Trick of Light

by Bayer-William

  As I hike, I wince at the sound of my boots as I stride across the stones. Too loud. I pause again. I want to return to the trail, but not until I'm certain the security fence is far behind.

  Suddenly, a noise not far from where I'm standing. A loud snort, then another, then the sound of hooves clumping through the brush. I freeze. A wild boar! I must have passed within a few feet of him. He saw me, broke when I stopped, perhaps afraid I'd turn upon him. I'm in hunting country now.

  Three-forty A.M.: I've been hiking for over an hour. Still no sign of the main clearing. I've evaded two more security points located as marked on the map, but now seem to have lost my way.

  I pause, peer around. There should be a gunning platform ahead. No sign of it . . . or anything else man-made. Yet according to my compass I'm on course.

  There's an incline to my west where, according to the map, another trail leads straight into the main clearing. I decide to cross toward it through the brush, find it, then hike parallel to it. That way I should come upon the platform.

  After a while I find myself on a rise, a small dry plain, sweetened by juniper trees and piñons. The land's quiet here. No sounds of animals, birds or leaves and branches rustling in the breeze. In fact the air has suddenly turned still, giving me an ominous feeling. I pause again, and just as I do, hear a harshly pitched rattle a few feet to my left.

  I freeze, spot the source right away—a small rattlesnake, black and white rings on its tail, hexagrams on its back which I know are probably green. Mean and deadly, it's close enough to strike if it has a mind to, and being young, is probably capable of emptying all its venom at once. But I know it has no mind, just the attack instinct of a reptile. If I move too fast I may spook it. If I stay where I am it may strike. Seeing no stick around, I start to back off. With my eyes still on it, I stumble, nearly fall backwards. Just then I see it scurry away. Gone now, but I wonder what other nasty creatures await me ahead.

  I'm back in woodland, can smell leaf mold, fungus, something wild and gamy too, perhaps the leavings of a bear or herd of deer. The gunning platform is straight ahead, about three hundred feet due west, visible against the night sky, black silhouette against dark gray field. There's a railing on top, and what looks like a set of military binoculars mounted on a swivel. I hope they're not the night-vision kind. There may be a guard up there, though I can't see him. Hard to imagine a man standing watch, still and alert at this hour.

  I know I'm near the main clearing. I pause a moment to reorient myself, recall the route I chose on Fontaine's map. I want to gain the high ground overlooking the shooting range.

  I'm feeling nervous, can hear my heart thumping in my chest. There are G.G.C. personnel within calling distance, dogs too, which worries me, though I know the kennel is upwind on the other side of the lodge. I should have brought pepper spray, I think.

  I choose a vector that will cut no closer than a hundred feet to the platform, start along it, moving carefully, wary of snapping twigs. I advance a dozen yards, pause, then advance again. My vision is enhanced. I can see every leaf, weed and stick on the ground so clearly that I forget that a vision-normal wouldn't be able to see half as well.

  Hearing nothing but the sounds of my body in motion, I work to keep my breathing steady. I'm anxious to reach a vantage point where I can lie down safely, then watch the club grounds for others.

  I'm past the platform. The ridge I'm heading for is just seventy yards ahead. There's an open stretch before me. I speed up a little, anxious to cross it, find cover on the other side. I step out briskly, then start to jog. Suddenly the ground gives way. I'm suspended in midair. It's as if all motion has stopped. There's a moment of perfect clarity as I grasp what's happened, that I've stepped on some sort of false-floor animal trap, am about to fall into a pit.

  I'm strangely calm as I contemplate the possibility of being impaled on sharpened stakes below. Then the moment dissolves, the clarity gives way to terror, I feel myself falling, then let out a shriek as the ground disappears.

  I hit the bottom hard. I try to curl my body, roll with my fall as I do when thrown in aikido class, but the ground is no dojo mat, and my fall has been from too great a height. My shoulder smashes into the earth. I scream out an enormous "NO!" expecting to die. Then I lie still, on my side, hurting, the breath knocked out of me.

