Free Depraved by Bryan Smith Page A

sound of the tires was different, too. Pete decided they were on a dirt road now. Great. Even deeper into the sticks. Even if Megan did manage to get away and alert the authorities, his body was never going to be found.
    The van lurched to a stop.
    Pete heard Gil wrench the gearshift and twist the key back in the ignition. The engine shut off, and for a moment all he heard was a twitter of birds through the van’s open windows. It was an almost peaceful moment, in a strange way. Then the van lurched again as Gil opened the door and shifted his great weight out from behind the steering wheel. A moment later the van’s rear doors came open, and bright sunlight made his eyes blink faster.
    Pete turned his head again and looked at Gil. The big man moved closer, and his bulk nearly blotted out the sun. The pump-action shotgun was in his hands again. “Let’s get this bitch out, Carl.”
    Carl stood up and knelt to grab a handful of Pete’s sweat-soaked shirt.“Up and at ’em, faggot.”
    Faggot.
    Huh.
    Kind of a strange choice of epithet, given what had been done to him at the general store.“Fuck you.”
    The pipe struck the back of Pete’s head hard enough to elicit a pained yelp. But even as he cried out, Pete realized the man had pulled the blow, striking him just hard enough to hurt and prod him forward without knocking him out again. He didn’t bother talking back again, knowing harder, angrier blows would follow. So he got shakily to his feet and allowed himself to bemanhandled out of the van. Pete stood blinking in the sunlight, a hand held at his brow. Gil kept the shotgun trained on him as Carl let go of him long enough to shut the van’s doors. Then an end of the pipe jabbed against the small of his back.
    “This way, boy.”
    Pete sighed.
    And did as he was told.
    What else could he do?
    They walked around the van, and Pete saw a sprawling, ranch-style house. Surrounded by wilderness, it was the only house in sight. So much for screaming for help or hoping for an eventual rescue thanks to the prying eyes of a nosy neighbor. The pipe jabbed his back again, and the three of them walked toward the house. The front door opened, and an old woman with a warty, fairy-tale-witch face stepped out. She wore a dirty apron over cutoff shorts and a bra. Her legs bore traceries of varicose veins, and her heavily tattooed skin looked like rawhide.
    “Check it out, Ma.” Carl jabbed him with the pipe yet again.“Got us another outsider for the holiday feast.”
    Ma eyed Pete up and down, her gaze lingering on his crotch long enough to make him uncomfortable. Then she snorted and said,“Put it out back with the other.”
    Pete frowned.
    It?
    The old hag disappeared back inside the house, but not before Pete got an eyeful of the faded tattoo that covered her back—an image of a large-breasted, nude woman astride a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
    Pete shivered.
    Jesus, these are some fucked-up fucking strange-ass people.
    For the first time, he wished they’d just killed him at the start.
    Another jab with the pipe got him moving again. Theywent around to the back of the house, and Pete saw a row of interlinked chain-link cages. Most functioned as dog pens. The dogs growled as they approached. Pete saw Dobermans, a Rottweiler, a pit bull, a German shepherd mix, and various other mutts. They all regarded him with wary, threatening expressions. These weren’t pets. They were vicious killing machines, no doubt kept and trained for blood sport. Pete had read news stories about such things.
    Oh, my God, he thought. They mean to feed me to these fucking animals.
    But Pete knew this was wrong when they reached the last pen. Another human being, naked and dirty, sat curled in a corner of the pen. A woman. Her arms were wrapped around her knees as she rocked and whimpered. She looked up at them as they approached, met Pete’s anxious gaze for a moment, then looked away.
    Carl fished keys from his pocket, unlocked the padlock on