It Happens Every Day

by Derek A. Murphy

  The woman rolled up one of the bedrolls and looking appraisingly at Brian, stripped the frame from the broken tent before rolling it up into a neat bundle. She took a strip of leather from a bit of the gear lying about and tied both together, heaving them onto the top of her head. Turning carefully, she gestured toward the direction from which they had come and said something in an imperative tone of voice. From that, he gathered that she was guiding him away from whoever had slaughtered her people. That there were no bodies of other young women or any healthy children, indicated that the people in this place practiced slavery; a fate that she had escaped, only to believe that she had become his slave. A state that he had no intention of taking advantage of; to him, she was a companion and nothing more. What he would do with her when he and Petra escaped this place, he didn’t know. Nor did he know what would become of her when left on her own.

  Sighing, he started walking back toward the building, Staff swinging in his hand to tap on the stone in time with his steps. He had gathered up the end of her leash because she seemed to expect it of him, and he carried it unmindfully while she darted curious, sidewise looks at him.

  * * *

  An overhanging outcrop of stone was her shelter this time and Petra wished that she was back in the snug, little stone lean-to; a rill of water had developed when the mist became heavier and there was no way for her to keep dry. There was still a little of the meat left that she had stolen from the Little People and after a few bites, she felt satisfied. The rest of it would have to last her a while longer and she sighed as she slid it into the crude pocket she had discovered on the inside of the woolen top she wore.

  The sound of people moving in the mist came to her and she cursed the mist inwardly; sounds didn’t carry far in the stuff and this bunch of people had managed to get quite close to her. As the sounds continued to grow closer, she sidled sideways to the other side of the overhanging stone and gathered her feet under her in order to make a run for it if they got too close. A pair of feet appeared at the other side of the overhang and the face of a man with huge eyes that she recognized as the tall man where she had stolen her clothes, appeared as he bent to peer within the shelter. Moving quickly, she scuttled out the other side and straightened, breaking into a run to escape into the mist and felt her feet jerked from under as something tightened around her ankles. Her hand grasped her makeshift knife as she doubled over to slash at the cord holding her ankles and a big hand grabbed her wrist, twisting it cruelly till the knife tinkled onto the stone below her. Then several pairs of hands were on her as her clothes were stripped unceremoniously from her body, the cord at her ankles being removed only to pull the trousers off her legs. It was transferred to her wrists, looped around her neck and when she tried to kick at one of the men holding her, she was pummeled unmercifully till she couldn’t stand.

  While this was happening, a group of people had drawn near and she heard jeering voices. Looking up, she recognized the rest of the People of the Fire, one of whom was the woman whose clothes she had stolen. As the woman slipped back into them, mouthing curses at Petra, she darted forward to deliver a kick to Petra’s stomach that doubled her over on the stone again. After a few seconds, Petra was jerked to her feet and pushed toward another, smaller group of people. As she swayed on her feet, she was surprised that they hadn’t removed her makeshift shoes or hat. Looking around her, she saw that the group among which she stood was a number of women of the Little People. Each of them had a bundle of camp gear, cooking utensils, tents, bedrolls and etc. strapped to their shoulders. It was difficult for her to recognize them now as they weren’t dressed and seemed to have magically lost their huge breasts. They were each linked together with a length of leather cord by the neck. With their hands tied behind their backs, there was no way for them to cover themselves. As she looked closely at the one standing nearest her, she saw a strip of stringy stuff that hung from the side of the woman’s chest, curving under the small breast and attached at the other end in the center of the chest. That’s when it occurred to Petra that the women had been wearing prosthetic breasts that had been secured with an adhesive of sorts. She shook her head as she let it hang, and wondered at the vanity of women and how it was so pervasive that it even extended to a strange culture outside the worlds.

  A pair of the huge-eyed, tall men moved into the group, shoving some of them out of the way and removed portions of the burdens the small women carried. Bundling the odds and ends into one large bundle, the two lifted it and settled it on Petra’s shoulders, staggering her for a moment until she regained her balance. When they had it strapped in place, one of them gave her a push as the other began pushing the other women. Stumbling into motion, she fell into line behind one of the extremely short women and one of the men took the end of her leash and fastened it to the back of the woman’s leash in front of her. She felt his hands fumbling at the back of her neck, tangling another cord in her hair as he tied it to the rear of her leash.

  The cords, both front and back were so short that in order to keep from choking, she was forced to walk closely behind the woman in front, sometimes stepping on her heels before she was able to mend the length of her steps to the other woman’s. The woman behind her walked so closely to her, for the same reason, that Petra’s heels, even in the shoes, were soon sore. As it was, the size of the bundles on their shoulders continually caused them to bump into one another and struggle to retain their balance. As they walked, she noticed for the first time that the women of the Little People had their hair braided into little pigtails all over their heads, except for a fringe of hair directly over their foreheads.

