Female Prey & the Elusive Prey (22 page)

“Hey! Hey, you guys! Okay if I tag along with you?”

Kimberley and Barbara both whirled around, startled. Kimberley realized just how edgy she was on this hike. According to the rules, they were safe until they’d gotten to town and checked in, but still…

Coming up behind them was what looked like a very small woman carrying a very large backpack. She was grinning and waving. “Hi! Hi there!”

As she drew closer, Kimberley realized that she was indeed a very small woman, no more than a shade over five feet tall, if that. Her backpack was normal-sized. It just looked far too big on her, although she seemed to carry it easily.

“Hi! Thanks for waiting up for me!” The newcomer held out her hand, still grinning. Kimberley shook the proffered hand after Barbara. It struck her as a bit surreal, out here in the woods.

“Call me Cat. Short for Catherine.” Cat had a cute little heart-shaped face, big brown eyes, and shoulder-length glossy dark-brown hair. Her grip was stronger than her size led Kimberley to expect, and her grin appeared to be a permanent feature of her face, showing even, white little teeth. “You guys headed for town? Me too! Okay if we walk together?”

“Uh…sure. Why not?” Kimberley felt slightly overwhelmed by this vivid little apparition.

“Great!” Cat nodded. “I was getting kinda lonely out here by myself.”

“Where did you start from?” Barbara asked.

Cat shrugged. “A truck dropped me off back there a while ago.” She pointed vaguely back down the trail. “Told me this trail would take me to town. So, here I am. You guys are repeats, too?”

“Uh…yes.” Kimberley looked where Cat had been pointing. So far as she knew, there was only one place for any truck to drop any woman off. Cat must have been dropped off well after she and Barbara had been, and she’d still caught up. She took a quick look at Cat’s legs, but the jeans she was wearing gave no clue as to what they looked like. Still, Kimberley was willing to bet that they were “cheerleader legs”, sturdy and strong, but still shapely.

“Been to this place before?” Cat went on.

“Uh…no, we haven’t,” Kimberley replied. “Have you?”

“Nope.” Cat shook her head. “Heard about it, though. Say, what are your names? I forgot to ask! Pardon my manners!”

“I’m Barbara,” Barbara began. “She’s…”

“Elf-Girl.” Kimberley interjected before Barbara could say any more. Cat looked Kimberley up and down, head cocked to one side. “Hey, yeah!” she said at last. “I can see that!” She stepped to one side, then the other for a better look at Kimberley’s ears. “Yeah, it suits you. So, what’s your story, Elf-Girl, Barbara?”

“Story?”

“What are you going to town for?” Cat paused and laughed. “I mean, what kind of tour package? Or are you guys just going as vacationers?”

“What?” Barbara spoke up. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Cat shrugged again. Kimberley guessed that she did that a lot in conversation. “You didn’t know? You can just stay at the hotel if you want. It’s not a five-star resort, I hear, but it’s got a pool and the food is pretty good. The town has a couple of bars, and it’s real easy to find Mr. Right-Now, I’m told.” She laughed.

“Is that what you’re going for?” Barbara asked.

“Me? Hell no!” Cat laughed. “Not this year, anyway. Nope, I’m gonna register, get one last good meal and one last good night’s sleep, and tomorrow I’m gonna put myself on the slave market.”

“You can do that?” Kimberley was surprised. How much else didn’t she know? It was too bad there wasn’t a website she could visit for information or at least some sort of brochure to look at. Well, little Cat here was kind of like a brochure. “Come on. We can talk more while we walk,” she suggested.

Cat had to deliberately slow her pace so that Kimberley and Barbara could keep up. While she slowed her walk, though, her talking never slowed down at all. She didn’t walk so much as bounce along the trail, tirelessly. That was mildly annoying to Kimberley. But on the other hand, Cat was a wonderful source of information…lots and lots and lots of information. After finding out that Cat was 26, a Taurus, didn’t need to work because of a trust fund, had traveled extensively, loved sailing, and had taken one of these singular “package tours” four times already, Kimberley started to interrupt her with questions. Cat appeared to be as happy to answer questions as she had been to talk about herself. She’d never been to Gordburg herself, but she knew two other women who had. The town wasn’t large, but it did have some people who lived there the year round. There was only one road into the town, but it also had a small airport. There was one large hotel and possibly one smaller one, a couple of bars, some stores and a small hospital. The town also boasted a slave market, dealing solely in female flesh. Cat was especially interested to see that before she donated herself to it. She’d also heard that somewhere there was another town with a slave market that dealt only in men. She wondered aloud what THAT would be like before Kimberley steered her back onto this particular town.

