Chapter 6
Ten days went by.
They were busy days at the library and quiet evenings at home, mostly, and Linda's excruciatingly sharp memory of her dreadfully humiliating experience in her own apartment gradually dulled. The subject returned unbidden to her thoughts often, but not with the crystal clear clarity that had tormented her in the immediately following days. The sharp edges of her shameful abasement had blurred. When her quintuple-ravishment swam into her mind now, Linda was additionally shamed that the most forceful image presented-and one she couldn't erase-was that of Edmondo's long, thick, brutalizing cock.
The newly-contrived threesome was a bright spot in her life, although mildly frustrating.
They hadn't been able to get together again yet as a group. It turned out that Carole had school band practice three afternoons a week and Saturday mornings. And Carole's mother, Annette, frowned upon the girl's leaving the house at night if she had to go to school the next day. Helen had a tight schedule which included playing the organ two nights a week for her church choir, and additionally she had been out of town for two days at a teacher's convention.
Since Linda had her own outside activities in addition to her regular working hours, the trip hadn't been able to resume explorations of each other as a group. Linda had had one semi-satisfactory thirty-minute session with Helen during the interval, and a much better one with Carole who had met Linda at work one afternoon and whom Linda had driven home afterward.
Upon further close acquaintance, Linda had found Carole to be a delightfully eager novice. The girl had charm and grace and inquisitive-ness. She was much more sexually outgoing in her cute way than Linda had ever been at her age. Carole's blissful acceptance of Linda's guidance had resulted in an hour of mutual enchantment for them both, but to Linda's regret they had been unable to find a mutually agreeable time to repeat it. Linda was very much looking forward to her next session with the tall, silky-skinned Carole.
Two nights after their stolen hour together Linda had dinner at Annette's. It was an established custom taking place usually twice a month but not on set dates. Carole had been at a girl friend's but had come into the house later when Linda and Annette were in the living room with their coffee cups. The girl had kissed her mother and given. Carole a deceptively simple smooch which in reality consisted of thrusting her hot little tongue into Linda's ear, making Linda's thighs quiver. Carole then smiled and went upstairs.
Annette watched her daughter's retreating back thoughtfully. "She seems more settled down the last little bit," she remarked to Linda. "And I haven't seen that blond monster hanging around, either. Maybe that last spanking did her some good. It should have. My arm was tired for two days."
"Don't you think it's just as likely that she's emerging from that teen-age rebellious period?" Linda observed.
"I hope so," Annette sighed. "With all the ways for a girl to ruin herself physically these days, like pills and pot and booze and the like, sometimes I feel a stiff prick is almost a positive blessing. If only the girl doesn't get pregnant."
The remark delivered in Annette's usual earthy, free-swinging style reminded Linda that her own fears about pregnancy from her encounter with Charlie and his gang had proved fruitless. She was now in the third day of her period which usually lasted four days, although as a precaution she usually wore napkin or tampon through the fifth day. As in so many other thins Annette had been Linda's mentor in that phase of her sexual development, quieting the anxious pre-teenager's fears with her hearty, good-humored, undissimulating explanation and treatment of the natural phenomenon.
"What about you?" Annette said suddenly in the quiet of the living room.
"Me?" Linda responded, both startled and confused because of the nature of her own musings.
"That's right, you," Annette said. "You don't seem to have much spark. Anything eating on you except Helen Dickinson's mouth?"
"You know perfectly well that Helen and I are just good friends," Linda protested automatically. This was a familiar ploy of the observant Annette.
The older sister snorted. "Don't give me that malarkey, baby. I practically raised you, didn't I? I used to bathe you when you didn't have a sprig of hair on your little butterfly."
"And look at it now," Linda said ruefully. "A jungle, practically. I'd shave it if I wasn't afraid it would grow back more thickly."
"Don't do it," Annette advised. "It gets bristly. Men like hairy women, anyway. And we're a hairy family. Look at Carole. She was as bushy at thirteen as I am now. Jim used to laugh at the skinny little tyke with the long black hair covering her half dollar." Annette sighed. "I wish the sonofabitch was around to do something about what's under my bush," she said grimly. "Some days I get so bad I think if I saw him walking up the street I'd take it from him on the front porch."
"You could call him," Linda pointed out.
"When hell freezes over I'll call him!" Annette flared. "D'you think I want him feeling I'm on my knees to him asking for the favor of his big prick?"
