John had not been to Scarshot for many years. He had often visited in his younger years and had fond memories. Mike and Salvatore had never been before, and John looked forward to introducing them to some fun times. He pulled up to the gate in the truck. One of the guards stood by the gate and walked over to him.
“Is that you, John?” he said.
“Is that you, Sam,” John replied. He jumped out of the truck and shook hands with him. “How many years now and when did you switch to this side? The last time I saw you was what, ten, maybe eleven years now, you were still running with one of the west groups if I remember rightly.”
“You do, and I was. I have been working here now for four years,” he said, “The group I was with disbanded, similar to what happened to yours.”
“Damn, looks like you landed on your feet ok though,” John said.
“Yeah, it is a decent gig, to be fair. We get left alone, and since the auctions are only every three months or so, it’s just normal guard duty most of the time. It is only the couple of days around the auction when we really must work. Who are you here for?”
“Montgomery Metals, I have been leading guard there for a long time, but the slave buyer retired, so I got the short straw.” He laughed.
“Well, it’s good to see you. I'll be finishing soon. Do you fancy meeting for nectar and a proper catch-up?”
“Sure, is it still over at ‘The Claw’?” John asked.
“Hell, I have not heard that name in years. ‘The Claw’ burned down a long time ago. They opened ‘The Pit’ instead, just as bad, but the nectar is better, and they do roasts during auction periods. So the food is always good. They have a separate bar for clients. If you would prefer to meet there?”
“The Pit sounds good to me,” John replied.
“I will catch you in a while then,” Sam said.
John drove into the compound and followed the directions given to the clients’ area. He could see the raider groups parked up where he had been those many years ago. It made him smile, thinking about what they used to get up to. He pulled up outside the building labelled Montgomery Metals, and they unloaded their gear inside.
“Let’s head to the bar,” John told Mike and Salvatore.
“Sure, it’s been a long journey here,” Salvatore replied.
They had shared the driving, which had been challenging. The route had been treacherous, and several detours had been needed to get to Scarshot safely in the truck. The return journey was likely to be just as bad with the added factor of the slaves they would be purchasing.
They arrived at the Pit and were allowed inside by the guards after stating they were clients meeting Sam. The interior was just as John remembered, with gaming tables and cage fighting, with a very well-supplied bar area. He took in the sights and sounds of the crowded interior, revelling in the atmosphere. He recognised some older raiders sitting around and shared a respectful nod with them. The Ravenous had been one of the most feared raiding groups ever run, and John’s reputation had been quite well known in his heyday. They settled at a table near the bar area, and they were soon served by a very scantily clad woman, again wearing the collar of a slave. Mike leered at her as she left the table. “If you want her, just ask,” John told him.
“What?” Mike said.
“You can hire them for the evening,” John answered.
“For real?” Mike said open-mouthed.
“Yeah, she will charge you a few stacks, and depending upon what you want to do to her, she may charge extra.” He said, winking at him.
“Damn, I may just have to do that.” He replied, laughing.
They spent the evening drinking heavily. Sam joined them, and Mike eventually hired himself one of the young serving girls, disappearing with her back to their block. Salvatore had headed over to the dice and spent the evening gambling. John and Sam had stayed away from the dice and sat reminiscing until the crowds had gradually started to thin out. Eventually, they had all returned to their blocks, and John knew he would wake with a sore head in the morning.
Auction day was here. The final raiding group had turned up the night before, and most of the expected clients had arrived, a couple not having made it in time. The captives had all been fed and given some overalls to wear by the raiders. Each one had a number painted on its back. They were lined up, ready to be taken to the auction house. The clients would get to view the captives in the morning. They were also to have their collars attached before the auction commenced in the afternoon. Tabs had stayed inside their lot since the first day. She didn’t want to see or hear more of what was happening. She had hardly slept, and when she did, she was having horrible nightmares. She just wanted to see the back of this place and the raiders in general. She had spoken to Crystal, who was adamant that as soon as the auctions were completed, they would leave after the final banquet.
Kyto had been going out most days walking the site with Lars in tow. He conversed with various people and picked up various bits of information when possible. He had managed to work out the guard’s routines and knew roughly when their shifts changed and how many were in each location. He believed there to be about twenty guards, all heavily armed or armoured. Ammunition, in general, was uncommon; it wasn’t rare as the whole country had been flooded with it in the past, but those with weapons seemed to carry substantial quantities of ammunition on them.
The most important task he had completed since arriving was to sneak out the night before the auctions were due while the others were asleep, and most of the raiders were unconscious from nectar; even Lars had not stirred. He had visited the auction house, and it was one of only a few buildings on the site that had electricity and was fed by a large generator housed at the back of the building. It was not used at night-time but would be used tomorrow for the auction to power the lights in the building. He had removed a small part from it, not something that stopped it running, but a safety mechanism that prevented it from feeding too much fuel. He planned that he hoped it would catch fire when the auction was running. This would hopefully cause the distraction he needed and give him enough time to do what he planned.
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He had not spoken to Tabs about his plan as he did not want her to be concerned or try to talk him out of it. If he got caught, he knew he would be a dead man, so he did not want to give her anything else to worry about. They had been informed that everyone went to the auction day, there were no exceptions, and even Tabs would have to go as guards were placed at each lot to prevent raiders from other groups from causing trouble at another raider's lot while they ran. Only if a person had special permission would they be entitled to leave the auctions once they started.
"It is time. The auction will probably last about three hours, depending on the number of captives in total,” Crystal said.
“Three hours of watching people’s lives be stripped even further from them.” Kyto had said.
“Do not let anyone overhear comments like that,” she warned. “If anyone thinks something is wrong, you will be challenged, and I won’t be able to stop it without drawing the whole group into it.”