“Well…” Cat shrugged. “Let me ask you a question first: What did you guys sign up for?”

“Uh…” Kimberley had to swallow and think about how to put it into words. “Well, last year I had kind of a wilderness adventure. Me alone in the woods, hunted down by three men. My friend, here, talked me into it.” She jerked a thumb towards Barbara, who chuckled.

“So…that’s what you’re going for again?”

“Well…yes. I didn’t know there were other possibilities.”

Cat laughed. “They probably didn’t tell you because you’re still pretty new to this. Or maybe somebody just forgot. You want to hear about the other possibilities?”

“YES!” Kimberley and Barbara both spoke at once.

“Okay…let’s see…you can just stay at the hotel, if you want. It’s like a small resort, I hear. Even has a small golf course, swimming, nature trails. And if that doesn’t float your boat, I guess you could always visit the slave market. Just for a look, y’understand. Hotel guests are safe, if they want to be. And, you can sign up for an E-and-E, like you guys did.”

“E-and-E?” Kimberley was puzzled.

“Evasion and Escape.” Cat grinned. “Except, I don’t know of anyone who stayed escaped for long. And then, there’s the slave market. That works two ways.”

“Two ways?” Kimberley prodded.

“Yeah. Take me, for example. I’m going straight into the slave market. Some man will ‘buy’ me and for the next ten days, I’m his slave.” She laughed again. “I hope he has a lot of stamina, whoever he is.”

Kimberley nodded in agreement, but she didn’t think any one man would be able to keep up with Cat for more than a couple of days, no matter how much stamina he might have started out with.

“But…what’s the second way?”

“Oh. Well, say you’re signed up for E-and-E. You can also go to the slave market after you’re captured, if whoever captured you wants to do it and you agreed to it ahead of time.” Cat looked at Kimberley and Barbara. “I can’t think of many men who’d get tired of either of you two in any hurry, though. Oh! But, I should tell you that sometimes it’s other women doing the hunting, not just men.”

“Ah…I see.” Kimberley was starting to feel overwhelmed. “When we get to the town, would there be anyone we could talk to about this?”

“Oh, sure!” Cat was emphatic. “Just tell the desk clerk at the hotel. Somebody’ll come talk to you.”

“WAIT a minute!” Barbara spoke up from the rear. Kimberley and Cat both turned towards her.

“You said there’s a road into the town?” Barbara demanded, looking at Cat.

“Sure.” Cat nodded. “Why?”

“If they have a road, why the hell do we have to hike in there like this? Couldn’t we have gone in on a bus…or a limo or something? Geez, I wouldn’t mind flying in either!” Barbara sounded indignant. Cat just looked at her for a long moment then burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Barbara stood with her arms folded. She didn’t look as if she saw any humor in the situation at all.

“No, no, don’t get pissed.” Cat’s laughter trailed off in a chuckle and she held up a hand. “I can see your point, but I’ll bet you’re not the first one to ask that question.”

“So you know the answer then? Let’s hear it.”

“The only way you get to ride in or fly in is if you’re just going to be a guest at the lodge.” Cat explained. “If you’re going to play, you always hike in.”

“Why is that?” Kimberley asked, just before Barbara could.

“I’m not completely sure.” Cat shrugged. “It’s just the way they always do things. But I have a couple of ideas about it.”

“I’m listening.” Barbara still had her arms folded, and it looked as if she wasn’t going to take another step until she got some kind of answer.

“Well…” Cat looked up at the sky for a moment. “One idea is that this little nature walk gives a person the chance to think things over one last time. Maybe when you get to the lodge you aren’t quite so sure about playing outside, maybe you are. Either way, you’ve had a chance to think about it.”

“And?” Barbara prompted.

“And the other is…the lodge is at the other side of the town from where this trail enters it. To get to it, you have to walk all the way down the main street…and while you’re doing that, all of the other people who came here to play get to take a nice, long look at you.”

This theory made a bit more sense to Kimberley than the first one did. It was a little disturbing to think of all those eyes following them down the street, but it was also more than a little exciting. She really wanted to see this Gordburg now. It sounded like a very interesting place.

Chapter Two

A few miles further on, they came across something Kimberley had not been expecting at all. The path went straight through a narrow break in a high chain-link fence. The fence stretched as far as she could see, which wasn’t really all that far into the woods in either direction.

“What the hell is this?” she asked nobody in particular.