  Hearing myself whimper, I turn, look up at the sky. The view is narrow. The pit I'm in is at least three times my height, and its sides are inclined to keep whatever creature falls into it from climbing out. I've fallen, I realize, more than fifteen feet straight down. The whole left side of my body aches; my ribs are bruised. I squirm a little to see if they're broken, then stop, the pain too great. Lying back, trying to regain my breath, I hear the sound of an approaching vehicle. A few seconds later two straight beams of artificial light cut across the top of the pit.

  "What we got down there, Buckoboy?"

  "It's human. Least I think."

  The beams of their flashlights find my face, saturating my retinas, blinding me, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut.

  "Yep, human all right. Hey, Chipper! I think we caught us a girlie."

  "Whoopee!"

  They go silent. Even with my eyes tight shut, I can feel their scrutiny, the cool penetrating gaze one applies to a wild creature one has trapped who now lies vulnerable at one's feet. The gaze that those who possess power turn upon those who are powerless. That gaze of curiosity: What will the poor creature do, how will she react to her entrapment and pain?

  "You all right, sweetheart?" the first one, the one named Chipper, inquires. His voice, reedy yet gentle, wafts to me at the bottom of the hole. "Broke a few bonies, did you?"

  "Maybe," I whisper back.

  "Well, least she can speak, Buckoboy."

  "Yep, she can speak."

  "Go back to the truck, cuz, get the rope ladder, we'll haul her out, see what we got. Something tasty we can roast up nice for breakfast, or maybe something gristly and mean that won't taste no good at all."

  The one called Buckoboy hoots, then departs. Chipper removes the light from my eyes.

  "Open them up, sweetie. Take a gander."

  I carefully open my eyes, blink to clear them, stare up at him looming high above.

  He looks to be in his forties. He's dressed in a black commando uniform, has a rough weathered face framed by a rough beard, and his smile's twisted, more like a leer than a grin. He holds a rifle crooked beneath his arm, which terrifies me. He speaks nicely, calls me "sweetie," but I detect menace in him and am afraid.

  "I ain't no monster, honey peach. But you're in big trouble. This here's private property. So what brings a little girlie like you creepin' round these woods middle of the night?"

  I gasp. "I'm a wildlife photographer."

  "Oh, are you now?" His voice hardens. "Well, that surely explains it—how come you got in here, got past all our surveillance, got nearly to the clubhouse and no one detected nothin' till you fell in our creature pit. Must be you got supernatural powers, girlie." He pauses, waiting for his sarcasm to wither me. "What's your name?"

  "Ellie," I lie.

  "Ellie what?"

  I think fast. "Ellie Lord."

  "So, Ellie Lord, what're you doing here? Answer me! Quick!"

  "Taking pictures." I reach beside me, hold up my camera. "I was going to wait till dawn, then try and get some shots of animals."

  He laughs scornfully. "You know this is a private sporting club?" I nod. "You saw our no-trespass signs?" I nod again. "But still you came in?"

  He waits for my answer. "I'm sorry," I tell him.

  "I just bet you are . . . now! 'Cause now you're in for it, Ellie girl."

  "Please," I whimper.

  "Please—what?"

  "Let me go."

  "Ha!" He leers. "Give me one good reason I should?"

  I think of a reason. "I promise I'll leave and never come back."

  Chipper hoots. "Oh, I know you won't come back." He hoots again.
"Bet your sweet tush you won't! Not after we're done with you."

  He backs out of my field of vision. I can hear him mumbling to Buckoboy, then the two of them whooping it up. I strain to hear what they're saying. Phrases waft down to me: "little cunt bitch," "teach her a lesson." They want me to overhear, want me to be terrified . . . and much as I'd like to stay cool, I'm scared out of my mind.

  Buckoboy throws down a rope ladder, climbs down into the pit, pistol in his hand, tells me to relax, says he wants to check my injuries before he moves me out. Just the sight of his gun held so close sets me on edge. I stiffen as he runs his fingers along my rib cage, occasionally probing my flesh. I'd love to throw him down, could probably do it, but I know that, facing men with guns, submission's my only chance.

  Actually his touch isn't too harsh, but he's an unattractive man with a crudely clipped beard like Chipper's, small piercing ratlike eyes and breath that stinks of stale cigarettes. I can smell his clothing, his sweaty uniform shirt. I tense at his touch but try not to recoil. Last thing I want is to antagonize him.

