It was cold; the wind whistled through
the gaps in the planks of the hut that they’d made her prison, biting into her
like the cuts of a thousand small knives. She huddled deeper into the
foul-smelling straw and tried to keep her mind off images that kept recurring
no matter how hard she tried to dispel them. The farm still smouldering, the
man nailed to a post with barbed wire wrapped tight round his body. In front of
him, a few yards away, the woman – his wife? - Young, perhaps once pretty, the
shreds of clothing still hanging where they’d been ripped off. Her breasts were
bruised black, and there was a large dried patch of blood between her spread
thighs, which were scratched and covered in dry blood. Had they made him watch
while it went on? And had she seen them cut off his balls before they slit her
stomach and left them to bleed to death?
Horror and terror spasmed through her;
was it the same group who captured her? It had to be, because there would one
be one such bunch of thugs in an area at any time. Militia, they called
themselves, but they spent as much time terrorising and murdering their own
civilians as they guarded against saboteurs and invaders, and it was tolerated
because it kept difficult areas quiet. How many were they? Fifteen, twenty?
What would it feel…? Stop it! Don’t! Oh, God, let it be quick, please! But it
wouldn’t be, she knew: she was young, pretty and they knew because they’d
talked while they were bringing her here.
“This one’s a real find, isn’t she?”
from the younger one. “I could fuck her for a week!”
“You’ll fuck her if you’re allowed to
fuck her, you young bastard. Me, I’d like her mouth on my cock.” She felt rough
hands on her breasts, squeezing. “Yeah, I reckon we could make her last a week,
but if they let you it won’t be just you dipping your prick into her, sonny;
that’s for sure.”
Oh, God! How could it have gone so
wrong? ‘A quick in-and-out job,’ they’d said, ‘no problem at all. You know the
country, you were brought up in the capital and you know important people. Just
get the message, commit it to memory and head for the Embassy. Piece of cake!’
Bastards! They must have known! She’d
got there all right, but when it came to making the contacts there was no one
to contact: every house was empty and abandoned with no trace of a living soul
and the neighbours scared out of their wits, slamming their doors in her face
when she tried to ask questions. All of them gone as if they’d never been and
there could be only one reason for that: the Black Butterflies, as the security
police were known with grim humour, because they were no joke at all. Black
uniforms like the SS and Gestapo they were modelled on, with bright silver lace
filigree work at the shoulders to earn them their nick-name.
One last try at one last house and a
sound from the cellar, heard only because of the otherwise deathly silence.
Behind the door an old friend from schooldays, his face barely remembered and
now relaxed in near-death, a bullet in his stomach and a blood-stained envelope
in his hand. She didn’t want to take it, hadn’t wanted to touch him, wanted to
run and run. But she’d taken it and read it while he died, groaning, the tears
trickling down her face as she read and re-read, committing it to memory before
she burned it and crumpled the ashes beside the body.
‘Head for the Embassy’! And how do you
get past four lines of the black and silver bastards standing shoulder to
shoulder, surrounding the place? And even if you could, what would be the point
when there was smoke coming from the windows as a carefully-organised
‘spontaneous mob’ ransacked the place? You don’t: you stand there with your
knees gone to jelly and ice in your stomach and your throat clogged with panic
and that was before you saw the posters with your picture on them and the
words: ‘Enemy of the State.’ That was when you really knew fear.
Or you thought you did, but that fear
was nothing to the gut-wrenching terror she felt now. Her stomach rebelled, she
retched, but she’d thrown up several times so there was nothing to void. The
stink was with her to remind her. Oh, God! If only…
If only she’d chosen another truck… her
panic-stricken flight had become a slow shuffle, her coat pulled up round her
throat and a hurriedly-purchased shawl over her head when she realised that someone
running or even hurrying was a dead give-away. So she’d acted the old woman
until she’d got to one of the markets that had sprung up since things started
getting really bad. This one, she knew, served as the barter centre for the
area out to the west and that was the direction of her last remaining hope: the
clandestine pick-up point where they said they had an emergency homing-cum-emergency
rescue beacon. They said they’d get a plane there; they’d promised. All she had
to do was get there.
