B00C74WTKQ EBOK (3 page)

There was no chattering among the girls.

Adrian thought that extraordinary. In his experience girls always talked to each other, no matter what they were doing. These girls were completely silent. More than anything, Adrian had seen or heard, this was the most ominous sign that these girls were being treated as prisoners, perhaps as slaves. As the sun slowly settled to the horizon, Adrian began getting a sick feeling in his stomach. He didn’t like where his thoughts were going, yet he had nothing much other than some odd—or possibly imagined—facial expressions, a lack of chatter, and a lazy man to go by. He needed a lot more than that. So far he had not seen any actual mistreatment of the girls. The worst he could say was that Lacy and Reggie were apparently both lazy and strict.

A little before sunset, Reggie stood and waved his hands at the girls in a shooing motion. The girls all stood, dusted themselves off, and started walking to the house, Reggie following behind. Adrian watched as the girls filed in the back door and waited for Reggie to enter and close it behind him. He then moved up closer but stayed in the brush. He would need the cover of full darkness to get closer to the house, in case anyone decided to use the outhouse. He didn’t think he would be able to see in through the windows, they were too heavily curtained—another ominous sign now that he thought about it. But he hoped he might be able to hear conversation if he got close to the windows.

Adrian spotted a long wooden ladder on the ground next to the back wall; it might be useful at some point in the night.

An hour went by before it was dark enough. If anyone came out now, they would be carrying a lantern, and wouldn’t be able to see past its small circle of light. He could remain hidden easily. He silently walked beneath all of the windows but heard nothing from any of them. He then moved around the end of the house and stopped by the front corner. The entry had a lantern hanging from the porch rafters. Since there was no one outside to need the lantern, Adrian believed it was a signal, and his worst fears came that much closer to being confirmed.

As he was considering getting the ladder and trying to see or hear through the upper windows he saw a lantern bobbing in the distance. Soon he heard voices, and then two men came into sight, each carrying a burlap bag filled with something. They stepped up onto the porch and knocked. Almost immediately the door opened and the two men went inside, the door shutting behind them.

Where Adrian had been taking his time, with the arrival of these two men, he knew time was now short and he had to get into action. He ran back around the house to the ladder, set it up under the upper floor window furthest from the outhouse, and climbed the ladder rapidly and looked and listened. No sign of light or sound. He tried to open the window, but it was locked.

Taking a chance on giving himself away, he knocked out a pane of glass with the handle of his knife. Within seconds for he was inside the room. It was a bedroom containing a made bed, a chair, a night stand with a washing bowl, a mirror and a pitcher of water. The room was ready to be used, but obviously wasn’t a room one of the girls occupied.

Adrian eased open the door.

The corridor was dark. He stepped into the corridor, finding himself near the end of it. It was pitch dark all the way to the stairwell.

Faint light came up the stair well, and the sounds of distant conversation. He couldn’t make out the words but he heard a man’s laughter clearly enough
. Probably one of the two I saw come in. Reggie doesn’t seem the type to laugh. Lord…If I’m wrong about what’s going on here I’ll be sorely embarrassed. But better to be embarrassed than leave the girls here without checking.

As he waited, the voices grew louder. Then he heard a girl’s voice. Although he couldn’t make out her words, the tone was sullen and resigned.

He stayed where he was. Soon there was a light coming up the stairwell and the sound of footsteps. One set heavy, one light. Adrian moved back into the room and closed the door to a slit, watching to see who was coming upstairs.

It was one of the men he had seen come in a few minutes before, and the oldest girl, the one who had made the face.

The man held her wrist and pulled her along. She resisted to a minor extent, but was not defiant. It looked to Adrian as though she was about to do something she didn’t want to do, but was afraid not to for fear of something even worse.

Adrian eased his door completely closed. He watched and listened as the footsteps indicated that the pair had stopped short of the room he was in. Had they come into this room Adrian would have had to act immediately, and with less evidence for his actions.
But enough evidence.

He waited and heard a door farther up the corridor open and close. Adrian eased his door open. The corridor was empty and dark, but lantern light showed dimly from under the second door from the stairs. Adrian waited another moment, then he soft-stepped down the hall and placed his ear against the door of the occupied room.

