Copycat

Ch. 1

Abby didn’t even realize how late it was until her roommate returned and flicked on the lights. She winced at the sudden glare in the room. “That’ll hurt your eyes,” Tina said.

“The light hurts my eyes,” Abby complained, rubbing them. “How was practice?”

“Fine. The ankle’s feeling better now,” Tina said. She looked over Abby’s shoulder to the computer screen and frowned. “Ugh, how can you do this day after day without a break? Did you even have supper?”

“Like the dining hall is more appetizing than crime scene photos,” Abbey replied. She picked up a bag of Goldfish crackers. “Here’s supper.”

Tina looked closer at the screen. “These are the same pictures you were looking at last week.”

“I think I’ve found a good case for my Crimes Journalism class,” Abby replied. Tina made a face again. “Ever hear of the Bambi Murders? They were about ten years ago.”

“Vaguely. Something in California?”

“It was in the mountain west, in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.”

“Are you going to give me the whole America’s Most Wanted narrative?”

“Nine women were murdered over a period of about two years. Their bodies were found nude and unburied in remote parts of the states. All showed signs of brutal rape, but the injuries to their bodies were also indicative of having been naked and outdoors for some length of time. All but one died from gunshot wounds, with one having fallen from a great height.”

“I have a feeling there’s more,” Tina said.

“There was also a single survivor, a Brenda Atkins, who reported being abducted, stripped naked by her captor, and then hunted in the wild like an animal. She reported that her kidnapper used a tranquilizer gun for the first round of hunting and a rifle for the second round. During her second round she made it to safety when she came across a small group of National Guardsmen.”

“Lucky her,” Tina said.

“Yeah. Tell me about it. She gave a description to the police, and two days later they attempted to arrest a certain Bret Hawkins at his home. They found him dead by suicide. Shotgun to the head, you see.”

“Okay, that’s properly gruesome and it’s got naked white girls in it. Sounds like a hit story.”

“That’s just the story that’s been told. I don’t think the police investigated everything. For instance, Brenda Atkins reported in the hospital a vague mention of Hawkins holding a brief conversation with another man, and commenting that they both went up there a lot. Is it possible that there were two perpetrators? Since Brenda was currently staked out to the ground being tortured, it seems that a casual conversation in the camp could only be with someone familiar with his actions.”

“So why didn’t the police investigate?”

“Well, her story wasn’t consistent. The next day she said the conversation was with a woman about a man. And she didn’t actually see anyone, only heard voices. As she recovered her memories grew hazy and inconclusive. They couldn’t get reliable information about it. And autopsies on all the bodies they found were consistent with a single M.O.”

“So maybe the police are right.”

“Maybe. But also consider this – the last victim killed was Leslie Parker, a receptionist from Taos, New Mexico. The coroner put her time of death at roughly the same time that Brenda Atkins was escaping. It seems kind of likely to me that a second man was hunting Leslie Parker at the same time Bret Hawkins was hunting Brenda Atkins, and somehow their paths briefly crossed, probably by dumb luck.”

“Okay, so why didn’t police think of that?”

“They considered it but ruled it out. Leslie’s body was too badly damaged by scavengers to be conclusive about time of death. Without more evidence they didn’t have an investigation. And a decade has gone by without a new case.”

“So now you want to investigate?”

“Maybe it’s nothing, but it’ll make a terrific project.”

“Well, have fun with it,” Tina said.

Ch 2.

Despite her disinterest, Tina ended up following the investigation as much as Abby did, since the two friends spoke often, lived in the same dorm room, and couldn’t help but trip over each other’s projects. The story held a grim fascination – partly, each girl admitted in the privacy of her own thoughts, because of the nudity. Stories have been written about people hunting people. It may have even happened. Women were murdered often enough, often after rape. Someplace there were probably men shooting paintballs at naked women. But no real case brought out the primal sexuality of being a naked prey in a vicious killer’s hunt.

Thus, Tina was almost disappointed when Abby planned her trip from Tucson up to Denver to do some primary research in the news archives and to visit one or two sites where the killings had occurred. Naturally Tina knew the itinerary and had Abby’s cell number to reach her, but she realized she would miss hearing up-to-date leads for the next week or so.

Abby had no such worries as she took the short flight to Colorado. She had a long list of people to talk to. Police detectives, reporters, FBI, a few victims’ families, park rangers, land owners – the list went on. There was no shortage of local knowledge to tap. She had barely touched down when her cell rang. Tina had taken a land line call from a former reporter of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News about a change in meeting time.

“I thought maybe you were out beyond cell service range,” Tina said.

“No, silly, I’ve just landed. No phone calls during the flight, remember?”

“Okay, okay. Anyway, I’ll keep you up to date if anyone else calls.”

The next two days were a tiring and emotionally draining whirlwind of interviews. Worst were with the family members, though the police crime photos were fairly unpleasant. She’d tried but failed to arrange a talk with Brenda Atkins, who lived in Boulder now. Otherwise, she had a fairly good list of contacts and activities planned. She met with detective Frank Russell of the Colorado state police. Agent Ben Cross with the FBI field office mostly repeated what she’d heard. Two family members, related to Janie Anderson and Valerie Salazar respectively, spoke to her briefly.

It was a relief to just sit in a helicopter with her thoughts for a while. It was a lucky break, not having to drive all the way and then hike. The pilot, T. J. Stone, had aided the state police at the time of the crimes and knew where to take her. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said to him.

“If you can find out something new, something nobody else ever figured out, that’ll be thanks enough.”

“What if I can’t?” she asked.

Stone shrugged. “I didn’t have any charters this month anyway.”

Abby looked out the windows at the quickly passing landscape. “Any cell service out here?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. Not for the last thirty miles or so. May as well turn it off.”

Thirty miles, such a short time by helicopter, proved longer than Abby would realize for a short time. Back in Tucson, Tina was desperately trying to connect a call. She had Abby’s entire trip plan laid out in front of her on Abby’s desk, including all the contacts and background information on the contacts. But just five minutes before, she’d received a land line call for Abby with background information on a bush pilot named T. J. Stone, whose full name was Travis Jonathon Stone, but had been born Travis Jonathon Hawkins, brother to the dead murderer Bret Hawkins.

Ch. 3

“How much longer is it to the Carla Upton site?” Abby asked.

“It’s about a hundred fifty miles behind us,” Stone replied. “You said you wanted to work from the outermost one in.”

“No, I, well, never mind. The order doesn’t matter. I wish I could see them all, but I don’t have the time or money to cover three states.”

“There’s not a huge difference among them.”

“How much longer is it?” she asked.

“It’s a bit of a flight,” Stone replied. “We’ll have to refuel on the way. Catch some z’s if you want.”