There was a battered old truck – there hadn’t
been any new ones for years - standing there, its engine belching fumes almost
as smelly as the animals that it had brought from the country and now it was
returning with a part-load of cigarettes, booze and pirated videos. Not enough
to fill it because you can trade only so much consumer goods for a load of
scrawny sheep or cows, but enough to hide behind. It was rough and
uncomfortable, especially since the once-proud motorway had crumbled into a
cart-track, but at least she was going in the right direction.
If only the driver hadn’t stopped for
a piss and to climb into the back to gloat over the pictures on the covers of
some of those videos that she couldn’t help noticing were pornographic. The
look on his face might have been comical if lust hadn’t replaced the surprise
and suspicion as fast as it did. She’d taken off the shawl and had been
half-asleep, so he’d got a good look at her before she realised he was there.
Even so, she was desperate enough to have given him the blow-job and fuck he
wanted if she hadn’t noticed that he was wearing army trousers and boots: he
was probably trading stolen animals and was taking his booty back to his camp.
Booty that would include her if she didn’t get away.
He hadn’t expected the knee in the
balls; he was still screaming as she ran into the trees, but she’d had to
abandon her coat and shawl, leaving her just the dress, which wasn’t enough in
that country and at that late time of the year. She took a bearing on the sun
as it sank and scratched a line in the earth pointing in that direction: she
was in wooded country and had run a good mile from the road, which was now out
of sight and so little used these days that she couldn’t rely on hearing
traffic. Her plan was to rest for the night and then work back to the road,
staying in cover, so that she could try to find a sign to establish her
position.
She’d wanted to carry on, to put more
distance between her and any pursuit, unsure about whether the driver would
report her. But the she reasoned that he probably wouldn’t, given that he’d
have to admit that she’d got away from him. No, he’d probably nurse his
grievance until he came across the next defenceless woman… and God help her. It
had been cold, she remembered, her first night in the open in the country where
every sound was unfamiliar; she’d been scared, but not nearly as
gut-wrenchingly terrified as she was huddled in the straw in that hut.
The next day she’d headed back to the
road, tired and hungry. When she found it, she followed it, staying in the
cover of the trees. That’s when she came across the farm and forced herself to
stay with that scene of horror long enough to find some root vegetables and a
bottle that she was going to fill at the well until she found that they’d thrown
the animals down there. Water had to wait until the next stream; where she
crouched like a hunted savage, gnawing at a turnip and sipping from the bottle.
‘Enemy of the State?’ How had they known? Would they be looking for her? She
was sure they would; if they’d gone to the trouble of printing that notice,
then they’d be looking.
She’d heard helicopters during the day,
the frequency increasing as time passed. They were even more numerous the
following day, but she felt safe in the trees. There was no doubt, though, that
it was she they were looking for. Eventually she’d found that blue and white sign
hanging drunkenly at the side of the road; it had once spanned it, but it had
collapsed and had been shoved aside. She’d had to risk breaking cover, but it
had seemed worth it: she was only thirty miles from the town they’d named,
which meant that she should be able to find the rendezvous within two or three
days. With new hope blooming, she set out.
Two days later and she was exhausted,
achingly hungry and freezing; she wasn’t sure how far she’d managed to travel,
but she was sure that it was nothing like thirty miles. Then she’d seen the potato
clamp at the side of a field and the thought of even raw potato was just too
good to resist, so she’d chanced it, walking straight into the arms of the two
militia-men on patrol; they were only slightly less surprised than she was, but
reacted a lot faster.
And now, to add to all the ills that
beset her she had to add that mind-numbing terror while they went to report.