"The two of you are stubborn idiots," Linda said calmly. "You know you belong together. You just need to sit down together and work things out."
"We'd need four cops and a marine sergeant to search us for concealed weapons," Annette said gloomily. "Oh, hell, I don't know-"
She stopped speaking as Carole came down the back stairway and re-entered the living room. The girl was in her pajamas and she had a schoolbook in her hand. She smiled warmly at Linda but walked to her mother's chair. "Would you look and see if I have a scratch between my legs, mother?" she asked. "I can feel something but I can't see it even with a mirror."
Annette winked at Linda. "I don't need a mirror to see you've got a scratch between your legs," she declared. "About three and a half inches long, I'd say."
"You know what I mean, mother," Carole said. She fingered herself through her pajamas at the inner juncture of her right thigh. "It's right there."
"Well, then, drop your britches and we'll have a look," Annette said briskly.
Carole put down her schoolbook, then unbuttoned the two buttons at the waist of her pajama trousers. She skinned the pajama bottoms down and stepped out of them, her rotund hind cheeks shining in the lamplight. Annette patted her knees and Carole draped herself over them, still holding the pajama trousers in her hand.
Linda felt her breath quickening at this full-bore display of Carole's exquisite nude bottom. Annette took a sleek haunch in one hand and parted it from its twin while she tried to peer into her daughter's well-fleshed lower aspect. "I can't see a damn thing from this side," she announced. "Turn over."
Carole stood up, seated herself in Annette's lap, lowered herself backward until her shoulders were resting against the chair-back, and elevated and spread her legs. Linda stared longingly at the whole of Carole's pouched pink receptacle pointing directly at her.
Annette fingered her daughter's splayed inner thighs. "This the place?" she asked. Carole murmured an affirmative. "I still can't see anything," Annette went on. "You may have just chafed yourself in the gym playing volleyball. Put a bandaid there in the morning if you still feel it." She placed her knuckles upon Carole's upturned slit. "Is this the time to ask if any-thing's been up here recently except your finger?"
"Amnesty," Carole pleaded with a little smile.
"Amnesty!" Annette blared. "I ought to turn you over again and amnesty your bare butt!"
She looked at Linda and shook her head. "These kids nowadays-" She closed Carole's thighs gently and slapped a slender thigh lightly. "All right, put your pants on and get your tail out of circulation before I change my mind."
Carole obediently rose from her mother's lap and stepped into her pajama bottoms, re-buttoning them at her waist. Annette's head was turned away from Linda who found Carole's cool gaze directly upon her. Linda formed the silent words "You tease!" with her lips. She knew perfectly well that Carole had never had a semblance of a scratch.
The tall girl smiled seraphically and picked up her book. "I have to finish my homework now," she said, and went back upstairs.
"She's not really a bad kid," Annette said gruffly after Carole's departure. "Sometimes I think I'm too rough on her, but it's not easy to raise a girl now. Hell, when I was her age I didn't know much more than that mine was to piss through. Now before they have hair on it they know more positions than Heinz has varieties."
"I think she's a darling girl," Linda said warmly.
"Yeah, well, I just hope she finds a good man," Annette said. "That's the name of the game for a female. Everything else is second best." She was silent for a moment. "We were talking about you," she resumed. "I know you, Linda. You've got no zip, no sparkle. What's gnawing on you?"
Linda hesitated. She had a great deal of respect for her older sister's earthy shrewdness. Dared she tell Annette about the horror with Charlie's gang? More to the point, dared she tell her sister about the threatened re-confrontation hanging over her head like a sword of Damocles with its baldly ominous promise of further physical intimidation, abuse, and humiliation?
Words trembled on the tip of her tongue. It would be such a relief to share her apprehensions with Annette who might easily come up with some sensible solution. But what solution could there be that would protect her? In her mind's eye she envisioned herself skulking about the city in fear of her life until the terrible moment when the enraged gang descended upon her and dragged her into an alley where brass knuckles crashed into her face, destroying it, and heavy boots crunched into her helpless body....
She drew a deep breath. No, she couldn't confide in Annette. The possibility of the gang's vengeance was too awful to contemplate. She'd just have to figure out some way to handle them herself.
"Well?" Annette challenged. "What is it?"
