Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Raiders!

Her body jerked with harsh shudders as the raucous laughter of the other drunks turned ominous.

"Bet she's the tall bitch them townsfolk said live in that house we gone burned a while ago." A man with a coarse accent ambled closer. "Shoulda come afore Murdoch sent us."

"Told ye she was here," another man slurred.

"You bastards!" Natalie screamed. They had gotten what they wanted, looted her house of everything of value. What purpose had it served to burn down her home? What kind of monsters would do that?

As the first man came closer, fear forced her to focus on his feet, crunching across the dry earth. Her heart stopped beating for a moment. Breathing became torture, her lungs too frightened to contract and expand.

Army boots! He wore army boots.

Natalie jerked her head around like a baby bird searching for its mama. They all wore army boots.

They were raiders. Murdoch's raiders.

Her body frozen with horror, she tried to move, to do something, anything, but her muscles had locked down.

For two years now, the TC Comm news had been showing reports of bands of homeless and jobless men going around the country, looting and killing. Ruthless, with sickening cruelty, they killed women and children, anyone that resisted them. One newscaster had called them raiders and the name had stuck. Their merciless leader, Murdoch, had only two requirements for his men. They had to kill and loot without mercy. And they had to wear army boots. News programs on the Touch Cell frequently speculated on the reason for Murdoch's requirement for the boots, though the only thing everyone could agree on was that it must be because he was crazy.

Her lungs continued to ignore the desperate commands from her brain. She needed to use her inhaler, but she still couldn't move. Her body shook uncontrollably and a cold sweat coated her skin, gluing her sundress to her abdomen and legs. She forced herself to take long, deep breaths.

Slowly, the ringing in her ears faded and her sight cleared. No longer burdened by tunnel vision, she watched the Murdoch scum surround her and couldn't stop the shivers from rattling through her body.

Are they going to kill me here?

Natalie didn't want to die, but she'd seen on the news what happened to the women they brought to their camps. And she would rather die than go through that. The graphic news photos of their unfortunate victims, their eyes vacant and empty, still haunted her. She whimpered, "Let me go."

"Shut yer trap, you bitch." The beefy man who'd captured her raised his hand, as though preparing to slap her again, and she flinched.

"Look, she's gonna cry," one raider taunted, mimicking her by curling into a ball and shaking dramatically. The others laughed, showering her with spittle.

Natalie blinked to force back tears of fury and fear. Animals. No, they're worse than animals. Animals only killed to survive. These monsters looted and killed their way around the country, preying on the helpless. Natalie lowered her head, refusing to allow scum like them to see her tears.

"Ooh, lookee! She's a right obedient one." Another raider appeared from among the trees. He swaggered toward her cringing figure, and bile bubbled up into her throat.

There are more?

She'd counted at least seventeen drunks - seven surrounding her and the rest sprawled around the camp, watching her with rapacious hunger. How many more were lurking in the trees?

High in the sky, the autumn sun burned down on the pale skin exposed by her sleeveless sundress. Her palms scraped over the ground as she tried to inch backward, but a raider casually stepped on the hem, trapping her in place. More monsters drunkenly lumbered closer, no doubt anticipating a show.

Panicked, Natalie tried to scramble back, tearing her dress in the process. The sound of rending fabric cut like a laser through their jeering. All the men froze, their faces darkening with hunger as they focused on her now exposed thigh. "Let me go," she repeated. "How can you do this?" The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them.

Aroused from their carnal daze, they began to move in again, rampant lust etched on their faces. "Ooh, a goody-goody. Show the bitch how we can do this, Dan."

Terror raced through her body. She couldn't breathe. Please, not an asthma attack on top of everything else.

"Hey, she's smotherin' or somethin'," one of them slurred.

Gasping, desperate to breathe, she sucked in the stench of old sweat and rotten breath, only to gag and cough as her body convulsed in dry heaves.

"So? We don't need her breathin'. Without air, she won't irritate us with her bitchin'." The man standing over her sneered down at her as he spoke.

She opened her mouth but couldn't get any words out.

Her captor licked his lips. "Speak fer yesself. I like me some fight in me women."

She scanned the area around her, desperate to find a means of escape. She was trapped, surrounded by these animals, and choking on her own breath.

I can't die like this. She balled her fists. I have to get away from them.

Her captor bent, grasped a fistful of her long, brown hair, and pulled. Hoarse sounds gurgled up from her throat and fresh tears welled in her eyes as they laughed and mimicked her.

"That's right, pant fer me," her captor slurred, his foul breath hot on her face.

"Ye can't keep her to yerself, Big Joe. We want some fun, too." The raider they'd called Dan fell down on his knees in front of her and wrenched her legs apart. Others grabbed her arms, holding her in place, their drunken laughter echoing shrilly around the clearing.

She gasped, opened her mouth to scream, but the sound remained painfully trapped in her lungs. Humiliation and disgust burned through her. Frantic, she kicked savagely, trying to pull her arms from their grip.

Hands groped, jerking her bright yellow dress up to her thighs. Mouths bit and tongues slobbered over her exposed flesh while fingernails clawed at her underwear.

Dear God, no! Please! I don't want this! She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that her asthma attack would kill her before these animals could rape her.

When a raider grabbed her left leg and wrenched it to the side, a painful scream forced the trapped air out of her lungs.

A bright light pierced through her eyelids. Natalie opened her eyes a fraction, afraid of what she'd see. Off to her right, the light flashed, fast and glaring, a good distance away. As though oblivious to it, the raiders continued to paw at her, their fingers digging into the soft flesh of her thighs and abdomen.

Desperate to detach herself from her horrifying reality, she focused on the light, but it was like staring at the sun. Her eyes watered and she blinked repeatedly, the excess fluid streaming down her face. Even squinting did little to keep the light from burning her pupils.

Perhaps it was a hallucination. Never before had she seen the sky sparkle as though it had turned to diamonds. But if it was an illusion, why did her eyes hurt?

Am I dead? Had they killed her already? And was this the portal to the afterlife?

No. She could still feel the raiders' groping hands and hot breath.

Natalie focused on the strange light again and to her surprise, a strange sense of peace came over her. If dying meant being enveloped by this light, then she welcomed it gladly.

The sparkling faded and the sky returned to normal, revealing a tall, masculine figure, dressed in military-style combat clothes made from the strangest fabric she'd even seen. Standing where the source of the light had been, he appeared human, but something about him made her suspect otherwise.

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