Chapter 5
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?" said Akbar.
"I dunno," said Louie. "I don't know 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.
