Jon Fore - Black Water

Shannon did not wait to see how this played out; she was terrified of what was going on, and wanted to get out of there now. She rushed down the sidewalk towards the bus stop, hoping beyond prayer that the bus was due any moment. She had sold her car recently to cover the stock that her customers never seemed to want to buy. It was her last ditch effort to stay in business, but she now wished she still had the old Nissan to get herself out of here.

Before she could make it to the small sign indicating the bus’s normal route, a large man she did not recognize grabbed her from behind. He spun her around, forced her to the ground with his weight, and began tearing her blouse off. She brought her knee up as hard as she could, and the man fell from her. She stood quickly and began running towards the parking area near the shop. If she had been thinking clearer, she would not have pinned herself in, but fear ruled her thoughts.

When she came to face the chain-link fence, she realized her mistake. Turning to flee the enclosure, she caught sight of three men standing in the drive of the parking lot. They were all beaten and bloody, their clothing torn and stained with the soil of battle. Shannon screamed louder than she thought possible.

Then she began to run, the men following after, calling to her, asking her to give them what they wanted. She leapt up onto the fence and began to scramble over. One of the men wrapped his powerful arms around her, filled his hands with her breast, and literally tore her from the fence by her nipples. Shannon screamed again, this time coming from her sleep like a threatened mouse.

She looked into Ethan’s troubled eyes and began to weep. Her memories flooded back to her in large smothering waves--the terror of the night before, along with her childhood memories, the memories of her parents’ death, now a fresh wound in her soul. She clawed her way from the sleeping bag and met Ethan moving towards her. She embraced him almost violently and began to sob in a way normally forgotten by adults.

“Shannon, it was just a dream, it’s over now,” Ethan cooed to her.

“No,” Shannon forced through her sobbing, “I remember. I remember everything.”

“Well that’s good, isn’t it?”

“They raped me. They beat me and raped me. They thought I was dead and didn’t care, so many men…”

Ethan drew her closer, held her tighter. He had hoped she would not remember the rape completely until they were free of here, but it was now too late for that. All he could do was hold her close, give her a foundation to cling too as her battered mind got a solid grasp on what had happened.

“Mommy, why are you crying?” Kayla asked as she sat up. “You’re not my mommy…” she said in a cloud of sleep driven confusion.

“No sweetie, she isn’t. She will be alright in a bit. It’s still night time, so try and go back to sleep, ’kay?”

“Why is she crying?”

“She thinks she has lost something or something was taken from her.” Ethan stumbled with a reason he could give a child her age.

“What? I can help look,” Kayla offered while stifling a yawn.

“Oh, it’s nothing. She will get by, you’ll see.”

The little girl worked herself from the sleeping bag and trotted over on tiny bare feet. “Can I give her mine?”

Shannon looked up into the innocent eyes of untroubled youth and smiled as she wept. “You’re a gem, you know that?”

Kayla knelt down beside Shannon and worked her arm between Shannon and Ethan to embrace the woman so abused. This helped Shannon cry even more, and Ethan did not try to stop her. The emotional release could only help, or he hoped it would. Either way, he held both the girls for some time before the crying jag ebbed. Even Kayla worked her way through a few sobs while holding Shannon.

When they had grown silent, Ethan continued to hold them even after Kayla and then Shannon lost themselves to an exhausted slumber. There were still a few hours until sunrise, and they could both use more sleep. Ethan lay down with them gently and stared at the woman before him. She was so lovely, so delicate, so used. He knew rape was rape, and he could not fault a woman for being raped any more than he could fault a dog for not being a horse. That he could live with, but could she ever live with it? Could she bring herself to be intimate voluntarily again?

He found himself hoping she could and that after they were free from here, she would stay with him; get to know him outside this nightmarish town. He was not sure why, probably his desire to live on, to have children, to make something of himself or be part of something else more than what he was alone. His studies in survival had taught him that these types of feelings could come up unexpectedly when given a stressful situation. However, those classes were more for plane crashes, or shipwrecks, or becoming lost while hiking, not for some lunatic distortion of a town by these torturous entities hiding in the mountain.

Then he began to wonder why it was they had assaulted the town. He did not know, but was certain that what was going on here was coming from the mountain, coming from those nightmarish forms he had escaped. They wanted something, a vengeance probably. He did not care. He would find his way out of here and continue his life with or without Shannon. He would start seeing his doctor again, get rid of this bum, and lead a normal life.

He stood, gently letting the girls find the floor and cuddle amongst themselves, and began walking a circuit around the store. He checked the stock room first to make sure nothing had worked its way past the large rolling door over the loading dock, then the front of the store to make sure those doors were locked as well.

The outside was still pitch, the fog barely perceptible as it roiled just beyond the glass. He began walking the length of the windows towards the doors when he heard the sound of flesh rubbing against glass. He spun around with the shotgun, telling himself if he fired through the glass, the store would be open to anything that wished to come in.

There, pressed against the glass was a naked Madison. She moved herself against the window like a stripper, undulating and pleading with her femininity for him to come to her. She grabbed and rubbed at the parts of her body that did not make contact with the glass, and Ethan found himself instantly aroused. She was so incredibly gorgeous that it took every ounce of fear not to rush to the doors and let her in.

Her breath fogged the glass around her mouth as she pleaded almost soundlessly for him to come out. She was working her groin with her hand and pulling roughly at her full breast. Ethan’s breath came in rapid gusts as he watched, transfixed and unable to turn away. He discovered that his hands had found himself like some teenager with a dirty magazine.

He approached the glass and gently touched it with his hand. Madison immediately tried to suckle on his fingers, her body jerking as she came closer and closer to her own orgasm. She turned slowly, allowing her body to maintain contact with the glass, and bent over far enough to continue her efforts and allow him to watch from behind. The glass was becoming an unreasonable obstacle to his desire, and the importance of keeping out the outside evil was losing the battle. He realized he was rubbing himself against the window as well, trying desperately to make contact through the thick glass.

Madison began to slide her finger in, her other hand grabbing at her crotch and opening herself for him to see. Ethan began to lose control with his thoughts, wanting nothing more than to feel her from the inside, as she was doing right now. He would stop breathing right now if he could plunge in her, seek out the deepest parts of her, and leave that little part of himself there. In a sudden decision, he started heading for the door.