The Camp (16 page)

“The sheriff again.”

Despite the sound-deadening Paul had installed in the cab, most conversation still had to be had just above a yell.

They were just passing through the town of Grants Pass and the lights from the different businesses cast eerie shadows inside the cab.

“What about the sheriff?”

Paul was glad to be off the subject of sex. He was afraid she’d ask a question he’d be embarrassed to answer.

“I think the sheriff is on the take and that he’s in on the trafficking.”

When they reached Gold Beach, Paul guided the bus into the parking lot of the Sea and Sand Inn and shut off the engine.

“Let’s get in the back and make a plan.”

He opened the sliding side door, but when his daughter walked up, he stopped her from getting in. “We’ll be treading on dangerous ground and I have no business bringing you into this. Your Aunt Claire would kick my ass for this. But here goes. You do exactly what I say or we get you a room right now and you wait for me.”

She could feel her heart pounding but remembered that sometimes it was good to be afraid.
 

With jagged breath she lunged forward, hugging her father. “I love you, daddy.” Then she stepped back. “A chip off the old block, remember?”

“Alright, then. The bus is too noisy to sneak up in and if we park it too far up the road, we’ll be walking all night. I say let’s drive right up to the lodge. Tell them we just need a place to park, and that we’ll sleep in the bus.”

Amy stepped past her father and up into the back. They both laughed at the thought of the deception, then he followed, slid the door shut, and joined her at the little table.
 

“You said that Ron told you where the bridge was that crosses the river, and the road that leads to the barn. Can you get us there?”

Chapter Twenty-four

Driving from Gold Beach to the little town of Agness took the bus just over an hour. After another twenty minutes, they were parked in a designated campsite and making their way on foot up the rutted road past the old school house.

When they reached the bridge where it crossed the Rogue, Paul led his daughter into the high weeds by the side of the road. They both wore black. Amy had her hair tucked up under a watch cap.

He touched his forehead to hers. “I’ll cross first. When I reach the other side, I’ll step into the weeds. Wait five minutes. Scan the woods on the other side. If you see any kind of movement, do not cross. Understand?”

She reached over and took his hand. “What about you?”

“I can take care of myself. If you see anything, stay put, hunker down. If you need to stay right here all night—do it.”

He took her head between his hands and kissed her on the tip of the nose. Then he held her out at arm’s length. “Just so you know, I left a note for Claire and Rye. They’re probably headed over here right now.”

Then he was moving low across the bridge, attempting to stay at the same level as the guardrail.

Watching the dark close in around her father, she suddenly felt very small and scared and alone.

She watched until her eyes hurt. When she looked away, there was movement. From the corner of her eye, she saw something and it wasn’t her father. She sighted along the guardrail and there it was again. Just where the rail curved away from the road, at the opposite end of the bridge across from where her father would end up, she could make out two figures. No three—and one was limping. “Daddy.”
 

One was carrying a stick. But when he turned, the moonlight reflected off of a shotgun.

She flattened in a panic, the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.
 

“Count breaths, count breaths. Find the rhythm.” But her new calm was jolted by shouting and then the sound of the shotgun firing.

Alarms were going off in her head, pulling her apart. She was just a girl, only fifteen. But then the image of Aunt Claire came to mind. They were the same size and what did she always say? ‘If you’re small like us, you’re fast and sneaky.’

Where was her focus?
 

With her heart in her throat, she scrambled across the bridge to the other side. Then, in a crab and staying in the shadow of the guardrail, she scuttled the length of the bridge until she was directly across from the man with the gun. She didn’t move. What were they doing?

Then she realized that they were going to throw her father off the bridge.
 

She’d have to come in diagonally from behind. Take the man with the gun first. Take him out at the knees.

She slowly emerged into the open. Both men were badgering her father. She crept closer, adjusted her angle so the man she hit would go down and be an obstacle between her and the other one.

She guessed at the distance then charged. No yell, just the sound of feet. The man with the gun turned at the sound too late. He went down hard, striking his head and losing his grip on the shotgun. Then unexpectedly, the second man wrestled her father over the guardrail and she panicked and ran to the rail.

The second man wrapped an arm around her neck and began to squeeze. Dropping her chin, she opened her mouth and sank her teeth into his arm. The man released his choke with a yelp and she sprang back.

She never saw the figure approaching, stepping up behind her. The sand filled sock whistled through the air until it made contact with the back of her head. Jane Johnson caught the limp figure by the arm and lowered her to the road.

She stood over the diminutive figure. “You think you can handle her?” Holding his arm to stop the bleeding the second man stepped up and drew back a foot to deliver a kick. “Don’t. “ She reached into her coat and removed what looked like a black flour sack. “Put this over her head and take her to the barn.”

The two men waited until Johnson was out of sight then, each grabbing an arm, jerked Amy to her feet and dragged her toward the end of the bridge and the barn.

One ankle twisted, pain was her wake up call. She couldn’t see, her head throbbed, and she sensed that she was being dragged.

“Think she hit her to hard?”

The dragging stopped.

“This will wake her.”

A hand shot up under her sweatshirt, fingers roughly grasping her bra and pulling until she thought her back would break. Then it was yanked down to her stomach.

“Shit, she don’t got no titties.”

Scared and remembering everything her father had told her, she found her feet.

She was pushed and pulled until finally, she was shoved face-first into a wall. Then, arms pulled behind her, she was forced to walk backward. She could hear a door open, loud hinges. Wood scraping ground.

“Take the fucking sack off so she can see what she’s in for.”

Amy was primed and ready. When her hood was removed, she spun with a back fist that connected with the side of her abductor’s head.

“Shit. Bitch.”

Holding a hand to the side of his head, he shoved at her hip with his foot, pushing her through the doorway.
 

“Pants, shoes and socks. I’ll be back.”