  The tall man, the leader it seemed, walked at the front of the procession and she was able to see him clearly enough when the mist thinned sometimes that she saw him point obliquely to the front. Two of the men trotted off in that direction and were gone some time before they returned with the carcass of a small animal, something like a striped squirrel, slung by its tail from one of their belts. It was then that she divined that these people’s huge eyes somehow enabled them to see further in the mist than normal. She wondered, in her misery, if that was how they had tracked her to her lair.

  After hours of walking, they came to a large grouping of tumbled stone, each block dressed as though they had once formed a building, and the bundles were removed from the shoulders of the women. Herded into a small enclosure of blocks tall enough to prevent the shorter women from climbing them, Petra found herself treated differently because of her height. Two of the men forced her to kneel and pried one of the large blocks up on one side, dropping the end of her leash under it before lowering it back in place. Thus was she secured, close to the ground, only able to crouch, kneel or lie down in order to be comfortable.

  The men dropped a bundle of large bones into a fire pit and sprinkled a coarse powder over them. Once the fire was laid, several of the men stood about the fire pit urinating on the gathered material. Surprisingly, the heap began to smolder and soon burst into flame, causing her to wonder at the chemical reaction that would result in a fire. In minutes, the women of the group of captors had gathered around the fire and thrust small spits that contained several small animals over the flames. One of them carried a large stone cauldron to the fire and water sloshed out of it as she settled it into place. She began dropping bits of this and that into it, finally pulling one of the animals from its spit and using the knife that Petra had carried to joint the thing before dropping its parts into the pot.

  In a short time, the People of the Fire were eating and one of them scooped up a fairly large cup of the stew and moved among the captives, allowing them each two handfuls of the stuff. The little women ate voraciously to the accompaniment of the man’s laughter, which brought several other men to stand near them and bark ribald jokes, clutching their groins and thrusting their hips in pantomime at the captives. One of the women in particular drew their attention because she barked back at them, making rude gestures with the fingers of her tied
hands. A man started forward angrily but the leader, his attention drawn to them, jerked him back and slapped what appeared to be a wineskin into the pit of the man’s stomach.

  From that moment on, Petra could have foretold what was going to happen; at least one of the women was going to be raped. She remembered the odd practice in lovemaking of the Little People but knew that while the men of the Little People seemed monstrously endowed; it was only in relation to their overall size. If these men were anything like normal human men, they would be better endowed than the men of the Little People. She worried for the women’s safety because of that.

  For an hour or so, the men drank the wine or whatever it was and were soon drunk and staggering. Two of the less inebriated singled out the little woman with spirit and jerked her toward a pair of standing stones that had cords wrapped around them, leaving an end dangling against each stone. From the practiced way the men suspended the woman from the stones, she knew that this was a common occurrence with them and soon, the woman hung with her feet several inches off the ground while two of the men went at her at once. Petra tried to ignore the woman’s screams and pleas but with her hands tied behind her back, it was impossible to cover her ears. During the hour or so it took for each of the men to have a turn, she gradually came to look at the other women to see how they were reacting. To her surprise, they seemed to be gazing at the performance in something approaching rapt attention and anticipation.

  By the time the men were finished, the woman hung limply by her wrists and one of the nude men loosened her restraints, letting her fall to the ground. She was no sooner on the ground than she was attacking the man, not for escape or revenge, but out of insatiability. One of the large-eyed women strode into the group, taking a man by the ear and pulling him out of the group to the entertainment of the other men, who called ribald jokes after him. Before they were out of sight, the woman had pulled him to the ground and was determinedly making love to him. Petra decided that the woman was jealous of the attention he was paying the little women. As she watched, the other men moved into the enclosure, grasping at the small women and assaulting them without untying their hands.

  The tall man strutted into the group, kicking one man’s legs out of his way as the man assaulted a woman, and came to squat in front of Petra. His hand went to one of her earrings and removed it, dropping it into a little pouch he carried at his belt, following it with the other. Staring into her eyes, he said something that she couldn’t understand and waited patiently for an answer. When none was forthcoming, he removed her hat and snorted in disgust at the mass of yellow hair that fell from under it. Reaching to the nearest of the little women, he pulled her from under the man assaulting her and was rewarded by a dark look, not from the man, but from the woman. As she snarled something at him, he cuffed her and handed her a wad of thin cords, saying something to her before rising to move away. The woman moved closer to Petra and began separating her hair, braiding it into pigtails and tying it with the cords. Petra was so disgusted by what was going on around her that she tried to turn her head away so she wouldn’t have to watch it, but the woman grasped her chin and jerked her head back into position so she could work. When she was finished, the woman moved to another of the men that had just finished with another of the small women and began rubbing against him.

  After another couple of hours, the men were sated and had staggered off to bed with their mates. The little women had all curled up in little balls to sleep and Petra tried to curl into a ball of her own. The heat from the bone-fire didn’t reach this far and the mist was as cold as ever. It was then that the tall man strode once more into the group, kicking away the hands that reached out for him and thrust Petra over onto her back.

  She tried to ignore what went on next, fantasizing about the interrupted interlude with Brian, but the man kept coming back for more. By the time he was satisfied, Petra was sore not just from the incessant and unnatural sex, but from the beating he gave her when she tried to resist him. As he left her, she rolled once more into a ball and cried herself to sleep.

