This is not a stand-alone story. The previous chapters will put everything into place for you. It will involve some lesbian sex, and some violence.
The slave trade is still very real today. Some use it to traffic young women for sex, some use it to gain cheap labour, while some use them as human currency it knows no age limit and you will find it in every country on the planet. It is all about lust and greed.
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I stood there for what seemed like an eternity but was barely more than thirty seconds. The sound of the shot reverberated around in the stairwell. I closed my eyes, dropped my head and said to myself, "fuck this" and slowly walked up to the group, they waited silently for me, apart from some who were sniffling and sobbing. No one said a word, but every one of them watched me trudge up the last few steps. The sadness on my face told them how I felt. Just as I was about to speak, we were rocked with another sudden jolt as the ship lurched once again, the rolling becoming slower as I was certain she was going to roll over and capsize any minute. The young ones screamed as we all tried to grab hold of something solid. The creaking and groaning of the vessel was more threatening and scary than anything I had faced yet on this ship. Once the ship started or tried to come back, I waited until it stopped moving, then looked at them all and told them.
"Chances are we are the only ones on board, so we get to the bridge, and see what's what," I looked at the aboriginal lad I gave the gun to.
"What's your name mate?" I asked.
"Levi," he told me.
"Well, Levi when we get to the bridge try and find the radio room of some kind OK, then give me a yell?"
I looked at the older women or girls and said for them to look out for the little ones.
It was the big-bosomed blonde who answered me with defiance in her voice. "I'm not their fucking mother, I'm looking out for myself, so fuck you bitch."
Evie's eyes were like saucers as I moved towards her so quickly that she barely had finished speaking when the back of my hand struck her face and knocked her off her feet.
The stunned look on her face was worth it I thought, "Now you listen to me, if you want to get off this ship you do what I say when I say." Then told her, "And if you talk back to me like that again, then by god I will fucking shoot you in the face bitch, understand me!" I stepped over her and went up the next flight of stairs. Everyone followed, even the big-titted blonde. As we approached the top of the stairs I looked out of the window and saw the clouds overhead, not a good sign, because the door was on the side of the ship. Fortunately, the door opened inwards. As soon as it was opened the noise of the wind and waves made us all aware of the predicament, we were in. It was loud. I turned to them all and told them to wait for me. Once I was sure it was safe for them, I will call them through.
Once I put my head out of the doorway and saw how the ship was listing, I felt a small amount of certainty that we could make it off. It was a very small amount mind you.
I walked out onto the bridge deck and found that the listing of the ship wasn't as bad as it seemed when we were inside the vessel. Mind you it still wasn't a good thing. I opened the door to the bridge and as expected it was empty. I called out in my best nautical voice "Ahoy there." Not really knowing what I was doing. But certain now we were in fact the last on the ship.
Walking uphill towards the others I called out for them to come up. They all did. The blonde even had hold of a couple of the younger ones by their hands. I smiled at her; her rose-coloured cheek shone like a beacon. She will have a shiner before too long I thought. Good, it will remind her and the others who was in charge. I stood by the door and watched them all clamber into the bridge.
"Don't touch anything without checking with me OK," I told them as I closed the door. I looked forward and saw that we were now running with the waves. I couldn't see anything from our vantage point. The clouds were lifting but the winds and waves were still strong. The ship hadn't settled any deeper into the water, the waves were still breaking over the side of the old girl, but it didn't seem any worse than before.
Hey, but what would I know?
Levi called out to me that he had found something. I went to where his voice came from, it is a smallish side room. When I looked inside, it was modern, computerized and working, as we heard various voices on the headsets. Some Chinese, some English, and others which were breaking up.
"Levi," I said, "how do you fancy being our communications expert." He laughed, "I'll give it a go. But don't blame me if I break it."
I patted him on the shoulder. "Do your best mate."
"What do I say," he asked, I stopped and thought about it.
"Just hit the mike and start calling May Day, May Day, May Day." And wait for a reply.
"Then what?" He asked. I just shrugged and replied, "I don't know."
