Fierce Bitches (Crime Factory Single Shot) Read Online Free PDF Page B

loudly. He fights, leaning back and digging his knees and feet into the ground. It takes three captors to position his head on the rock and the breaking of both his arms to subdue him. On the stone, his tears and mucous mix with the blood of his companion. Slowly the club is raised high above its target. The locust buzz and the man's screams climax and then are silenced with the crack of wood on bone. It takes six concussions to turn him inside out.
        There is a moment of stillness before the man with the club lifts it high into the air, and the slick sheen of blood makes it glint in the last of the moonlight. The gesture is answered by the shouts of his companions who throw off their hoods and give release to their voices straight to the stars.
        The woman stares at them from beneath the automobile and listens, transfixed and fascinated, at the realization that, except for the heavy booted executioner, all of them are women.
        Their voices rise in the night, a choir of bestial wails and groans too deep for words. They are answered by the squeal of coyotes not far off, and their ghastly communication shakes her one bone at a time.
    *
    The looting is thorough. All the bodies are collected, and dragged to the place of execution. There they are stripped and turned on their backs, then opened from groin to chin. Teeth are extracted with hammer and chisel, and deposited into the satchel. She sees only the back of their leader and never hears him speak, a large man with long coarse hair whipping about in the wind. He stands watching satisfied, rolling the club around in his hands, which upon closer examination resembles a baseball bat.
        The closest she comes to being discovered is when they siphon the gasoline from the truck. But most of the company has already moved on, and the remaining two seem to be in a hurry to catch up. Thankfully, it is not yet light and they don’t bother to set the vehicle on fire. The truck's cab has been stripped and the battery taken, but the truck itself is left, along with the bodies, for other scavengers. As the last of the women disappear into the mountains, the horizon turns from blue to orange.
    *
    Life with the gringo was better on some levels. He was rich and kept them in clean conditions. She was taken out of brothel living and given work doing housekeeping duties around the gringo's various homes. He took them to America. They saw Little Rock, Memphis and Chicago, but less of each other. Lupe was taken out of circulation. She was exclusively for the gringo.
        A year passed in this fashion. Then one morning, men came for her as she dressed. She was taken by riverboat to New Orleans, then by another to Houston and finally by truck back to Mexico. She never heard from, or of, her sister again. She assumed Lupe was dead.
    *
    The first night she follows the coyotes, she isn't sure why. She has to find her son. She should head to the villages to look, but something she doesn't understand compels her to follow the dogs and find the women. Her son is capable. He was armed and has a commodity to trade now. He would probably be home before she could find him out here.
        She takes shelter during the day and tracks them in the darkness. On the second night, she finds a trail that leads deeper into the mountains and she follows it. She watches for fires and on a ridge not far away, she spots them: a cluster of small caves with lights inside. She sees people moving about. She sees the executioner walking from cave to cave not making a jingle, but accompanied by another remarkable sound, children.
        Perhaps she is delirious from the elements, but she swears Pablo’s voice is among them.
    *
    She was dropped off on the outskirts of a shantytown in the middle of the desert. There were maybe forty people living there, mostly women, whores like herself there for the pleasure of the guests, men who worked for the gringo, sent to avoid the authorities in America.