TERROR BEACH

BY

FRANK EDWARDS

FOUR

Carrie sat stone still in place. It was all she could do, as she couldn't move a single muscle in her body at all. Time had dragged on endlessly now, the passing of hours seemingly like years to her.

She had been listening hard to try and ascertain anything about her location. It was very close to the ocean, as she could easily hear waves breaking on a rocky shore of some kind outside, and the windows seemed to be open given she could hear it clearly. And the stone floor she was kneeling on felt wet, as if the waves had come inside at times. But that was little comfort when she was tied up in a net and chained to the wall. And it was otherwise dead quiet around her. Carrie had never felt so alone in her life. And there was nothing she could do about it at the moment, except pray that her friends and the authorities could find her--without getting caught themselves...

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"Leigh, are you there!? Leigh!?" Robbie asked worriedly into the radio. The lifeguard did not answer, nor did anyone else. "Anything?" Greg leaned over his shoulder in the dusky darkness of the beach.

"No," Robbie shook his head softly, "You don't suppose something's happened there too?"

"Oh god, I hope not. Not everyone else as well as Carrie," Greg shuddered, "Let's check it out."

Both boys ran down the beach, now empty in the last rays of twilight. Robbie's heart was pounding, afraid of what if anything they'd find. There had been no sign of Carrie during his and Greg's earlier search of the beach, and no word over the radio of anyone finding her body, so he assumed she was alive. But if she was, that probably meant she was in some kind of trouble, and he hated to think of what that could mean...

Within five minutes, he and Greg had reached the lifeguard tower he'd seen Leigh and Donna working in all week. "Leigh, are you here!? Is everything all right!?" he asked out loud, glancing around and seeing no one inside the tower.

"Hey look," Greg pointed, "It looks like there was a mild struggle in here..."

Robbie saw it as well: tables and chairs knocked over throughout the tower. And in the middle of the floor lay Leigh's lifeguard whistle and rescue buoy. His blood froze. Something had happened to Leigh and anyone else in the tower at the time...

"Hey, what are you two doing in here!?" came a shout from behind. Both of them spun to see a man looking at them with a frown. "We're acquaintances of Donna Lawrence and Leigh Arnold, sir," Robbie explained, noticing in the dim light his white T-shirt and red trunks, "Are you their boss?"

"George Mitchell, head of the lifeguard department, yes. I'd been radioing this tower for a while, but got nothing," the man said, his expression dropping as he took in the mess in the tower, "Good god, what happened here...?"

"We have a feeling something's going on here, sir," Greg explained grimly, "A girl we've gotten to know well this week disappeared earlier today. Donna went out to look for him; Leigh was supposed to be listening in for any news here in the tower..."

"So it was Donna who took that boat out," Mitchell mused softly.

"What do you mean?" Robbie's blood froze again.

We got reports of a lifeguard department boat driving around riderless out in the ocean; we just brought it in," the head lifeguard explained.

"No signs of anyone with the boat!?"

"No one."

"Terri and Mandy...!" Robbie shot a gaze to Greg.

"Yeah--and Audrey was with Leigh..." Greg nodded worriedly. "Sir, I think we need to call the police," he told Mitchell, "Something's going on here; I think Donna and Leigh are in some kind of danger, as are the other girls."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Mitchell dug out a phone, "Can you give me a description of the other missing girls?"

"Certainly..."

Leigh moaned as she woke up. She tried to open up her eyes, but was unable to, which puzzled her at first. Then the horror of hers and Audrey's abduction came flooding back in a flash, the two of them being grabbed and chloroformed...

She raised her head up. A large and thick cloth had been tied very tightly over her eyes while she'd been out, depriving her of sight, and her mouth was still buried under multiple layers of tape wrapped around her head. She was sitting on a floor that felt like porcelain or something similar, with high walls on either side of her, plus what felt like a plastic curtain to her left. So she was in a bathtub, she reasoned, her toes tapping off another wall in front of her. That however, could mean she was anywhere. She could faintly hear surf breaking not too far off, so she was close to the ocean. They were obviously far away from the beach now either way--but where then, exactly?

A low moan rang out directly behind her--Audrey. Leigh realized now that she and Audrey were tied together back to back in the tub. She squirmed around to figure her own bonds out more clearly. As when she'd last been awake, her hands and feet were tied together and tied to each other in front of her. Her elbows were tied together as well, as were her legs above and below her knees. And all the ropes were painfully tight. Leigh had no doubt their kidnappers were experts given how little slack she had to work with. And with her hands pinned down in her lap instead of behind her back, no way she and Audrey, who was now starting to cry out in terror, could help each other. Still, they had to find a way out of their predicament; Leigh had no doubts that whoever had grabbed them meant business.

It was now she heard a key turning in a lock nearby, a sound that made Audrey scream harder behind them. A door swung open, and the curtain pulled aside to her left. "Awake, I see?" the man who'd captured Leigh greeted them condescendingly, "Hope you two like your new home in here. You'll be staying there for a while to come."