“Thanks,” Abby replied, but she wanted to watch the scenery. Even so, her fatigue from the last few days was intense, and she found herself dozing a bit. She woke up briefly during the refueling, but otherwise found the dull roar of the machine to be quite soothing. She was simply relieved that she hadn’t had to drive the distance, knowing how far it really was. She settled her head against the window to nap, with only a tiny sting, probably from an insect, disturbing her late morning slumber.

Waking came slowly for Abby. She’d been resting so soundly that she didn’t want to stop. But she realized from the silence that they must have landed. She was wasting time. She opened her eyes quickly and sat bolt upright from her prone position. Her mind registered several startling facts almost simultaneously, but their full meaning did not sink in for a few moments. She was alone, lying in a field. There was nobody around her anywhere. There was nothing at all around her except wilderness. She didn’t recognize anything, from life or from pictures she’d been studying.

She was naked, stripped from top to bottom of every last man-made item she had. Her muscles felt sore and her head hurt a bit. It was like being a girl from the Bambi murders. And in that moment of clarity it hit her. It was exactly like the scenario in the Bambi murders. Down to every detail she knew about. She jumped to her feet, looking around frantically for some sign that she wasn’t really in trouble. Anything that could help her.

“Oh no,” she gasped. “No!” she cried, louder, as her jaw began to tremble. Her heart was fluttering as it tried to race, and her belly was turning over. It couldn’t be true. It was supposed to be over now. It couldn’t be happening to her!

“Please!” she whimpered, though no one could possibly hear her. “Don’t do this!” she shrieked, looking around desperately. “Please!”

As she spun around in a panic, she realized at last that she was not technically naked after all. Something was stuck in her hair. She pulled it off and found a post-it note. “You know what. Lose the first round to learn why. I am watching you right now. You have two minutes to run.”

She let out a long, terrified shriek of terror, dropping the note and fleeing from the spot in a desperate attempt to get away from him. She went down hill, praying that he wasn’t down there. The ground bit lightly into her bare feet and the tall grass brushed over her legs. This, she realized, was the meaning of naked terror. It was the most vulnerable, exposing, degrading feeling imaginable. It meant that the danger to her life was partly overcome by the desperate, frantic craving to protect herself with some kind of covering. Anything at all, but nothing was there for her. It was the primal horror that all the girls before her had suffered. But they may not have known for sure what faced them. Abby did.

Everywhere she looked she imagined him waiting for her. Waiting to shoot her, perhaps first to knock her out, but eventually to murder her. What chance did she have, alone, lost, nude in the wild? Leslie Parker and Olivia Garland had been runners. Olivia Garland had even been a cross country athlete in college. Neither survived. Abby rarely exercised. Annette Martin vanished while camping and was raped and killed. Abby never went out into the wild. What chance could she have where better girls had failed?

It didn’t take long for her to lose her breath and have to slow down. The realization that she was a soft, slow prey just made her need to cry. She was truly hopeless out there, just a naked animal. It was a hot day and she was already starting to sweat. Her mouth was dry, and she didn’t see a river or brook or any way to get water. She continued to stagger forward in a panic, hoping against hope he couldn’t track her.

Ch. 4

Far away, Tina was in a near panic herself, not for her own life but for Abby’s. Repeated calls to the authorities in Denver had gotten nowhere. It was as if no one cared that Abby was in the clutches of the killer’s own brother now. She had finally bought a plane ticket to talk to them herself, in person. It cost her a good portion of her savings for the purchase, but she saw no other choice. She had all the contact information that Abby had left. She knew exactly who to see.

She hadn’t counted on being ignored in person. The Denver police hadn’t even commented to her, since she was very obviously not a relative of Abby’s. The feds were equally mute. Only talking to the reporter had shed any light on the government’s reticence. “T. J. Stone was T. J. Hawkins? Everyone knows that,” he said from his home office where Tina had met him.

“What? How?”

“It wasn’t a secret. Look, T. J. was looked into, questioned, and it all came to nothing. He even received a commendation during the initial search and rescue phase of the Bambi murders for his help in bush piloting around the region.”

“So why the name change?”

“Publicity. It’s hard being related to the devil, you know.”

“Oh. I’d still feel better if I could get in touch with Abby, though.”

“Good luck. None of the sites around here have cell phone coverage.”

“I know where she was going. Could I arrange another trip?”

“Sure, it’s public land. You don’t need permission. Just a way of getting in.”

“Oh.” Tina thought about her depleted bank account and wondered if maybe it wasn’t worth it anymore.

“Look, maybe I can help you out. I know a woman, Jeanette Wright. She’s a local pilot, and her cousin was one of the victims, Patty Niggel. She might be willing to fly you in for cheap. I can give you her number.”

“That would be great!” Tina said. An hour later she was in a dingy hanger on the edge of a municipal airfield.

“They checked T. J. Stone. They said he was clean. Hell, I know the guy, a bit,” Jeanette said. “But if you think maybe something’s wrong, it can’t hurt to look. I wish someone had checked on Patty once more.”

Jeanette flew a small Cessna 172 rather than a helicopter, making Tina a bit worried. Jeanette assured her that it was built for landing in open fields, of which there were plenty in the region. With Tina’s map of the murder sites in hand they headed out.

“She didn’t say which order they would be visiting in, did she?” Jeanette asked.

“I think in order by distance, but I’m not certain,” Tina replied.

“We’ll just fly over them all,” Jeanette said. Tina sat back for the long trip. Hours later she was worried again. They hadn’t seen any sign of a helicopter or of Abby. Jeanette was frowning. “He should have landed in the largest open spaces available,” she said.

“Could he have taken her someplace else after kidnapping her?” Tina asked.

“We don’t know that. But...” Her voice trailed off.

“What is it?”

“I’ve been in the hanger he uses on occasion. There’s always been a bunch of charts on the wall. Some spot up north in Wyoming.”

“Is it one of the murder sites?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well can you fly us there?”

“It can’t hurt,” Jeanette said. She steered for a new course taking them north and out of the state.

Ch. 5

The more Abby ran the more frightened she became. As her body began to sweat hard she realized something more disturbing still. The sun was still rising in the sky. During the ride it was already early afternoon. How long had she been unconscious?

She didn’t have time to ponder the question. She didn’t dare stop, but she didn’t know where she was going. The land was a mixture of fields and woodland. It wasn’t hard to move through it except that the rough ground was hard on her bare feet. It was with great relief that she came across a fairly wide, rocky stream. She paused to take a long drink of water and think. If he was tracking her, then water would have to be the best way to lose him. But four of the murdered girls had been found very near or in rivers or streams. He had to be expecting it. She looked around in desperation. He could be anywhere.