  * * *

  An interminable time later, these assaults had become a nightly occurrence and Petra was beginning to despair of ever being able to escape. They had untied her hands after the first night, but she was still firmly secured at each camp, either with an expedient stone as before, or tied between two of the little women. The others were in no hurry to escape and she became firmly convinced that they were each and every one, nymphomaniacs. What was even worse was that she had come to look forward to the attacks on her body while still feeling shame and remorse because of them.

  At least between the time they stopped at each camp and the time the orgies started, her hands were untied and she was expected to help with the preparation of the meal. She once nonchalantly attempted to pick up her knife when the woman who had taken it laid it down, but was slapped and kicked for her trouble. The woman took special pleasure in tormenting her both during the marches and during the meal preparations; her mate was the leader and he had taken to spending more and more time with Petra every night. He was fascinated by the color of her hair, but had been revolted by the way it hung loose that first night; all the women, both of the Fire and the Little People, bound their hair up in a series of short braids. In odd moments between bouts, she talked to herself, knowing that there was no one there who understood her and felt a freedom that was denied her at all other times.

  Petra had noticed that only the girl children had been taken with the women, leading her to believe that the little boys had been killed with the men. Their captors had at least refrained from raping the girls, but she knew that as soon as their breasts began to bud, they would be served the same way. One of the most popular of the little women singled out by the big men was barely more than a child. She entered into the nightly rapes with all the gusto of the older women and seemed intent on outpacing all of them.

  Her last camp with them began the way all the others had, but this time when the men began passing around the wineskin, the tall man came to Petra and, taking the skin from one of the men, handed it to her, forcing her to drink. Assuming that he wanted her to get into a ‘party’ mood, she didn’t fight too hard; it might make the pain and degradation easier to endure. Choking on the first swallow, she found it to taste like fermented garbage and gagged for nearly a minute. The stuff burned all the way down and she thought she was going to be sick immediately.

  This time, instead of proceeding with the usual assault, he drew her away from the noise and tumult of the others and sat her down on a stone. His mate, seeing what he was doing, made a few steps toward them, calling after him, but he waved her away, sitting beside Petra and taking the skin from her. Looking into her eyes, he knit his brow for a moment.

  "I…listen…to you."

  His finger stabbed at her chest, and then at his.

  "I…Rocheg-monit…leader." He waved a hand back at the camp, indicating his people, she was sure. "People…Rocheg-oc-ule. You?"

  Surprised at his attempt at communication, she said, "I’m Petra."

  Waving toward the orgy, he said, "You…not like."

  Shaking her head, she replied, "No. I don’t like."

  Puzzled, he said, "Lord curse…" He held his hand out at about four feet and said, "Bor-bon-meeg. They…betray him…to bad Lord. They…" Here again, he gestured with his hands in the age-old gesture for sex and said, "fut…distract. He taken unaware. Poisoned. Attack us. We…subdue. Bad Lord…capture…kill him. We all…cursed. We…caught in Time…enact horrible thing. Bor-bon-meeg…not get enough…fut."

  Holding her hand against her chest, she said, "I’m not Bor-bon-meeg. Why did you…" She gestured, "Fut?"

  Holding both hands out palms down, he pantomimed pressing something down; a gesture she had learned was these people’s version of a shrug, and said, "You there. Hair color of…sun."

  Petra knew this was the closest she would ever get to an apology, and accepted that. It didn’t make h
er like him or his people any better; they had betrayed the man she and Brian had met. The man that had told them how to escape this place.

  As for his reference to the sun, she had learned just enough of their language to know that this place between the worlds had once been full of sunlight, grass, trees and small towns full of happy, smiling people. These people; those of the Fire and the Little People alike. The Good Lord’s curse had changed all of that; bringing the darkness and mist, denuding the earth of the grass and trees, forcing the people to become nomads in order to live. The two peoples had been at war ever since; the People of the Fire periodically forced to re-enact the act that led to their shame, and the Little People obsessed with sex, the tool they had used to subdue their benefactor.

  She asked, "Are there any other people? Besides yours and the Bor-bon-meeg?"

  He waved his hands in front of him, crossing and re-crossing them as though her words had been an invitation to something that was feared.

  "Uu-mor! They…loyal to Good Lord! Kill any they find! Against all! Even Soos-tow fear them!"

  He rose in agitation, looking around as though to make sure their words hadn’t called their enemy, and she grasped his arm, pulling him back down to the stone.

  "Who are the Soos-tow?"

  His hands spread wide and flapped like a bird in flight, then indicated his eyes, huge and dark against the whiteness of his face. She understood then that he meant the giant owls she had already encountered.

  He said, "Soos-tow and Uu-mor have great…battle. Most dead…both sides. Few left now, but Uu-mor hate all…kill all they find!"

  She asked, "What are they like?"

  His gesture indicated not only the entire area, but the sky as well and she thought at first he meant that they flew like the owls, but then he hooked his fingers like claws. Then he held out his fingers and suspended them near his mouth like giant fangs.