"I'm sorry, Annette," Linda said with attempted lightness. "I was thinking of something else." She tapped her upper thighs with both hands. "It's that time of the month, that's all."
Annette nodded slowly, but she didn't look entirely convinced. "I hope you'll always feel you can talk to me about any problems you might have, baby," she said. "I've lived a little bit longer than you have, and I can tell you the perspective is different."
It was said so kindly and with so much genuine warmth that Linda debated with herself for another moment before again deciding that she couldn't risk it. With the best intentions in the world, Annette still might bring ruin crashing down upon Linda. No, she couldn't risk it.
The sisters exchanged small talk for another half hour before Linda rose to leave. They said goodnight at Annette's front door, and Linda walked to her car at the curb. Despite the unexpected glow conferred upon her by Carole's impish charade, the turn the conversation had taken afterward left Linda in a troubled mood as she drove to her apartment.
It was raining two nights later when Linda locked her desk and prepared to leave the library. She opened an unused file cabinet and removed a spare umbrella she kept there. As usual the library proper was deserted except for the white-haired chief librarian. Linda waved goodnight on her way out to the employees' parking lot.
She had her car door open and had one haunch on the seat when she saw Charlie sitting on the passenger's side. Her heart zoomed up into her throat as a terrified glance disclosed three more silent figures in the back seat.
"Get in," Charlie growled as Linda crouched, paralyzed. "No fuss."
Her coordination had almost vanished, but she somehow shuffled herself under the steering wheel. Charlie reached across her and slammed her door shut, and at the feeling of total confinement for one terrible instant Linda thought she was going to wet herself.
"Please," she heard herself begging. "Please, no. Not again. P-please."
She hardly recognized her own voice. It sounded more like a rabbit-squeak. She had known she would have to face this situation eventually, and she had told herself she would have a solution to it, and now here it was and she had no solution. Not the faintest glimmer of one.
Charlie was regarding her obvious terror with high good humor. "What's the sweat, sugar?" he demanded. "We're just all guys together. You're gonna drive us out to a little place we got, an' we'll have a little fun. Don't you think it's smart of us to have you drive us there so you can't holler to the police afterwards that you was kidnapped? That was Edmondo's idea. Brains he's got along with his sledgehammer."
The thought of being isolated with the unholy crew in a strange place increased Linda's fear by the square of her previous distress. "I'm -it's-I'm h-having my p-period," she stammered, grasping at a straw. In a way it was true. She was on her fifth day when she maintained a precautionary sanitation.
For once Charlie's handsome face appeared disconcerted. "Is that right?" He turned to the back seal. "You hear that, gang? The monkey's got a nosebleed."
There was a momentary silence.
"What the hell," a voice spoke up then, and Linda recognized Carl's customary snarl, "she's got an asshole, hasn't she? I'd just as soon ream that."
Linda could hardly believe her ears. Damp patches broke out under her armpits and between her inner thighs. Her stomach performed a slow, lurching roll that forced her to press her lips together tightly lest she be ill. What were these animals saying about such a-such an unnatural use of her body?
"It might not be so bad," Charlie was saying. His tone was thoughtful. "We could break her in with Mousie's little dink an' work up gradually to Edmondo's."
"Something is better than nothing," Edmondo agreed from his place in the back seat.
"An' she has a mouth as well as an asshole," Mousie piped up in his almost soprano voice. "Oh, Jesus, I wouldn't mind a bit fuckin' myself off in that mouth of hers!"
"Okay, then," Charlie said, and returned his attention to Linda.
"Maybe she ain't got the rag on anyway," Carl spoke up again before Charlie could say anything. "It could be just a stall. Check her out, Charlie."
"You lyin', sugar?" Charlie asked.
"N-no," Linda said faintly.
He leaned across the seat again and flattened the skirt of her dress in between her legs. His big hand traced the contour of her lower belly as far as he could reach under her while Linda huddled herself together. Her face felt as if it was on fire. "What the hell?" Charlie said. He straightened up to look at Linda. "I don't feel a damn thing."
"What'd I tell you!" Carl said triumphantly.
"I'm-I wear a t-tampon," Linda quavered. The palms of her hands felt wet. In her worst moment the previous time with these ruffians she had never felt so acutely embarrassed.
This time Charlie rucked up her skirt and plunged his hand under it. Linda flinched as his rough fingers traced the course of her pantied crotch. The fingers lingered, probed, and departed. "Somethin' in there sure enough," he announced.
