Going Gone, Book 2 of the Irish End Games (6 page)

T
he moment Caitlin
saw the two of them ride back into camp without Mike was the moment she knew she had already won.

The boy sagged in his saddle she noticed with a smile, but the look on Fiona's face worried her. Fi was tough and she could smell bullshit a mile off. She could definitely be a problem if Caitlin was to successfully finish what she started.

She watched as several of the other community families rushed out to greet the two.
Like friggin' royalty. Like the little Yank was the feckin' crown prince returned to his kingdom.
Now that the little shite's da was gone, there was nothing standing in the way of the Yank bitch crawling into Mike's bed, and all of ‘em being the picture of the perfect little family.

Nothing except her.

A smirk formed on Caitlin's face as she watched Fiona help the brat down from his horse. Two children around his age ran up to him, but he shook his head as if he barely had the strength to make it to his bed, let alone play a game of stickball. Too right, Caitlin thought as she watched him stumble after Fiona toward her cottage.

Looks like he'll be needing tending. Likely Fi has her hands full these days, what with big brother running after the new widow.

Likely she'll be glad of whatever help a loving sister-in-law could give.

M
ike had never been
to the east coast of Ireland. In his mind, he expected it to look much like the west coast, which he knew well. As he sat on his horse looking down onto the busy harbor, it occurred to him that the difference was that this coast, the one on the channel and facing Wales, looked a little more civilized than what he was used to. His coast was wild—uncontained by land or shuttle boats taking commuters to and fro. Although there was no denying the awe-inspiring beauty of the coast, he knew which part of Ireland
he
preferred.

It was midday and the scene below him was controlled chaos. An outdoor market stretched from the bulkhead where the ferry was tied all the way through town. Even from where he sat—easily a half a mile away—he could hear the noise and clamor of the market.

This is what we should still have in Balinagh
, he thought. Except, without a natural conduit like the channel leading straight to the UK, there was no reason for people to come to it, let alone stay in the region. Most people around Balinagh had left months ago to be near family or better resources in the towns and along the coast.

Only a barking mad Irishman would stubbornly insist on creating a community out of the godless wilderness.

As he moved down the worn pasture path down the steep hill to the town, Mike kept his eyes on the ferryboat lashed to the long pier that jutted out into St. George's Channel. He wasn't positive this was where they would have come. Mike had lost whatever possible tracks might have been Sarah's. It was possible, if they had more raids, that they crossed the channel further north up the coast.

Now, as he descended to the town, he realized he was going strictly on hearsay from Fiona's sources, logic, and hope. If he was totally off the mark coming here instead of further up the coast, he'd likely never know. And since the alternative was to turn around and go back to camp without even a whiff of the trail of the bastards who took her, he pressed on.

He knew he should rest and water Petey—it'd been a long and tiring trip, with rain most of the way—but he was keenly aware of the time. The lights and electricity may be out, but one thing stayed the same: it wasn't going to get any easier the colder the trail got.

He saw the covered cart as soon as he was close enough to make out shapes on the ferry. It was easily large enough to carry several people in back and the tarp covering it was loosely tied.
In case people needed to breathe
. He stood in his stirrups the last few steps down into the town to get a better look. A young woman sat in front with two drivers, both of whom looked like rough trade. One of the men had his arm around the woman but she kept shrugging him off.

Sarah might be in there.

When he stepped from the pasture path to the cobblestones of the town's main drag, he worked to keep Petey at a walk although it was all he could do not to gallop him straight for the ferry landing.

Did I figure it right after all?

It made so much sense. This was the most direct route back to the UK, especially if you had cargo that wouldn't stand close inspection. The closer he got, the better he could see the young thugs with the cart. Even the woman looked rough, her face hard and ugly. Mike strained to see if the back of the cart moved at all—anything to indicate there might be human cargo hidden under that tarp.

“Whoa! Hold up, yer honor!”

Mike jerked his mount to avoid hitting a large bald man standing in his path.

“Watch where you're going, you idiot!” Mike blurted. He could see over the man's shoulder that the ferry was making last minute preparations for debarkation.

“Oh, idiot, is it?” the man said, reaching out to grab Petey's bridle.

