Blood Moon Captive

I awoke to a place that was dark, filthy, and crowded.

My confused, fuzzy mind tried to comprehend what was the matter. This wasn't my small, dank apartment in my rough neighborhood, nor was it the large department store in which I worked. No, this was somewhere else, somewhere horrible and frightening.

I tried to sit up, but I grew lightheaded and swayed. My shoulder was knocked into the leg of another person.

"Watch it!" a woman's voice hissed.

"She didn't mean to," another voice spoke up. Again, it was a woman who spoke.

I forced my eyes open and beheld a dark, cramped holding car much like a boxcar, but half the size. There were slats near the top to allow for ventilation and some light from the night sky beyond the little prison. Benches sat two feet off the dirty floor and were on three sides of the rectangular space. The fourth side, one of the ones that comprised the short end of the car, appeared to be made of two metal doors that swung outward. I lay on the dirty ground at the far end opposite the doors and in front of one of the benches.

On the benches and the floor sat a dozen women counting myself. In the dim light, I glimpsed their wide, frightened eyes. Their ages ranged from the mid-teens to early thirties, and their clothes were as different as their ages. Some wore jeans and shirts, others were clothed in dress pants and blouses. Some wore glasses, and others didn't. A few were beautiful, some were plain like me, but none were what I'd call unattractive.

I tried to shift my legs, but there came a metallic scraping sound and something arrested my movements. I glanced down at my ankles and saw I was shackled. My wrists were likewise attached to one another, but at least they were locked in front of me. I ground my teeth together and shook the wooziness out of my head.

"Where. . where am I?" I asked the women.

"Hell," a nearby woman quipped. I recognized her voice as the one I'd angered. She had long, dark brown hair and narrow, dark eyes.

"You're not making things better for any of us saying that, Riley," a woman near her scolded her. That was the second woman I'd heard earlier.

"Why should I care about everyone else? I don't know any of you. All we've done is give our first names," Riley snapped.

I tried to stand, but the holding car suddenly jumped as though it hit a bump. I tipped over and fell into the arms of the friendly woman. "Easy there. The stuff they gave you is just wearing off," she told me.

"'Stuff?'" I repeated.

The woman smiled. "You're really out of it, aren't you? Do you remember your first name?"

"What does it matter? They're probably taking us somewhere where they can kill us all," Riley argued.

The woman who held me glared at her. "It matters to put names with faces just in case we need to help each other." She returned her attention to me and squeezed me between herself and a young girl of sixteen. "I'm Karissa. What's yours?"

I clutched my aching head in my hand and scrunched my eyes shut. "Amelia, but where are we?" I persisted.

Karissa shrugged. "In this boxcar driving somewhere. It's been like that for a few hours. Ever since the first of us woke up."

I swept my eyes over the long, haggard faces of the others. "How'd we get here?"

"Probably the same way you did. What is the last thing you remember ?" Karissa asked me.

I furrowed my brow and grimaced. "I. I remember having a drink after work, and this guy came up and offered to buy me one. He-" My eyes widened when I recalled what happened next. "He put something in my drink! He drugged me and pulled me outside, and then. . .and then-"

Karissa nodded. "And then you woke up here. That's pretty much the same story everybody else told. Well, most everybody." She leaned back and looked at the young woman beside me. My right-side companion was small and thin with short hair and a shy face. I realized the girl's shoulders shook, and the soft sound of crying reached my ears. She was bent forward and her face was in her manacled hands.

I tried to wrap my arm around her shoulders, but my shackles constrained me. I had to settle with setting a hand on her arm. "You okay?" I whispered.

"Don't mind her. She's been bawling since she woke up," Riley spoke up.

Karissa whipped her head to Riley and glared at her. "You'd be crying your eyes out, too, if you were stolen off the street going home after school," she snapped.

I leaned forward and squeezed her arm. "What's your name?" I asked her.

She raised her head and revealed tear-streaked cheeks and a cute, but young, face. "L-Lily," she replied.

I smiled. "That's a pretty name. I'm Amelia."

Lily wiped a few stray tears from her cheeks and straightened a little. "That's a nice name, too," she told me.

"I could just barf," Riley spoke up.

"Don't. Those slats up there aren't that great at getting air down here," Karissa pointed out.

I stood and leaned my back against the metal wall to steady myself against bumps. I inspected the slats. They stood eight feet off the ground, and a thin screen covered their six-inch openings. My desperate mind conjured up a desperate plan.

"I think some of us can fit through there if the others give them a boost," I suggested.

Riley looked at me and snorted. "You'd better not be considering you for the top."

I hated to admit it, but she was right. I wasn't slim. My hips were wide, my belly flabby, and my breasts were too big for this escape. I was plump, and plump wouldn't get me out of this terrifying ordeal. The rest of me, my long dark-brown hair and frumpy clothes, suited me, but still wouldn't help.

