Chapter 11
After the horror movies had ended, I joined the stream of men and girls making for the fresh, healthy outdoors.
Where I was promptly jumped by a pair of lusty males. I was naturally a bit nervous at first, having just watched three girls murdered for kicks on the silver screen, but it was okay. All they wanted was sex, which I was happy to supply.
After that I drifted over to a big beach bonfire, where I had a few hot dogs-and got sexed a few more times, very pleasantly-and swigged a few drinks.
Meanwhile, I thought a bit about the mental attitudes of people who get a charge from watching sexy-looking girls get killed, even if only in movies. People like that were sick, T decided. Sick in their approach to sex. I mean, everybody thinks at times about chopping up a member of the opposite sex, but just for mental exercise, more or less. Actually doing so-or watching people do so on the screen-was something else again. I mean you can daydream about winning a war singlehanded, but that doesn't mean you open fire on your neighbors with a machine gun for laughs.
While I was thinking this-and being used in various clever ways by lusty males-I noticed Jane and her husband strolling nearby. They seemed to be arguing. After a bit Jane shrugged her shoulders and nodded.
I didn't think much about it at the time. Not, in fact, until I was lying on a dark stretch of sand being loved up by a virile young man who was too drunk to know when to quit. While he was working away, and I was enjoying his efforts (which went on and on) I noticed two shadowy figures.
One, I realized, was Jane. The other was the ferret-like man who'd delivered the horror movies.
I heard Jane say, "But it isn't right, I tell you! She doesn't deserve such a fate!"
The ferret-faced man chuckled. "Don't be a sentimentalist. So my employers wreck her. So what? There are plenty more like her, right?"
And I heard Jane say, "True, but I've grown quite fond of her. She's almost like a-a person to me. I'd hate to think of her being ripped apart."
I smiled. Jane had mentioned that she and her husband owned a sloop. Obviously she was about to sell it to a wrecking yard, and felt bad about it. I felt warm toward her all of a sudden. Anybody who feels strongly about a boat can't be all bad, or so I'd been taught in Denaquid, Maine.
I heard Jane say, "Well, if you insist. But I won't take less than two thousand."
"Fifteen hundred is the most I can offer," I heard the ferret-faced man reply.
They settled on seventeen hundred.
About then the guy I was with got his kicks-I was too bushed to be really in the game-and he rolled away and crawled off in search of a drink. A moment after I heard Jane call, "Sharon? Where are you, Sharon, child?"
"Here," I said, waving an arm-which held a beer can.
Jane and the little man walked over and stared down at me. "A bit drunk, eh?" said Jane, sadly.
"Not at all," I said drunkenly. "Too bad about your sloop, Jane. But don't get sentimental. If you can sell her for a good price, sell her. Who cares what becomes of her? Get the cash, is my motto."
In the moonlight I could see Jane and her friend exchange glances.
"You heard me ... talking prices?" she said.
"Right," I said. "Going to sell your boat, eh? Well sell her, Jane; get some dough. What do you care what happens to her? Let them smash her to pieces. So what? Most likely she'd sink anyhow, if she's rotten-and you wouldn't get a penny, unless you had her insured."
"How true," murmured Jane. "Only we weren't discussing our boat but a-a person."
Well! I may not be incredibly clever, but even half drunk I can catch the drift of a conversation. If Jane hadn't been talking about selling a boat, then she was fixing to sell me!
I wriggled, in a frantic attempt to turn over and make tracks, but before I could even get off my back, the ferret-faced guy-whose cruel eyes I could see gleaming in the moonlight-thrust out a foot and stomped on my belly.
I said oof; and writhed a bit in agony while he stomped on me a few more times, which left me in kind of a daze.
"Don't kill her!" said Jane.
"I won't," laughed the ferret-faced man. "I just quieted her down a bit. Convinced now? She advised you to sell. Like she said, what should you care? Seventeen hundred?"
"Done," said Jane. And the next thing T knew, the guy stooped low over me, inventoried me quickly with his eyes, and then, with a sadistic smile, clipped me under the chin. And I blacked out.
When I came to, I was lying in a kind of coffin, inside a big truck, I guessed. My hands and feet were tied and there was a gag in my mouth. I struggled real hard, but all that happened, I passed out again.
The next thing I knew I was coming awake, slowly, in a big shed. Again I was on my back, and again-or still-my hands and feet were tied. But this time I didn't pass put, and I could look around.
I was in this huge, barn-like building. In fact it was a barn. And on either side of me lay other girls, naked like I was. Four on my right, five on my left. Ten in all, including me.
I heard a noise and twisted my head around. A girl was stalking toward me. And what a strange girl! She was mostly nude, except for shiny black leather boots that came halfway up her calves, a wide, shiny black leather belt, black leather gloves and a black leather choker around her neck.
Her hair was long and blonde, and she wore it in a pony-tail tied with shiny black ribbons.
When she saw me looking at her she smiled-a twisted sort of smile-and reached behind her back. She must have had a sheath strapped to the belt, because when her hand reappeared it was holding a black-handled knife. The blade was long, and looked razor-sharp.
