ATF Untold - Annie - 2 (NC-17)

She found herself in the small room she now called home and stood staring at the door, her arms tight around her waist.  She jumped violently at the tap at the door but the man didn't wait for her to speak.  He let himself in and closed the door firmly behind him.

"Well now, isn't this nice."  He looked around the room.  "I'm Cap, and you are?"

"Why are you here?" her voice was tiny and her fear obvious.

"He didn't tell you?  Honey, you and I are gonna have a good time tonight."  She could see he had at least taken the opportunity to clean up a little.  It didn't help her fear.

"No, please leave."

"Leave?  Honey, you don't know how good it's gonna be for you."  He cupped himself and winked at her.

She was too afraid to move.  She'd already been told that refusal meant devastation for her - no home, no security.  Cap didn't seem to notice, or care, and approached her. 

"What'ja look like under that uniform, honey?  Let me see some skin."

She said nothing, backing up slightly until the back of her legs hit the side of her bed.

"Anxious, huh?" Cap grinned.  Maybe he had been attractive to some people before, but she hadn't even really dated before all of this and never . . . His hand touched her breast, but he pulled her ponytail out of the elastic with the other.  "Mmm, nice."

She closed her eyes to block the sight of him, but she could feel him standing there. 

"Take your clothes off, honey.  I want to see you."

She made no move to comply with that request and felt his hand on her arm.  "I said take off your clothes.  This ain't no seduction.  I paid well for this and I'd like some cooperation."

Paid?  Jonesy had been paid for this?  The bottom dropped out then.  He had pimped her out.  He'd found another way to make money - how very enterprising of him.  Cap shook her then, less gently.

"I can't."

"Oh yes, you can, let me show you."  He shoved then and she fell back against the mattress.  "I don't want to hurt you, that's not my thing, but he and I made a deal, an expensive one and I'm gonna get my money's worth.  Now you either take off those clothes or I'll rip them off of you."

For an instant practicality raised its head.  Clothes were hard to come by.  If he ripped these . . . and it wouldn't be gentle, she could tell that.  With shaking hands she unbuttoned the slightly large uniform.  This one had been Brigette's and she was bigger than Annie and why the hell was she thinking about that?  To keep from thinking of anything else she realized and let the clean but dingy white uniform fall to the floor.  She stood in front of him in white cotton panties and bra and closed her eyes. 

*****

She would come to realize that Cal had actually been exceedingly kind to her, quickly realizing she was a virgin.  It hurt, but he didn't make her feel degraded.  He even thanked her for her time and gave her a tip, a big one for these times - a pair of brand new socks, which she tucked into a hiding place behind her bed.  Nothing was ever said between Jonesy and her about it, but after that at least a couple of times a week, she would be sent upstairs by Jonesy and used by whoever had the price.

*****

This man was the worst.  John, if that was his real name.  He came by without warning, no set schedule like some of the others.  He scared her more than the rest of them combined.  He'd choked her unconscious one time and she'd woken after he was gone, sore and battered.  And he always left a 'tip'.  Every time he'd come she would find two MREs in her room after he left.  They were hers, Jonesy didn't have to know about them and she kept them in what she thought of as her emergency bag.

She might be able to resign herself to most of the others, her mind going elsewhere while they used her but not this one.  Even Jonesy was afraid of him and the others shied away when he came into the diner. 

Now she stood in this nightgown Jonesy had brought back from somewhere, shivering as John looked her over.  He backhanded her and she staggered back.  That angered him, he wanted her to fight, she knew that, so she never would.  Why should he enjoy this?  What was the term, passive-aggressive, but he wanted action.  She'd learned at least that much over the past few months, so she stood quietly, trying to get to that other place in her mind. 

"Look at me, bitch."  His hand clamped hard around her upper arm and she did look.  Her eyes widened at the sight and she saw his sick smile form. The hunting knife he held looked wicked sharp.  So fear was going to be the turn on now.  He had learned she wouldn't fight, not for his pleasure, but this . . . He'd beaten her before, choked, but never with a weapon.  He didn't need one, he had three times her strength even though he wasn't really that much bigger than her.  He was wiry and there wasn't a spare inch of fat on him.

