not too anxious to investigate.
Eventually two policemen arrived, closely followed by a squad car. A powerful searchlight was directed into the undergrowth, and three policemen with torches went in.