  He nods at me, grins, then shouts up to his buddy. "Don't think there's nothin' broken on this one. No weapons on her neither."

  Chipper responds. "Good, cuz. Bring her up."

  "You climb all right?" he asks.

  "I'll try."

  "Take it easy, one step at a time. If you fall don't worry. Little thing like you, I'll catch you."

  He offers me some water from his canteen. I sip. He urges me to take a good long drink. Grateful, I oblige. Then he takes away my camera and hoists me up.

  "Climb," he orders.

  I start up the rope ladder. Sore as I am, I think he's right, that I'm badly bruised but nothing's broken. Having gotten bruised plenty of times in aikido class, I recognize the pain, know there'll be big ugly blotches on my skin for days, maybe even weeks. But, I think, I've been incredibly lucky. Without serious injuries, I'll be able to move, fight them if I have to. Perhaps these guys aren't as mean as they look. Then, just as I reach the fourth rung of the rope ladder, Buckoboy swats me hard across my butt.

  "Git movin', bitch! 'Less you want some help." He smacks me again. I hate him for humiliating me this way, feel like shoving my boot into his face. Play it cool, I tell myself. He's got a gun. Find out what their game is before you take them on. Obedient, I scamper up the ladder.

  Soon as I reach the top, Chipper grabs hold of me, yanks me up by my arms, holds me out squirming in front of him, sets me down, grabs my hair, pulls on it harshly, then throws me on the ground. This time I have the presence of mind to roll.

  "Well, looky that!" he exclaims. "Little acrobat, ain't she?" He steps over to me, lays his booted foot on my chest, presses down. "Obey orders, you won't get hurt," he warns sternly, shaking his rifle barrel in my face. "Disobey, try to 'scape, try any fuckin' thing, you will get hurt. Understand?"

  Panicked by the gun he's wagging in my face, I nod.

  "Little bitty thing, ain't you?" He turns back to the pit, calls down to Buckoboy. "Get your ass up here, cuz. Help me tie her up." He laughs. "Then we'll take her in for some 'terrogation."

  "Oh, that'll be fun!" Buckoboy calls back.

  My inclination is strong: I must not allow them to tie me up. While Chipper holds his gun on me and Buckoboy approaches with strands of rope, I start backing off. Suddenly Chipper dives at me, tackles me, brings me down, pounces on me and, while I struggle and squirm, quickly and expertly binds my ankles, then my wrists behind my back. When I holler at them, call them names, Chipper kicks me in my sore, bruised side. I let out a scream, then submit as Buckoboy turns me on my belly and hog-ties me.

  "Goddamn, she's a fightin' cat!" Buckoboy says. "Scratch your eyes out, you let her."

  They lift me, then toss me into the back of their pickup as if I'm a sack of cement. Squirming to find a comfortable position, I listen as they talk about me, extra loud to ensure I overhear, calling me alternately "the dumb twat," "the little cunt," "the stupid poachin' bitch," making references to how they're going to slap me around, make me "beg for it," make me suck their dicks.

  "She looks like she's sucked quite a few, don't she, Chipper?"

  "You betcha! And I bet she's taken it up the ass plenty a times. She got that look."

  Their hoots are too loud, their threats too transparent, but I'm scared anyway, feeling an undercurrent that belies their bantering style. They not only want to intimidate me, they're also sending me a message: I'm their prisoner; they can do anything to me they want.

  "She could go to the cops, squeal on us, couldn't she, Chipper?"

  "She won't. She knows we'll come kill her if she does. Plus we'll make sure she signs the standard release form 'fore we let her go. If we let her go. We could just throw her back in the pit, then plow maybe two tons of earth on top of her. She won't be goin" nowhere then, will she, cuz?"

  I want to think it's a game, that they're only trying to frighten me, make sure I won't trespass on club grounds again. But their coarseness tells me they couldn't care less about protecting G.G.C. property, that they're more interested in having fun at my expense. They don't seem at all like the disciplined guards Sasha and I met when we came to the main gate. Those two, mean as they were, at least presented themselves professionally. These two act like rednecks about to slip out of control.