"I'm not, but Lily and a few of the others might be able to fit through," I insisted.

My bold idea caught the attention of the other car occupants. They raised their heads and looked at one another, sizing each other up for possible escape.

"Right. And what will they do when they squeeze out? Get squished by truck wheels?" Riley retorted.

"They can find help," Karissa spoke up. She rose to her feet shoulder to shoulder with me and smiled at me. "It's not a bad plan, and it's a hell of a lot better than staying here to see what's at the end of this ugly rainbow."

Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to try out my crazy scheme. Our momentum slowed as someone applied the brakes to the truck. The car rocked to and fro, and Karissa and I fell back into our seats. The truck parked and the engine was shut off. We inside the car held our breath, but voices came from in front and on the sides of our little prison. Male voices.

"How many did you manage to dig up this time?" a gruff voice asked someone.

"A full dozen, just as you ordered," another, meeker voice replied.

"And they better not be ugly or I'll make you uglier," the first voice warned the other man.

"Of course not, sir. They're all very pretty, healthy young ladies." The voices moved to the rear of the car.

Another even crazier idea came to my mind. I glanced at Karissa and saw her eyes follow the voices like mine. I jerked my head towards the rear of the truck. My girth couldn't help me with my first plan, but it was an asset for my second. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" I whispered.

"I'll get the right door, you get the left," she replied.

We shuffled towards the exit just as we heard a metal bar removed from the doors. "I'll be the judge of what's pretty and what's-" The man didn't get to finish his sentence before the doors swung open.

Karissa and I flung ourselves into the unknown. That turned out to be the two talkers at the head of a half dozen other, hairy men.

"Yeehaw!" Karissa yelled as we dove into their midst.

Our surprise attack did the trick. We crashed into the men, and they dropped like bowling pins before a bowling ball. Karissa and I bit, clawed, and kicked at our captors. They couldn't get a grasp on our flopping legs and swinging arms.

The other women rushed out after us, but rather than help they sprinted off in all directions. Their shackled legs didn't get them far because the expiration date on Karissa and my tentative distraction expired. The men managed to snatch the chains that connected our manacled wrists and pull us off our kicking feet. They lifted us off the ground and gave time for their brethren to stand.

One of the men, a large, burly-looking fellow with close-set eyes and greasy black hair, pointed at our fleeing companions. "Get them back here and on the boat!" he ordered them.

For the first time, I got a view of where we were and was confused. Our little group and holding truck sat at the edge of a forest filled with tall, ancient pine trees. Thick brush obscured the trunks and disallowed travel between the trees. The tops of the trees stretched into the night sky and obscured much of the clear, starlit ceiling. Nothing moved in the shadows, and the only noises were of the women screaming as they were recaptured. Our female companions were dragged or carried to the front of the truck.

The burly man marched up to Karissa and me and glared at us with his narrowed eyes. "Dumb bitches. Thought you could just get away like that, huh?" He snapped his finger in front of Karissa's face, and she cringed away from him.

"Leave her alone," I ordered him.

The man turned his ugly eyes on me, and a sly, lecherous grin slipped onto his wet lips. He grabbed my chin between his fingers and chuckled. The sound sent chills down my spine, and his breath made me gag. "You've got some spirit here, huh? Well, your mate will break you of that." He stepped back and jerked his head over his shoulder to the front of the truck. "Take them with the rest of them."

A muddy dirt road behind the truck showed where we had traveled, and a large boat in front showed how much farther we had to go. The boat sat at the end of a long wooden dock whose planks were half-rotten with age and neglect. The dock stretched out into the waters of a large lake. It was impossible to tell how large was the body of water because of the fog that covered most of its opposite shores. Its shores were filled with large rocks, and trees crowded in behind the rocks. The branches of submerged trees stuck out of the water as though pleading for help from a wet demise. In the distance, silhouetted by the light of a pale moon, I could see the shadow of a large island.

The boat was the size of a small yacht and of the general shape, but with all the extravagance torn away. The belly of the beast was a mess of peeling paint and lake life. The windows, what few I could see, were grimy and cracked. There was a crooked railing on the deck, and ropes haphazardly hung off the sides. There were no lifeboats, and the whole thing smelled of seaweed and diesel.

There were two planks on the boat. The higher one led onto the deck, and another pointed down to a tall hatch where lay the cargo hold. We were shoved and carried across the lower plank into the bowels of the decrepit vessel. It was a dark, dank hold smaller than the boxcar and without windows or artificial light. I don't know how our captors could see in such darkness, but they had no trouble lining us up along the wall. They slammed our rears and backs against the walls and left us. The opening closed and the light completely vanished.

"Any more bright ideas?" Riley quipped.

"Yeah. Don't give up hope," I retorted.

