THE SW CASINO
By Minimizer
Chapter 80
Lori and I exchanged glances. "Kill us?" she gulped.
"That's right," Vicky confirmed, nodding her head. "The punishment for disobedience here is a little bit worse than it was with that Irwin guy. You should've stayed with him, Ashley. Here, if they catch you trying to escape, you'll be put to death, usually in some grisly public way as an example to the rest of us."
"Like what?" asked Lori shakily.
"Oooh, you don't wanna know," said Heather.
"No, they have to be told," Vicky went on. "They won't get the full impact, though, until they see it for themselves. The last time it was Cindy Wheaton. You probably don't remember her, do you?"
"No," Lori and I both replied. Actually, I had no idea who she was. She wasn't one of the girls we'd been assigned here to find, but that wasn't all too surprising. They had dozens more women in their custody than we'd ever suspected.
"I figured she was taken before you arrived. Anyway, she couldn't stand it here. She was good friends with Eve Caruso, and had to watch as that poor girl slipped into catatonia, because of what Ray did to her. When we couldn't get Eve to come out of it, they came and took her away, and Cindy went nuts. She stormed around here breaking things, and then finally smashed one of the windows and jumped out."
"What happened?" Lori asked. "Did the fall kill her?"
"Nope," Vicky went on. "We thought it did, but we watched her get up after a little while. She yelled something up at us but we couldn't hear her over the wind. Then she ran into the bushes and disappeared.
"It was maybe an hour later that they brought her up here, wrapped up with tape. We though they might let her go with a warning, but they didn't. They put her on a towel in the middle of the floor, and then--"
Vicky seemed to choke on the words. "Go on," Irene prodded. "Like you said, they have to know."
"All right!" she spat. "They stepped on her! Ray put on a golf cleat and stepped on her, right there in front of us! When he lifted up his foot, she was impaled on one of the spikes, but she was still alive! God! I'll never forget those screams!"
"It's all right," Rebecca said, putting her hand on Vicky's shoulder. "There was nothing any of us could have done."
"That wasn't the worst part, though," Vicky mumbled, looking down at the floor and speaking in a low voice. "Since she was still alive, he pried her off with a fork, then stepped on her again. And again. She still wasn't dead, so he finally stabbed her with the fork and left her there on the towel. Even then she lived for a few more minutes."
"I'll never forget what she said," Rebecca told us then. "She said, 'It's all right, it's better this way. I couldn't have lasted here much longer anyway. Don't forget me. And when you make them pay, hit 'em once just for me!'" Rebecca's hands were clenched into fists. "Well, I won't forget, Cindy. One way or another, I promise you, you'll have your wish!"
I nodded. There didn't seem to be much more to say about that, but I took note of the fact that if we did try anything, Rebecca would be tops on my list of allies.
"Please," said Heather next to us, "Ashley, Lori, please swear you'll never do anything that gets you killed like that!" Her eyes were downcast and she seemed to be begging. "I don't wanna ever haveta see that happen t'ya, okay?"
"Sure," I replied. "I promise. They'll never do anything like that to us."
"Same here," said Lori.
It was true, of course. I wasn't lying to Heather. While I had every intention of trying to escape, if they caught me I'd make sure we didn't get any kind of public execution. If I went out, I'd go down fighting, not as an example to others.
Actually, I was thinking escape wasn't going to be all that difficult, at least for me and Lori. All we had to do was leave our transmitters behind, preferably with someone we could trust (the leading candidates at this point were Rebecca and Vicky), who would move them around occasionally. The tricky parts were the electrified fence and the multiple mile trek back to civilization.
Obviously, I didn't know enough about the layout of the compound to know if getting around the fence would be easy or not. The gate was out because of the sensors, and more than likely, there would be similar emplacements around the fence area as well. These guys were both determined and rich, and since they couldn't afford any mistakes, they were sure to cover all the bases. It was much like Irwin's feats of engineering, only on a much grander scale.
When faced with a wall or other barrier, there are basically three ways to get around it: over, under, or through. Well, an electrified fence was not something my little body would want to touch, so going through it was not an option. Tunneling under it seemed more likely, though it might take a while, and if there were any patrols, they'd spot my digging easily enough. Getting over the fence would be difficult, too. Even a seven-foot fence would be the equivalent of a hundred and twenty feet to someone like me, so pole-vaulting it or the like was out. Maybe a balloon, or a glider or something, but I'd think about that later.
There was another matter, as well. Beth's daughter Amber was still a key focal point. We needed her alive to earn Beth's testimony. In fact, the safety of all the girls here was of prime importance. If I got the word out about this place and they sent in the troops, the tiny women here would make excellent hostages. Plus, if a fight broke out, they'd be difficult to protect. I didn't want to see us get the perps at the cost of all these innocent, if extremely small, lives.
That was the real trick, then, wasn't it? How to not only escape and bring back help, but do it in such a way that not only were the criminals brought to justice, but the innocents were safe and protected. What a dilemma!
Of course, as far as the girls here knew, we were just a couple of casino workers who'd been abducted like they had. We had to think like they would. For them, escape was the only thing that mattered.
The rest, I supposed, would have to come later.