Chapter 3

No matter how hard they pressed her, Sheena wouldn't tell them what happened to Dooley. Maybe she didn't know. She was in shock when Gene got her to camp.

"You think she killed him?" Louie asked, after Sheena had been allowed to go to sleep.

"Yeah, somehow I think she did," said Gene.

"With her hands cuffed behind her?" said Akbar.

"Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but I think she managed to off the poor son-of-a-bitch without using her hands."

"Crocs got him," Tremain said quietly. "They almost got the girl. Almost got you."

"Yeah," said Gene. "Could've been crocs, but I still think she had something to do with it. You know what they say — the bitch talks with animals. Maybe she put 'em up to it."

Louie shook his head. "That's a lot of bullshit. She don't talk to no animals. That's all part of the hype."

Akbar laughed harshly. "So you think Lawton was gonna get an extra million or two because he convinced some S&M billionaire that she's Dr. Doolittle?"

"I dunno," said Louie. "Who knows what Lawton was thinking?
But I know what I'm thinking. We're down to only four of us, and we've got to find out way out of this jungle. We're gonna need the bitch's help. She's gonna have to carry stuff. And she's gonna have to give us directions. Lawton kept saying follow the river. But I don't even know for sure what river we're followin'. This one sure as hell ain't the Congo, 'cause it ain't nearly big enough. Must be some kind of tributary."

"They call it the Tuposo," said Sheena. She was awake, sitting up on the blanket they had tossed over her. "It flows into the Lomami, and the Lomami flows into the Great River."

"The Congo?" asked Louie.

"Yes."

"So we've been going in the wrong direction," cried Gene. "Jesus fuckin' Christ. We've been going upstream. If we want to get to the Congo, we should be going downstream!"

Louie rubbed his head. He was confused and irritated.

"Downstream, you will die," Sheena said.

"How so?" said Louie.

"Guerrillas. Men and boys with guns and machetes. They will kill you, all of you."

"Lawton paid off all the military types," said Gene.

Sheena rested her head against her knees. She was very tired, and she didn't know why she should save these men from their own blundering.

"What about it?" said Gene. "Didn't he fix it?"

"Sheena," said Louie. "Why can't we work it out with these guerrilla guys? We got money. Hell, we got our own guns."

She looked at him for a long while.

"They will kill you and take your money and your guns," she said, at last. "And they will take me."

"To fuck?" asked Louie.

"To fuck, yes. And maybe to sell. Maybe to kill. Maybe to eat."

"Eat?" Gene said. "Jesus, they eat people?"

"They eat the forest people, the little people," Sheena said quietly. "And they eat monkeys and apes. I live in the forest. They have heard about me. Some of them would be proud to kill and eat me."

Louie sighed heavily.

"Okay," he said. "I guess we can rule out going downriver. What happens if we keep going upstream?"

"It will be very difficult," she said. "But you will come to open land. I have never seen it, but I am told the forest ends and there is tall brown grass as far as you can see."

"Sounds good to me," said Akbar. "I'm sick of this fuckin' jungle."

Gene and Akbar didn't like the idea of removing the handcuffs from Sheena. It was Louie's idea. He tied one end of a rope around her right ankle and attached the other to his belt.

"She ain't gonna get away," he said. "She sure as hell ain't gonna pull me through the forest. But she'll be able to carry some of this shit."

They put a backpack on her and piled two heavy canvas bags onto her shoulders. At first, it was just a cruel joke. They wanted to see how far she got before she stumbled and fell, or just dropped from exhaustion.

She didn't fall. She didn't get tired, at least no more tired than the rest of them. They were impressed, but only Louie expressed any admiration.

"You're one strong broad," he said, walking beside her.

Sheena said nothing.

"How long before we get to this grassland?" he asked.

"Three days, maybe four. I'm not sure."

"And it'll be safe? No guerrillas there?"

"I don't think so."

"Shit," said Gene, coming up behind them. "For a queen of the jungle, you don't know a hell of a lot."