Straight ahead was higher ground, and maybe seeing him coming would be her only hope of salvation. She hopped over the slippery rocks, pausing only once when, with a great cry of fear, she slipped and fell on her side, banging her hips and ribs on the wet stones. She sobbed a bit, trying to control herself, as she crawled from the water and got to her feet to continue the flight.

She had a slight limp as she frantically scrambled up the hillside. The grass was dry and tan, possibly camouflaging her presence on the hillside, but she still tried to stay close to trees and brush anyway. She was soon badly winded but continued even at a slow pace. Higher ground felt safe. She could see a long distance as she went higher. She saw no sign of Stone anywhere. That didn’t mean he wasn’t around. He could be watching her. He could be taking aim.

The thought of his shooting her spurred her onward. She realized that to get out of the area she would have to go through a pass between two higher, steeper peaks. He could be waiting, but only if he were in front of her. There was enough woodland cover to conceal her. Sweating and gasping for breath she continued on. She hadn’t realized how high she’d gotten. She was moving along the side of the slope more than directly up it, but was still starting to maybe stand out, a lone nude female amidst the grass and trees.

She was reaching a narrower section when she stopped and her blood froze. On a tree thirty feet in front of her was a post-it note. Abby was suddenly too scared to move at all, as if her motion would give away her permission to the hunter Stone. Her eyes darted furiously about, desperate to catch some glimpse of him. She hadn’t seen him since waking up.

Finally, with trembling legs she walked forward and took the paper off the tree to read. “Girls are slow and predictable. Bang!”

She let out a squeal of terror, just as she felt something whiz past her side and strike the tree. It was a dart. She screamed and turned back, fleeing down the hillside as fast as her legs would move. The dart had come from the right, but the way back down was gradually in the other direction. Screaming and bounding over the grassy, slightly rough landscape, Abby couldn’t help but trip over her feet and begin to fall sideways, down the steeper slope. Once she began she couldn’t stop herself.

She tumbled and fell, shrieking in terror as her naked body spun and bounced and collided with the ground, delivering scrapes and bruises. She couldn’t even see what was ahead, but there were trees around her and some larger exposed rocks. Her plummet lasted the better part of a minute before she rolled to a stop, dazed, cut up, and incoherent with shock at her wild tumble.

For some time she couldn’t will herself to move. She was too badly shaken, and her attempt to stand led only to her collapse again. She looked up and had enough presence of mind to realize that Stone was walking down the hillside towards her. He was keeping his eye on her progress. But her dizziness was still strong, and the pain in her leg, while not debilitating, added to her general inability to stand.

“No!” she cried as he drew close enough to see his face clearly. “No! Please!” She tried to crawl away, to no great effect. Closer and closer he got, leveling the dart gun at her. But he didn’t fire. Abby was still only slithering away across the bare ground like a wounded animal. He never needed to fire. He simply walked up to Abby and grabbed hold of her hair.

“Round one over, Abby,” he told her.

Ch. 6

“This is the area,” Jeanette said as they circled overhead. “I don’t see a helicopter. There’s not much of anything down there.”

Tina looked down as well. There was a whole lot of hunting space, she thought with a tremble of fear.

They circled around for twenty minutes but found nothing. Circling around the neighboring peaks likewise produced nothing. “I don’t think anyone is here,” Jeanette said. “There’s just no sign of anything.”

“I guess,” Tina reluctantly agreed. “Can we set down? I need to stretch out and that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, I could use a break too,” Jeanette replied. She headed for the nearest large field and brought her plane down for a smooth landing. On the ground, both women got out, and Tina made a run for the bushes. She then headed back to the plane.

“It sure is peaceful out here,” she said. “Someone could use it for murder.”

“I think the case is over. Your friend probably just changed her itinerary or something.”

“I guess. Maybe. Sorry to have dragged you out here.”

“Don’t worry. Like I said, I wish someone had cared enough for Patty to double check on her.”

Tina stopped and looked up. She heard something. In a minute she saw it. A helicopter was coming their way. “Look!” she said, pointing.

“That’s not T. J.’s,” Jeanette said. “That’s a government helicopter.”

“What’s it doing?”

“Coming to see us I’d say.” The chopper was indeed heading straight for them and decreasing altitude as it approached. The women watched as it landed a hundred yards away from them. A single man emerged.

“That’s special agent Cross,” Jeanette said. “Your friend must have met him, or will soon.”

“He’s on her meetings list,” Tina said as he walked over. “I met him earlier.”

“Good day, ladies,” he said.

“Hello, sir,” Tina replied. “What’s happening? What is it? Have you learned something about Abby?”

“No, not about Abby,” he said. “But I’ve learned something about the two of you.”

“Us? What?” Jeanette asked. In a flash, he pulled out a gun. Firing twice, he sent a dart into each woman’s abdomen. Tina gasped and felt herself growing dizzy. She saw Jeanette staggering. Her vision was growing blurred and she fell to her knees.

“I learned you both were here, butting in where you don’t belong,” he said. Tina could still hear and understand him plainly. Whatever drug was now coursing through her veins wasn’t knocking her out, but it was clearly disabling her. “I came to fix that,” he told them.

Tina fell face down to the ground, her body paralyzed but her mind still shrieking in sudden realization and terror. Her eyes were closed, but she could hear and feel everything. She heard the sound of clothes being torn, and soon felt and heard her own clothing ripped away from her body. Everything went. He flipped her onto her back, and her eyes came open. Cross was smiling down at her.

“I told Travis not to restart this game. Too dangerous. But he did, and now you’re both here, so I guess the game is on again, at least one more time.”

Tina breaths came in short, sharp gasps, but she otherwise had no control. Cross vanished from her sight for a bit. She could only stare up at the sky.

When he returned, Tina felt and heard the shackles going on her feet and on Jeanette’s. More went on her hands, locking them in front of her. Then she waited while her body slowly regained control of itself. She could move fingers and toes first, and the rest of her body followed suit in time. But Cross was sitting there on the tire of Jeanette’s plane, armed and waiting for them. With their chains on, neither girl could act. Even when they could move fully, the two sat sobbing on the ground, waiting for Cross’s next action.

It wasn’t long in coming. He had two shovels, which he tossed at them. “Start digging,” he told them. “It’s not a grave, per se, but make it look like one. And don’t keep me waiting,” he said, holding his pistol lovingly. “I might get bored and cut my losses.”

Terrified out of her wits, Tina dug alongside Jeanette. The heavy dirt was tough to dig into, but they managed to scoop away enough soil for a hole six feet deep and long, and three wide. They were both dripping with dirty sweat when he told them to stop. While they dug, he had produced two more items from the chopper. One looked like a low, extremely crude coffee table. It was just three planks nailed together like three sides of a coffin. That was how it looked to Tina. It was around four feet long and a foot deep. The other item was a length of plastic pipe, a few inches wide and more than six feet long, with a short bend on one end and two short bends on the other.