They had taken their seats in the auction house. It had been set out like a theatre. There was a stage in the middle. Then, seating was spread around in a semi-circle. Crystal sat at the front with TJ; Lars stood by her side as her bodyguard. The clients all sat at small individual tables by the stage, and the other raiding groups all had their designated areas. They were kept separate for obvious reasons. Several fights had broken out between the differing groups over the past few nights. There were no fatalities but enough trouble to keep the guards busy dealing with the fallout. Kyto and Tabs had sat at the back of the room as far from the stage as they could get without drawing too much attention. Neither of them wanted to witness the proceedings up close.
The spotlights that had set up around the room came on, flooding the stage area, and Shep stepped up on the stage, “Welcome, welcome to the final auction of the year. It is nice to see so many distinguished clients here today. I hope you all know the proceedings by now and each captive has been issued a lot number. All bids will start at one stack, and the sky is the limit, as they say. I hope you had a chance to view the wares this morning and know which ones you are after.” He announced in his deep, booming voice.
There were only four guards in the building with them, and they were positioned down by the stage. The first captive was being led from holding cages at the back of the stage. Crystal had told them their captives were being auctioned second. Two raiders from the selling group pushed the man onto the stage, forcing him to stand in the middle and slowly turn around. His coveralls were removed from his shoulders to show his physique. The man looked dirty, unfed, and weak, and from their first sighting of the other captives, Kyto and Tabs could see they were not treated well. “Ok, we open the bidding at one stack; anyone give me one? There we go, ok, two stacks now, anyone,” Shep called out. Clients started to bid, and the process got underway. In total, there were one hundred and eighty lots for auction. Not that Kyto or Tabs could consider a person a lot.
They had been sat there for an hour trying not to pay too much attention to the proceedings. They had briefly looked up when the lots had changed to the Blood Fangs, and the condition of the captives was visibly superior to that of the previous groups. The first woman brought on to the stage was displayed to the crowd, with clients shouting a bid before Shep started. "Calm down, everyone, you know the process. Did I hear four stacks already? Ok, who will give me five." The first lot had raised eleven stacks, already four more than the highest of the previous group's sales. That was when the generator exploded.
The explosion sent everyone in the room ducking or diving for cover, and thick black smoke poured in from the rear doors of the building where the generator had been. Pieces of it had even been blown through the sheet metal walls peppering the inside, and several raiders were injured by flying debris. There were only minor injuries, but enough to cause absolute chaos. The distraction was even better than Kyto had planned, and he took that moment to slip out.
“Where are you going?” Tabs said.
“Don’t worry, I will be back.” He replied and bolted to the exit while everyone was focused on the pandemonium by the stage. His injuries had improved significantly during their journey to the site, and his display had eventually turned shades of green and yellow, with all red finally disappearing. His stomach was still tender, but nothing in comparison to his initial injuries, and his neck had flexibility back in it. The sharp movement of running made him wince slightly, but he had no choice for his plan to work.
He went outside, and there were no guards in sight, but he knew from the sound of the explosion that other guards would soon come and investigate, so he darted to the edge of the building, heading in the direction of ‘The Pit’. If it were going to work, it would rely on two things. One that he had enough and two that everyone ate. He had been watching the spit operators when he had been in ‘The Pit’ and had seen them regularly basting the huge Wild Ones that were continually being slow-roasted. He planned to add the venom he had collected from the Gatorthon to the baste. He hoped it would be potent enough to affect as many raiders as possible and make them fall unconscious and become paralysed as the banquet went on.
Raiders falling unconscious in the bar during the evenings due to the amount of nectar consumed, so it should not initially seem strange. He needed to reduce the number of people if his next stage was going to work: freeing all the captives. He knew they would be held in the holding pens in the auction house overnight and collected the following day by clients before they left. He had picked up the whole process from listening to various conversations. He would only have to overcome the guards stationed with them, but that was where Crystal would come in. Not that she knew yet.
There was activity at the Pit as he approached, and he had to wait for three guards to leave the area who had come outside after hearing the explosion and begun to head down towards the auction house to investigate the ruckus. He went inside and made his way over to the spit area; he could see two of the cooks standing out the back, who seemed to be looking in the direction of the explosion, talking to each other excitedly. He took the jar of venom out of his pocket, went over to the baste, and tipped most of it in, leaving a small amount in the jar. He would need that for the second part of his plan. The baste was dark and smelt sweet, like it had nectar or similar in it, so the colour or smell of the venom did not stand out. He quickly stirred it, glancing up to ensure the cooks were still distracted. As soon as he was happy, he snuck back out from the Pit, checking there were no guards outside, and started returning to the Auction House.
He was nearly halfway back when he was spotted by a guard heading back from the direction of the auction house. “Oi, where do you think you’re going?” he called out.
Thinking on his feet, he answered quickly. “Back to the auction,” he replied, “I needed the toilet. I think I had too much nectar last night. If I were you, I would stay away from those bushes.” He pointed in the general direction of where he had just come from to the overgrown area that ran the side of the building.
The guard pulled a face, “Get back inside. You know you shouldn’t leave the house until it ends.”
“Heading back now,” he said, smiling at the guard.
He continued straight back and retook his seat next to Tab’s.
“What the hell have you been up to?” she asked.
“I will tell you later,” he said.
“The auction will continue shortly. Please sit patiently. We are just bringing another generator around.” Shep said, addressing the audience. The scene inside the auction house had returned to normal. A couple of the raiders were still being treated for the minor injuries they had been dealt with from the generator explosion, but the crowd had settled down, retaking their seats and waiting for the auctions to restart.
The new generator restored lighting ten minutes later, and the auction resumed.