Chapter 9: Slaughter House

It was time to make tracks when I saw open ground between me and my exit point. I met Ricky exactly where I had left him. His arrow supply cut in half, but our primary goal had been reached. Eight dead men littered the grounds around the cabin and lab, but nobody living as yet knew we had been there.

I croached in the brush hugging the child to me trying to keep him calm and warm. He must have been in shock. He didn't cry or fight or anything else. He just hung in my arms and accepted whatever happened to him. I felt he might need years of therepy or maybe he would just wake up in the morning and decide it had all been a bad dream.

Ricky looked at him as if trying to decide what to do with him. He seemed uncertain as what the next course of action would be. Did he take the child and go, or stash the kid and take down a major drug lab from unknown parts? I could tell leaving the lab and other hostages behind was wieghing heavy on his mind.

"So, now we have the kid and one hostage is on her way down river. Do we take the rest with us or make another trip and maybe find out that they left before we could get back?", I think he was asking himself as much as he was seeking an opinion.

I gave him my take on the matter," We can leave now and be heros. Nobody would fault us if we just left and sent the troops in to mop up. We could also keep the kid a safe distance from harm, and see who's in the lab besides four naked women. It's not a large building. A lab, four working girls with a chemist would take up most of the space inside. I think maybe one guard if that. A gunshot in there may turn the whole thing into a roman candle. I say you keep the kid, I'll go look and if possible set the women free or possibly get them to hang on to the kid and we both take out the main house."

"Why do I keep the kid and you take the risk?"

"I'm expendable. If you have to send in troops they would rather get their orders from you. If I tell them, they will have to investigate first, then act. I just makes more sense to me. And by the way, nice shooting Robin Hood." I couldn't resist.

"Thanks, I learned from the best. Of couse it dosn't hurt to have been doing it since I was a kid. I'll go along with you for now, but if it goes wrong bail out and meet me back at the boat. I'll wait for you as long as possible, but if it's between you getting a ride home or the kid making it out of here, you'll have to find your own ride."

"Deal. Now let me see what's cooking."

I left Ricky holding a scared three year old and moved around the wood line to the lab at the rear of the compound. No guards were left alive to slow my progress and I felt my plan might go off without a hitch. I simply opened the door and stepped inside.

The man at the door was startled and unsure about the intrusion. He only got a second to think about it before he was in dream land. The chemist turned out to be a slightly built man of middle age and as nonthreatening as a human could be. He reminded me of Mr. Rogers.

The four women were busy sifting and filtering processing agents at varying stages of production. They either didn't notice a man had just been attacked, or it was so common place that they ignored it.

I spoke to the chemist quietly asking if he would like to go home or stay and fend for himself. His face brightened visably and he immediately set the beaker down and spoke to the women," This man will take us away from here, or you may stay if you wish."

The reaction was unanimious. Every one of them stopped what they were doing and filed around their work stations to line up behind the chemist. I instructed the chemist and the ladies to head North for the wooods as soon as we were outside and follow the river until they were met or found the iron bridges. They all nodded showing that they understood. I stepped outside the door and watched the cabin for activity as they single filed it to the woods.

Four nice looking women, all sporting their natural hair color, filed by me unashamed of their naked bodies. Things were going well and they had almost reached the woods when I heard a boat motor slow and stop at the front of the compound.

I motioned the hostages forward and followed on their heels. We were just in the edge of the brush when I saw who had arrived. My old buddy, Agent Webber, hand gun in hand and badge in the other walked shamelessly up the river bank and directly towards the cabin.

I ushered my charges towards our escape route. They moved eagerly, seeming to recognize the urgency of the situation. Ricky was ahead of us on the trail and handed the child to the first woman in line. She reacted as motherly as if he had been her own. None of them slowed down.

Ricky told the chemist about the boat only a mile upriver and told him to go up stream till he came to an iron bridge and head South from there. They would eventually hit town on their own or we would catch up with them before then.

They all disappeared into the thicket ahead of us. They looked like five ghosts. A man in a white lab coat and four white fleshed woman. It was an eerie sort of parade.

Ricky and I both moved back to the compound. We arrived just in time to see Special Agent Webber knock on the front door of the cabin. He was standing there with his sidearm in one hand and his pecker in the other jerking off as he waited for the door to be opened for him. He didn't have to wait long.