The Storm: War's End, #1 Page 2

  Stay alive. Wait for the moment. All this, ALL THIS will pass—she counseled herself silently—she held back the tears, and endured their taunts. They would grow bored, want someone more entertaining. Wait. Wait. Wait for the moment. And before she knew it, the Carmen creature was shoving her towards crude showers.

  Her composure was brittle. It survived the ice cold water being dunked over her head, the brush used to roughly scrape against her rapidly bruising skin, and Carmen’s long nails cutting into her skin as she dragged her dripping down a short hall, through a curtain and into a room with a filthy bed in it. It did not survive, however, what happened next.

  Carmen was strong, she/he shoved Jess to the bed and before she could fight back or jump up Carmen grabbed one wrist and secured Jess to the bed frame with a pair of handcuffs. Lieutenant Cooper was the first one through the door, brushing past and already pulling off his belt as Carmen exited and announced, “She’s all yours, boys!”

  And hours later, when the men had used her violently, laughed at her tears, and came inside her with satisfied grunts, one after another after another—she lay there in shock. She had blood on her thighs, bruises on her arms and legs, she ached from deep inside in her bones and wondered if Hell could possibly be worse.

  Time to Go

  “There are moments when all of it is too much, too painful to remember. Yet then I look around at those who I love and realize I would not be here, with these people who I love and who love me, if those awful things had not happened to me. How do you reconcile that?” - Jess’s journal

  It was time to go.

  Mom and Dad had not come. Chris had not either. No kind words from any familiar face, only the soldiers, young, old, smelling like they’d never had showers, hairy, smooth-skinned—all of them on her, using her.

  After a while, her body had gotten used to it, even if her soul had not. The soldiers, who had laughed and delighted in her fear and pain, were now bored with her lack of response and chose other girls. The same men who sought out the newly caught girls or ones who never learned to deal with the abuse – these men were the worst. They took an evil joy out of it; while many of the others came only for the simple release of sex. Some of the men might even have been nice, one or two she even caught herself thinking that she would have dated them, been interested...but never in these circumstances.

  She’d tried to be brave, but the first days had hurt so damn much. Some of them had laughed at her tears or, like that awful Lieutenant Cooper, found a perverse pleasure in her fear and pain. He had visited her day after day, taking his time to hurt her in new and unimaginable ways. Cooper was a regular at Tent 5. He seemed to prefer blue-eyed blonde girls and Carmen, the gravel-voiced, angular, androgynous ‘director’ of Tent 5 was eager to give him whatever he wanted.

  After all, he was moving up in the ranks. Cooper had recently come to Granger’s attention and been made second Lieutenant. Being nice to him and giving him what he wanted meant he would keep Carmen well supplied with coke, meth, whatever the Western Front troops managed to turn up on their raids.

  Jess submitted to all of them, she did not resist, not at all, not after those first few days. Getting punched or kicked hurt like hell, so she did her best to avoid it. She let her eyes go dead and her body limp. As the days passed, most of her bruises faded and disappeared. They watched her close at first, especially that awful creature Carmen, waiting for her to try to escape again.

  “Keep myself fed, so I’m strong. Find clothing. Find a weapon.”

  She ate everything they gave her, but slowly, so it would look like she did not have much of an appetite. That was not hard to fake, the food was terrible and some days she was sure she would die in this awful place. Many girls had, some due to abuse, but usually by their own hand. Twice in the last month they had pulled girls out in the morning, past the others, their bodies stiff and eyes fixed and staring, having figured out how to escape the camp by some ingenious method of suicide.

  In a way, she envied them. It seemed easier somehow, instead of dealing with each day’s new horrors. Just a month ago, as the camp had moved through a new area, devastating some new town and rounding up the residents. They sorted through them much as the residents of Belton, Jess’s hometown, were sorted through.

  One of them, a young teenage girl, had fought back. She had actually managed to kill one of her rapists, her hidden knife sinking home high in his leg, the femoral artery, and he had bled out in seconds. They had spent the next five days raping her. Afterwards they had cut her throat and left her naked body lying there on the icy ground as the camp moved on.

  Twice the camp had moved, marched for days on end and she had watched carefully for an opportunity for escape. Two other girls had tried; bullets tore through them before they made it fifty yards. It was a good lesson - fail to escape, and you did not get another chance.

  Jess stared with dead eyes at the landscape of the encampment as she slowly ate her food. Each day she would sit at the table from a different angle, studying the details without moving. She did this with little movement and no obvious curiosity. To anyone watching her it would appear as if she did not really notice her surroundings. Tent 5 was close to the center of the camp. So was the mess tent. The men’s showers sat to the north, but they had seen little use since it had been far too cold. The latrines sat to the south this time. Thank goodness for that. In the last camp, a couple of idiots by the name of Easter and Burton had dug them to the west of camp and the wind had blown their foul stench over the entire camp for several miserable weeks until the camp moved on.

  Jess knew what she needed to do. She didn’t question it, didn’t mull over it, one way or the other, she was going to live...or kill as many of the soldiers as she could before dying.