Gulp, I thought.
But it was all right. All she did was cut the ropes that were holding my ankles and wrists. ""Better get the circulation flowing again," she told me while she cut the ropes binding the other girls, all of whom were still unconscious. "No sense in getting gangrene."
"Who-who are you?" I said while I rubbed my hands, which were just about numb. "Where am I?"
She sighed, slid her black-handled knife back into the sheath behind her back, slung one naked hip onto a big table nearby, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke at me thoughtfully.
"Always the same questions," she said. " 'Who are you-where am I?' Just once I'd like some chick to come to and say 'What did you think of Fellini's last film?' or 'You think ontogeny really recapitulates phylogeny?' But no. It's always 'Who are you-where am I?' But then, life is just a succession of predictable events, isn't it?"
"I haven't found it so," I said, rubbing my ankles and feet. "And if you told people who you were and where they were right off, they wouldn't have to ask."
"Very true," she said, puffing more smoke at me. "Me, they call me Leopard Shark-but that's kind of a stage name, of course. As to where we are, why, way out West, that's where. Wyoming, perhaps, or Utah or Nevada. Some place like that."
She wriggled her neck, then unfastened her black leather choker collar and laid it aside. "Damn thing bugs me," she said. "Where were we? Oh, yes. It's nice country outside-this is a ranch, in case you haven't guessed. But dry. Awful dry. Used to be good cattle country way back, but then they brought in sheep, and the sheep stripped the ground cover and the land never came back. That's why they were able to buy a huge ranch like this so cheap."
"They," I said, "must be the people you work for, huh? The people that had me and these other girls brought here, right?" Leopard Shark nodded, lit another cigarette.
In case you wonder how come I was acting so cool and making small talk and all, I'll tell you. I had A Plan. Right near the blonde girl who called herself Leopard Shark was a big brown beer bottle. What I figured on doing, once the pins and needles left my legs, was waiting until she looked away, and then grabbing that bottle and bashing her over the head. After which I would make tracks.
"These people," I said. "They're a bunch of rich sex nuts who bought this remote ranch so they could do horrible things to young girls like me, huh?"
Leopard Shark smiled. "I see you read lurid popular fiction. But yes, your surmise is substantially correct. Lurid popular fiction is usually based-more or less-upon possible, probable or actual events. They call this the C-B-C Ranch. The nearest neighbor-a rancher fifty miles away-thinks that stands for the Circle-Bar-C. It doesn't. It stands for the Countess of Bergina Club. Ever read about the infamous Countess?"
I shook my head, measuring the distance to the beer bottle.
"She lived in Hungary or some such place, back in the fifteenth century. Back then, if you lived in a castle you could do pretty much what you felt like to the peasants. What the Countess liked was to torture girls. A scream of agony was music to her ears, they say. Before they brought her to trial, she did away with over four hundred girls."
"And that's her picture?" I said, pointing.
"Huh?" said Leopard Shark, turning her head.
Whooshl I was off the floor and leaping toward the beer bottle. Leopard Shark whirled, slid off the table while reaching for her knife-too late. I broke the bottle right over her blonde head. What a satisfaction!
But right then I heard something that made my blood run cold: her amused laugh. And at the same instant I felt something that made my blood positively congeal: the point of her razor-sharp knife prodding me low in the belly.
There we stood, me holding the neck of the broken beer bottle, she standing sideways so I couldn't knee her, and smiling at me while she pressed the knife against my belly.
"Relax," she said. "Move a few feet away."
I did as she suggested. "Forgive my little pranks," she said, sheathing the knife again. "Things get so dull around here at night. The ranch gets poor TV reception, and all you can get on radio is rock and roll, which I detest."
I gaped at her. Why wasn't she dead-or unconscious, anyway?
"That bottle," she said with a laugh, "was made of hard sugar. It's the kind they use for movie fight scenes. I thought you showed spunk, and I was curious to see how you'd make your play. You did well. Very fast."
"Thank you," I said, sitting down on the table a few feet from her. "That was the straight dope about this ranch being owned by a bunch of rich sex maniacs?"
"Yes," she said, "although maniac is perhaps too strong a word. Lots of people have sado-masochistic tendencies. Only the fabulously rich, however, can afford to indulge them. Not, of course, that any real harm will come to you-or these other pigs," she gestured to the nine other girls, who were still unconscious.
"I don't believe you," I said. "I've seen movies of what horrible sadists do to helpless girls. I think you and the maniacs you work for are going to kill us all. Horribly."
Leopard Shark sighed, lit two cigarettes and passed me one. I thought about grabbing her wrist and all, but I didn't. Most likely she knew judo and karate and so forth. And she had that knife.
"Since you're a smart girl," she said, "I won't try to lie to you. Yes, most of these chickens are destined to end up fertilizing the rose garden. Nine out of ten, in fact."
"And the tenth?" I said.