Amy shot forward, but he slammed the solid wood door in her face.

At the sound of shuffling she turned around. “What the hell?”

From a clutch of girls, a taller, older one separated herself. “Better do what he says.” Amy couldn’t help but notice that all the girls, maybe ten in all, were standing around barefoot and in their underwear.

The spokesperson seemed to be fading even as she spoke. “My name’s Ellen. I resisted.” Her eyes dropped to her feet.
 

Amy followed. Blood was running down her legs and across her feet.

“Watch out for Billy.”

“When she looked up, the poor girl was gone. Shoulders forward, chin down. Eyes blank. She took her by the hand and walked her back to the group. That’s when she noticed that they all had the same appearance.

The room looked to be about 12 x 12, the size of her bedroom. The walls were some kind of dark wood, rough-cut. Light came from a single bulb at the end of a cord that dangled about seven feet from the floor.
 

She walked around the room then looked at the girls. She tried get an assessment to distract herself. Pretty with nice figures, and all appeared older then she was.

She walked into the circle, up to the one who had spoken to her. “What happened?” No response. “Why are you all here?” A soft mewing from the group was her only answer.

Holding her hands out to either side, she herded the girls against the back wall.
 

Walking to the center of the room, she removed her hooded sweatshirt and jumping straight up, swatted at the light bulb.

Standing in the dark she held her breath. “Bingo. First try.”

The room was nearly pitch-black. A glimmer of light came from under the only door, and a little from the side where it wasn’t flush with the boards that made up the door jam. There also seemed to be moonlight coming from the ceiling.

She wouldn’t wait. As soon as that pig returned and opened the door, she’d push past him and run. She began to pace back and forth in front of the door, wishing he’d hurry up before she lost her nerve. She kept looking back at the girls, now mere shadows, how they’d moved together and huddled in a corner.
 

When the door rattled, she jumped, then catching herself, stepped just to one side so she couldn’t be seen.

The door opened but faster then she expected. Tucking low, she slammed her shoulder into the man’s gut and sprinted off to the right. But he didn’t chase like she expected. Head down, sprinting away with adrenaline-driven legs, she barreled into another man not five feet from the door.

He grabbed for her hair but she had already turned. He took a step and lurched.

Head turned slightly, she could see the man reaching for her from the corner of her eye and executed a rear kick that caught him just above his belly in the solar plexus. But when she looked forward, it was into the hand of the first man. Going with the force of the strike she spun, leading with her elbow. Contact. But the impact knocked her to the ground, even as it sent the man reeling with a hand to his jaw.

When she tried to scan the room, to get prepared in the dimly lit hall for the attack that was sure to come from the second man. She could taste blood. Her mind screamed, find him. Where is he?

Before she could turn her head, it was viciously yanked sideways. He’d come out of the dark and grabbed her hair.

All of her training—all of the rough and tumble attacks from the strangers brought in by Claire—kicked in.

Twisting one full turn, stepping under her own outstretched hair, she placed both hands on his hand and kicked first to his knee then his groin. Both missed, but they forced him let go when he jumped back. Then he charged in a low tackle around the waist. She braced with a step back and drove an elbow into the back of his head.

He staggered back, looked at his partner, then back at Amy. “You want to fight? Is that what you want?” Without hesitation, he clocked her in the side of the head with a haymaker.

By the time her ears stopped ringing and her head cleared, she was on the ground and the guy that hit her was sitting on her stomach facing her feet. The other man was taking off her socks.

“Now the pants.”

When she kicked, the man on her hips shifted back until he was sitting on her chest and punched her in the stomach.

She couldn’t breathe and was beginning to panic but couldn’t make her arms move. She thought she was going to black out. In a moment between heartbeats and short breaths, she remembered Claire telling her that this kind of situation was like a chess game. That sometimes you had to wait for the right move.
 

Her pants were coming off over her feet. “There you go. Now doesn’t that feel better?”

The man got up off her chest and twisted one arm until she had to roll over onto her stomach.
 

 
The one who took her pants off looked down at her. “What a cute ass.”

 
Her arm was uncoiled from behind her back and held partly outstretched to the side like the other. He was sitting on her lower back, leaning forward, keeping her arms pinned to the floor.

She strained her neck, turned her head, and could just make out that he was fooling with the front of his pants.

He pulled his hand from a front pocket, produced a couple pills, walked around in front of her, and kneeled down. Then he looked up at his partner. “Hold her.”

He extended his hand in front of her face so she could just see the two little white pills. “Now be a good girl. Take these and we’ll let you up.”

The man sitting on her shifted his weight forward so he could watch.

She couldn’t speak, so she just nodded her head.

He brought them up to her mouth, fingers splayed out. But it didn’t protect him.
 

Amy was hoping for a checkmate.

She bit two of his fingers, simultaneously launching her hips as high as she could while straightening out her right arm and lurching to that side. The result was the man with the pills screaming as he rolled back holding two bloody fingers while the man on top had fallen to her right side. She rolled with him, ending against his side on her back and drove an elbow into his groin.

She was on her feet in less then a second, then just as quickly thrown to the ground on her back. The man with bloody fingers grabbed her arm shoved a foot in her side and pulled.

The man who had taken her down had come out of the shadows. She’d never seen him. He had her other arm, foot in her side, stretching her arm out palm up. Then the man she’d elbowed in the groin walked up with syringe in hand. He stood over her and made sure she could see the needle and the entire affair.

“Don’t move. Try any of that Kung Fu shit and I’ll break the needle off.” He gave a tight-lipped grin. “Leave you with a souvenir.”

Amy turned her head away and clamped her jaw shut at the pain.

When she looked up, the man had set the syringe on the floor and was rubbing his crotch. “Maybe I’ll leave you a souvenir, after all.”