He touched the blade to her cheek and she felt a drop of blood slide down her face like a tear.  She shuddered but didn't raise her hand to brush it away.  "I'm going to leave you a little something to remember me by this time, somethin' permanent."

She didn't respond, she never did to him.  He shook her.  "Say something, where would you like it?  Your face, maybe your tit, so I can enjoy it without the rest of the world knowing."

He ran the blade gently across her breast, not quite breaking the skin.  If she moved, if she jerked toward him it would all be over.  She'd be dead and not having to go through this ever again, but she couldn't force herself to move.

"Don't close your eyes, look at me!"  She would never know for sure what happened next.  She shoved, aware that the feeling of suicide had somehow goaded her into the action.  She wanted to live, she wanted to be away from him, so she shoved.  The wet warmth that splashed her face startled her and her eyes flew open.   He was staring at her with the most comical expression, then she heard the knife hit the floor and he released her, his hands going to his throat trying desperately to stop the spray of blood that had hit her in the face and now seemed to be painting the room.

She stood there, too stunned to move as he sank to his knees in front of her, his eyes disbelieving as he sagged against her bed and then on to the floor.  He lay there, his now dead eyes staring at her until finally her mind reconnected and she grasped what had happened.  She leaped over him and raced to the bathroom, losing what little dinner she'd eaten, then she pulled herself to her feet using the sink.

Her face was painted with his blood and with a gasp she turned on the water and scrubbed her face frantically.  Then she ripped off the thin nightgown also soaked in blood and let it fall to the floor.  Somehow she had a washcloth in her hands and she was frantically washing blood from her skin wherever she saw it.

She had to get out of here.  No, Jonesy was downstairs.  He'd kill her for what she'd done.  John paid one of the highest fees for her 'services'.  Jonesy knew what the man liked even if he didn't acknowledge it, and he extracted a price.  He probably even thought it was to her good, since she 'benefited' from everything she earned.

She had to get herself together.  She'd ruined everything here.  Who could Jonesy sell her to now, knowing she'd murdered . . . No, she had to go.

Stepping carefully around the blood that had pooled around John, she dressed in her best remaining jeans and pulled on three shirts.  She pulled on socks and her least worn sneakers.  She grabbed her emergency stash she kept in the old backpack she'd found and stopped.  Her 'tip', had he brought one this time? 

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she checked his pockets.  Yes, two MREs were in his coat pocket, then her fingers closed around a set of keys.  His truck.  Why not steal it, she'd already killed him, car theft was nothing compared to that.  She looked for a moment at his heavy coat, it was better than anything she had, people would think it was him leaving.  No one ever came to check on her when he'd been here.  She pulled on one more sweater, and then his coat, stuffed a couple of pair of socks and underwear into a pocket and let her fist tightened around the keys.  She had to go.

She quietly crept down the stairs and let herself out the back without anyone seeing her.  The truck was parked around back and to her intense relief had automatic transmission.  She hadn't driven a straight drive but a couple of times and had no confidence she'd have been able to make her escape that way. 

There was no need to turn on the lights, to everyone's amazement, the power was still on and the street lights lit her way as she drove away from the diner and everything she had ever known.  Jonesy would find his body, would know what she had done. 

She drove until she fell asleep at the wheel, veering from the road and waking herself up.  With that warning she pulled off the road and into some woods to shield her from sight.  No one from Jonesy's group could find her; they had no transportation like this.  She needed some sleep, then she'd be on her way again.

It wasn't a restful sleep.  She felt exposed out here with no weapon.  It hadn't occurred to her to pick up the knife that had fallen from John's hand when he collapsed.  She couldn't have touched it, but now with only the truck cab around her she was alone and scared.

She finally dropped off from sheer exhaustion and the sun woke her the next morning when it rose above the trees.  Still terrified she let herself out of the truck and used the bushes, then returned.  The back of the pickup was empty, but there was a large locked storage unit against the back window.  What would he have thought important enough to lock up like that?  The padlock was huge.  There was no way she could break in. 

