Inhuman

Copyright (c) Noelle Adams. All Rights Reserved.

Thando sat on the bed of her little cell, smoking on the butt of a cigarette her last client had left. She lay back on the mattress. In the mirror suspended above her she could see her reflection. Her makeup was smudged, her hair unbrushed and her bra strap all but falling off her shoulder. She felt like crap. Not even the nicotine could make her feel better. 

She put the butt out on the headboard and stretched herself out. Reaching over, she dimmed the light cast by the lamp on the bedside table. It was the only source of illumination in the one-room flat. In the gloom flecks of dust danced around like fireflies until they sunk too close to the floor. There they were trapped in cobwebs spun by the long-legged spiders who favoured dirty corners.

Thando knew what it felt like to be caught in a web. She was poked and prodded all day by spiders. It didn’t matter to the men who slept with her that she was only thirteen. They did whatever they wanted with her, nibbling at her wings. She couldn’t complain. 

Still, as she thought of it, this hell in Durban was better than being back in Cato Ridge. If in the city she was at the mercy of bigger bugs, at home she was trapped in a bottle; bruising herself against the glass. Everything about her existence there was suffocating. While her mother went looking for work in Pietermaritzburg, Thando and her younger brother had been dumped with their grandmother. \

Thando couldn’t wait to get out of the cluttered one-bedroom house and run to school in the mornings. School was the one thing that made her life bearable. She studied hard and she did well, better even than the boys. The Sister who drove up from Mariannhill every day to teach Thando’s class was confident Thando could get a bursary to study at university when she was older. It was a dream Thando gobbled down. She kept it safe at the base of her stomach, nourishing it nightly with fantasies when she should have been asleep.      

Then her uncle had moved back home with his three children.

As the oldest, Thando was expected to act as a baby-sitter. There was no more time for school. Thando watched her dream trickle away like the nearby stream that slipped into a grate, and vanished into an underground pipe. Thando would lie alongside the grate, gazing into the moist blackness. Occasionally she would laugh inwardly at the irony of her English name: Fortunate.

One day her uncle, Pule, came down to the stream. Thando had been avoiding him. She didn’t like men. As far as she could see they were all bastards. She’d never known her father, and her step-father had deserted the family two years earlier. Now alone at the stream- the children were playing football in a nearby field- Pule asked Thando questions about herself. How old she was. Her favourite colour. What she wanted to become. It was the first time anyone had taken an interest in what she thought. So she told him.

Afterwards Pule wanted to show her something in the outside room he had built. Thando went with him. The tin roof made the hut like an oven inside. Pule closed the door behind them. Thando could see little in the gloom. She couldn’t guess what her uncle wanted to show her. Suddenly he gripped her arms and kissed her. Thando pushed against him, but he wouldn’t let go. He kept mumbling how much he loved her. Then he undressed her and had sex with her.  

Afterwards, as he was pulling on his trousers, he told her it was to be their secret. Thando only nodded. Tears wouldn’t come. And so every so often she and Pule would disappear into the outside room, or stroll down to the stream where they could lie camouflaged in the long grass. It wasn’t too bad. Except for the first time, her uncle never hurt her. And if he had money he would buy her little presents, like glittery butterfly clips for her hair.

It was two months later when her grandmother hobbled into the shack and saw them together. Pule fled that night, leaving his children behind. It was the last time Thando saw him. 

After that, things got worse. Left behind, her grandmother made sure Thando was punished. The family was in disgrace and Thando had to suffer for it. The only time anyone spoke to her was to lecture her, or call her names. She wasn’t allowed to leave the house. Not that she wanted to anyway once her tale spread through the community. Thando could barely stand for all the blame dumped on her head. She shouldn’t have dressed like that around Pule; she was deceitful; she was asking for it; she was a slut anyway. Her brother and cousins brought the stories home with them.

One morning, while her grandmother was napping in her faded armchair, Thando crept into the kitchen and pulled down a jar from the cupboard’s top shelf. Inside the jar was nest of bank notes: her grandmother’s savings. Thando scooped out R150, replaced the jar, packed her suitcase and left. She caught a taxi to Durban. If any effort to look for her was made, she didn’t know or care.

In Durban, the taxi vomited its passengers out at Warwick Junction, a taxi-rank and city all by itself. Thando found herself sitting on her suitcase before a giant mural of Nomkhubulwane. The fertility goddess’s arms were outstretched as if introducing the urban landscape to anyone who was interested. All afternoon Thando stayed at the goddess’s feet. It felt like a safe spot from which to watch the awesome number of cars and people passing by. 

It was late spring and Thando found she could sleep outdoors at night, hiding behind street vendors’ stalls. She was afraid that the police patrolling the area would realise she didn’t have a home, and take her to a shelter. 

