She felt like going into the water to cool off, but the two men strolling along the beach had approached and were passing between Eva and the surf so she modestly decided to wait until they had passed on. They didn’t have the fine features of Egyptians, but the flatter nose, darker almost black skin, and matted curly hair of people who lived on the southern fringe of the Sahara.

They stopped and furtively looked up and down the beach for perhaps the twentieth time. Then suddenly, they were upon her.

“Get away!” she screamed in instinctive reaction. She frantically tried to fight them off, but one, a slimy-eyed, rat-faced man with a thick black moustache, brutally grasped her by the hair and twisted her on her back. A cold fear shot through her as the other man, whose tobacco stained teeth were etched in a sadistic smile, dropped to his knees and sat across her thighs. The rat-faced attacker straddled her chest, his legs pressing against her arms, forcing her deep into the sand. Now she was pinned helplessly, totally, unable to move little else than her fingers and feet.

Strangely, there was no lust in their eyes. Neither man made any attempt to tear away her swimsuit. They were not acting like men intent on rape. Eva screamed again, high and shrill. But her only reply was the surf. There wasn’t another soul to be seen on the beach.

Then the rat-faced man’s hands closed over her nose and mouth, and he began to smother her calmly and purposely. His weight on her rib cage added to the constriction of air. The supply of air to her lungs was completely cut off.

Through the hypnotic spell of terror, she realized with horrified disbelief that they intended to kill her. She tried to scream again, but the sound came muffled. She felt no pain, only blind panic and shocked paralysis.

She tried desperately to tear away the unrelenting pressure on her face, but her arms and hands were gripped as if in a vise. Her lungs demanded air that wasn’t there. Blackness began to creep into the edge of her vision Desperately, she held onto consciousness, but she could feel it slipping away. She saw the man who was sitting on her thighs peer over the shoulder of her murderer, realizing his leering face was the last sight she would ever see.

Eva closed her eyes as she approached the brink of a black void. The thought that flashed through her brain was that she was having a nightmare, and that if she opened her eyes it would be gone. She had to struggle to lift her eyelids for one final look at reality.

It was a nightmare, she thought almost joyously. The man with the stained teeth wasn’t leering anymore. A thin metal shaft was protruding from both his temples, much like a novelty arrow that fitted over the head and looked as if it had been shot through the skull. The assailant’s face seemed to collapse and he fell backward over her feet, his arms spread wide in crucifixion.