  That's what's so scary . . . and that I'm hurt and sore and tied up so uncomfortably in the back of their ratty pickup . . . and that they have guns, that my head's starting to swell up, that I'm hit suddenly with a wave of fatigue, that at a time when I should be most on guard and alert, I'm feeling dizzy, sleepy, on the brink of losing consciousness.

  "We could turn her into a deer, cuz. You know, glue a pair of horns to her scalp, give her two minutes' head start, then track her through the woods."

  Images flood in of the G.G.C. safaris, tales of hired vagrants stalked through the forest like game.

  But I can't sustain my dread. I feel too weak, too drowsy. I try to fight off the drowsiness, focus on my predicament, but the more I do, the more I feel myself slipping away. Then, feeling their smirks as they stare down at me, I realize with a sudden final terrifying gasp of clarity that I've been drugged.

  It was the water Buckoboy gave me, his water from his canteen. Something was in it. I feel sleepy and numb. I hear them laughing, open my eyes for a moment to catch the manic leering pleasure in their eyes . . . then give myself over to whatever it was they put into me . . . close my eyes, feel my brain turn to mush, listen to my moans as if they're coming from a great distance, then feel a great black cloak slowly covering me up.

  Every once in a while I become aware of my surroundings, then fade out again. Intermittently I realize I'm in a high-ceilinged room, spread-eagled on a pool table. A brilliant light, painful to my eyes, blasts down on me from above. I'm nearly naked, bare to the waist, wearing nothing but panties below. I can feel the heat of the pool table lamp on my skin. The side where my ribs were bruised hurts so much the pain brings me around. I struggle to open my eyes, see the men who stand above me, whose presence I feel, whose voices I hear—though I can't decipher what they say. The light hurts too much, I can see nothing but whiteness. Snow-blinded, I shut down, lapse back into slumber.

  I'm going to be raped. I know it! They're going to use me, then, fearful I'll bring charges, throw me back into the pit and cover me up with earth. I'm terrified. I start to wail, then feel a hand come down hard on my mouth.

  "Shush up, bitch!"

  I feel something cold and metallic pressed against my neck. I don't want to yield to them. I want to fight them. I struggle to lift myself . . . but cannot. I'm paralyzed.

  I'm still on the pool table . . . and the room is filled with guns. Hundreds of guns everywhere, terrible, terrifying guns in racks that line the walls rifles, pistols, revolvers, guns mounted with scopes, gleaming metal barrels, glistening wooden stocks, the smell of gun oil, gun grease, the aroma so thick I can barely breathe.

  The gun
in front of me, the one they taunt me with, is covered with human forms. Men and women, cut into the metal, writhe together in ecstatic bliss. Their faces are frozen but their burnished bodies contort while their metallic flesh comes alive with gun-oil sweat. Even when the metal flashes and blinds me, I'm enveloped in the aroma of their sex.

  I feel the gun as it caresses me, feel the metal on my skin, the oil as it transfers to my flesh. I arch myself up against it, writhe to touch it when it's pulled away.

  "Oh, she likes it, don't she, Buckoboy?"

  "Real juicy, ain't she? Maybe she likes it too much."

  "No such thing as too much, cuz."

  When the metal touches me again, I moan and lie back, then seek refuge in sleep. Just before I fall off I hear a bee buzzing in my ear.

  The man lies on his back. The woman lies on her back beside him, hand on his cock, drawing it into her. On the other side, two couples cavort, a woman penetrated by two men, one beneath her, the other above her, while a second woman, sitting beside the three, plays upon the organs of the males with her fingertips.

  A revelation: it's they who writhe and arch, not me. How could I have gotten so confused? My thinking's fuzzy, my brain is fudge, my eyes see clearly one moment, are blinded the next. I hear the smooth sound of the action of a gun as the breech is opened, then snapped shut, hear the click of the trigger as it's dry-fired. They're torturing me with this gun, touching me with it, then pulling it away, rotating it before me so the light catches the engravings and burns them into my brain. And through it all I hear the buzzing of a bee.

  Though I hate them for this, I allow my mouth to go slack. I want them to think I like what they're doing to me. Then my will goes lax again, I close my eyes and turn off my thoughts. A bee is hiding in the corner. I hide within my soul.