One humid night, while weaving through the streets, a man tapped her on the shoulder. He wanted to know how much she charged for sex. Thando had looked around at the other experienced women of the night, surprised that he had approached her. She needed the money so she went with him, ignoring the glares from faces caked in makeup. It was the easiest thirty bucks of her life.

By the end of the week she had made enough money from stray males to rent a room in a dingy motel. The place normally charged by the hour but the manager had pitied her for some reason. The taps in her room spat out rusty water, ruts were worn into the carpets and cigarette burns poked from beneath the bed sheets, but it was Thando’s own place. She could lie on the mattress at night and smile with the satisfaction that she had a home and a profession to pay for it.

She gave little thought as to how her business sat with the professionals. She got called over to a yellow Toyota Corolla one night, and, with the promise of fifty rand, she got in. That was when she met Zakes. He said he was a Rastafarian but she didn’t believe him. He looked the part, with dreadlocks drooping over his skinny face, but his behaviour didn’t strike her as being inspired by any religion. Still, he did warn her about vicious rivals and men who got a thrill from killing little girls. He promised her that if he took over her management he’d protect her from the scum. She had originally scoffed at the idea. She was doing well on her own. But eventually, after much consideration of the hookers she saw who were obvious victims of abuse, she had agreed.

Zakes had taken her to the long-drop toilet she was in now, and told her it was her new home.  Confined to a cell in a rundown block of flats behind the taxi rank, she had been forced to entertain every client Zakes brought to her. The time made no difference. He would lead them through the front entrance without shame. No one paid attention anyway. They all had their own problems to deal with.

It amazed Thando how many perverts liked young girls. They didn’t just want sex. It had to be with a child. Once when she had complained to Zakes and was, as usual, ignored, she had threatened to leave and go off on her own again. He pulled a knife on her and told her that if she tried it he would cut her up and sell her off as muti. She had kept her mouth shut after that. She had no choice. He was twice her size. He could do it easily.

Zakes only gave her a tenth of what she really earned. She often saw him stuffing rolls of notes into the pockets of his jeans. When he wasn’t pimping her he was doing drug deals on the side. He needed the money to fund his own habit. Thando often saw him through her window, out on the street trading money for bags of dagga and Mandrax. She couldn’t complain about that either. Her chief wish in life now was for him to get stoned, do something stupid, and die. 

Still, he let her out her room occasionally to go and buy some KFC, or walk along the streets advertising her wares. And there was always the knowledge in Thando’s mind that how ever much she hated her life in the city, nothing was worse than home.

-------

Thando jerked upright in bed. There were voices in the passage outside, getting closer. Keys jingled and the door opened. In the darkness there was laughter and wheezing. Thando cowered down on the bed, hoping the shadow cast by the door would hide her.

‘Hey, bitch,’ Zakes slurred. 

He staggered forward bow-legged; drunk. Thando swallowed hard. The last time Zakes had been drunk he’d tried to rape her. Thando had hidden in the bathroom all day, praying the lock would hold against his thrusts and curses.

The little man Zakes was with turned to him. He asked, ‘This her?’

‘Yebo.’

He grumbled, ‘I thought she’d be younger?’

Zakes stumbled towards Thando. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her from the bed. She tried not to cry out as he lifted her off her feet. Her scalp was on fire but the pain was not strong enough to distract her from the smell of his breath. She could taste the Carling Black Label.

‘This little slut,’ Zakes grinned, ‘will do anything you want her to do, Reuben.’

The man stepped forward. Thando saw for the first time in the light that his face was splashed with dark brown blotches. 

Thando grimaced, ‘Zakes? Please?’

He threw her face down on the bed. She bounced once on the mattress and then lay still.  Zakes was on top of her, his legs clamped around her thighs. ‘Whoa, little pony.’

Reuben clambered onto the bed next to Thando, and stroked her face.

‘Don’t cry. It’ll be fun.’

It was time to get out.

Thando muttered into the mattress, ‘Zakes, I’m tired. I don’t want to do this.’

Zakes snorted and tugged her hair. ‘You’ll do what I tell you. Take off your clothes!’

‘No. I don’t want to.’ She’d had enough. She lashed out with her elbows, hoping to find his chest or face. She knocked the lamp onto the floor. A hand closed around her forearm and tightened into a fist, closing off the circulation in her arm. Zakes lessened the grip on her hips and elevated himself up onto his knees. He spun her around; backhanded her. Thando landed on her back with a thud. Blood welled in her mouth where she had bitten down on the soft flesh alongside her molars. The tears finally arrived. She began sobbing.