“Get your hands off my horse.”

“Jimmy! Liam! Give us a hand over here, will ya?”

Mike saw one of the men on the cart on the ferry jump down from his seat and go to the back, where he lifted up a corner of the tarp to peer inside.

Why would he do that unless there were people back there?'

Two men appeared on either side of Mike's horse. One of them grabbed at Petey's reins, trying to snatch them from Mike's grasp.

“What the feck?”

The other man deftly slipped Mike's rifle from his saddle scabbard.

“I'm afraid you'll be needing to come with us, squire,” the bald man said as Mike twisted in his saddle to try to grab for his rifle. When he turned back to face the bald man in front of him, he saw the snout end of a Colt 45 pistol, which the man was aiming at his head.

S
arah was stunned
to realize she slept even fifteen minutes during the wretched and lengthy channel crossing. Interspersed between the sounds and smells of the remaining women's vomiting and cries, she had turned off her brain and given herself up to oblivion. The agony of reawakening to her nightmare was softened by the renewed strength the rest had given her.

It was three days after the attack. When Angie had convinced Sarah to resign herself to enduring the trip without fighting, and when she believed that there might be an end to it, Sarah had devised a method to keep track of how long she was gone. Now, after Angie's treachery was revealed to be just a way to keep her and the rest of the women manageable, she tried not to think of all the opportunities to escape she had let go by.

Three days since the attack meant that Mike's camp had long since galvanized into action. While it was true she and David had taken a step away from the group, she knew they would try to find her.

Mike
would try to find her.

Three days and nights. Mike and his posse would be on horseback and travelling faster than the loaded cart full of women.

Why hadn't he found them yet? Would he be able to track them to the coast? Would he know they'd left the country?

Three days and no hint that anyone was coming for her.

Her captors seemed, if anything, to be even more relaxed than when they started. They were drunk most of the time now that Angie was riding with them. They seemed to abdicate all control to her.

How had she believed even for a minute that Angie was a victim like herself? She never looked afraid. Unlike the rest of them, who all sported either bruises or busted lips from their handlers' impatience, she had never exhibited any signs of abuse. Looking back at the first two days of travel, it seemed preposterous to Sarah that anyone could have believed Angie was one of them.

The cart heaved dramatically to one side, triggering hysterical shrieks from the seven women huddled in the back. Sarah determined that the crossing was over. She listened to one of the men cursing as, from the sounds of it, he roughly attempted to re-harness the horses to the cart for the exit from the ferry.

The canvas flap hiding the women jerked open and Angie peered in. “Shirrup, back here,” she said harshly.

Immediately, the women's cries reduced to moans and muffled sobs.

“You'll have a chance to use the facilities after we're off the boat. I'll need you to move quietly and quickly when I tell you to, is that clear?”

The women all nodded, clutching each other in fear as if Angie were the personification of the devil himself.

They weren't far wrong,
Sarah thought, narrowing her eyes at the woman.

“Where are you taking us?” Sarah asked.

“Ah, now, I'm not at liberty to spoil that particular surprise. Just know that it won't disappoint and that it's better than lying dead in a ditch. Just ask poor Janice.”

“Why are you doing this? For money?”

Sarah thought she saw a shadow pass over Angie's face but the woman quickly regained control.

“I'm doing it because it's my job, petal. That's all.” Angie ended the conversation with an abrupt jerk of the canvas flap that closed the women back in and blotted out the slim wedge of light.

An hour later, the cart was parked under a large grove of ash and aspens. Sarah and the seven other women had been allowed to relieve themselves without interference in a long ditch that ran parallel to the road. It occurred to Sarah that now that Angie didn't have to play the part of one of the victims, there would likely be no more rapes or beatings. She was definitely the one in charge.

Angie stood at the top of the ditch watching the women while the men watered the horses and smoked across the paved highway. Like the roads in the area around Balinagh, the road had been unused for over a year now. Already the sun and the weather had buckled the asphalt. Bushes grew wild on the perimeter.

What little news she and the rest of them had received about conditions in England or the rest of the United Kingdom after The Crisis had indicated that England hadn't been as badly hit. From what she could see—miles and miles of unused highway—that did not bear out.

