“Sure,” Ethan answered reassuringly.
When Ethan was satisfied with his bathing, he unfolded a chair and sat with the shotgun across his lap. In moments, Shannon was breathing deeply and evenly, finally having found rest. Ethan began to prepare himself for the boredom of sitting in a chair all night and watching other people sleep. The fear was still tight in his belly, even with the sudden arousal of seeing Shannon washing, and he hoped that would be enough to prevent him from falling asleep. If it got too bad, he could find some coffee. If cellophane could keep Twinkies fresh, perhaps a can could keep coffee fresh.
He stood and stretched a bit before walking a circuit around the store, near the windows to see the swirling darkness just beyond and to make sure the doors remained closed. The hateful baying from the mountain now was easy to tolerate in the large store, barely more than a thin whistle from the outside. When his circuit took him to the campsite again, he sat heavily in the fabric and metal tube chair. His head grew heavy and his eyes ached for sleep. He decided he had better find some coffee and a percolator or he would soon be snoozing.
Before he gathered enough resolve to go and seek out some caffeine, the broken music suddenly went silent on the radio, the cracking and popping fell into dead air. The silence was shocking and unnerving at the same time.
Ethan stared at the radio for a moment, trying to decide if it had lost the signal or the batteries had died, but a soft sensual voice eased from the speakers like the warm breath of a lover just satisfied, “Ethan…”
He knew immediately that it was Madison’s voice—that sultry, exclusively female voice, which always seemed to beg for attention. His body was suddenly electrified with both desire and bald fear.
“I am coming, Ethan…” Her voice urged from him his attention. “It was you that I always wanted, Ethan… I was waiting for Abby to free you, waiting for so long… Now is our time; now is my turn…”
“She wants some Ethan meat…” The bum whispered in his sour, rotting breath from over his shoulder.
“Ethan… Come outside where I can see you…”
Ethan reached over and turned the radio off. That was enough for him. He did not even consider getting coffee now, the idea of Madison searching for him, pleading with him to come out and be with him was just too terrifying an idea for him to find sleep.
Chapter 29
Shannon found herself running headlong down a dark street, desperate to get away from the animals following her. She did not know what had happened, what had driven them insane, unless it was that screeching call from some animal on the mountain. All she knew right now was those men following her meant to kill her, rip her apart like the bodies she was skipping over in the street.
She had just finished a rather boring day at the boutique, not many customers interested in her trendy wares, when the town seemed to have gone crazy. It started with a simple fistfight, still shocking in this yawn-burg of a town. The police had come, beaten the two fighters into submission and then hauled them off to some barred room somewhere. Right after they left, another fight broke out, this time a little down the street, and this time with a knife. That is when she decided to close the shop early.
She was in the middle of locking the front door when someone threw a child against the plate glass window of her shop. He did not go through it, but slid a bit before falling onto the sidewalk. Shannon boiled with emotion, wanting to help the child, afraid to interfere with someone callous enough to heave a child like that. Before she could make up her mind, the child stood, screamed in unbridled rage, and charged the woman that had thrown him.
Shannon did not wait to see how this played out; she was terrified of what was going on, and wanted to get out of there now. She rushed down the sidewalk towards the bus stop, hoping beyond prayer that the bus was due any moment. She had sold her car recently to cover the stock that her customers never seemed to want to buy. It was her last ditch effort to stay in business, but she now wished she still had the old Nissan to get herself out of here.
Before she could make it to the small sign indicating the bus’s normal route, a large man she did not recognize grabbed her from behind. He spun her around, forced her to the ground with his weight, and began tearing her blouse off. She brought her knee up as hard as she could, and the man fell from her. She stood quickly and began running towards the parking area near the shop. If she had been thinking clearer, she would not have pinned herself in, but fear ruled her thoughts.
When she came to face the chain-link fence, she realized her mistake. Turning to flee the enclosure, she caught sight of three men standing in the drive of the parking lot. They were all beaten and bloody, their clothing torn and stained with the soil of battle. Shannon screamed louder than she thought possible.
Then she began to run, the men following after, calling to her, asking her to give them what they wanted. She leapt up onto the fence and began to scramble over. One of the men wrapped his powerful arms around her, filled his hands with her breast, and literally tore her from the fence by her nipples. Shannon screamed again, this time coming from her sleep like a threatened mouse.
She looked into Ethan’s troubled eyes and began to weep. Her memories flooded back to her in large smothering waves--the terror of the night before, along with her childhood memories, the memories of her parents’ death, now a fresh wound in her soul. She clawed her way from the sleeping bag and met Ethan moving towards her. She embraced him almost violently and began to sob in a way normally forgotten by adults.
“Shannon, it was just a dream, it’s over now,” Ethan cooed to her.
“No,” Shannon forced through her sobbing, “I remember. I remember everything.”
“Well that’s good, isn’t it?”
“They raped me. They beat me and raped me. They thought I was dead and didn’t care, so many men…”
Ethan drew her closer, held her tighter. He had hoped she would not remember the rape completely until they were free of here, but it was now too late for that. All he could do was hold her close, give her a foundation to cling too as her battered mind got a solid grasp on what had happened.
“Mommy, why are you crying?” Kayla asked as she sat up. “You’re not my mommy…” she said in a cloud of sleep driven confusion.
“No sweetie, she isn’t. She will be alright in a bit. It’s still night time, so try and go back to sleep, ’kay?”
“Why is she crying?”
“She thinks she has lost something or something was taken from her.” Ethan stumbled with a reason he could give a child her age.
“What? I can help look,” Kayla offered while stifling a yawn.
“Oh, it’s nothing. She will get by, you’ll see.”
The little girl worked herself from the sleeping bag and trotted over on tiny bare feet. “Can I give her mine?”
Shannon looked up into the innocent eyes of untroubled youth and smiled as she wept. “You’re a gem, you know that?”
Kayla knelt down beside Shannon and worked her arm between Shannon and Ethan to embrace the woman so abused. This helped Shannon cry even more, and Ethan did not try to stop her. The emotional release could only help, or he hoped it would. Either way, he held both the girls for some time before the crying jag ebbed. Even Kayla worked her way through a few sobs while holding Shannon.
When they had grown silent, Ethan continued to hold them even after Kayla and then Shannon lost themselves to an exhausted slumber. There were still a few hours until sunrise, and they could both use more sleep. Ethan lay down with them gently and stared at the woman before him. She was so lovely, so delicate, so used. He knew rape was rape, and he could not fault a woman for being raped any more than he could fault a dog for not being a horse. That he could live with, but could she ever live with it? Could she bring herself to be intimate voluntarily again?
He found himself hoping she could and that after they were free from here, she would stay with him; get to know him outside this nightmarish town. He was not sure why, probably his desire to live on, to have children, to make something of himself or be part of something else more than what he was alone. His studies in survival had