‘That’s right, little slut, cry.’ Zakes pinned her arms down against the sheet. He kissed her stomach and flicked his tongue across her navel. Reuben started licking at her cheek like an over-friendly dog.

For everything that had happened to her, Thando had never been gang-raped before. She knew girls who had and they were always a little different afterwards, like some of the light had leaked from their eyes. It couldn’t happen to her. She gasped in a baby doll voice, ‘Don’t do this, Zakes. Please?’

Her pimp pulled a gun from his back pocket and pressed it against her skull. He shoved it hard into her left temple. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, customers don’t like you talking. Shut up!’

A shadow fell across the three on the bed. Thando was the first to see it. She strained forward to look over Zakes’s shoulder and caught a glimpse of a figure standing in silhouette in the doorway. Zakes had forgotten to close the door. ‘Help me!’ she yelled. ‘They’re raping me!’

‘Shut up!’ Zakes pounded her cheek with the gun. Thando’s head bobbed limply back. Blood seeped through the slash running the width of her cheek. She raised her eyes to the ceiling. In her semi-conscious state she remained quiet, praying for probably the first time in her life. If there was a God up there, through the ceiling and its mildew, past the other flats and through the roof, and He was watching, surely he could save her?    

Zakes was yelling at the silhouette, waving his pistol furiously. ‘Go away! This’s nothing to do with you.’

Reuben, who until this point had remained oblivious to the intruder, whispered, ‘Zakes, what if it’s the police?’

‘Like hell it’s the police.’ He snarled at the figure, ‘Get out of here. Fuck off!’

‘Let her go,’ the silhouette demanded in Zulu. It took a step into the room.

Reuben leapt from the bed. He zipped up his jeans. He said, ‘I’m so sorry, officer. This will never happen again. This wasn’t even my idea. It was my friend’s here.’ He pointed at Zakes, his hands beginning to tremble.

Zakes growled, ‘Son of a bitch.’

Thando slowly lowered her eyes from the ceiling. She gazed into the blurred light and watched as Reuben dug into his wallet. He thumbed through the contents before presenting a fifty rand note between his thumb and index finger. He mumbled, ‘I’m sure we can come to an agreement.’

With a deep animal snarl the cop fell on him. Reuben screamed and wheeled backwards, the figure gripping itself to him. Reuben fell backwards onto the floor. He was still screaming and twitching. No matter what he did he could not pry the cop from him. He tried to push away with his arms but they were easily knocked to his sides. 

Thando was too shocked to do anything. The tears had dried in her eyes. Her mouth dropped open. Zakes, in his frantic state, pushed her off the bed. Cursing and fumbling, he was trying to release his pistol’s safety catch.  

Thando landed on her stomach alongside Reuben and the figure. Reuben, unable to scream, reached for her. Thando stared back at his outstretched fingertips. She looked at his face.  Deformed as it was before, it was hideous now. She could see in his eyes that he was dying. The brightness that accompanied life faded from his pupils.

Behind Thando, Zakes tipped the mattress up on its side to act as a shield. He aimed his pistol at the cop. ‘Get off him!’

The officer, still straddling Reuben, pulled back to look at him. Up close, Thando could see that it was a white woman, her wild blonde hair framing her face like a halo. With the bizarre shadows thrown by the upturned lamp, Thando could only make out the bottom half of her face. The woman’s lips jumped into a smile as she looked at Zakes.

Zakes’s hands were shaking. He clasped the gun with both hands, trying to steady his grip. All grogginess brought on by the beer had faded. His eyeballs were large in their sockets; a thick ring of white circling his pupils. He repeated, ‘Get off him...’ He hesitated with the knowledge that the cop was female. ‘I’m counting to three, bitch!’

Reuben groaned. 

Zakes started counting. ‘One...’ 

The woman did not move.

‘Two...’

She sat back on her heels and watched as the sweat sprouted all over Zakes’s face. 

‘Three...’ 

Zakes fired twice. 

Blood splattered as the bullets embedded themselves in Reuben’s torso.   

The woman was standing in the doorway again, leaning nonchalantly against the peeling frame.

Zakes cried out.

Thando was paralysed. She had not even seen the woman move. It was as if she had just disappeared, and materialised at a different spot in the room.

Zakes fired wildly. He hit the woman twice in the chest. She flinched as the bullets tore through her clothes and flesh, but she did not collapse. She touched the wounds tentatively. When her hands came away streaked in black, she clenched her fists and began walking towards Zakes. He pulled the trigger at point blank range, blowing a small star-shaped hole through her back. Blood spurted from between her shoulder blades. She fell face down at his feet.

Thando looked from the fallen body to Zakes. For one moment they locked eyes in silence and then Zakes sat back on the metal frame of the bed, rubbing his palms over his face. He let out a deep sigh before standing. His legs battled to support him but he still felt the nerve to kick the blonde. When she was down. 

