Kidnapped Kristin Ch. 04

The girl who had unchained her and the young man from Kristin's inspection climbed into the container, the man carrying a gym bag and the girl holding several bulging shopping bags. The man sat himself down at the front of the container and leaned against the wall and the girl dropped the shopping bags in front of him, then departed. The container was plunged into total darkness as the doors were slammed behind, mitigated somewhat by the man breaking over a green chemical lightstick and taping it to wall behind his head. The eerie green light only made the darkness that much more oppressive, and Kristin heard the soft sounds of five other terrified girls breathing hard and trying to remain silent from around her.

After an eternity there in the darkness, the container began to lurch and move and Kristin felt a sinking feeling in her stomach like it was being lifted. After swaying for a while, it dropped again with a tremor that made all the girls shudder and then stopped again. She still felt a sort of swaying and bobbing underneath her and wondered if they were on a boat of some kind.

She heard the sobbing around her resume, but none of the girls tried talking or moving. She was hoping one would move so that she could see if there would be any consequences for moving towards the bucket and if they would be worse than peeing herself. Finally she decided to risk it. Rising to her feet, she felt the guard's eyes on her as he looked up from the comic book he was reading with a headlamp. She was flushed darker than she'd ever been as she peed into the bucket, naked and chained in front of her best friend and five total strangers. The guard didn't move, and she decided not to test her newfound freedom any further. She returned to her place on the wall and after a moment, he returned to reading.

Somehow it had been liberating to just be able to wait and not move. Now that Kristin knew she had some small bit of freedom, her mind raced with things she might be allowed to do. Could she try talking to Megan? Could she lie down? Her act of boldness had encouraged one of the other girls to get up and use the bucket too. Kristin tried to catch her eye and smile at her, but the girl was obviously as humiliated as Kristin had been and shuffled by with her head down. Kristin couldn't tell in the dark if she even glanced her way.

After some indeterminate length of time, the guard took one of the shopping bags, got up, and walked along the row of girls, dropping a bottle of water and an energy bar in front of each one. Kristin debated whether they might be drugged in some way, then decided there was nothing her captors could drug her with that would put her any more at their mercy than she already was. It had been hours at least since she'd last eaten or drank, and she realized she was very thirsty and hungry, so she went for it. Around her, she heard the other girls hesitate as she had before doing the same. Her mind had slowed down a bit as she realized she had nothing to do but wait for whatever was coming. She closed her eyes and got as comfortable as she could lying on burlap sacking in chains, and before she knew it the gentle motion of her container lulled her to sleep.

Kristin woke up a couple more times, was fed a couple more times, had to use the bucket a couple more awful times, and had more time than she wanted to sit in the darkness and think. She had no idea how long it had been or where she was, but she figured it must have been at least 48 hours since she and Megan had been kidnapped. She worried quite a bit if Megan was alright, but after the girl next to her tried to whisper something to her and the guard came over and slapped her, she decided she could wait to find out.

What had they been kidnapped for? She couldn't imagine it being for ransom, the kidnappers seemed too well-organized for that, unless they were political terrorists of some kind and she was being shipped to North Korea or something. It didn't take much reflection to guess why someone might want six young American girls, but that didn't really happen, did it? Kristin had read about sex trafficking, but it always seemed to involve poor girls from poor countries or maybe teen runaways in America, not people like her. Bad things weren't supposed to happen to girls like her. Her family was well-off, she lived in a safe neighborhood with excellent schools, she studied hard, never got in trouble with boys (sigh), and had never even tried drugs or alcohol. She was supposed to go to college, get a degree, spend a few years finding herself, go to graduate school, find a career, then maybe when she found a guy she liked and who respected her choices as a woman, get married and possibly have children. She wasn't supposed to be in a filthy cargo container with her best friend and a bunch of strangers, being trafficked to God knows where, where she'd spend the rest of her life doing...well, Kristin didn't know exactly what a trafficked woman would do other than having involuntary sex with strangers, and ideas about just exactly what they might expect filled up more of her time in the container than she'd like to admit. Though Kristin had never been much of a crier, even as a baby, there were times that the quiet sobbing that continuously echoed in the container included her own.