"An' it ain't no sugar plum," Mousie predicted. He sounded disconsolate. "Jesus, I'd have loved to fuck that sweet cunt of hers again!"
"We have alternatives, as has been pointed out," Edmondo said quietly. "Why do we delay?"
"Right you are," Charlie said breezily. He tapped Linda on the arm. "Set these wheels in motion, sugar. We'll tell you where to go." He opened Linda's handbag, fumbled among its contents, and handed Linda her car keys.
She drew a deep breath, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. What should she do? There was only one other car on the employees' parking lot, and she didn't recognize it. Then it came to her that it must be the boys'. So there was no hope of rescue from that quarter. Scramble out into the rain and run for it? The memory of Charlie running her down effortlessly in her own living room brought a cold shiver to Linda's spine.
"Let's go!" Carl snapped from the back seat.
Helplessly Linda pushed the ignition key forward. Her swimming eyes and shaking hand combined to make the key clatter uncontrollably against the dashboard. Charlie took the car keys from her and inserted the ignition key in its socket. Linda started the motor and drove slowly out of the library parking lot.
She followed Charlie's spoken instructions numbly. There were a lot of twists and turns. She suspected that the majority were to confuse her. It was hardly necessary, she thought. The rain came down harder and harder, and she could hardly see beyond the narrow area cleared by the hardworking windshield wipers.
After a time she realized that Charlie's directions had placed them in the low foothills west of town. The road climbed in twisty spirals. There was no conversation in the; car. Linda forced herself to concentrate upon her driving. The rain-slick narrow road was enough of a hazard without further mental distractions. She didn't remember ever having seen the road before.
"Next right," Charlie said suddenly.
Linda slowed and made the tight turn onto a dirt road. Arching trees closed above the road so that Linda had the impression she was driving through a green tunnel. She recognized tall pines, scrub oak, Chinese elm, and cottonwoods. The rain pelted down furiously. The car bumped and rumbled over the rough road which was filled with watery potholes.
"There it is," Edmondo said from the back seat at the same instant the car emerged into a small clearing. Directly ahead Linda saw a rough-looking cabin blending into the hillside. Automatically she braked to a stop at the foot of the short path leading up to the cabin. Linda stared at it, swallowing hard. Dear God! she prayed silently. Help me now when I need it!
"All out," Charlie ordered.
Linda pivoted on the seat and swung her legs to the ground. With no conscious thought she found herself running wildly through the dripping, clawing underbrush, Her high heels sank into the mucky ground, nearly overbalancing her as excited shouts rang out behind her and the pursuit was undertaken.
Linda's heart hammered furiously in her bursting chest as she stumbled and slid through waist-high dead grass and spiky scrub. She ran into a tree and hurt her arm, almost falling. Between the rain and the drenched bushes she was soaked to the skin. Desperately she forced her leaden-thighed legs to carry her farther into the brush.
Panting hoarsely, she crouched down in the grass in the pouring rain. Despite her brassiere, her breasts hurt her from their flopping around during her staggering escape-run. The cold rain ran down the sodden back of her dress and penetrated it and her slip. An icy trickle gathered volume and ran down her deep buttock-cleft. Linda began to cry helplessly.
From somewhere behind her Charlie's authoritative voice raised itself above the confused pattern of shouts of which Linda had been only dimly conscious. "All right!" the blond boy yelled. "She can't run far in those heels! Let's get a little system into this an' we'll find her! Mousie, you an' Carl go that way. Work within sight of each other so she can't slip between you. C'mon, Edmondo."
Linda could hear her own rasping breath as the boys thrashed through the scrub oak looking for her. Between the wet, the cold, and her unnatural crouching position her thighs trembled violently. She scrubbed at her tear-wet, rain-wet face with her hands and wondered what to do. She hadn't improved her position. She couldn't go back to her car which was her only salvation. Walking in this wilderness was impossible, and besides, she didn't even know where she was. Her impulsive act had left her worse off than before if that were possible.
The soaking rain both chilled and numbed her. She glanced despairingly about for a drier spot. There was none. What could be worse than this, she thought miserably? Skulking in the wet mud like a hunted animal. But she shivered anew at the thought of becoming a captured animal.