He grabbed hold of Thando’s wrist and yanked her to her feet. He was talking to himself, the way he always did when he was terrified. The paranoia short-circuited his common sense, just as it had before when there was a police raid on hijackers in the flat next door. 

He stumbled over his words. ‘We have to get out of here. I’ll bet the police are on their way right now. All those damn gunshots. I can’t let them find me here.’

Thando pulled hard against him. ‘Zakes? We can’t go. They’re dead. You killed them. Both.’  The last of her words were muffled by his hand clamping over her mouth.

‘You shut your mouth.’ It was a threat, delivered with a menacing whisper. ‘You’re coming with me.’ He slid his other arm around her waist, prodding her ribs with the barrel of the gun, and lifted her off the ground. ‘We’re going.’ Thando struggled against him but she could not break free. 

Zakes turned towards the door with her in his arms. The woman was standing before it, her arms at her sides. A shaft of light penetrated her torso from behind. Thando clenched her eyes shut. She refused to believe what she was seeing. When she looked again, the light had faded. The blonde stood rigid. She glared at Zakes.

He lost his grip on Thando. She dropped to the floor, landing winded as if she had just belly-flopped into a swimming pool. The pain gathered at the point of impact and then spread out to every nerve on the surface of her skin. She looked up, wincing.

Zakes aimed his gun at the blonde and pulled the trigger. A click was the only desolate sound in the room. 

Zakes yelped. The woman strode towards him. She closed her hand around the pistol, and plucked it from his fingers. She dropped it beside her. Zakes could not move. He stood rigid. A stain fumbled from his crotch down his leg.   

‘Please,’ he sobbed.

The woman cocked her head to the side, as if considering his plea. She replied in perfect Zulu, ‘You had your chance.’

She reached up slowly and ran her palms down Zakes’s scarred cheeks, rubbing her thumbs across his lips. She smoothed back his hair, bringing her fingers to a stop behind his head. Zakes was blubbering. His Adam’s apple jumped in his throat.

‘Ssshhhh,’ she said. 

Her fist clamped around the sensitive roots at the base of his skull. Zakes opened his mouth to yell but her glare froze his tongue. 

Her lips parted. ‘Jump.’

She released him.

Zakes spun around. His facial expression hadn’t changed. His head was still pulled back; his teeth bared in a grimace. His eyes stopped on Thando for a second and then jolted onto the window in front of him. Her legs propelled him towards it. His arms remained limp at his sides. 

Zakes’s chin struck the window first. Glass shattered. He leapt then. His head disappeared through the frame, then his shoulders, his hips, and, finally, his cracked Redboks. 

Someone screamed outside.

The woman walked over to the window. The moonlight caught her fully and Thando could see exactly what she looked like. She stood straight backed, her head raised. Even though the black leather coat she wore disguised her shape she was clearly taller and thinner than normal. And she glowed. Her skin was white, smooth and flawless. It looked hard though, like concrete. Her face was hard too. All her features were too perfect; too defined.

The only flaw Thando could find was a streak above the woman’s eyebrow. It looked like a scratch, but no blood seeped from it. Instead the skin parted to reveal something silver beneath.

Sensing eyes watching her, the woman turned to Thando. She looked straight at her. Thando dragged herself backwards with her hands but it was pointless. She forced herself into a corner where she was trapped. The blonde took three steps and was before her. 

She crouched down. No smell of blood came from her coat. She leaned forward to probe the face of her last remaining witness. Thando could see nothing of the death that was in Reuben’s pupils radiating from the animate, grey-blue eyes looking into her own. Their faces inches apart, Thando could examine the streak on the woman’s forehead. It was a cut, edged with flayed skin. The silver peeking through was part of a shiny second skin hidden by the outer white flesh. 

The woman ignored Thando’s gaze. She touched the cut on the girl’s cheek. Her fingertips were cold on Thando’s hot face. The woman froze like that, with her eyes locked on Thando’s. Eventually she smiled, and whispered, ‘Seek a better life.’

Then she was gone. 

Thando glanced around the room, but there was no one. Her hand drifted to her tingling cheek. Her fingers found the skin smooth and unbroken. 

Gingerly, she got to her feet. The sound of approaching sirens and a gathering crowd slithered through the broken window like mist. Thando wasn’t going to wait for the police, no matter how tired she felt. She tottered over to where Reuben’s wallet and the fifty rand note lay. She stuffed them both into her panties. Then she packed her few belongings into her suitcase and crept out into the deserted corridor. She touched her cheek again fleetingly. Tomorrow she’d have to find somewhere to stay. And more men to pay for it.