When the hole was dug, the two girls watched helplessly as Cross tossed their clothing into the hole and lit fire to it. Everything burned away in minutes. Now he turned the gun on Jeanette. He moved her handcuffs from the front to her back.

“Okay, fly girl, into the hole with you. Lie down. Darkie, you jump down there and put the cover over her, right up to her head.”

“Please! No!” Jeannette screamed. “Don’t bury me!”

Cross fired, sending a bullet grazing along her side, opening a cut several inches long. Hysterically, Jeanette sat on the side of the hole and jumped in. She lay down on her side, keeping the injured side up. Tina scrambled down with the cover and placed it over Jeanette’s upper body as instructed. She couldn’t get out without Cross’s help, but he pulled her free.

“Okay, darkie girl, get working. Bury her!”

Jeanette was still screaming, and Tina was terrified enough to refuse, except that now Cross held the pipe in the hole, with the singly bent end held to Jeanette’s face and the doubly bent end coming up out of the hole. It was an air tube.

Tina’s stomach was turning over and over as she tossed dirt down on the naked woman who had been kind enough to help her. It was easier to fill in the hole than to dig it out, even by herself. Cross only held the pipe until it was securely placed. Then he let go of it. His only other contribution was periodically stomping on the dirt to pack it down. Jeannette was lying underneath the wooden cover, letting her body move a little bit, but with her hands tied and her feet both tied and buried, she wouldn’t be getting out of the hole on her own. She could breathe, but her fate depended on someone digging her up. Tina could hear her screams from though the pipe, muted though they were. The pipe stuck up only a foot from the ground, so it would be impossible to see from the air or even from the ground unless someone was close by. It was below the level of the wild grass. Bent over twice, it couldn’t fill with rain water and drown Jeanette. It could only keep her alive until thirst took its toll.

It was very late afternoon and hot out when Tina finally finished the shoveling. She even had to replace the sod top, making the patch look almost natural. The extra dirt she scattered around with the shovel. She was drained physically and emotionally when it was over, but she was still chained, nude, and utterly at Cross’s mercy.

“How much did Abby tell you about her little case?” Cross asked.

“Everything. More than I wanted to know.”

“Good,” he said, handing her a canteen. She eagerly drank the cool water down. Then he unchained her. “So you know the drill. I’ll give you some practice rounds before the death round. I think you’ll get two practice rounds.”

“No, please! For god’s sake, don’t!”

“You’re the first non-white bitch. You should be honored. What the hell are you, anyway?”

“Filipina,” she replied with a trembling voice.

“Well, jungle girl, better remember your ancestry. You’re tired, so you get twenty minutes head start. Then I come after you.” He glanced at his watch. “The clock starts now, cunt.” Tina whimpered in ghastly horror and ran for her life to the nearest trees.

Ch. 7

Hanging upside down as she was, Abby’s terror led her to dry heave as her stomach tried to expel its nonexistent contents. Her legs were spread between two tree branches, and her hands were cuffed behind her back. Stone was there, naked as she was, but not at all helpless. His cock was standing up for her, but right now he was focusing on the belt he held in his right arm. Abby’s breaths came in short, jagged bursts as he casually waved the belt around in front of her. “You had to believe there were two killers, didn’t you?” he asked in a cold voice. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone. It wasn’t enough that cunts like you killed Bret. You had to come after me as well!”

“P-please!” she sobbed. Her plea was answered with a hard strike from his belt, swung with all his strength, landing on her widely exposed twat.

“You people hounded me after driving my brother to suicide. Made me change my name, but no matter. Didn’t do any good,” he snarled as Abby’s mind tried to comprehend what he was saying through her vaginal agony. He struck her again in the same spot on her cunt. Abby shrieked in agony, jerking her body about to try to get away.

“No, you could have left it at that!” he shouted, striking her pussy yet again. “Everyone could have gone on with life, but you couldn’t let it go!” Another strike. “None of your fucking business anyway!”

“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I’ll stop! I’ll leave! I won’t tell anyone!”

“Too fucking late!” he shouted, now thrashing her tits as she writhed and twisted to get out of the way. “Too fucking late for you, bitch! You’re gonna die out here, like the others. Not a fucking thing you can do about it!”

He stopped whipping her, giving Abby a moment to recover, but he began a new torment that she could only watch coming with horrified, terrorized eyes. He had two pieces of thick, tough, large gauge wire. The ends were both sharpened to a point. From his pocket he produced several small jingle bells, the cheap kind that appeared in cheap toys. He ran the wire through the holes in the round bells, putting two on each loop and bending them, into a loop. Then he grabbed Abby’s right breast and pinched her nipple until it was hard.

“Nooo!” she shrieked, trying to twist away, but he stood close and she couldn’t free herself even from his grasp. She screeched in agony as he ran the wire tip into her areola, piercing it under her nipple and out the other side. Her blood dripped out onto the ground, with each drop falling in front of her upside down face. He pinched the loop shut, forming an oval ring a couple inches long. He had to use pliers to twist the ends together in a long helix so the loop remained shut and trapped on her breast. The wire was too stiff to twist by hand.

He did the same with the other nipple, bringing forth new screams of pain from Abby’s throat. Now with each movement she could hear the tiny bells jingling. It was not lost on her that she couldn’t hope to remove them by hand.

Stone finally cut her down, cutting one rope so she swung down and hit her head and upper body on the ground, and then the next rope so she fell in a heap. She didn’t even have a moment to recover her wits, for Stone was on her, pressing her down to the ground by her neck while shoving his cock deep into her agonized cunt. It was an angry, brutal rape that left Abby dizzy from lack of air. His hands never left her throat. When he finally dumped his load of cum into her she could only lie on the dirty ground, gasping and sobbing while Stone got dressed.

“Alright, you’ve got fifteen minutes. But you’re still in dart gun round, cunt. I won’t kill you just yet.”

Abby staggered to her feet, her hands still chained. “Please, please, take the cuffs off at least!” she sobbed. “Don’t make me run like this!”

“Sure, Abby, sure. I’ll unchain your hands. And then we can go right to the death round. Go ahead and pick one!”

She fell to her knees, sobbing at the choice. “The clock is ticking either way, bitch.” With that she staggered back onto her feet and fled. Her hands were still cuffed, making her running awkward. Her breasts flapped up and down, producing the awful jingling from the bells she couldn’t even reach, let alone remove. What would he do to her the next time he caught her? The possibilities were too terrible to consider. She had to run.

