Free Lost Girls by George D Shuman Page A

could only visualize it as one thing.
    A gate into Hell.
    When the van began to move once more, she knew she was leaving a very important crossroads behind. She knew she would never be at this place and time again. She knew that with every new mile the unthinkable was becoming a reality.
    The van soon stopped for gas, but then it drove on for several more hours. Jill began to become confused again; at one point she thought she heard her mother and father talking; she was a little girl in the back of their car. She lost all track of time. In lucid moments she noticed the roads had begun to deteriorate, they were beyond the boundaries of civilization. She needed to pee, she needed to relieve the muscle cramping in her arms, she needed to rinse the bad taste from her mouth, but most of all she needed someone to tell her she was okay. That everything was going to be okay.
    The road twisted on for miles, dirt and stone under the tires. Then they slowed and distant voices brought her back to reality, someone was outside the van, muted laughter, creaking gates, a hundred feet, and the van came to a stop. The driver’s and passenger’s doors opened and closed.
    The cargo door slid back and she looked up into the face of a gaunt black man. He was standing behind the glare of a spotlight. A pistol was holstered on his belt. He had one good eye, a brown eye; the other looked like a large white marble.
    Marie climbed in next to Jill, cut the tape that bound her limbs, and pulled her up by the shoulders, avoiding eye contact as she nudged her toward the door.
    Jill dropped her legs over the side and her sneakers hit the dirt. Her eyes were blinded by the spotlight. The woman threw her purse on the ground next to her, money still inside.
    The black man handed Marie a thick brown paper bag, which she tossed to the driver and then she pulled the cargo door closed behind her. A moment later the van’s taillights disappeared behind the closing gates.
    Jill stood there alone, shivering in the midst of armed men.
    They were at the foot of an immense stone building; it looked old and was tall, with spires like a church.
    She could see coils of barbed wire inside the fenced compound. Two men wearing black shirts and jeans stood at the gates. One, with a hat, had dreadlocks. The other was older and fatter and he eyed her hungrily.
    A military truck was parked next to them, a canvas tarp covering the cargo bed. A panel truck painted with fruit sat incongruously by a rusting fuel tank on legs emblazoned with a fading Texaco star.
    The man with the glass eye nodded and two of the armed men grabbed her arms, pulling her to a set of bay doors that led into the foundation of the old building.
    Inside was a catacomb of hallways. They took her to a large room lit by a string of bare lightbulbs. A row of wooden doors against one wall had small open panes cut into them, covered with wire screen.
    She was led to the center of the room and the men stepped away from her.
    She began to speak and the one-eyed man slapped her hard across the face.
    Jill could taste blood as he grabbed the collar of her shirt and ripped it open from the neck to waist, scattering buttons like pearls in the powdery dirt. He pulled the pistol from his belt and put it against her forehead.
    “Take off your clothes,” he said.
    “Money,” she whispered hoarsely. “My father has—”
    He pulled the hammer back on the gun.
    She took off the shirt and let it fall to the dirt.
    The pistol never wavered.
    She felt dizzy, about to faint, but somehow she kept on her feet. She undid her skirt and let it fall to the ground, her top and bikini bottom. She was made to kneel in her socks and Nike sneakers.
    And it began.

6
C ARIBBEAN S EA
    There was a moon on the ocean, lights ablaze over the superstructure of the gleaming white Constellation, the flagship of the Caribbean Star fleet as it slipped from the harbor of Santo Domingo on a glassy black sea. The decks were crowded with tourists