As the van squealed away, Rick sprinted toward the truck, "Daryl, Ty, Abraham, with me now! Bob, you're in charge! Get everyone off the streets and in a store!"
People were running around in a panic, but in the truck's rear view mirror, Rick saw Bob take charge, herding people toward the first store he and Daryl had swept.
Rick squealed tires, too, and attempted to push down the panic that roared through his skull as Ty said, "I think Beth and Cathy were the only ones in the van."
"We'll get her back. Fuck if we won't," Daryl gritted out beside him, and images of Rosita's ordeal flashed through Rick's mind, images of all the horrible things that could happen to the woman he loved. He shook his head, a feeling of his sanity slipping, like when Lori died, or that sick bastard had held Carl captive beneath him. Rick shook his head again, chasing off the imaginary visions of his Beth, focusing on the road.
Daryl's hand squeezed Rick's thigh, "The sombitches are dead."
"Who the hell is driving?" Abraham asked.
"I saw Beth get in, she looked sick or something, and then Cathy got in. I'm positive she sat in the back with Beth," Ty replied, squeezing the bridge of his nose, "so someone had to sneak up and carjack them."
The hills leading out of the little town sloped wildly up and down. They lost sight of the van several times, only to see it top the next hill. A walker stepped in their path, and Rick barely swerved as thick blood splashed onto the windshield. Once the wipers cleared a trail in the blood, they could see the van parked at the bottom of the hill.
"They have them on foot now. I'll check the van, Daryl you find a trail."
Guns drawn, the four men surrounded the van. As Rick swept the python in the open door, Daryl's eyes were on the ground.
Inside the van, Rick swallowed hard at a small smear of blood on the back seat armrest, and another larger blood spray further down the seat.
Daryl stated, "They went this way, east. There's only two men, and Beth's dragging her feet. We'll catch them."
Thick woods lined both sides of the road, and as Daryl led, the other three men followed.
...
When the two men had jumped in the van, the scarred-faced one had held a shotgun in their faces, while his crazy-eyed companion squealed tires. Cathy was blubbering beside her, but Beth kept her eyes trained on the man with the gun.
"This was not a good idea," she told him, "they'll come after us and kill you both."
"Shut the fuck up!" the man yelled and struck Beth across the face. His big ring cut deep into her cheek, and Beth's eyes had blazed. Probing at the wound with her fingertips, she knew it was going to leave a nasty scar.
As the men had drug them from the van, the crazy-eyed one bruise-gripped Beth's arm, dragging her beside him. She'd tried to break his hold like Daryl had taught her, but the man anticipated her, and laughed, striking her upside the head. Ears ringing, she stumbled in his grip.
First Beth had torn a strip of fabric from her shirt, dropping the tiny piece by her feet. She also flicked blood from her cheek, rubbing at the wound to restart the blood flow. As they reached a wide, but shallow creek, the man had shoved them both into the water. Beth had gained her footing, but Cathy had fallen face first. The other woman was sobbing in fear, so Beth jerked Cathy to her feet, whispering, "They will come."
As the scarred-face man prodded them both with the rifle, Kathy nodded, though tears poured down her face.
Beth knew they'd gone into the water to throw rescuers off the trail. Though she'd been fighting her nausea all morning, Beth focused on that sick feeling now, and was pleased to spray vomit onto the creek bed. Daryl would find that.
"Fucking bitch!" The man behind her screamed, knowing exactly what she was doing. He poked her hard in the back with his shotgun, "This ain't no Hansel and Gretel!"
"They're still young enough, right?" the crazy-eyed one asked, "I mean, the kids would have been better, of course they would, much more tender meat, but these two will do, right?"
"Shut up, you stupid fuck, they are fine. Plenty young."
Beth and Cathy exchanged looks of horror, what they hell did these men plan to do to them?
...
"That's our girl," Daryl told Rick, handing him a scrap of yellow fabric, "She's leaving us a trail."
His eagle eyes also pinpointed the drops of blood, but Rick was already looking crazed, so Daryl kept that detail to himself. It was just a drop here and there, and from the pattern, it looked like Beth may have been purposely flicking drops.
As they reached the creek bed, Daryl cussed, "Fuck! They've gone in the water."
Rick looked back and forth along the creek, "Ty and Abraham, go that way. Daryl and I will head in this direction. We find them and meet back here. We search until we find them, but as the sun sets, regardless, we meet back here."
Though Ty and Abraham paused near Beth's vomit, neither man noticed the small damp area of leaves, "Like a needle in a haystack," Abraham told Ty, who nodded his head sadly.
...
The men drug Beth and Cathy to a small shack. Three men stood on the porch cackling at the sight of them.
"Damn, boys, you done good! Two of 'em!" said a tall, heavily bearded man.
As they met them in the yard, one man started feeling up Beth, poking at the flesh of her arms, butt, and upper thighs, "This one is skinny as shit, but that one!" He chuckled, moving to feel up a wailing Cathy.
Even though no one could get fat on their rationed diets, Cathy was definitely fuller figured than Beth. Their words struck fear in Beth's heart, there was no doubt these sick fucks planned to eat them, so her eyes were constantly sweeping the men for an opening, for any chance to escape.
"Tie and gag this skinny one up and put her in the back," the burly man instructed the youngest of the group, a sandy-haired teen boy with a few scraggly whiskers dotting his chin. He was also the only only who wore a look of lust, not hunger.
As the teen drug Beth into the house, she thought she may have an opening, but a short man followed, his gun in her back.
The shack was in shambles, and similar to the one Beth and Daryl had drunk moonshine in all those months ago. The men lived like slobs, and there was a sickening smell of rotted meat in the air. The teen tied Beth's wrists behind her, and then her ankles. As he'd stood back up, he pressed his erection hard into her backside as his hands squeezed her breasts. It would have hurt at a normal time, but the tenderness in her breasts made her whimper in pain.
"Come on, boy. No playing with the food," the short said, grinning at Beth as he stuffed a gag in her mouth.
As they closed the door and left her alone, Beth concentrated on two things. First, not throwing up and drowning in her own puke behind the gag, and finding anything to help cut through the rope binding her wrists and ankles.
The sound of an electric saw split the air, and then the muffled sound of Cathy's gagged screams. Beth choked twice, swallowing back bile, but then she blinked away the stinging tears, and focused back her goal.
...
The trail was cold and Daryl wanted to beat his head against a tree in frustration. There was no way two men dragging two women could have just disappeared like that. It was close to sunset when he met Rick's eyes, shook his head, and they turned back as one, "Ty and Abraham will probably have them."
Perking up at the idea, they'd jogged back. Though the moon was full, darkness was complete, and it wasn't until they were almost on top of Ty and Abraham that they saw Beth and Cathy were not with them.
Rick made a choked sound, and uncaring of their audience, Daryl took Rick into his arms, stroking his hands up and down Rick's back, "We'll find her," he repeated over and over, "we'll find her."