Ch. 8

Tina’s legs were strong, but her body was exhausted from the dig. The adrenalin her would-be killer produced in her was able to keep her moving, but at the cost of clarity of thought. She was nearly in a blind panic and couldn’t guess which way to go once she was out of sight. The land provided a mixture of cover, with patches of trees and brush alternating with open fields with long grass. The ground wasn’t especially hard, and she feared he could follow her tracks even though they didn’t seem obvious.

Crossing over a local high point, she spied a river to her left. There were more trees and bushes there, and water. She fled towards it and found it shallow but rocky, a typical high mountain river. She quickly crossed to the other side and thought about her options. Surely twenty minutes were up. Cross would be after her. He couldn’t possibly track her through the water, and civilization had to be downstream. She knew that much. It meant sort of backtracking, but there was cover by the river. He wouldn’t see her unless he was already close by. She began skipping over the rocks.

They were hard on her feet. That was the worst. But her runner’s legs had built up some toughness during her life. And she had balance that came from all her practices and track meets. She was feeling like she had a chance when she turned a bend and found Cross standing there waiting for her.

She stopped, frozen in petrifying terror. For a moment they locked eyes, and she wondered if he would actually do it. But his dart gun came up and a second later she felt the sting of the sharp shaft stuck in her belly. “They always try the river,” Cross said, walking towards her to catch her before she fell and bashed her head on a rock. She was too dizzy to resist as he pulled her to the bank and laid her limp body down on the grass. She stared up as he gazed down at her, smiling.

“Can you hear me?” he asked in a mocking tone, waving his hand back and forth to get her attention. She couldn’t even follow it with her eyes. “It’s so hard to know how each girl responds to these tranks,” he said.

She could hear him fine, just as before, but her body was just as paralyzed. She could do nothing while he opened his pack and used a hammer to drive four camping stakes into the ground. He dragged her into position and tied her tightly spread eagled before she could even twitch on her own.

She couldn’t turn her head to see him, but when he returned to her view he was undressed and sporting a raging hard on. He sat down on her tits, his bobbing cock in her lower vision. “What’s it like?” he asked. “To be you. How’s it feel to be a brown sex doll?” he pushed her jaw open and slid forward, sliding his cock easily into her mouth. She wanted to scream and struggle and bite, but though she could feel and taste him, she couldn’t respond. She had regained only control of her eyes.

“You girls have it easy, you know. You get to be desired. You like being desired, but you think there’s no cost.” He reached behind his back, grabbed her right nipple, and squeezed it, crushing her flesh and twisting it around. “But even the cost isn’t so bad, is it? You’ll get to experience a thrill few women ever know!”

Tina lay there, redundantly bound, gagging on the agent’s cock. She couldn’t move, but she could cry. At least tears could flow from her eyes, blurring her vision of her rapist’s crotch in her face. He thrust a few times, but mostly moved slowly. Even so, towards the end his pace quickened and he began shooting cum into her mouth. He pulled out enough to spread some on her face as well before running dry. He wiped his cock off on her hair before getting up and getting dressed.

He did not let her go, though. Slowly, Tina’s mobility returned. It took longer than before, but Cross seemed patient.  He waited until she was fully recovered before standing over her. “You’ve got another round left before the death round,” he said.

“Please, don’t!” she sobbed, not really hopeful for mercy but not knowing what else to do.

“I won’t,” he said. “Not yet. It’s getting late in the day, you know. I know you’ve had a terribly long day. I think this interlude should last until morning. That’s what I think. I think you’ll keep me company here. We’ll camp here. I think I’ll keep you company as well. And in the morning we can pick it up again. You’ll be rested. You’ll need it, won’t you?”

She would need the rest. She knew that much. She realized, as she watched the sun go down and Cross began setting up a camp, that she might well be viewing her last sunset ever. But the ropes holding her nude body open refused to yield.

Ch. 9

Jeanette had long since emptied her stomach, but with her face surrounded by dirt except for the tube by her mouth, she’d had to lie in it. She couldn’t open her eyes for the dirt. The box covering her simply didn’t go up that far. Her body, bound and injured though it was, could at least wiggle. She had space enough to move her chest to breath. She could piss, as she had. But she was utterly trapped in a black, silent void, buried alive. It took little time at all before she lost all sense of time. Her pain and terror made sure that each moment seemed to last a lifetime. She only knew it had been nighttime because her vague memories of being chased and tortured and locked up in daylight had to have been dreams.

She lay in her entombment, her body growing weaker. She was desperate for water more than anything. How long could she live without it? She didn’t want to think about it, but the question seemed unavoidable so long as she was alive and trapped six feet under. The terrible cramps, itches, and the gunshot wound seemed modest in comparison.

She could therefore hardly believe it when she felt the dirt shifting around her. She felt it before she heard it, but in time she realized that she was being dug up. Someone was there! Anyone was there and she didn’t care who it was.

She sat up when the dirt layer over her head was small enough and the tube was yanked away. She gasped for breath, squinting up at the sunny sky. There was a middle aged man standing over her. He stood with his feet on either side of the box. As she watched, he reached down, grabbed her shoulders, and lifted her up and out from under the box and onto her feet.

“Step up and get out,” he told her, linking his hands together with his fingers. Jeanette stepped onto them as well as she could with her chained ankles and he pushed her up and out of the hole. She collapsed on her belly, too weak and dizzy to stand. The man climbed up out of the hole behind her.

She rolled onto her back, staring up at him. Was he a rescuer? Another girl hunter? “You’re lucky I found you,” he said.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Let’s get those cuffs off you,” he added. “Roll over so I can get to them.” Jeanette rolled back onto her belly. She felt him unlocking the cuffs first on her hands and then on her feet. She felt a brief moment of relief before it occurred to her that he knew where to find her and that he had the handcuff keys handy. She squealed a little bit and tried to slide away from him. She was too sore to easily even stand up.

“So, you’re figured out I’m not your prince valiant,” he said, walking along side her. She stopped and laid on the ground, staring back up, terrified.

“Please, why? What do you want?”

“Apparently we’re starting the game up for one more round,” he said. “I was surprised to hear it, but I’ll take it.”

“Please, let me go.”

“I do things a little different than the other guys,” he said. “There’s no particular death round. There’s no stun round.” Jeanette felt herself shiver at mention of the term death round. “The way it works is, you run and I chase you. The game ends when I end it or when you are rescued.”

“No! Please!” she screamed.

“I’m a doctor, by the way. I like the girls to know that. It gives them motivation, because when I catch you, I won’t be limited to the crude tortures my friends use. You’ll notice me, I promise you that.”

Jeanette wanted to beg more, but she was reduced to weeping. The doctor walked away from her, heading towards another helicopter near her plane and Cross’s chopper. “You run that way,” he told her, pointing south. “If I see you heading north at any time, I promise to use drugs on you that will have you begging to die. I’ll only use them if you go the wrong direction. You’d better start running, girl. As soon as I get my gear together I’m coming for you, ready or not.”