She climbed up the side of the incline toward Angie. “I can't imagine what would cause you to do this to other women,” Sarah said when she reached her. “Are they holding your grandma hostage or something?”

Angie grinned at her. “You know what I see when I see you, Yank? What I saw the very first time they threw you in the back of the cart three days ago?”

Sarah wiped her hands on her jeans and looked away, forcing her face not to show her emotion. She didn't want to think three days back.
David had still been alive three days back.

“I thought, blimey, we got us a cuckoo. You know that story? We went shopping for wrens and robins and we pulled us a big Yank cuckoo into the nest. Let's just say I expect a bonus for landing you.”

“You got kids, Angie? Looks to me like you got childbearing hips. Maybe more than one?”

“Shut up, Yank, or I'll put the gag back on. Might wipe my arse with it first.”

“Your kiddies know what Mummy is doing these days? I bet you got a refrigerator door full of their finger paintings back home. Maybe you got one showing Mummy putting a knife in someone's back. Maybe Daddy?”

“Shut up, I said! You don't know anything about me.” Angie took a step toward her and Sarah forced herself not to move.

“I know you're a mother, same as me.”

“Then you don't know shit. Get back in the cart.” Angie shoved past Sarah and stood at the top of the ditch. “Let's go! Nose powdering after we get where we're going. Lunch is served once you ladies get your arses back in the cart.”

Sarah looked down the long lonely highway. There were no hikers, no riders, no horses, no carts. She could still smell the sea and she knew it had been less than an hour since they'd made the crossing. But wherever they were off the coast of England, it was deserted and remote.

The rest of the women struggled up the side of the ditch and hurried to the cart. Sarah noticed that they all avoided eye contact with the men. There had been one more rape before Angie revealed herself but none since.

Once everyone was seated in the back again, Angie left the canvas off so they could get some air. The gesture depressed Sarah. It meant they were going nowhere near a town or any other place inhabited. The level of laughter and horseplay among the men increased too.

They aren't worried, Sarah thought. They know they're in the homestretch now.

5
Days after the attack
.

Sarah and the seven women ate and slept in the back of the cart. They were allowed out twice a day for bathroom breaks but everyone stayed tied. Sarah's wrists had rubbed raw, bled, scabbed over, and rubbed raw again dozens of times over. Their captors were in a hurry. That was clear. They took turns sleeping in the front of the cart so that they didn't need to make camp at night.

In the two days as they trudged eastward across England—through rains and evil winds, drizzles and even a spitting snowfall—they never saw another living person.

The other women in the cart were as close to zombies as still-living people could be, Sarah thought. Like her, most if not all of them had seen loved ones murdered before they were abducted. Two of the women had been raped. All of them sat in the cart, compliant, and numb with fear. They didn't engage Sarah or each other. A couple, mother and daughter it looked like, clung to each other. The rest behaved according to what they all knew to be true without a doubt—they were on their own.

Midday on the sixth day, Sarah knew they were close to the end. Usually after lunch Angie stopped the cart and let the women out for a moment. Today, she jumped down from the driver's bench and, with Jeff's help, secured the tarp closed over the opening in the back, blotting out the light. Sarah tried to catch her eye to get some hint of what was happening but Angie was all business. The other women began to move restlessly in back. They, too, knew that something was coming. Whatever horrors they had been keeping back in the darkest recesses of their minds were about to come rushing and screaming to the foreground.

Sarah peeled a corner of the tarp away from the side of the cart and got down on her hands and knees to peer out. For an hour or more, all she saw was sky. Just about the time that the women were starting to relax again, the cart picked up speed and they began to talk in excited, panicked tones. Sarah could see buildings now, and other people on horseback moving alongside the cart. She could hear, too. It wasn't the sounds of normal traffic pre-Crisis, but it was the unmistakable hum of a town in full activity. She heard voices calling, laughing, a horse's scream and the constant clop-clop of more horse-drawn carts on the road with them.

“Be quiet!” she whispered to the women and they silenced immediately. It was dark under the canvas, and rank with the smell of unwashed bodies and stark fear. She could see the whites of the eyes of the woman who sat closest to her. They all stared at her as if waiting for her orders.