I turned around when I heard someone at the door, it was Evie who handed me a pair of binoculars.
"I took a look out the front but can't see much," she told me.
"That's called the bow, the front of the ship or the pointy end is called the bow" and I smiled at her.
She shrugged "Whatever."
I went back onto the bridge and half of the 'cargo' had disappeared, "Where is everyone," I asked to no one in particular. One young boy pointed to another door in the middle of the bridge. I walked over to it followed by Evie and a couple of others and opened the door to find a very comfortable lounge room. The TV was still working or they were watching a movie.
A young girl was tapping away on a laptop on the table. I looked over her shoulder and watched her bring up the name of the ship, the Venturer, out of Venezuela, going to Sydney Australia, Adelaide in South Australia and then Cape Town in South Africa. I asked the young girl to take the info to Levi. I took the binoculars and went out onto the wing deck and looked behind us, wondering where the crew and the others had gone. I knew the lifeboat had gone and could hold the crew, but what about the military types, by my reckoning, I counted about another dozen at least, less the six I dispatched in the dormitory and the girl in the stairwell.
I couldn't believe I took those lives without any thought. Cold-blooded, with no conscience I closed my eyes and saw the young woman with blood covering her belly and that single shot echoing in the stairwell. I wondered what on earth had become of me. How had I become a killer without a conscience?
I felt a hand on my shoulder, it startled me as I turned and found Evie standing next to me, "You were away with the birds" she told me.
"Thinking about our next move sweetheart," I explained.
"Are we going to get off of this thing before it sinks and sucks us into the deep dark unknown?" She asked.
I looked at her and told her not to be so morbid, especially around the younger ones.
"Well, are we?" She insisted on an answer.
"Maybe, if we can contact someone and let them know where we are," I told her. "I don't think the ship is going to sink on us to be truthful," I lied straight-faced to her.
In truth I had no idea, all it would take is one rogue wave and it would be over for all of us. And way down here in the great Southern Ocean, rogue waves were not uncommon in fact they weren't uncommon in any ocean, but down here where there is nothing between the Antarctic and Australia, they were more common than not. Forty-foot waves were to be expected, even higher at times. The largest wave recorded was over 80 feet high in the North Atlantic back in the mid-1990s. If one of those came out of nowhere and hit us side-on, the ship would turn turtle and that would be the end of everyone.
I put the binoculars to my eyes and looked behind us, a sudden flash of orange appeared and disappeared in an instant. I kept looking. There it was again. I adjusted the focus, zoning in on the point I was certain I saw something. I kept staring not moving the binoculars too much and there it was the lifeboat. It looked so tiny on the bleak ocean, being tossed from wave to wave. I reached out to Evie and told her to take a look.
She grabbed hold of the binoculars and started looking in the direction I was pointing, "I can't see anything, oh wait yes, I saw it an orange thingy, it's gone again. Did it sink or something?'
"No, it rides high on the top of a wave, that's when we see it, then it drops down into a valley sort of, I think it's called a trough," I told her.
She gave me a weird look and then started to laugh, "You are a mountain of knowledge aren't you Corrie," she told me.
"What are we going to do, can't we shoot them or something?"
I took the binoculars back and told her not to be so silly, even I'm not that good of a shot, even if we had a weapon big enough to reach them, which we didn't.
"This may be a good thing Evie, that lifeboat will have an emergency beacon activated, whoever hears it might come looking for us. I think, I hope."
I kept looking at the lifeboat bouncing around on the waves, the sealed cabin would keep the occupants safe and dry, they may get rolled over, but if they remain strapped in it wouldn't hurt them. "Bitch," I said to myself or so I thought.
"Who is?" Asked Evie as we were joined by a couple of others.
"That Chinese bitch, the one who kidnapped you lot."
Evie hugged my arm, "thank you for coming," she told me. I kissed her on the head. Her hair smelt like roses, and it took me back to another time and place.
One of the older girls or women came out onto the deck and I was handed a hot mug of coffee. I hadn't realised just how hungry or tired I was until then. The mug was hot as I wrapped my hands around it to warm my freezing fingers.