Jeanette stumbled to her feet and began to flee southwards. Her side still hurt from the gunshot, but it was a shallow wound and had already clotted up. She didn’t even look back. She couldn’t stand the thought of what she might see behind her. She just ran and ran. It was an open field, with many patches of trees. She was able to get out of sight of the camp at least. She veered to the left, looking to get into the hills. The doctor only said not to go north. She was too terrified not to believe him.

Ch. 10

Mary Allen stood with her back against the tree. Her hands were behind her, wrapped around the trunk, tied off. Her feet were tightly tied as well. She was naked. The mountain valley was spread out in front of her, but there was not a soul around. She was utterly alone with her captivity.

Until she wasn’t. She looked to her right and saw another woman running in her direction. The woman was as naked as she was, dirty, and clearly terrified. She saw Mary and approached her. Now Mary began to panic. Something was going very wrong here. She’d only driven up the deserted jeep trail to indulge in a little self bondage without witnesses. But there were witnesses now. She struggled to get her hands loose from the light knots she had tied, but in her panic she seemed to make them tighter. The woman ran up to her.

“Oh my god! What’s wrong with those animals?” she cried. “How long have you been here?”

“I, uh,” Mary stammered, not sure what to say. Was the woman being chased?

“If there’s two us we can survive. Hold on, let me untie you!”

Suddenly, as the woman began to fiddle with the knots around Mary’s wrists, a shot rang out and a bullet struck the tree trunk a foot above Mary’s head. Both women looked back. There was a man standing at a ridge, over a half mile away. He had his gun trained towards them.

“I’m sorry!” the woman cried as she fled. “I’m so sorry!”

Now Mary was alone again, sort of. She was too frightened to try to free herself as the man slowly walked towards her. She wanted to crawl away. Her clothes were some distance away. The other woman might stumble across them or might not. She could only stand there, shivering in terror as the man walked up to her. He stood looking her over.

“Who’s hunting you?” he asked.

“I,” she said, too scared to speak. “Don’t.”

“Are you Abby or Tina?”

“A-Abby,” she answered, confused and uncertain.

“Well you enjoy what time you’ve got left then, slut. Teach you about poking your little nose around.” With that he continued onward, in the direction the other woman had. In the direction of her clothes and her pack. As soon as he was out of sight she struggled at the knots holding her hands. They weren’t clinched too tightly, yet, but she had to work to get them loose. She finally felt the rope slide away and got her hands free. Her legs were tied with real knots, and her trembling fingers had a tough time with them. She had just started to get one loose when she saw the man walking back towards her, quickly, and with a gun out. He was holding her panties with his other hand. He’d found her stuff. He knew she wasn’t Abby or Tina. He knew she was an unwanted outsider.

With a cry, she pulled her foot loose and began running. Several feet of rope dangled behind her left foot, still tied to her, but she could move. She darted into the trees behind her as quickly as she could. She heard several shots behind her. She zigged and zagged and ran with all her strength. She knew this section of the hills well. She came up often. Her feet were calloused enough to not slow her down. She also knew that she could get to her Jeep, parked a mile away at the head of the old trail. If she led the man by enough, she could get the emergency key out and flee.

She dodged more shots. The man was good, but they were both moving and she was pulling away. She jumped over rocks and logs, streams and brush. She prayed the rope wouldn’t trip her. She neared her parked vehicle.

The man was behind her, not close enough to grab her, but close enough for her to hear him. She skidded to a halt by the wheel well, scraping the hell out of her right thigh, and grabbed the magnetic box. She yanked it open to get the key. Now the man was in sight, running right at her. He fired two shots as he ran up and stopped, the pistol clicking with an empty chamber. She jammed the key into the lock, jumped in, pulled the door shut and hit the lock button.

The man slammed into the side of the door, pounding his fist on the window with the gun. Cracks formed, but only small ones. Mary screamed, fumbling to get the key into the ignition while the man pulled the clip out of the gun and reached in his coat pocket for another. She got the engine started, put it in drive, and floored the gas. She lurched down the narrow path as more shots rang out. Her rear window shattered and another bullet hit the head rest of the front passenger seat. Then she rounded a bend and was out of his sight.

Mary continued driving, still terrified, for several more minutes. The trail was narrow, bumpy, and not maintained. It was on no map. But she could still drive it faster than the man could run. She’d escaped. She was naked, scraped up, and her heart was thudding in her chest, but she’d made it. She stopped briefly several minutes later to pull the rope around her ankle into the car. She didn’t want it to snag on anything. But she didn’t even take the time to untie it yet. She wanted to reach safety.

She drove slower. It was quite a while to the main road. She picked her self-bondage site with privacy and isolation in mind. She couldn’t help crying as she realized how close to death she’d come, and she had to stop for a while trying to get her eyes to clear up. A few minutes turned into ten, then fifteen. She was still far enough down the path not to worry about the man catching her on foot. She didn’t ponder the alternatives until she heard the distinctive sound of rotor blades from above and behind her. It was a helicopter. And it was coming her way.

With a cry of despair she lurched forward once more, trying to reach safety. The helicopter remained some distance from her, circling, trying to find her. The road was wooded for the moment, but Mary knew there would be clearer portions. And the woods were not all that thick. She couldn’t stay hidden, she had to try to leave. She shot out into an open section and in seconds the helicopter was overhead. It drowned out her Jeep engine as it hovered above her, no more than twenty feet over her head, tailing her as she tried to navigate the rocky, narrow path. Then it was ahead of her, dropping dangerously low to the ground. She saw the man at the cockpit, looking at her. She screamed and tried to veer back and forth. She couldn’t go off road. No vehicle short of a monster truck could do that in the section of path she was on. She just panicked, trying to shake him off, until her tires finally lost the ground altogether. She screamed as she rolled off the embankment and did a ten foot nose dive into a gully. Mary hadn’t even put her seat belt on yet, but the air bag exploded in front of her, easing her forward jolt into the steering column as her dead car came to a rest.

She was still dazed by the collision, and it took her a moment to recover her wits. She finally looked out her window to see the man coming down the side of the gully thirty feet away. He had a gun and a crowbar as he marched towards her car door. Mary screamed as he jammed the crowbar into the door and began to pry it open. She realized it was going to work. The frame was already bent up from the accident. She scrambled for the passenger door, opened it up, and jumped out. Her nude body hit the rocky stream hard, but she scrambled forward until she was rudely yanked backward by the rope dangling from her left foot. The far end was snagged. She cried out and gave her leg a few mighty yanks. It un-snagged the rope, but the man was now on top of her. He kicked her hard on her belly, making her collapse in great pain on the ground. He rolled her onto her back, knelt down with his knee on her belly, and produced a hypodermic needle. Mary stared at it with wide, terrified eyes.