  After weeks had become months, they had stopped watching her as closely. One of her ‘visitors’ had dropped a knife, a tiny Muela still in its sheath. He had never visited again, nor reported the loss, most likely because he had died in a raid two days later. The knife was small, and fit in Jess’s hand as if it were made for it.

  As she lay on the bed, listening to the stirrings of the camp around her in the pre-dawn darkness, Jess resolved that it would have to be at night, and soon. The moon was new and the darkness would help hide them.

  Them...it was no longer just her that needed to escape. Her friend Erin was in Tent 5 as well. She knew which room Erin was in and how to get to her. She had almost let her composure slip when she had seen her best friend hauled in two months ago. Erin had been with her family, visiting friends in Clinton when the Western Front blasted through Belton. Jess had thought of her best friend often, hoped that she was safe and wished she had gone with her on the trip.

  She had shown no reaction to Erin’s calls to her, not even turned and looked in her direction. She had sat at one of the battered tables with several of the other girls, and continued to chew on the half burned, half raw meat, and Jess’s long blond hair falling down in a tangled curtain around her face. She could feel several sets of eyes on her as Erin screamed her name.

  Let them think she was catatonic. Let them think that she was so messed up inside that nothing could touch her anymore. Let them think of her as a piece of furniture. Furniture does not think, it does not scheme, and it sure as hell does not even try to escape. Furniture is there to be used and then ignored until it comes in handy again. How she hoped that is what they thought of her now. Because if they did, then they would not know what was happening until it was too late.

  Her lack of response seemed to satisfy the guard. He was tasked with watching the handful of girls eat their meal. The other girls looked over at her, barely interested, one of them glassy-eyed from drugs she had begged off of the men. Jess had seen what the drugs did, and alternated between coveting them and hating seeing what they did to the others. It took some of the pain away, made them not care they were being violated every day, but they slowly transformed under the drugs’ influence and the physical abu
se. From what Jess could see, they were the walking dead, not her.

  It had killed her to listen to Erin’s screams later that morning. She would have given anything not to hear her friend’s pain. She even prayed to an indifferent God to help her not hear. It made no difference, and somehow she felt responsible. Somehow, she had to get them out of there, both of them.

  The weather was cold, sometimes bitterly so. The nights had slipped down below freezing and Carmen forced to dole out clothing to keep the girls warm during the cold nights and days. Socks, but not shoes, were allotted. Jess had contrived to steal an extra sock here or somehow ‘lose’ a shirt. She slowly worked at the hole in the bottom of her mattress until it was open just enough to hide the extra clothing. Without shoes to protect their feet, they would need as many layers of socks as they could squirrel away. The extra clothing would help keep them warm on the chilly nights.

  Fortunately, the clothing was the same as the Western Front uniforms, an oversight on the part of Jess’s captors that might help her to be less conspicuous when she and Erin made a break for it. There was no way she would leave without her best friend. They would escape or die together, it was the least she could do.

  The handcuffs had stopped Jess from escaping long ago. She had tried everything, bent paperclips, a nail, but nothing would budge the locking mechanism. The solution to that problem came in the form of a visit from Allen Banks.

  Last evening, just before the camp settled in for the night, Allen had come to her room. Allen was a few years older, also from Belton; he had been in her brother’s grade. He used to visit their house often since his grandparents lived just a few blocks away. During the long summer months, he made a regular appearance every four or five days.

  He would arrive at the house, red and sweaty from pushing his grandpa’s old-fashioned lawnmower over his grandparent’s large lawn. Allen had always been a bit on the chunky side, and she barely recognized the slim brown-haired man who pushed aside the curtain flap and advanced toward the bed.

  He came in, said nothing and neither had she, neither of their faces betraying any recognition. He climbed on top of her, and leaned in as if he were kissing her neck as he whispered in her ear, “Jessie, a big storm’s rollin’ in tomorrow, next day at the latest,” he pressed something into her hand, “Get the hell out of here. Head west. Chris is alive. We will join you if we can, but they watch us even closer than they watch you. When the time comes, you leave, and don’t you dare look back or wait for us. Got it?”

  She gave a small shudder in response and he knew she had heard him. His lips brushed her cheek, hesitated for a long second, then pressed fiercely against hers for a moment. It startled her, just as much as the change in his tone did when he sat up and slapped her thigh, “This little bitch is the most borin’ piece of shit I’ve had in a long time. Carmen! Get me something that don’t lie here like some damn log!”

  Two other men passing by the open flap laughed as Allen strode out to join them. Jess snuck a peek at the piece of metal in her hand – an honest to god handcuff key! She quickly shoved it out of sight. Later she hid the handcuff key in the hole in her mattress.

  Chris was alive! She composed herself before her face gave her away. For the first time in months, she began to hope. Allen’s kiss still burned on her lips. The key would set them free.

  Each night, before Carmen went to sleep, she made the rounds and made sure each girl’s handcuff was tight around one wrist and secured to the bed frame. By that time, the camp was dark and quiet with guards posted and the rest asleep. Jess waited in the dark, eyes wide open and staring, body tensed, until she was sure anyone nearby was sound asleep. She fit the key into the lock, released her sore, scabbed wrist from its captivity and crept quietly through a hallway to reconnoiter.

