blank. One of the girls was a beauty. He decided the male had been Puerto Rican. All were 
shorn of their head and body hair. In fact the air was still pungent with the smell of 
the shearing. Kaufman slid up the wall out of the crouching position, and as he did so 
one of the women's bodies turned around, presenting a dorsal view.
    He was not prepared for this last horror.
    The meat of her back had been entirely cleft open from neck to buttock and the muscle 
had been peeled back to expose the glistening vertebrae. It was the final triumph of the 
Butcher's craft. Here they hung, these shaved, bled, slit slabs of humanity, opened up 
like fish, and ripe for devouring.
    Kaufman almost smiled at the perfection of its horror. He felt an offer of insanity 
tickling the base of his skull, tempting him into oblivion, promising a blank 
indifference to the world.
    He began to shake, uncontrollably. He felt his vocal cords trying to form a scream. 
It was intolerable: and yet to scream was to become in a short while like the creatures 
in front of him.
    "Fuck it," he said, more loudly than he'd intended, then pushing himself off from the 
wall he began to walk down the car between the swaying corpses, observing the neat piles 
of clothes and belongings that sat on the seats beside their owners. Under his feet the 
floor was sticky with drying bile. Even with his eyes closed to cracks he could see the 
blood in the buckets too clearly: it was thick and heady, flecks of grit turning in it.
    He was past the youth now and he could see the door into Car Three ahead. All he had 
to do was run this gauntlet of atrocities. He urged himself on, trying to ignore the 
horrors, and concentrate on the door that would lead him back into sanity.
    He was past the first woman. A few more yards, he said to himself, ten steps at most, 
less if he walked with confidence.
    Then the lights went out.
    "Jesus Christ," he said.
    The train lurched, and Kaufman lost his balance.
    In the utter blackness he reached out for support and his flailing arms encompassed 
the body beside him. Before he could prevent himself he felt his hands sinking into the 
lukewarm flesh, and his fingers grasping the open edge of muscle on the dead woman's 
back, his fingertips touching the bone of her spine. His cheek was laid against the bald 
flesh of the thigh.
    He screamed; and even as he screamed, the lights flickered back on.
    And as they flickered back on, and his scream died, he heard the noise of the 
Butcher's feet approaching down the length of Car One towards the intervening door.
    He let go of the body he was embracing. His face was smeared with blood from her leg. 
He could feel it on his cheek, like war paint.
    The scream had cleared Kaufman's head and he suddenly felt released into a kind of 
strength. There would be no pursuit down the train, he knew that: there would be no 
cowardice, not now. This was going to be a primitive confrontation, two human beings, 
face to face. And there would be no trick-none-that he couldn't contemplate using to 
bring his enemy down. This was a matter of survival, pure and simple.
    The door-handle rattled.
    Kaufman looked around for a weapon, his eye steady and calculating. His gaze fell on 
the pile of clothes beside the Puerto Rican's body. There was a knife there, lying 
amongst the rhinestone rings and the imitation gold chains. A long-bladed, immaculately 
clean weapon, probably the man's pride and joy. Reaching past the well-muscled body, 
Kaufman plucked the knife from the heap. It felt good in his hand; in fact it felt 
positively thrilling.
    The door was opening, and the face of the slaughterer came into view.
    Kaufman looked down the abattoir at Mahogany. He was not terribly fearsome, just 
another balding, overweight man of fifty. His face was heavy and his eyes deep-set. His 
mouth was rather small and delicately lipped. In fact he had a woman's mouth.
    Mahogany could not understand where this intruder had appeared from, but he was aware 
that it was another oversight, another sign of increasing incompetence. He must dispatch 
this ragged creature immediately. After all they could not be more than a mile or two 
from the end of the line. He must cut the little man down and have him hanging up by his 
heels before they reached their destination.
    He moved into Car Two.
    "You were asleep," he said, recognizing Kaufman. "I saw you.
    Kaufman said nothing.
    "You should have left the train. What were you trying to do? Hide from me?" Kaufman 
still kept his silence.
    Mahogany grasped the hand of the cleaver hanging from his well-used leather belt. It 
was dirty with blood, as was his chain-mail apron, his hammer and his saw.
    "As it is," he said, "I'll have to do away with you." Kaufman raised the knife. It 
looked a little small beside the Butcher's paraphernalia.
    "Fuck it," he said.
    Mahogany grinned at the little man's pretensions to defence.
    "You shouldn't have seen this: it's not for the likes of you," he said, taking 
another step towards Kaufman. "It's secret." Oh, so he's the divinely-inspired type is 
he? thought Kaufman. That explains something.
    "Fuck it," he said again.
    The Butcher frowned. He didn't like the little man's indifference to his work, to his 
reputation.
    "We all have to die some time," he said. "You should be well pleased: you're not 
going to be burnt up like most of them: I can use you. To feed the fathers." Kaufman's 
only response was a grin. He was past being terrorized by this gross, shambling hulk.
    The Butcher unhooked the cleaver from his belt and brandished it.
    "A dirty little Jew like you," he said, "should be thankful to be useful at all: 
meat's the best you can aspire to." Without warning, the Butcher swung. The cleaver 
divided the air at some speed, but Kaufman stepped back. The cleaver sliced his coat-arm 
and buried itself in the Puerto Rican's shank. The impact half-severed the leg and the 
weight of the body opened the gash even further. The exposed meat of the thigh was like 
prime steak, succulent and appetizing.
    The Butcher started to drag the cleaver out of the wound, and in that moment Kaufman 
sprang. The knife sped towards Mahogany's eye, but an error of judgement buried it 
instead in his neck. It transfixed the column and appeared in a little gout of gore on 
the other side. Straight through. In one stroke. Straight through.
    Mahogany felt the blade in his neck as a choking sensation, almost as though he had 
caught a chicken bone in his throat. He made a ridiculous, half-hearted coughing sound. 
Blood issued from his lips, painting them, like lipstick on his woman's mouth. The 
cleaver clattered to the floor.
    Kaufman pulled out the knife. The two wounds spouted little arcs of blood.
    Mahogany collapsed to his knees, staring at the knife that had killed him. The little 
man was watching him quite passively. He was saying something, but Mahogany's ears were 
deaf to the remarks, as though he was under water.
    Mahogany suddenly went blind. He knew with a nostalgia for his senses that he would 
not see or hear again. This was death: it was on him for certain.