"Come on," said Louie. "Give her a break. She's never been there before. She's queen of the fuckin' jungle, not the fuckin' savanna."

"I say we turn her into the just plain queen of fucking," said Gene. He jerked the rope that connected Sheena to Louie. She stumbled, and the heavy bags landed on top of her.

"Cut that out," yelled Louie. "Leave her alone."

Akbar and Tremain caught up with them.

"What's going on?" Akbar asked.

"Louie's playing the role of hero, that's what's going on," said Gene. "I say we take a break and fuck this bitch's brains out. But Louie thinks he's her protector. Or maybe he wants her all to himself."

"I ain't protecting her, I'm protecting our investment," Louie said defensively.

"So you think it would hurt our investment if we fuck her ass and force her to give us blowjobs?" said Akbar. "I mean, we're not selling a virgin. We're selling some kind of jungle babe."

They argued for a while, then Louie shrugged and said they could do what they wanted with her. He picked up his gear and said, "Take as long as you want, but I'm going on ahead. You bastards will just have to catch up."

He was angry — at them, at himself for not standing up to them, and at Sheena for... for what? For being what she was: beautiful, sexy, strong.

He just hoped she was strong enough to survive whatever they had in store for her.

No longer drugged and handcuffed, Sheena felt she could handle this situation. With the big one gone, the other three men didn't pose much of a threat. She had prevailed against such odds often in the past.

But Gene didn't give her a chance. While she watched Louie disappear into the bush, he removed the baseball bat he carried strapped to his backpack and hit her on the back of the neck. She staggered forward, and he hit her again, this time behind the knees. She collapsed, and the men were on top of her in an instant.

They took turns raping her. Gene preferred fucking her anally. They flopped her on her belly over a fallen log, and he pressed his prick against her tight little anus while Akbar knelt on her extended hands.

"Too tight," Gene complained. He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out some suntan lotion. "We sure as hell haven't needed this in this fucking forest." He squirted lotion on the business end of the bat, then jammed it into her ass. She awoke with a scream as he worked it inside her.

He pulled out the bat and resumed fucking her.

"Much better," he said, pumping slowly. "She just needed a little breaking in."

Tremain followed Gene, but stuck his prick in her pussy. It was wet, whether from lotion dripping from her anus or from sexual excitement Tremain didn't know — or care.

Akbar turned her over so he could look into her face as he raped her. But she was unconscious again, which took away a lot of the fun. "Wake her up," he said. Gene poured the contents of his canteen over her face, but she remained motionless.

"You think she's alright?" Akbar asked, after he had unloaded inside her.

Gene felt her neck. "Yeah, she's okay. But we'll have to take turns carrying her til we catch up with Louie. She's not going to do any walking for a while."

"Or sitting, either, after what you did to her," said Akbar. They all laughed.

Despite the battering she had taken, Sheena did walk. And she carried the heavy load of gear that the men piled onto her shoulders. The three men laughed and joked, and every now and then one would jerk the rope tied to her ankle and send her tumbling to the forest floor.

Silently, she would struggle back to her feet, and the men would again pile a disproportionate share of the load on her. She didn't complain. She just vowed that, when she got the chance, she would kill them all — including Louie, who, when they caught up with him, would not look her in the eye.

The next day they came to a clearing in the forest — a manmade clearing. Hundreds of acres of trees had been cut down, and their burned remains had been pushed to one side of the clearing. No heavy equipment had been left, but the men saw its traces everywhere: the deeply scarred earth, the deep ruts left by huge tires and caterpillar tracks.

"Mining?" asked Gene.

"Yeah, probably," said Louie. "Left a hell of a mess, didn't they?"

Sheena scanned the desolate scene, and for the first time since they had captured her, she wept.

Louie patted her clumsily on the shoulder.

"I know what you mean," he said. "I'm no fuckin' tree-hugger, but the bastards who done this oughta be shot."

They crossed the raped and ruined land and soon found themselves back in the jungle. But the vegetation was thinner here. They were coming to the end of the great forest.