“Oh, hey!” Cat piped up. “A fence! This must mark the boundary line.”

“What boundary line?” Barbara huffed as she caught up to them. Kimberley realized that she’d been unconsciously walking faster to try to get out of range of Cat’s constant stream of chatter. Cat had kept up easily. She seemed to have an endless supply of high, crackling energy. Barbara had tried to keep up, but always lagged a pace or two or ten behind.

“Easy.” Cat smiled, nodding towards the fence. “I can guess: This side…no hunting. The other side…hunting.”

“Uh-huh.” Kimberley regarded the fence warily. “So how do we get to Gordburg then?”

“I guess we should be okay as long as we stay on the trail,” Cat said. “The town can’t be much further.”

“I sure hope so.” Barbara wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “I can’t keep up with you two for much longer.”

“We could take a rest here for a little while,” Cat suggested.

“Uh…no.” Kimberley objected. Barbara would want to stretch out any rest, and Cat would not stop talking while they rested. It wasn’t as if she disliked Cat…except that she never seemed to shut up. Kimberley had thought at first that it was just due to all that energy she seemed to have, but after a while had concluded that Cat was on a talking jag, at least partly, because she was nervous. That made sense; Kimberley was nervous too…but couldn’t Cat just bite her fingernails or something? “If the town is close by, I think we should just push on until we get there. Then we can rest in civilized surroundings.”

“Fine by me!” Cat nodded vigorously. Barbara just looked at Kimberley as if she couldn’t believe her very best friend could say such a thing.

Gordburg was not at all far from the fence. Another twenty minutes of hiking and they were out of the woods, and there it was.

“Hey, wow!” Cat exclaimed as they all stopped at the end of a wide, dirt street. “Look at that!”

It looked something like a big town from an old Western; rows of wooden buildings, mostly one or two stories high with painted wooden signs, wide, plank, covered walkways instead of sidewalks…all it was missing, Kimberley thought, was a stagecoach rolling into town and maybe a gunfight. She could see a few people, but none of them were dressed as cowboys, and all of them seemed to be lounging in the shade of the walkways.

“This…is…COOL!” Cat almost squealed.

“I just hope they have indoor plumbing.” Kimberley was less enthusiastic. Still, the street and buildings looked pretty clean…

“Of course they do!” Cat laughed. “But the hotel’s at the other end of town. C’mon, let’s go!” She set off down the middle of the street. Kimberley watched her for a moment.

“I want a bath.” Barbara spoke up. “I want a long, hot bubble bath, fresh clothes and a hot meal...a BIG hot meal! Steak, salad, and a baked potato. I want a nice, fattening dessert with lots of chocolate and whipped cream.”

Kimberley had to laugh. “I want all those nice things too,” she replied without turning. “But they won’t come to us. We have to go to them. Come on, my friend. It’s not much further now.”

Barbara gave a mock groan of despair. Kimberley watched Cat for a moment longer. She was walking right up the middle of the wide street, looking neither right nor left. Kimberley noticed that there were more people on those raised plank sidewalks. There were men and a few women, some walking, some just standing in the shade, but all of them paused to watch Cat as she strode past.

“Want to follow her?” Kimberley asked Barbara.

“Well, she says she knows where the hotel is.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Kimberley pointed at the small, receding figure. “I think we should do what she’s doing.”

Barbara looked dubious. “I don’t know. We’d attract an awful lot of attention.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Kimberley laughed. “Isn’t that what we try to do when we go to a singles bar?”

Barbara grinned. “I see your point.” She shrugged her backpack into a more comfortable position. “Well, let’s go.”

Okay, it wasn’t quite like going to a singles bar, Kimberley realized quickly. For one thing, the town was very quiet. There were no sounds of traffic, no horn honking, no radios being played too loudly somewhere. In fact, she could hear no radios at all. She could hear birds, she could hear a light wind ruffling through the trees just outside of the town, she heard a dog bark once. She and Barbara walked side-by-side down the street, trailing some distance behind Cat. Kimberley made a point of not turning her head, but her eyes kept swiveling left and right as she tried to take in as much of the town as she could. There were streetlights, but they looked like gas lamps, not electric. Most of the buildings at this end of the town seemed to be small stores or residences. Signs read: “General Store”, “Feed and Grain”, “Jackson Marlow, M.D.”. There were smaller signs in some of the curtained windows…too small for her to read. As they came abreast of a two-story building with a very simple “Tavern” sign above it, she noticed three men come out onto the shaded walkway to watch them go by. They seemed to take a more than passing interest.