"MMMMMM MMMMMIIIII MMMMZZZZZZ MMMMOOOO MMMMMMMPPPP!!!!!" Leigh roared at him through her gag, raising her feet up awkwardly to try and kick him. "Temper, temper, Miss Arnold," he scolded her, squeezing her cheeks, "We won't hurt you and Miss Klaussen as long as the two of you behave, or the rest of your friends that we have secured in other locations don't try and escape. Our primary objective was to grab the lovely Miss Plummer, but when word came to us you and your friends were going to try and mount a rescue party, we figured we'd grab all of you as well. So you'll be our guests until your families--and the lifeguard department as well in your case, Miss Arnold--pay up for you."

She heard him rise upright. "So you know, there's only one window in this room; it's too small for either of you to get out of, and we barred it anyway," he told her and Audrey, "The door, meanwhile, will be locked, and someone will be on guard duty outside. So be good little girls and behave yourselves, because you're not going anywhere for a while."

Snickering, he slid the shower curtain closed and slammed the door shut. Audrey screeched behind Leigh and started rocking back and forth. Leigh started doing the same, her mind racing. There had to be a way out of this, and she was determined to find it somehow. But what of Donna and the others, she thought fearfully...?

Somewhere else at the same moment, Terri was also awakening. And like Leigh, the terror of her abduction swept over her the instant her consciousness returned like a tsunami.

She twisted slowly around, finding herself still tightly hogtied, as she'd been on the lifeguard boat when she and the others had been captured. She was now laying on her stomach on a cold, metal floor, her whole body seemingly ensnared in ropes and her eyes and mouth still tightly wrapped in at least a dozen layers of tape. The hogtie was very painful; Terri's arms and legs felt like they'd break off at the elbows and knees. Her sunglasses, though, still remained perched atop her head, for what it was worth, although that did her no good.

She heard load moans in front of her, the cries echoing loudly off the metallic walls around her. Mandy and Donna were at least nearby; Terri would have hated to have suffered her predicament alone. Although both were clearly still gagged as well, she could still distinguish them apart; closer to her, Mandy was growling hard, apparently more angry and frustrated than scared at being tied up like a mummy. In the far corner of the room, in contrast, Donna sounded flat out petrified, screeching so loud and hard that Terri supposed the lifeguard's cries would have been heard for at least ten miles if she wasn't gagged. But was there anyone around to hear them, she wondered worriedly? She could feel herself rise slowly and gently every few moments, making it clear they were on a boat of some kind, and she could hear the boat's engines going. But where were they being taken?

She heard footsteps approaching high above her, followed by a hatch swinging open. Terri raised her head quickly upwards. "HELP!!" she cried as best she could through all the cloths and tape silencing her, which reduced the cry to a very low, severely garbled moan. "Evening, lovely Theresa," an unfamiliar man's voice called down to her, "Good to see you, Amanda, and Donna in such good spirits."

"MMMMMMMMMMMM, MMMMRRRRFFF MMMMMRRRFFF!!!" Donna shrieked in front of Terri in pure terror. The lifeguard started thrashing around hard in what was clearly a blind panic. "Struggle all you want, my dear; we made your ropes so tight it'll take you and your friends two years to get loose," he mocked her, "And don't think you're going to cut yourself loose either; there's nothing down there with you but solid steel walls and an empty steel floor. And don't count on your friend Miss Arnold the lifeguard to save you; right now, she and the other girl in your group are safely tied, gagged, and blindfolded themselves at a secure location. And they have no hope of getting free either. So just accept that you're going to be our prisoners for a while now."

"MMMMMM MMMMMM MMMMMMMM!!!!" Mandy muffledly protested, kicking about. "No, no, my dear Amanda, you're staying hogtied, gagged, and blindfolded down there full time until further notice yourself," he told her sternly, "At least until your ransom payment's made. And don't think of rescuing your friend Caroline either; she's under wraps far from here herself. So just lay back and enjoy your little voyage, ladies."

"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, MMMMMRRRRFFFF MMMMMMMRRRRRRFFF!!!" a frightened Donna repeated her earlier cry. It did her no good; the hatch was slammed shut, and Terri heard something large and heavy thump down on top of it, fully imprisoning her and her friends inside. She slumped her head down on the floor. Kidnapped. It was too terrifying to fully process. So Carrie had walked into an abduction, and now the other girls had suffered the same fate. Was Carrie even all right now at the moment, she feared...?

Carrie heard footsteps approaching outside her cell, wherever it was. She raised her head up, hoping she was about to be shown some semblance of mercy. "MMMMMMM, MMMM MMMMM MMMMM MMMMMM MMMMMMM!!!!" she enunciated through her gag as best she could as the door swung open.

"Just checking in for some official business, Miss Plummer; I didn't mean to disturb your solitude," it was the leader of the gang that had grabbed her. She sensed him bending down in front of her. "Your friends are really loyal. They came out looking for you. So you know, the five of them are now tied up, gagged, and blindfolded themselves in two different locations far from here. And if you make any attempt to try to escape, we will kill them, Miss Plummer. Just like we'll kill you if they try to escape. Understand?"

"MMMMMM MMMMMMM," Carried nodded softly, horror stricken that Terri and the others were now hostages themselves.

"Very good," he told her, "All right then, Miss Plummer, it's time for the moment all this has built towards; let's give your family a call, and see if they'll be willing to meet our price for you..."

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