And there was nothing she could do about it; she’d searched the place for rope,
glass or anything sharp and there was nothing. If only she’d kept that lighter,
the gift from… from – what was his name? – then she could had set fire to the
straw and die that way; but that was long ago and long gone and besides, they’d
searched her, taking every opportunity to fumble at breast and groin. Oh, God,
let me die!
She screamed when the door crashed
open, driven by a boot; she scrambled back into a corner, away from the glare
of the lamp that was held high behind the man who stood in the doorway. A big
man, jack-booted legs spread wide, hands on his hips, uniform jacket unbuttoned
over a sagging belly. Not big: huge, with a bushy beard and thick, wet lips
that gleamed in the light, giving him a demonic appearance.
“Noooooooo!”
“Ha! Denying me already, cunt? Want me
to step aside and let this lot,” he hooked his finger over his shoulder, “in at
you? You think they’ll take no for an answer?” He bellowed laughter, flecks of
spittle arcing and glittering in the light. They were crowded behind him, only
their eyes visible, points of brightness against the darkness.
“God, noooooo!”
He moved, booted feet brushing aside
straw and she could go no further back because she was pressed hard against the
rough wood, so hard that a nail had punctured her skin un-noticed as she stared
up, transfixed by the eyes that glared down, suddenly obscured by the massive,
grimy fist that came down and took her by the hair.
Pain, screeching pain as he yanked her
up, she screamed again, a thin, reedy sound in her ears and a babble of
laughter that she heard through the blood-rushing terror that clapped and
clattered against her mind. Pain that made her follow on her knees, scrabbling
to keep pace, her hands at his wrist as he dragged her to the door, the men
parting to allow him passage.
Pain, comments:
“Leave some for us!”
“Give it to her up the arse!”
“Whip the bitch! Make her bleed!”
“Strip her! Let’s have a look!”
Outside and it was raining, a cold drizzle
that she barely noticed, but which turned the ground to mud under her knees as
she was dragged, still screaming, through it, still scrabbling at the hand that
was locked in her hair. Then there was a door, her knees banging against the
threshold as he pulled her through; the bang of it closing and then yet more
pain as she was hurled across a rough floor to tumble against a stone wall.
Light, bright, blinding her as much as
the tears that were in her eyes; tears of pain and terror as she came to her
knees, all too aware of the rents and tears in the dress. She came to hands and
knees, then to her knees alone as she blinked, brushing back tangled hair to
see him looking down at her. He looked
even bigger in the light, the belly even more pronounced, stretching the khaki
vest that he wore beneath his open tunic. A wide leather belt circled his
waist. Then she was looking up at his face, past the parted wet lips framed in
thick brown hair to fierce eyes under lowered brows, eyes that were clouded with
lust. But he was alone.
“Pleeeeeeaase!” she whimpered.
“You the bitch that all the fucking
shouting’s about? Fucking radio’s been going crazy. You her, eh?”
She barely heard through her terror.
“Please….”
She saw his legs move and then he hit
her with the back of his hand, the blow landing on her cheek. She hurtled
backwards, stunned, tasting blood in her mouth as her head rang.
“Answer me, you cunt!”
The blow had unlocked her frozen
brain. She collected sprawled limbs, vaguely aware that she had given him a
view of her panties; but that was the least of her worries. Back to hands and
knees, then to knees, one hand holding the dress closed because the top two
buttons had gone when she fell. Think!
“I… please, I come from the… the
village down the valley. I… I heard soldiers and hid. Please, my children…”
“Shut your fucking mouth! Liar!”
“No! Please!”
There was a pause during which she
looked up again. He was smiling down at her; his look sent a shaft of fear
through her.
“So,” he said, “you’re from the village,
are you? Went looking for wood in your Sunday best, did you?” He laughed. “All
right, bitch, I’m the commander of the militia in this area; that makes me the
head man round here, doesn’t it? Now how does a simple country girl like you
show proper respect to a man as important as me, eh?”