He heard the man talking roughly to the girl, telling her to “get out of those things right now” then the sound of a slap.

Slowly Adrian turned the door knob—it was unlocked.

Adrian shoved the door open and stood, taking in the tableau. The man, his shirt half unbuttoned, was staring at Adrian with a look halfway between confusion and anger. The girl was already stripped to her bra and underpants. She had a red welt on her face where the man had slapped her. Then the man spoke, “Get out of here shithead! This is my room and my girl, bought and paid for. Get out!”

Adrian ignored the man and looked at the girl. “He hit you?” She nodded yes, her eyes large and frightened. “He pay for you?” She nodded again, this time with shame, and looked down, slowly bringing her hands up to try to cover herself. “This what you want?” Adrian asked. This time she shook her head rapidly back and forth.

Adrian turned his attention back to the man, who had by now was furious. He began moving towards Adrian in a hostile manner. Adrian asked bitterly, “You in the habit of raping young girls, are you?”

Adrian’s tone of voice, the look on his face, and the man’s gradual realization that Adrian was so big he filled the door frame, made the man stop in his tracks. “I paid, it’s not rape.”

Adrian looked at him with disgust for a long moment. “I’ll not argue with you, you already know you’re wrong. How long you been coming here?” Adrian’s voice was low and hard.

The man, knowing he would not stand a chance fighting Adrian, and knowing he was in the wrong, answered with fear and some shame. “Few months. They been here a couple years I think, but I just moved into the area a few months ago.”

“Lot of men come here?”

“It gets pretty busy some nights, yeah.” He said almost defiantly.

“What about the little girls?”

“They cost too much. I can’t afford the amount of trade goods they cost.”

Adrian stared at the man while the full import of the man’s words sank in. Then the look on Adrian’s face shifted to extreme loathing.

Jumping forward without warning, Adrian grabbed the man’s right arm and twisted before the man had a chance to move. Adrian twisted until the shoulder popped out of its socket. The man gasped then began to scream in fear and pain. Adrian balled up a fist and slugged the man in the solar plexus, audibly driving the air from his lungs and temporarily paralyzing the diaphragm muscle. The scream died immediately. Adrian grabbed the right arm again and effortlessly broke it at the elbow, making the man a cripple for life. The man passed out.

Adrian carelessly dropped him to the floor.

The girl stood stiff in shock. The violence had lasted less than two seconds, but was all the more brutal for its swiftness. She had never seen a man as big as Adrian in as ugly a mood as he was. She had never seen anyone move that fast. The only half formed thought in her mind was that the man on the floor was lucky to be alive.

Adrian raised his eyes from the man on the floor to the girl. She revised her thought. He was lucky to be in one piece much less alive. The look on Adrian’s face was terrifying, even though she knew it wasn’t aimed at her. This man who had sat across the dinner table from her earlier, this famous man that had looked big and gentle, now looked anything but gentle. He looked like he could and would kill anyone he saw. He reminded her of the description she had once read of a Viking Berserker, a man that had become something different from a man, a killing machine filled with unrepressed rage. She started shaking, hard. This wasn’t the man at lunch earlier, this was that man’s body possessed by wild, blood-thirsty, demons.

Adrian instructed her, “Run down stairs screaming. Don’t say anything, just keep pointing up the stairs. Make all the noise you can, but no actual words. Act like you’re more frightened than you’ve ever been in your life, like you’ve seen something too horrible to describe. I want Lacy and Reggie to come running up here. Can you do that for me?”

The girl nodded mutely. Could she do that? Hell yes she could do that, and acting wasn’t going to be required. She’d do anything this man asked after he had rescued her, even if he was a devil-man. The girl took off running for the stairs. Adrian dragged the man’s unconscious body across the room, propping it into a sitting position beneath the window. He closed the door, then stood where he would be behind it when it opened, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.

He heard the girl downstairs, screaming like she was being gutted.
She sure can put on an act.
Then a long silence. Footsteps coming up the stairs, two sets. Footsteps coming down the hall, a bit reluctantly. Slowly the door opened, swinging to cover Adrian.

Reggie came in first, a pistol in-hand. Upon spotting the man against the far wall and the gruesome angles of his broken right arm, Reggie gasped and stopped. Lacy moved around him to see, and she suddenly stopped also.