“Bonus,” he said as he jabbed it into her arm. It was the last thing Mary saw before the world faded away.

Ch. 11

Abby ran, but her heart was no longer in it. She realized how very helpless she was and that escape would probably be impossible. No one knew where she was or that she was even missing. Tina would eventually notice she hadn’t returned. Until then, she was naked, handcuffed, weak, lost, and had no realistic way to escape. She’d run around at random, avoiding rivers and high ground. But the land was terribly monotonous, and she had no idea where to go. Even with the sun shining, she couldn’t even remember to keep track of her direction! She was utterly useless in the wilderness. So she ran and sobbed and doubled back and tried not to trip and fall. She’d stumbled several times already, and plummeting face first onto rough ground with her hands cuffed behind her was a terrifying and painful experience.

She was making her way through a pine grove when she heard a movement. It was nearby. She froze. She wasn’t in the death round. Not yet. But she would still do anything to avoid capture again. Then she heard a slow but deliberate sound of a human footstep, coming from only a short distance to her right. She panicked, screamed, and fled the other direction. Almost at the same time she heard another scream. It was female. It came from the footstep. She stopped and turned, and was confronted by the last sight she expected to see. It was Tina, as naked and abused as she was. For a moment the girls stared at each other, uncomprehending, but it was Tina who finally broke the tension, crying and laughing as they came together.

“What’s happened?” Abby cried, looking Tina over. She looked much like Abby did. She was bruised, scraped up, and very tired looking. The only difference was that Tina’s hands were cuffed in front of her rather than behind as Abby’s were.

“Don’t you realize it? I’m here to rescue you!” Tina replied. “Let’s walk and talk.” Abby walked with her friend, listening in shocked silence as Tina described her trip up, her encounters, and how she’d been released from Stone’s camp that morning and evaded him all day long.

“My God! They started with you even before they did with me!”

“But I still don’t know where to go,” Tina said. “It’s almost nightfall now. I think we’re going to spend the night out here.”

“At least it will be cooler,” Tina said.

“You really were knocked out last night. It’s damned cold at night! Think of back in Tucson, but offset twenty degrees downward.”

“Oh god, how are we going to survive?”

“We’ll make it. It’s a sign, us meeting like this. It has to be. But let’s keep moving. Don’t stop until we have to. We’re together now, but we’ve also got two men chasing us. Either one of them could catch us, and we’d be screwed.”

“No, listen. Remember? They only chase their own. Tina, listen, if we meet one of them, don’t be a hero. Whoever of us isn’t being chased needs to get out of here and get help. Or at least stay out of sight.”

“You’re right,” Tina said. “Yeah, you’re right.”

The girls continued on until it was too dark to go further. They were lucky enough to find a tiny stream to drink out of, but neither girl had eaten for some time. They were cold, hungry, and in perpetual fear when they finally laid down on the hard ground together, pressed tight for warmth, to try to pass the night.

They were a couple of sore, shivering girls when they got up in the morning. “At least your hands are in front of you,” Abby sniffed.

“They weren’t. I managed to step over the cuffs. Maybe you can too.”

“I tried,” Abby said. “I couldn’t do it. I’m not limber enough. I’m too fat!”

“You need some help then. It’s hard to do it without leverage. Okay, lie down and try to get your hands down by your feet. Lie on your back. Then lift your feet up to me and I’ll push them down so you can get your hands under.”

“Okay,” Abby said. She had to struggle to get her chained wrists down past her hips. She certainly hadn’t been out in the wild long enough to lose much weight. It was trickier than the girls planned for Tina to push Abby’s legs down while she was on her back. With some effort, though, they managed to get her right foot over the cuffs so she had one hand in front and one hand behind her.

“Alright, let’s just do that again,” Tina said. She was about to push on Abby’s foot when her eyes glazed over. She turned around and Abby saw a dart sticking out of her buttock. She looked behind Tina and saw agent Cross walking up.

She let out a loud scream of terror as Tina fell down in a heap. Abby struggled to her feet, but now she was bent over awkwardly with her hands cuffed between her legs. She stared at the FBI man in shock and horror. He made no move towards her as she backed away. He looked at her. Then he pulled out a handgun and fired one shot into the ground.

“Travis is about five minutes away,” he said. “We just had breakfast a while ago. You’d best get your pretty white soft ass moving out of here.”

Abby cried out in horror and fled as fast as she could. She realized that something was even worse than her previous naked flight from a girl hunter. It was doing it with her arms cuffed between her legs. Nothing could be more awkward and degrading that trying to run in such a position. But she had no choice. She left Tina to her fate with Cross and ran away as well as she possibly could.

Ch. 12

Jeanette was still running, still terrified. She’d spent a cold night curled up under a bush. It hadn’t helped much. She’d been sure she was a gonner with the doctor so close behind her, but that encounter with the other naked, tied woman seemed to have given her a reprieve. Between the shots and the sounds of the helicopter, she realized he was more interested in catching the other woman, whoever she was, than of catching her. But why not? Jeanette certainly was no danger to him and had no way to escape. She’d even risked his wrath once she heard his chopper overhead to double back and get to her plane. She could fly home naked for all she cared. Her plane could outrun even Cross’s FBI helicopter. At least, if he hadn’t already drained the gas tank. She couldn’t even get into Cross’s bird, not that she was a chopper pilot anyway, and the doctor could return at any moment in his own. So she had resumed her southward journey that she’d only been on for ten minutes before the encounter with the naked, tied woman.

Now she was further from danger. She hoped. She hadn’t seen the doctor at all, nor had she seen anyone else. Not Tina. Not Stone. Maybe the bound woman was Abby? She had no way of knowing. All she knew was that going south from their starting position wouldn’t leave her many chances to find help. She hadn’t studied the charts or anything, and wasn’t overly familiar with Wyoming, but she remembered there wasn’t much of a chance to escape that way. So she ran and hid and hoped for the best. Now it was afternoon, and hotter than the day before. She hadn’t found water in a long time and was growing parched. But she continued onward for lack of alternatives.

That was when she felt the sudden pain. She’d paused for a moment, bent over, trying to catch her breath. She suddenly felt first the pressure and then the agony in her ass. She cried out and fell forward. She twisted backwards to see the bullet wound. It had grazed her right buttock before passing more substantially through her left and out again. It wasn’t a serious wound, but she realized when she tried to stand again that she actually needed those glute muscles to run properly. She staggered forward, limping badly on her left side. The doctor was somewhere around there. He’d spotted her. Now she couldn’t get away as fast. Unless rescue happened very soon, via a miracle, she was doomed.