  Two guards and a shift change every four hours. The entrance was the only way in or out of the tent. Unless...Jess thought of the knife she had squirreled away in her mattress. Would it be able to cut the tent fabric?

  The hardest part of it all was putting the handcuffs back on that night and then lying down to face another day. If she were not ready, completely ready, it would mean failure. Failure meant death and Jess was not ready to die, not just yet.

  It was now late March. Spring and warmer weather were just around the corner. The camp was settling in for the night. No electricity combined with cold nights meant that, after sundown, activity slowed to a crawl. Jess had heard Carmen comment to one of the guards that there was bad weather headed their way. “Looks like there’s a hell of a storm brewing,” she said, “it’s coming in from the West fast and hard. We’d best get all the girls secure now before it hits.” They turned away two soldiers who complained loudly until one soldier’s hat blew off his head and he ran after it. The lone soldier, with no companion to back him up, sulked away.

  Night came early with black storm clouds leading the way, blocking the weak afternoon sun. The wind was beginning to howl, tearing at the tents, forcing the soldiers to damp the campfires for fear of sparks. There was little visibility, and thunder boomed in the distance.

  Jess closed her eyes, waiting for the sound of footsteps to die away and darkness to descend. If only they could get out and away before the light show rolled in. She waited, long moments, her ears straining for any man-made sound above the wind and patter of rain on the tents. The canvas buckled and shook. It was noisy, that was good, better to hide any sounds she and Erin might make.

  At last, when she had satisfied her fears that Carmen and the guards had settled for the night she slipped the tiny key out of the hole in the mattress and it into the handcuffs. “One...two...three” [click]

  The handcuff came loose from her wrist. She sat up quietly, heart pounding, turned and reached for the other handcuff in the dark and quickly opened and removed it from the bed frame. It didn’t seem like much of a weapon, but who knew when it might come in handy. She slipped it into the pocket of the shirt she had ‘liberated’, reached again into the hole in the mattress, pulled out the three pairs of socks and slipped them over her feet. Three tiny, stale rolls of bread followed the handcuffs into her pocket. Food was food, and this little bit was better than nothing.

  Finally, she pulled the thin blanket off of the bed, taking a moment to fold and roll it into as small and easily transportable bundle as she could. As she stepped into the long corridor, Jess’s heart was beating so hard that it pulsed in her ears. Outside the tent, the rain had increased its tempo, the wind howling mournfully. She trembled as she stood in the narrow corridor. She had watched, listened, and she knew exactly where Erin was. She had counted the steps herself when they escorted her to the showers and back. “Just eighteen steps,” she counseled, “just eighteen steps, you can do this.” She forced herself to move forward, counting each step and knowing, even in the pitch blackness of the corridor, that if she reached out, her hand now extended directly into Erin’s room.

  Her eyes were straining for any light, but there was none, so Jess closed them and envisioned the cot and its placement and moved towards it from memory. “Just one more step,” and she felt the side of the bed against her left hip. Now for the tricky part – how to wake Erin without causing her to scream or make any noise that would wake the others?

  She reached out with her left hand and felt for her friend in the dark, she touched hair and felt Erin rouse and begin to tense as she shook off the sleep and realized there was someone standing over her. Jess bent close, “Erie, it’s me,” she whispered, using her childhood nickname and hoping to God the storm was loud enough to ensure her voice didn’t carry to any others.

  Her friend began to shake and sob quietly, found Jess’s hand and grabbed it tightly. They hugged each other, both crying. It had been so hard for her to ignore her friend, to pretend to not see her. Erin released a small sob, “Shh, its okay, we’re getting out of here tonight,” Jess whispered in her friend’s ear and patted her friend’s back with her free arm. Once Erin had calmed down enough t
o let go of her hand, Jess quickly undid the handcuffs and freed her.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and carefully removed a pair of socks, pushed them into Erin’s hands to put on and stripped the bed of its two thin blankets. Then she crept over to the outer wall of the tent and waited for a loud gust of wind and accompanying thunder to begin stabbing the canvas with the little knife. It took a long time to tear a hole in the thick fabric despite the sharp blade, but the girls took turns as Jess explained in a whisper about Allen’s visit and the idea of using the storm as cover for their escape.

  The rain was now drumming down on the tent, causing various drips where there were holes or thin, worn areas in the thick canvas roof. The girls worked as quickly as they could, their wrists aching from the effort and their knees sore and cold from kneeling on the floor. They had to get out and as far away as possible so that their tracks were washed away by the rain.

  Finally, the hole in the canvas was big enough to fit through. It would be a tight squeeze. Jess grabbed Erin’s hand and pulled her close, gave her another quick hug, “You ready?” she could barely hear her friend whisper ‘yes’ over the now near-constant thunder, “Okay. Here is what we’re going to do. Climb through the hole and then head towards the right, that’s the closest cover, in the trees a few hundred yards away. Whatever happens, don’t stop and don’t let them take you, no matter what, okay?”