Adrian hit the door hard and it shut with a loud bang. Reggie and Lacy jumped and spun around, fear on their faces, eyes bulging and their skin whitened by shock. As soon as Reggie saw Adrian, he began to raise the pistol towards him. Adrian leaped forward, slapping the gun hand to the side, plunging his knife into Reggie’s throat. Ripping the knife out sideways, he cut Reggie’s head almost halfway off.

The pistol fell to the floor, then Reggie fell and began thrashing around, spraying blood all over as he tried to slow the bleeding with his hands. Reggie’s face was rigid with extreme shock and terror, his mouth moving as though to form words, words that there was no air to form.

While Adrian’s attention was on Reggie, Lacy pulled a razor-sharp filet knife from the folds of her dress and slashed at Adrian. He pulled back just in time, and what might have been a fatal blow became a shallow cut across his collar bone. As he stepped closer to slap the knife from her hand, Adrian slipped in Reggie’s blood, giving Lacy the chance to make another stab at Adrian, this time aiming at his groin.

Adrian blocked the knife, then grabbed her by the wrist and slung her out and away from him. Lacy flew across the room, hitting the far wall and bouncing off it, landing on the floor in a heap.

Adrian watched as she slowly stood, then turned toward Adrian, the knife handle protruding from her chest. She stared at Adrian for a second, her eyes not seeing him. Then she settled down into a sitting position, almost as if her legs had melted from beneath her. She died sitting up.

Adrian looked around the dimly-lit, blood-splattered room. Reggie was dead, lying on the floor. The “customer” was unconscious, his arm mangled. Lacy was still sitting up, her bones and muscles holding up her lifeless body in precarious balance.
That fella is going to wake up to one hell of a gruesome scene, and in his own extreme pain. Son of a bitch deserves every bit of the pain, too.

Using a clean towel and the wash-basin Adrian rapidly washed the blood off his face and arms as much as he could before heading down the stairs. As he stepped into the hallway, the other “customer” was cautiously coming up the stairwell. He saw Adrian and stopped, then suddenly turned and ran down the stairs and out the front door. Adrian never saw him again.

Descending the stairs he saw the girls. Many of them were huddled around the oldest girl. They all looked frightened.

Rita and Lila came running up to Adrian as soon as they recognized him, but even they stopped a few feet short of him and stared.

His clothes were sprayed with fresh, dark, red blood. His face and arms were mostly clear of blood, except for the cut across his collar bone that was bleeding freely. But it was his face that stopped them. He wore an expression that, as Lila would later say, “
Would’ve scared the Grim Reaper into taking a dirt road
.”

Then Lila came up to him, looked at the cut and said, “We need to get something on that cut, it’s pretty deep.”

Adrian looked at her hard, as though he didn’t recognize her, then he looked around the room at sixteen scared girls staring back at him, sixteen girls that he just that moment realized were now his responsibility, and said, “Aw shit,” then he sat down in the nearest chair.

He had accidentally rescued two girls, tried to get rid of them and wound up with fourteen more.

“Aw shit!” he said again.

Chapter 4

T
he oldest girl, Racy, was
seventeen. She quickly took charge of the situation.

“Lorna, bring that lantern in off the porch and lock the door. Gina, you and Tracy get some water boiling, some clean cloths and the sewing kit. Erin, you take charge of the rest of the girls and get dinner started. All of you change out of those whore clothes as soon as you can, start packing up to travel. You’ll need to pack light, so pack practical clothes, wear your best walking shoes. We’ll need every bit of food in the house. Get moving now!”

The girls all responded quickly to Racy’s orders, even Lila and Rita jumped to obey. Adrian sat in the chair, watching with a vacant look. All he could think of was,
Sixteen girls. My God what am I going to do with sixteen girls. I can’t leave them on their own, that wouldn’t be right. They can’t stay here, there’ll be too many former “customers” that won’t leave them alone. Sixteen girls, holy shit.

He saw the girls moving around briskly, but he hadn’t been paying attention and had no idea what they were doing, and at the moment didn’t care
. I was just minding my own damn business, taking a nice little trip to Corpus Christi, and then WHAM! Sixteen girls. What the hell am I going to do now?