Then she looked down at her hand.  She was holding his keys, a large ring of them.  Surely one of them . . . She looked around, but there was no one, so she climbed up into the back and approached the bin.

She studied the lock for a moment, then began going through the keys.  It only took a minute to determine the correct one and she opened the lock.  One look and she knew why the heavy lock.

He'd kept emergency supplies here.  There was a five gallon gas can as well as three of the little two gallon ones.  They were full and therefore worth a fortune.  He had a first aid kit that looked like he'd picked up at a drug store and never opened, jumper cables, and some extra clothes, and there all the way to one side, a bag of MREs.

She sat down in the back and leaned against the unit.  She didn't know if there was any place safe to go, she doubted it, but she could get far from here.  Where?  She'd never been anywhere, seen anything.  She locked the storage unit and crawled back into the cab of the truck. 

Annie opened the glove compartment, looking for maps.  The handgun was the only thing she could see for several seconds.  Finally she reached for it, and was surprised at the weight of it.  She stuffed it back in the glove box and snatched up the maps.  They were old, and torn it some places, but it didn't matter.  She leaned back and tried to steady her breathing.  Where could she go?

She started the engine and looked down at the gas gauge.  She saw that she had almost a full tank, then realized there were two tanks on the truck.  She switched and saw that the second one was also full.  That gave her more confidence than she expected since she had no destination in mind.

There was no one around, so she pulled back out onto the road and headed east.

She drove early in the mornings and then pulled off to sleep during the middle of the day.  She hid the truck from sight each time; it was her home and sanctuary now.  She saw little sign of anyone around, though she kept expecting bandits or something to leap out at her at any time.  She had even been able to refill the gas cans a couple of times, pulling off the highway and finding gas stations that still had power and additional food to eat.

The aloneness was the worse, that and the nightmares that had begun after the first night.  Of course the dreams were of John, one where he had risen from his seat beside her bed, drenched in blood and begun walking toward her.  That was bad enough, but then he had begun to melt like all of the people that had gotten the virus.  For some reason the sight of him foaming was worse than the blood and she had woken screaming more than once.

Since sleeping was not really an option now, she began traveling more and more at night.  At least if she did doze off during the day, there was light.  She was more than half way across Ohio, with no definite destination in her mind, when the tire blew. 

She fought the wheel, barely managing to keep control of the truck before bringing it to a halt.  Panic suffused her.  She was in the middle of nowhere and her transportation was gone.  There was no spare, she had noticed that from the beginning, but she hadn't bothered to check the tires that closely.  She knew little about cars anyway and changing a tire was beyond her abilities.

No, wasn't this a way for the universe to tell her to just give it up?  If she just sat here, eventually she'd go to sleep and never wake up.  Wouldn't that be peaceful?  Not if the nightmare was waiting for her.  Would it always be there, is that what she would face when she died?  She'd killed a man, surely that meant hell.  Maybe it had been an accident, but she had made no move to help him or get help.  She had stood there and watched him bleed to death on her floor.  Was just giving up the same as suicide?  That was a sin too, right?

After a long time her heart slowed down to a nearly normal beat and she forced herself out of the cab.  She was probably going to die out here alone, but at least she wasn't going to sit here and wait.  She'd been on Interstate 71 headed toward Columbus, but there was no way she could walk through a city.  People were still around and they were as leery of her and she was of them.  Well, maybe.  With still shaking hands she pulled out the tattered maps.  She should turn south, get on 33 and just walk until she couldn't anymore.  What else was there?

She loaded everything she could carry into her backpack and adjusted it on her shoulders.  She tucked the gun in her front jeans pockets and added a sheathed knife to the pack.  She had no idea what kind of shot she was, but she had learned how to reload the clip and had an extra in her other pocket.  That gave her twenty shots.  If she needed more than that . . .

With little hope, she started walking.

*****

She was lost, somehow she'd gotten off of 33 and seemed to be on 550, though she certainly hadn't noticed at the time.  It didn't matter.  Nothing really did.  There was no one out here; she hadn't even seen signs of anyone in a couple of days.   If she had stayed at the truck, maybe used the gun on herself, this would be over.  A large part of her wondered why she was still walking.