And then it happened. Carl rounded a five-foot-high brushy tangle and stood almost on top of her. Linda screamed as she tried to force her quivering legs to propel her upright so that she could run again. She never got out of her tracks. Carl was upon her in two jumps and seized her right arm. "Fuckin' bitch!" he rasped, and punched her in the belly.
A searing pain scorched Linda's lungs as she doubled up from the force of the blow. Mousie burst through the wet grass and gripped her other arm. "Hey, guys!" his piping voice soared through the rain. "We got her! We got her! Allee allee in free!" He grabbed at Carl's arm when that worthy would have swung at Linda again. "Hey!" the younger boy said anxiously. "You wanna bust her all up before we have our fun?"
Carl's arm dropped reluctantly to his side. "Let's get her to the cabin," he said sourly. "We ought to be able to think up somethin' choice for that smart ass of hers."
With a boy on either arm, they half-led, half-dragged Linda to the cabin. The breath had been driven so forcefully from her lungs by Carl's vicious punch that she couldn't have made it without the boys' support on either side of her. Charlie and Edmondo met them in front of the cabin after Carl and Mousie had lugged her up the path. Cold, wet, exhausted, and battered, Linda numbly awaited her fate, at that particular instant so low in spirit she felt no immediate alarm.
Charlie recognized her condition. "She's damn near done in," he said. "We got to give her a breathin' spell. Get her inside."
Edmondo unlocked the padlock on the cabin door and they trooped inside. The air was dank and chill. Carl flung Linda in the general direction of an old rocking chair. She fell into it heavily and it skidded backward from her weight, nearly overbalancing. Linda closed her eyes with a stifled sob. Her bosom heaved as she still strained for the breath driven from her body.
"Who's got a match?" Carl asked. "I don't give a damn if her ass freezes but I think a little better of mine."
Edmondo produced a book of matches, and Carl took them and knelt in front of a wide stone fireplace where he touched a lighted match to the newspaper under a previously laid cross-hatching of logs. The tiny dancing flame burst across the wadded paper and ate into dry bark, immediately expanding with a roaring sound as the fire flourished in a strong updraft.
Linda opened her eyes again at the sound of the crackling logs. The boys stood in front of the fire, staring at her. Slumped loosely in her rocker, Linda stared back. Her drenched clothing clung to her body curves. A wavelet of comforting heat drifted from the fireplace in her direction. She could see steam rising from the wet clothes of the boys.
The interior of the cabin was one large open room. It was sparsely furnished, but there was a full-sized bed in one corner. Linda looked at it, then looked away. The sheet on it was gray with grime, and on its center there was visible some dried-looking splashes which brought a touch of color to Linda's pale cheeks. The air in the cabin was growing rapidly warmer, and Linda's sense of fear was renewing itself in direct proportion to the lessening of her discomfort.
It was Carl who broke the silence which had persisted since the move inside the cabin. "Ain't we a bunch of drowned rats?" he said bitterly. He lifted a foot and looked at a muddy shoe. "I'll have to throw these away for sure." He glared malevolently at Linda in the rocker. "An' all because of her. I move we take it out've her ass."
"I agree," Edmondo said with more force than usual. The dark-skinned boy was looking with disgust at the sodden ruin of what had been an elegantly-cut jacket. "I will go out and cut a switch." He extended his little finger to indicate the thickness of the switch. "When she feels the blood from her behind running down the backs of her legs she will not be so quick to run the next time."
Linda sat rigid.
"Now wait a minute," Mousie broke in. "Are we gonna rip up her ass before we're done with it?"
"The kid's got a point," Charlie said. "Cut your switch, Edmondo, but save it for later." He began to unbutton his shirt. "It's warm enough in here now. I'm gonna get out've these wet things."
They all began to undress. Linda sat in the rocker and watched while her heart began a slow, heavy pounding that made her left bosom ache. The closer the boys came to nudity the closer she came to the moment she had been desperately trying to avoid thinking about. Thighs clenched tightly, she forced herself to look away from the strip-tease taking place in front of her. She stared down at the muddy ruin of her own shoes, and the splashes of drying mud on her stockings which reached halfway up her calves.
But a force stronger than her willpower made her look up again."
Charlie was naked, the blond hair on his powerful body bronzed in the firelight. He picked up the book of matches which Carl had left on the rough-plank mantel above the fireplace and walked around the cabin, lighting three candles jammed into wine bottles and two kerosene lamps hanging from ceiling hooks. More and more light flooded the room as he progressed.