I heard someone shout above deck, and the boat rocked and moved forward as we continued on our terrifying journey to the unknown.

I heard a sniffle from the wall opposite me. "Lily, you okay?" I whispered. The oppressive darkness demanded quiet voices.

"I. . .I want to go home," she whimpered.

I pushed off the wall and fell forward onto my knees. I couldn't see where I was going, but Lily's sniffles meant I didn't have to. My knees warned me of splinters and loose nails, but I ignored its complaints and shuffled across the planks and over to Lily. I leaned my head gently against hers.

"They didn't hurt you, did they?" I asked her.

I felt her shake her head. "N-no."

"So what do we do now?" Karissa spoke up. There was silence among our small, shivering group. "Amelia?"

I leaned away from Lily and frowned. "What?"

"What do we do?"

"How should I know?"

"Because you've got more spunk than the rest of us. Our only plan's been for just sitting here and waiting to see what's going to happen," Karissa pointed out.

I pursed my lips together and shrugged. "Yeah, well, much good it did us," I quipped.

"We're not there yet," she countered.

"You guys are idiots," Riley spoke up.

"Thinking of something is better than trying nothing," Karissa shot back.

"Did you even take a look at those guys? They're huge, and they're not going to just let us stroll off this boat and back home," she argued.

A heavy foot rapped the ceiling overhead. "Shut up in there!" came the voice of our lead captor.

Riley resumed her argument but in a quieter voice. "See? They're even listening now. We don't have a chance against them, so the best thing to do is shut up and take it."

I sighed. "She's right."

"Come on, don't give up on me now," Karissa pleaded.

"We're on a boat, and our hands and feet are tied. That means we can't swim, and we can't beat those guys with just our teeth," I pointed out.

I heard Karissa growl. "So we just wait here and see what happens?"

Lily whimpered beside me. "And we stick together," I added.

"Good luck with that. . ." Riley mumbled.

The mood of our little group was gloomy. The only interruption to our silence was a stifled sniffle or two from our fellow captives. I sat in the middle of the floor and felt the waves of the lake rock beneath our boat. Above us tramped the heavy boots of our captors like jailers marching in step to an oppressive beat.

All I could think about was the burly man's cold eyes and the strange, dark island in the distance. I never doubted that was our destination. What better place to take a group of kidnapped women than a deserted island? Perhaps they would sell us to slave traders, or have their way with us and toss our lifeless bodies beyond the rocks and into the deep depths of the lake. I shuddered. Best not to think about that.

After a long time, maybe a half hour, maybe two hours, the speed of the boat slowed. The footsteps moved to the side of the boat and I heard shouts. My fellow captives coiled into themselves. The herd mentality overtook me and I, too, cringed. My one anchor of courage was Lily. She leaned against me and shivered. I couldn't show my fear. Not when I had to give courage to this scared young girl.

"We'll stick together no matter what," I promised her.

Her reply was a slight slackening of her quivering. The voices above us grew louder and the boat knocked into something firm. The boots clamored down their plank, and in a moment our door swung open. The burly man from before stepped inside and his men followed him.

"Take them single-file to the holding cells," he ordered them.

The holding cells. Such a name didn't dampen the terror that quaked in our hearts. The other women screamed and pleaded as they were taken one at a time through the tall hatch.

"Please let me go!"

"I won't tell anybody!"

Their pleas fell on deaf ears. I was tossed over the shoulder of one of these foul-smelling men and carried outside and up a plank. The boat was parked on a new pier. This one was in better condition with new, freshly sealed boards. There was another boat at the dock. That one was smaller than the cargo one and was painted completely black with fresh paint. It had two large motors on the back and its pointed bow spoke of speed.

The men carried us down the pier to the shore. I twisted and glanced over my shoulder. The tall cliffs of the dark island loomed above us. I could see specks of light on the far right side of the island, but the rising sun blotted out most of them. Ahead of us at the end of the dock was a dirt path that wound its way up the rocky front of the island. Squat pine trees crowded the trail, and on either side of the path were small, round holders in which burned candles. The top of the path was hidden from my view by a ledge.

At the end of the trail, we women were dropped onto our feet and forced to march up the hill. Without our hands for balance, we stumbled and fell. The men pulled us up by our collars and pushed us along. I could see Karissa and Lily ahead of me. Lily stumbled more than the others and she shrank whenever her man grabbed her and pulled her to her feet.

We reached the top of the hill fifteen minutes later. The path flattened for ten yards before it ended at a stone building set into the rocky mountain. The thick steel door was opened and revealed a long, wide hallway that had been carved into the hill. The rough walls were a mixture of primitive concrete and stone, and the floors were uneven. Torches hung from the right-hand wall and lit the way, and between the lights were smaller doors. There were tiny openings in the upper half of the doors that were covered with sliding slats of wood. Metal bars lay over the center and acted as primitive locks.