"The tenth girl-the one who shows the most courage and endurance-will be given first aid, drugged, shipped to a remote city and released. She'll wake up in some motel room-safe, and with ten thousand dollars in small bits as recompense for her ordeal. Theoretically, the club members decide which girl gets the nod," she added, lowering her voice and glancing at the other naked girls, all still out cold. "But off the record, I-as chief, heh, heh, ringmaster of this novel circus-can stage things my way.
"And, since I've taken rather a fancy to you, I can tell you right now that you are likely to be the lucky girl.
Well! Well, I didn't believe her, of course.
"Doubtless you don't believe me-now," she continued. "But I can assure you I speak the truth. After all, the idea makes sense, at least according to the twisted psychology of my employers. If you girls thought you were all doomed, you wouldn't struggle frantically to stay alive. And it's the frantic struggle, as much as the pain inflicted, that gives the members their kicks.
"Tell a girl she has a chance-even one chance in ten-of staying alive and earning ten thousand dollars, and she will retain her will to live. And provide more amusing sport for the club members."
No doubt. But promising a girl something and making good on the promise were two quite different things, I knew. The only thing that would save me, I decided, was to get out as quick as I could.
To stall for time, I said, "How come a well-educated girl like you is working in a place like this?"
Leopard Shark laughed. "For money, of course. A job's a job. And this job pays five thousand dollars a week. I've been here less than a year, and I have over two hundred thousand dollars in the bank. I know: you're going to ask me if I don't hate myself, doing the things I do once a month every month. Well, yes; but lots of people hate the things they have to do to earn big money.
"Why, I know a girl who works for an ad agency writing hard-sell copy for cigarette companies. She's good at her job, which means she's sold billions of cigarettes to former non-smokers. Perhaps a hundred, perhaps a thousand people will eventually die of lung cancer or heart disease thanks to her labors; Does it worry her? Sure. But as she once told me, if she didn't do the job someone else would. I feel the same way."
What a bestial if all-too-common attitude, I thought. Obviously an appeal to Leopard Shark's better nature would be wasted; she didn't have a better nature. I'd have to use psychology.
"Your job is setting up girls as clay pigeons for a bunch of rich sex nuts, huh?" I said. "Well, what makes you think they'll ever let you quit-alive? They'll kill you too, to protect themselves."
"A remote hazard," scoffed the blonde. "In the first place, I'd be hard to replace. Girls like me young, beautiful, amoral and skilled in the use of knives, guns, crossbows and whips and willing to use such knowledge on human targets-are hard to come by. Not very hard, but hard.
"And why should they kill me? Could I send them to the gas chamber without going with them? And what could I prove? They cover their tracks well. This ranch has been open almost a year, and nobody even suspects what goes on here. At the end of the year, just to be on the safe side, the place will be closed and sold, and a new sporting ground will be opened. Perhaps on some remote island in the West Indies, perhaps deep in the Canadian wilds."
"And you'll help open the new place?" I asked.
"Maybe. If I sign up for another year, which I probably will, after a few months' vacation. No, my job and my life are both safe. And in many ways it's a fine job. The club only meets once a month; I arrive here a few days early, to get things ready, and stay a few days afterward to tidy up. A week's work a month, at twenty grand a month plus. Wouldn't you like a job like that?"
"I decline to answer," I said, "until I've thought about it a bit. Uh, how do you get your victims?"
She shrugged. "That's not my line. All I know is that a syndicate delivers ten girls a month, at ten thousand dollars a girl. The girls are young, shapely, and guaranteed impossible to trace."
"But wouldn't they be missed?" I asked, still stalling for time
"Pooh. In a country of two hundred million, who'll miss ten teen-age girls a month? Will you be missed?"
She was right. I wouldn't be missed. That is, I was already listed as missing. Nobody would ever think to look for me in a barn on a remote ranch way out West. There was only one thing to do, and I did it. I jumped off the table and began running like crazy toward the nearest door, about a hundred feet away. Maybe Leopard Shark would throw her knife at me or something, but it was a chance I'd have to take.
She didn't throw her knife. But before I'd gone thirty feet I heard her chuckle, and then I heard a pjui sound, like someone had fired an air pistol, and at the same instant I felt something sting my left buttock.
"Might as well stop right now, little girl," I heard the blonde fiend say. "That was a tranquilizing dart you just felt. You won't get five paces."
But she was wrong. I ran six paces before everything went black and I fell forward.
I came to-partially and briefly-some time later. I was too groggy to move or even open ray eyes, but I could hear. And what I heard was Leopard Shark talking, to another girl, no doubt. She was saying "And, because I admire your spunk, you will be the girl to escape alive and get the ten thousand dollar?" I opened my mouth to yell, "Don't believe her; she told me the same thing!" But the mere effort of trying to open my mouth made me pass out again.
When I came to the next time, I was chained to a heavy wooden chair. On either side of me were the other girls, also still naked, also chained to heavy wooden chairs. I had a nasty feeling that the horrible part of my latest adventure was about to begin.
And I was right.