"Look, you can see big bunches of sky," Louie said. He opened his arms and sang, "Good morning, Mr. Sunshine."

"Fuck the sunshine," said Gene.

Louie dropped his arms and frowned. "Yesterday, you were sick and tired of the fuckin' jungle. Now, you complain about the sun. What the fuck's wrong with you?"

"He's a horny bastard," said Akbar. "He wants to get back inside Sheena. We all do. You should try it, too. Make you feel better."

"I feel great," snapped Louie. "I don't need no woman to feel good. I mean, I ain't queer or nothing, but I don't need pussy to make life worthwhile."

But Akbar's suggestion stuck with him. He hadn't had sex in a long, long while. He had felt up Rosie's pussy, but that didn't really count. Neither did jacking off every few days in the forest.

He wanted a woman. He wanted Sheena. But not as part of a gangbang with these assholes. He wanted to be alone with her, and he wanted her to want it, too.

He was deep in thought when Akbar called out, "Look, we're almost out of the jungle."

Louie looked up. Sure enough, the trees had thinned to the point that he could see well into the distance — and that distance was filled with open grassland.

Sheena looked at this vista and shivered. She had spent almost all of her life in the jungle, where the eye became accustomed to the vertical. Here was a horizontal land, broad and flat. It made her dizzy.

"What's that over there?" Gene said, pointing.

"A building, some kind of ranch house or something," said Louie. He grew excited. "And in front of it. Is that a truck?"

Akbar pulled out a pair of binoculars. "No, not a truck. An SUV. And it's one of ours — a Ford Explorer, I think."

"All RIGHT!" Louie roared, as they exchanged high fives. "An American truck, not another British shitwagon."

They hurried toward the house. It was made of timber and mud, with a corrugated tin roof. A porch ran the width of the house. A big wooden cistern loomed on one side of the house, and in back was an outhouse.

As they approached the porch, Gene pulled out a BXP submachine gun.

"Put that away," Louie said. "We didn't come here to shoot anyone. We just want to borrow their truck."

He knocked on the front door, and it swung slowly open. Louie stepped inside. Everything was very neat. Two big stuffed chairs with cream colored antimacassars, a wicker couch, small tables with kerosene lanterns.

He went into the kitchen. It was clean and neat, but there was a nasty smell. He discovered the odor came from a small refrigerator. It had been connected to a generator outside, but the generator evidently had run out of gas a long time ago.

"Whew," said Gene. "Let's get out of here.

"Something's wrong here," Louie said. He opened the back door and stepped outside. Another strong, unpleasant odor greeted him. It came from the outhouse.

Gene followed him out. "Fuck, don't they ever clean their goddamn shithouse!"

"I don't think that's the problem," Louie said. He took a deep breath, held it, and opened the door of the outhouse.

Three badly decomposed bodies were crammed inside.

"Jesus," Louie said, gagging.

He backed away, trying to breathe.

"Get back in the house," he yelled, as the others came out the back door.

They gathered in the living room, and sat quietly for a while.

"What do you think happened to them?" Tremain asked at last.

"Marauders of some sort," Louie said. "Maybe guerrillas, like Sheena was talking about. What do you think, honey?"

Sheena said nothing.

"Well," said Gene. "Can't do nothing about them. Meanwhile, there's canned food in the kitchen and some kind of local cola in plastic bottles. And the Explorer. If we can't find the keys, I can hotwire it."

"What about gas?" Louie asked.

"The auxiliary tank is full. Can't tell about the main tank til we crank her up."

"Any idea where we are?" said Tremain.

"No," said Louie.

"Then what the fuck good does it do to have a vehicle if we don't know where we are and where we're going?" It was the most Tremain had said on this entire trip. He sounded like a man who was about to snap.

"Okay, okay," said Louie. "Let's think this through. If whoever lived here had a Explorer, they must have left tracks when they used it. There may not be a regular road, but we'll find where he drove it. And we'll follow those tracks, and I'll guarantee you we'll eventually get to a town."