There was no miracle. A few minutes later the doctor had chased her down. When she saw him she tried to flee. He chased her. When he was on top of her she tried to run a different direction. He just chased her, watching her hysterical sobs and screams. It took her several minutes to realize that he wasn’t going to shoot her again. He just enjoyed watching her useless, pathetic attempts to run when he could run three times faster than she could. He was toying with her. The realization made her collapse to her hands and knees, her body shaken by sobs of terror and misery. Once the doctor knew his game was over, he grabbed her and swiftly hogtied her on the ground. Jeanette could only lie there as he got ready, undressing and rolled her onto her back on her bound hands and feet. He pushed her legs apart and drove his cock home into her agonized pussy. She screamed in horror, having not been with a man in years. Now she was being raped and it was the most horrible feeling in the world. He kept at it for a while, changing from her pussy to, shockingly, her ass. She screamed in ten times the pain, both from her anal intrusion and from his weight on her gunshot wound.  But it was back in her cunt that he blew his load of sticky cum into her. She lay on the ground, sobbing in broken shame and horror, as he got dressed. Then he was standing over her again. He knelt down with a hypodermic needle.

“No! Please, no!” she croaked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“There’s no further rounds for you, cunt. I’ve caught you and I’ve used you. Let’s finish this up.”

“Please, don’t kill me!” she sobbed.

“Kill you? Someday, but not now. Oh, and I know you went back to your plane,” he said. He waited while the ramifications sunk into Jeanette’s tortured brain. “You’ll be punished severely for that. No cunt disobeys my orders. They all learn in time.” He pressed the plunger and Jeanette’s world vanished into darkness.

Ch. 13

Abby waddled for her life, knowing Stone could be anywhere. She couldn’t hope to outrun him, and if he got close enough the bells hanging from the wires in her tits would give away her position. So she couldn’t stop, but was scared to move. Not stopping won out, and so she waddled for her life. Even so, she wondered when it would come. When would the dart suddenly jab her and take away her consciousness. He hadn’t shot her before. Her tumble down the hill had taken care of that. What would it feel like? She tried very hard to imagine it, only because it had taken her more than ten minutes to get out of earshot of Tina’s anguished screams from behind her and she desperately sought something else to think about.

She was still waddling when she crossed over a ridge and spotted water. Down, to her right. She saw the unmistakable view of a lake. And lakes had to mean people. She hoped. She veered right, but remembered what Tina had said about Cross waiting for her at the river. Stone would do the same. So she stayed low, did not take the direct route, and made her way down the slope to the water. It was several miles off, several miles of painstaking waiting for the shot of the dart into her flesh. And then the captivity, the next rape, and the death round that awaited all the girls in the Bambi murders.

She was nearly at the shoreline when she spotted two things almost at once. Stone was there, a hundred yards up the shore. And he spotted her as well. And she spotted fishermen. There were two boats, far out on the water, but with two men in each of them. So she screamed. She pushed so much air through her vocal cords they felt like they would tear themselves out of her throat, but she screamed for them to see her. To notice her. To see she needed rescue. Men who didn’t rape them liked rescuing helpless, nude girls, didn’t they? She screamed and screamed and screamed until the dart struck her neck. She collapsed, awake but unable to move. But her head came to a rest peering out onto the water, and she saw the boats coming towards her, their outboards revving hard. Stone’s foot interrupted the view. He was standing over her. “I reckon they’re a minute away and won’t catch me on foot,” he said. “You came close, girl, but no one survives.”

She felt a sudden, hot, blinding pain and heard the awful blast. The bullet entered her someone on her side, up high. Up where the vital organs were. She saw her blood pooling under her and felt her world turn to black with rescue just moments away in the form of two boatloads of concerned men. And then all was black.

Epilogue A

Abby forgot to be astonished when she opened her eyes and found herself in a hospital bed. Only as her previous final memories returned did she realize how unlikely that was. She was still in pain, though. She was wrapped in heavy bandaging around her chest. She was in an ICU.

She learned soon enough that the police and the FBI were interested in her tale. They had a puzzling investigation on their hands and didn’t know what to make of it. Her mention of Stone and agent Cross proved to be of great interest. She was nearly inconsolable when she learned that Tina was nowhere to be found. The authorities hadn’t even realized she was part of the tale at all. Her worry would turn to muted joy when she learned the next day that Stone was arrested and Tina rescued in Mexico. But Abby had been comatose for eleven days and Tina had had a tough time of it during those missing days. The two men, Stone and Cross, had brutalized her with a fury the whole time right up until Stone got careless and her screams alerted local officials. Cross was nowhere to be found. Stone hung himself in the Mexican jail cell.

Abby survived only because the fishermen were doctors from Cheyenne, including a surgeon and an ER physician. She was eventually reunited with Tina, but she changed her major to elementary education and prayed every day that no angry father would challenge the grade she gave to a student.

Epilogue B

Jeanette opened her eyes in dim light and looked around. She thought she was in a theater first. Real rooms didn’t look like that. There were a half dozen nude girls in the large basement chamber. One she recognized, it was the blonde she’d encountered in the field. She was still unconscious, hanging upside down from a hook in the ceiling. Jeanette herself was spread eagled and chained leaning against a wall. Her feet were chained to the floor, spread wide, and her arms to the wall behind her, also widely spread.

The other girls – there were four more – were awake and looking at her. None made a sound. Each of them was thin and stared with vacant eyes at her. None were younger than thirty from the look of them. Jeanette’s mind raced. Were there other victims of the Bambi murders, survivors, that no one even knew about? How long had these zombie like girls been locked in the room?

“I’m Jeanette,” she said in barely more than a whisper.

“What year is it?” one woman asked. She was sitting in a steel cage, kneeling, crammed inside a space barely large enough to fit her. Another girl was upside down and spread eagled, hanging from the ceiling. One was hogtied and hanging from her hands and feet, her back bent painfully backwards. The last was clamped to a large, heavy wooden chair. There were clamps and needles decorating her body.

“Jeanette Wright,” she said. Her mind was rebelling. If she stuck to her name, she wouldn’t have to deal with the question the cage girl just asked and its horrifying ramifications.

“I’m Carrie Robinson,” the girl said slowly.

Jeanette’s mind whirled. The name sounded familiar. Very familiar. “Do I know you?” she asked.

“We don’t know anybody,” Carrie said slowly. “What year is it? It was 1991, when he took me. When they chased me. It was 1991. What year is it?”

Jeanette trembled, trying not to put the pieces together. She remembered now, Carrie Robinson was the girl one town over, who vanished when Jeanette was in high school. Upstairs, her screaming alerted the doctor, who had in fact lost his medical license under disturbing conditions, that she was awake. He smiled, grabbed his box of goodies, and headed downstairs.