Well, I imagine you'll be told what to do soon enough
, Sarah thought.
I guess we all will.

When the cart stopped suddenly, Sarah was still bent over to look through her gap in the canvas and fell forward toward the opening. She scrambled back but the women had surged forward and filled her spot. She felt a knee in the small of her back and her breath pushed out of her. Suddenly, the canvas tarp whipped back and the sweet breath of afternoon air came rushing into the foul-smelling cart. Sarah stayed on her hands and knees, trying to steady herself while the women receded like a noxious tide of noise and odor.

“Shirrup!” Angie's voice was hard and shrill. As Sarah looked up and blinked into the light, she saw Angie and Jeff standing at the end of the cart. He unhooked the back panel and held out his arms to her. She hesitated.

“This is where you get off, petal,” Angie said. “Hurry up, we have a few more stops today. Move your arse.”

Sarah crawled to the edge of the wagon and felt Jeff's hands capture her under her arms and drag her off the end of the cart. She fell to the ground and the pavement slammed into her face, cutting her lip open on her tooth.

“Who else, Ange?” Jeff asked, nudging Sarah with his steel-toed boot to make her move out of his way.

“That one,” Angie said. “The old one and the kid, too.”

“Aw, Ange, you're no fun,” Jeff said. “I was looking forward to having a go at the tyke.”

“And that one there with the big nose.”

“But she's got tits! No one cares about a big nose with those tits!”

“Let's go, ladies,” Angie said. “You, you and you, out! Right now. I don't want to have to send my friend in to get you.”

Sarah staggered to her feet and looked around as the two women and the teenager scrambled out of the back of the wagon. The cart had stopped in front of the entrance to a long dirt driveway. Behind her was the town they'd just ridden through. She craned her neck to see past Jeff. Down the driveway was a long series of shacks and huts strung together by ramshackle walkways. It looked like it had once been a factory of some kind. The windows were broken out, but Sarah could see smoke pouring out of the chimneys at each of the joined buildings.

A deserted workhouse in the middle of nowhere.

Only it wasn't deserted.

Jeff turned and grabbed Sarah's bound hands and looped a long rope through her bonds, attaching her to the two other women and the child. She could see the other women in the cart looking even more terrified than before they stopped. The end of the line for Sarah and the other two women seemed, clearly, to be some kind of factory. Even from this distance, Sarah could see women coming out of the door with buckets of water and going back in.

Whatever they were making in there, she thought, at least they didn't seem to be turning people into soap.

At least she didn't think they were.

Jeff brought her rudely back to the present with a rough jerk on the rope that ripped into her raw and bloodied wrists. She bit back a cry of pain. He saluted Angie from where she sat at the front of the cart and began to walk down the driveway, leading the women.

Sarah turned to see Angie watching her as she was led down the front drive. Their eyes met. Angie didn't smile. Her eyes looked hunted and sick.

T
he smell
of the place was beyond what her senses had ever experienced before.

Sarah entered behind the other women through the large double doors. As soon as she stepped foot inside, the illusion of a factory vanished and was replaced by the image of a fifteen century insane asylum. With only what natural light there was from the overhead windows—a bank of ten windows, each easily twenty feet high—vision was handicapped to distinguishing human form from animal.

Sarah stopped abruptly as the young girl ahead of her bent over and threw up the meager lunch she'd had an hour earlier. Before Sarah could think to sidestep the puddle of sick, she was assailed with the most intensely evil odor she had ever endured. Her hands flew involuntarily to her mouth in attempt to physically stop entry of the terrible stench into her nose or mouth. It was the smell of hell itself. A simmering pestilence of sewage and excrement, festering sores and foul air that was thick against Sarah's lips and nose. She gagged and drew in a long, shallow breath through her mouth.

Her eyes watered in the fumes and she blinked to clear her vision. Jeff was still pulling them further into the interior of the hellhole. She could see now that he had a scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face. As she stumbled forward, the floor of the place slick underfoot, she saw the people. Hundreds of them lined the main corridor where Sarah and the other women were being led. On either side people were standing or kneeling, pleading with them, their arms upraised, their hands clasped in prayer. Many were naked, but those that weren't were dressed in filthy rags.