She knew the sort of things that went on
in the country areas nowadays, or she’d heard about them. Not that she needed
to know any of that to realise what he meant.
“Oh, I…”
He took a step towards her. “Want to
convince me that you’re not a liar, cunt? Now’s your chance. Maybe the only
one,” he added, inclining his head to the door in unmistakable threat.
It was the truck driver all over
again, except that this time she wasn’t going to get away with it. Could she
convince him, or was he playing games with her? Would he fuck her and then turn
her over to the others, to…? She swallowed, her eyes dropping to the stained
khaki trousers. There wasn’t a choice, was there? If she didn’t, he would throw
her to them like a piece of meat to wolves; if she did, there was a chance,
just…
Doing her best to close her brain and
with her stomach churning, she inched forward, shuffling on her knees. Close to
him, she stopped, face with another problem. He obviously expected her to open
the trousers, but the meant releasing the front of her dress… and then she
realised the absurdity of the thought: she was going to suck the bastard’s
cock, and here she was worried about giving him a glimpse of tit!
“Get on with it, you lousy slut!”
She could smell him, the sour, bitter stench
of long-unwashed flesh. As she unfastened the belt and pulled down the zip, it
grew stronger, ranker. Fighting herself and knowing that her alternatives were
non-existent, she reached in, only to receive a stinging cuff to the side of
the head that made her cry out.
“Get the trousers down, whore!”
She thought that the blow had started
her crying again, but then realised that she’d been doing that all the time: her
face was wet with tears and she could taste the salt on her lips. She reached
up to where the waist-clasp was; it was buried in the sagging stomach, yet even
as she tried he hit her again, another smack to the side of the head.
“You are a stupid bitch, aren’t you?
You think I’m going to hobble around with my trousers round my ankles, you
cunt? Get the boots off before I shove one up your arse!”
She sobbed. Boots off, trousers down,
trousers off… Oh, God, he was going to make a session of it, she had no doubt
of it. He was playing games and enjoying every minute; she could hear the
chuckles. But she had to go on with it because he might just turn nasty and
throw her to that pack outside and she had no illusions about her chances of
surviving that. What would he…? She closed her mind again, even as she bent to
untie the laces of the left boot; it didn’t matter what he wanted or how he
wanted it, she was just going to have to do it.
The trousers fell as she was untying
the laces of the right boot. He growled something she didn’t catch, but backed
off a little, head down, as she saw that he was using the toe of one boot to
ease off the other and kick it across the floor. It clattered over to the wall,
followed moments later by the other and then by the trousers.
“Get back here and look at what you’re
doing, slut! Are you hot and dripping, itching for it? I’ll bet you are!” The
irony was heavy. “Come on, girlie; I want the best you can give, or you’ll
spend the next two nights wondering just how many cocks you can take before you
snuff it. I’ve got eighteen of the randiest bastards you’ll never want to meet
out there and they’re all panting to get at you. Come on, get those underpants
down and take a deep sniff.”
She did so and recoiled, gagging.
His hand in her hair dragged her back
as he laughed. “Sorry about that, but none of us have washed for a couple of months.
Come on, darling, have a feel. A good one, isn’t it?”
It was at the level of her face,
thick, un-circumcised, still only half erect. From the smell, she knew that
he’d be dirty, a suspicion that he confirmed a moment later.
“Smell that cheese? Yeah, there’s a
good mouthful of it for you because I know you’ll love it. Ah! That’s what I
thought, you lying cunt!”
She had cradled his balls and taken the shaft
in her other hand, knowing what he wanted, but his hand came back to her hair,
forcing her head up and back, drawing another agonised cry from her.
His face was hard, cruel, the eyes
glittering with triumph as he sneered down at her. “Soft hands for a peasant
girl, cunt! Too fucking soft! Up! On your feet!”
She was shaking as she rose, sobbing
openly.