She was jerked out of another troubled period of sleep by a rocking and clanking that was different from the normal noises of the ship. Around her, she heard the other girls waking up and straining to listen as well. The sounds and odd movement lasted a while after the ship came to a stop, and a lot of yelling and confusion could be heard outside the container. Kristin's first impression was that they'd somehow been discovered and Navy SEALs must be boarding the ship. She'd fantasized quite a bit about this exact scenario, but it was quickly dispelled when she realized that the ship must be docking somewhere, and that meant that whatever was intended for them was continuing right on schedule.

After about twenty minutes of shouting and clanking, the world turned white and it was impossible to see anything. Kristin had reflexively looked towards the container door as it started to open and the unexpected brightness of the sun had been a shock to her dark-adjusted eyes.

"Stay sit!" shouted the guard, rising, gathering his belongings, and walking out the door. Two more people, who to Kristin were just black silhouettes, entered the container as he left.

"Eyes down" ordered one of them in what sounded like British English. The other person walked to the back of the container. Even with her eyes down, Kristin could tell he was undoing the girls' iron collars. "Now, ladies," continued the man at the door, "we're going to get you out of these irons. You will continue to do exactly as I say, or there are going to be problems. You've been very good girls for my colleague, I understand, so I'm sure we'll have no problems at all. When your collars are undone, you will continue to sit silently with your eyes down. On my order, you will stand, facing the door of the container. On my further order you will file out, and again on my command you will stop and await further instructions. This will all by done with your pretty eyes downcast and your mouths completely shut. Indicate you understand by staying quiet."

The girls did mostly stay quiet, though crying did start up again. Kristin felt the collar taken off her neck by a man whose legs were clad in military-style khaki pants and military boots, as she strained to keep her eyes down. If she was going to escape, disobeying while in the container and watched by at least two people seemed like a bad plan, and it was also possible that these were rescuers, though the rational part of Kristin knew this was impossible. Still, weren't there a British version of Navy SEALs? Or was the man Australian? He sounded sort of Australian, but muttery. The sun was high in the sky. What time was it? How many days had it been?

"On your feet!" shouted the man from the door, who Kristin knew could not possibly be an Australian SEAL no matter how much she wanted him to be. She stood up and realized her legs had forgotten how exactly standing worked. She had to brace with one hand against the wall of the container for a moment, nervous that she might get in trouble for it. In front of her, she saw Megan try to stand, then fall down in a sobbing heap. The man at the door, who Kristin could see the tall lean outline of, walked over to her and gently helped the crying naked girl back up.

"Been off our feet for a long time, have we, dearie? Now, we've got a little way to walk, so put your hand on that wall and steady yourself. Oi! Keep your eyes down back there! Don't give me trouble, ladies, because I will give trouble back!" Kristin guiltily looked hard at her feet and moved her hand from the wall.

"Now walk forward." Kristin obeyed, shuffling out of the container and into the sun and fresh sea air, which was a big upgrade from the dankness of the container that had been her home. When her bare feet touched the deck of the ship, she felt a flipping in the pit of her stomach. The container, awful as it had been, had been limited and safe, and she knew what to do there, even if it was only waiting. Now she was in a big open world with no idea what was expected of her and what might happen, and it was unexpectedly terrifying, much more so than even the darkest fantasies she'd had in transit.

"Halt!" shouted the voice. "All right, my pretty things, now isn't it better to be out of that nasty can? I'm afraid I can't give you much of a chance to enjoy it, though. Now just stand still like good girls for a moment, we've got to get you done up again."

Kristin didn't have much chance to reflect on what "done up" might mean, because she was done up very quickly. Someone stepped from beside her, buckled a heavy leather collar lined with thick padding around her neck, put a blindfold over her eyes, and grabbed her wrists, pulling them together behind her back and putting cuffs that felt like the collar on them, then clipping them together. The speed and efficiency with which it happened surprised Kristin, who hadn't even gotten a glance at whoever did it to her.

"All right, girls, listen carefully. These will just be on for a few minutes. You can see a bit around the edges of those blindfolds, so look down and watch where your feet are going. Stay quiet for a bit more now, I'm going to be snapping you together so we can take a little walk."

Metal snaps clicked to the front and back of Kristin's collar, and once again the coffle of six naked girls marched off on the command of their kidnappers.