At dusk she found a clearing away from the road and settled in.  As always she hid the precious backpack from sight and settled near the small creek where she had refilled her water bottles.  This was probably a nightmare night, she hadn't had one last night so she was due.  Go on to sleep and get it over with, maybe she'd be able to fall back asleep afterward.

It wasn't the nightmare that woke he; it was the sound of a branch snapping and someone saying "Shh" to someone else.  She froze in terror, completely forgetting the gun in her pocket.  Then hands grabbed her, hauling her to her feet.

"It's a girl!" the man exclaimed to the other two following him.  "Well, hello little sweetie."

She couldn't speak, fear had taken her breath.

"Now come on, you want to be friendly to us, don't you?"

"Jack, leave her."

"Hell no.  When's the last time you saw a female?"

"She's twelve!"

"Nah, she's older'n that.  She's just skinny like everyone else now.  How old are you, Honeybunch?"

Shaking violently now, Annie made no attempt to answer him.  He shook her slightly, but that didn't help.

"Leave her, Jack.  Come on."

"I told you, no."  He reached for his belt buckle.  "She just wants us to get on with it, talking ain't her style."

"Jack - "

"Shut up, Denny.  I'm taking a piece of this.  If you want seconds, help yourself."

Jack started when he discovered the gun in her pocket.  She had made no attempt to draw it.  "Well, well, our very own Annie Oakley."  She jerked at the sound of her name, but he didn't know it, it had just been another comment.  You got anymore of these, missy?"

After a vicious shaking she managed to shake her head.  He took the gun and tossed it to the one he called Denny.  "You gonna watch?"

"Don't - "

"You can be a damn choir boy, I'm gonna have a little fun."  He shoved her down onto the grass without removing clothes from either of them, and proceeded to rape her with little finesse.  This she was familiar with, and quickly hurried to that little place in her mind where she felt safe.  It was only a fantasy place, but there was a lake and children playing and it was safe there.

Jack finished up quickly and the other two, to her astonishment, didn't approach.  "Are we going to take her with us?"  It was Denny that asked.

"Nah, we'd have to feed her.  She can go on to wherever she was headed."

"Can she survive out here alone?"

"She's done okay so far.  Come on, we got us a nice little gun out of the 'transaction'.  Let's get a move on."

Denny looked over at her with what looked like pity, but he didn't speak and he didn't go against Jack.  The third man, only a boy really, hadn't spoken at all.  They left her where she lay and headed what she thought was north.  She pulled her jeans back up and curled into a ball.

She couldn't say she slept, but she had certainly zoned out after that.  There had been no nightmare, just the safe place by the lake with the children running and playing.  She winced getting to her feet and checked.  They had not found her backpack.  That was good, wasn't it?  She wouldn't starve, yippee.

They had headed north so she turned to the east and trudged on, one foot in front of another, wondering why she wasn't already dead.  What had she done to be punished like this?

She didn't stop for lunch or dinner, just moving on, not even feeling the hunger pangs.  Numb was nice, anything else would hurt.   She walked through the night, no longer caring where she was or what direction she was headed.  She only stopped when she tripped over a clump of dirt and sprawled on the ground.  Without a word, she curled into a ball and slept where she fell.

*****

"Mary!" The voice was hushed but urgent . . . and female!  Annie opened her eyes.  "There now, you're going to be fine.  You have a bump on your head and you look half starved, but you're safe now."

Annie instinctively drew back.  No, there were no more nice people.  They'd all been killed by the virus.  This was some new kind of nightmare, where she'd wake up to total aloneness once again.

The hand lightly touched her arm, even though the younger woman seemed more wary.  "My name is Maggie.  What's yours?"

Annie didn't speak, but the hand on her arm felt real.

"Are you out here all alone?  Mary, keep the boys with you.  Let's help her to her feet."

"Maggie?" Mary's question said it all.

"He can take it up with me later.  Let's get her back to the house.  She's traumatized.  I'm not leaving her out here alone."