Mousie was prancing nude in the center of the room, his slender dingus flying up and down as he wrapped his arms around himself. Edmondo's swarthy body gleamed in the firelight as he removed the last of his wet clothing. Only Carl retained what appeared to be the same pair of dirty-looking shorts that Linda had seen previously.
"Hey. Guys, know what?" Mousie said suddenly. He pointed at Linda. "We could make her run the gauntlet. You know, ass bare while she crawls between our legs." He bowed his own legs to demonstrate his meaning. He flailed the air in front of him with both palms, knee-high. "She'd ketch enough getting through the lineup that she'd pray for a better world, but she wouldn't be spoiled for anything we wanted to do afterward. An' it'd really warm her up an' get her in the mood," he went on eagerly. "How about it, guys?"
There was a short silence as four minds envisioned the projected scene.
Five, counting Linda's.
Her right hand rose and clutched at her bosom with nervous trepidation.
"I like it," Charlie said. He crooked a finger at Linda. "You. Strip. Like right now."
Linda felt flustered as her disquietude mounted. She dared not remain in the chair. She rose unsteadily, her perturbed breathing loud in her own ears. What could she say that would stay them from the performance of this additional humiliation upon her? She sought in vain for words as she pulled her saturated dress off over her head. They were angry with her. Better not to make them angrier. Could it be so bad, really? She bit her lip, picturing her exposure. But she would scramble through their legs quickly and end it.
She pulled her slip free from where it clung to her wet flesh and removed it. Suddenly anxious not to prolong the ribald scene, she unfastened her bra and tossed it aside. In deference to her tamponed condition she had worn no panty-girdle; she stripped the sodden panties from her middle and let them collapse around her ankles.
Mousie had taken up a station in the center of the room, facing Linda. Behind him was Carl, then Edmondo, then Charlie. All were grinning, but Mousie's boyish grin was gradually replaced by a look of puzzlement. He pointed to a white thread-like object dangling against Linda's bare thigh just above the stocking-top held in place by an elastic garter. "What the hell's that thing?" the boy demanded.
"That's the string she uses to pull the tampon out've herself when she's finished with it," Charlie explained.
"Oh." Mousie giggled. "Hell of a note if she couldn't get it out sometime, huh?" He shook his head wonderingly. "I never seen one before."
"Okay," Charlie said. "Hands and knees, sugar. Lay it on her, guys. I didn't care for that prowlin' in the rain."
Linda sought for saliva in her dry mouth as she swallowed twice. She looked down at the rough board flooring, then stooped and rolled her stockings down below her knees. Foolish to try to keep them from snagging, but the move was instinctive. She took a deep breath and eased herself down awkwardly onto her hands and knees in front of the bowed-leg Mousie. The position plumped out her heavy hind cheeks until all she could think of was a crepe-paper fold-out section in a greeting card.
"N-now?" she asked tremulously.
"Roll it," Charlie said.
Linda advanced on hands and knees toward Mousie's widened legs above which his slender prick danced lightly. The floor was rough and hurt her knees. She lined herself up accurately and bolted forward between Mousie's legs. The boy shouted gleefully and clamped her waist with his thighs while his two hard-swinging hands went spat-spat-spat-spat-spat-spat on Linda's still-wet bottom. She gasped at the surprising pain, twisted right, then left, but couldn't dislodge the clinging Mousie who spanked steadily at Linda's squirming rear.
Desperately Linda flung herself flat upon the floor, escaping Mousie's thigh-grip but not the hail of spanks which the boy leaned down to apply to her flattened-out behind. On her belly Linda squirmed frantically along the floor and finally passed out of reach of those tormenting, bottom-smarting palms.
"Not bad, Mousie," Charlie said. "Take it from there, Carl."
Shakily Linda rose to hands and knees again in front of Carl who narrowed his leg-stance in obvious emulation of Mousie. Carl spat deliberately on the palm of each hand and rubbed them together briskly. Linda was breathing heavily. Her knees hurt, and her stomach was covered with dirt from her belly-scrabbling progress through Mousie's legs.
She hesitated in front of Carl.
"Roll it," she heard Charlie's inexorable voice. "No stalling."
Blindly Linda started forward again.