Then the woman has her by the wrist in a tight fleshy grip. She can feel the brittle nails digging into her skin.

Leave go my arm, Temple says.

She cant get the knife out of the mans head, so she lets it go and watches the body drop backwards, dead, with her blade still stuck in it.

The woman is leaning in to take a bite out of her shoulder, but Temple drives her fist hard into the slugs head, first once, then twice, then a third time, trying to dizzy the brain out of its instinctual drive.

But now the other man has got to his feet again and is coming at her, so she spins the woman around to get her between them and the man barrels into both like a bear hug that sends Temple crashing back into the workbench.

The smell, as they crush against her, is overpowering and her eyes flood with water that blurs her vision.

She reaches behind her, feels around for anything and comes up with a screwdriver which she grips hard and drives into the mans neck. He lets go and totters backwards, but the angle of the screwdriver is wrong, it goes straight through rather than up into the brain, so he begins to walk in circles gurgling liquidly and opening and closing his jaw.

The woman who has hold of Temples wrist opens her mouth again as though to take a bite out of her cheek, but Temple swings her around and slams the womans forearm against the edge of the workbench so that it cracks and the grip on her wrist loosens.

Then she ducks and moves to the corpse, putting one foot on his face for leverage, and prises her gurkha out with both hands.

The woman is close behind her, but it doesnt matter. Temple swings hard and true, and the blade whips clean through her neck and takes off the head.

The last man is distracted, clawing awkwardly at the screwdriver in his throat. Temple moves around behind him to catch her breath. His hair is long and stringy with flakes of paint in it as though the house has been crumbling to pieces on top of him. She lifts the knife and brings it down hard, two quick strokes like she learned long ago one to crack the skull and the other to cleave the brain.

She picks up the flashlight from the floor, which is now slippery with blood and excrement. Then she finds a clean part of the womans slip, rips it off and uses it to wipe her gurkha clean.

Meatskin tango, she says. God-awful messy business that is.

*