“Alright girls, I hereby call this meeting of the Knotts River High School Junior Detectives club to order!” Meredith said, playfully slapping the light pink and blue bedspread in lieu of a gavel. Nearby, the other three members of said club giggled. Four years ago, it had been the Knotts River Middle School Junior Detectives club and before that the Knotts River Elementary School Junior Detectives club. It might have even been the Pre-School Junior Detectives Club, but Meredith hadn’t moved into town until they were in First Grade and been the one to suggest forming it, after a book she’d read in the Elementary School Library.

Since then, the four of them had been inseparable. Meredith, the brown haired tomboy, was the unofficial leader of the club and planned to study criminology at college after they all graduated. Cindy, the blonde cheerleader was her second-in-command, which she saw as trying to keep Meredith and the others out of as much trouble as she could. Kim, second generation Japanese-American, was their go to “tech girl” though she strove to avoid as much of the ‘Asian nerd’ stereotype as she could by also excelling on the school soccer and volleyball teams. Tammy was the youngest, which they teased her about, though she was only a few weeks behind Kim. Both had celebrated their 18th birthdays together, just five days ago.

“Now, any prior business we need to discuss?” There wasn’t much. Their last ‘case’ had been six months before and the lectures they’d got, not to mention the weeks of after school detention for breaking into the school after dark to try and figure out who had been leaving graffiti on the lockers had put a bit of a damper on their activities for some time.

But not for much longer. From their positions, seated at the end of the bed, it was obvious Kim and Tammy couldn’t wait until Meredith nodded her head and said, “Alright then. I’ll open the floor to any new cases the Club may want to take up…”

“We were dri-” They both blurted out at the same time. After a moment of awkward stumbling over each other, Tammy reluctantly conceded the floor to Kim, though she remained bouncing around, excitedly as the other teen spoke. “Tammy and I were out driving the other night and we saw some odd lights on down near the old Potter Farm!”

“Did you see anything else? What kind of lights were they?” Meredith asked.

“There was a truck, four-wheel pickup, it had it’s lights on, but they were dim, like someone had taped over them, and we saw some people going in and out of the barn, carrying things.” Kim replied.

“Smugglers!” Tammy said, excitedly. “Must be drugs, or stolen jewels or who knows?”

“More likely some of the local jocks stocking the place for their next kegger.” Meredith countered, but grinned. “Still might be worth checking out. Looks like we’ve got a mystery on our hands, girls!”

“Are we sure about this?” Cindy spoke up, “After all, we’re all over 18 now. The cops won’t just laugh off a trespassing charge like they used to. We could get in serious trouble.”

“Come on, Cindy!” Tammy shot back. “Who’s going to care? Everybody knows that old barns been abandoned for years. Lots of kids sneak out there to make out or smoke or whatever.”

“Fine, I guess.” Cindy replied.

“Very well then. All in favor of exploring the old barn tonight?” Meredith asked. All of them, even Cindy, if reluctantly, raised their hands. “The ayes have it! Meeting adjourned, then. Why don’t we take Kim’s car out there?”

Twenty minutes later, after getting on jackets and shoes, grabbing flashlights and Kim’s camera, the four were bouncing down the old dirt road towards the old Potter farm. “Better stop here.” Meredith said, pointing to an area off to the side of the road, where they could park the car, out of sight. “So we don’t alert anyone there. We can sneak up on foot.” The others agreed.

After shutting it off, they piled out of the car and began to sneak towards the barn, following the road, but keeping to the brush on one side, hopefully out of sight. Only Meredith, in front, had her flashlight on and she kept it low and dim, only enough to make sure she wasn’t about to twist an ankle over a rock or a stick or in a hole. Moving like that, the girls crawled along slowly, but eventually they caught sight of the barn. Though most of the surrounding area remained dark, a few slits of light escaped from inside the barn, where some light seeped through loose floorboards.

Cautiously, the girls circled around the building. Meredith switched off her flashlight as they came out of the trees. “Psst…” Cindy nudged her and pointed to the back. “There’s a ladder there. We can get up into the hayloft and look down into whatever’s going on in there.” Silently, Meredith nodded. The four made their way over to the barn, circling around to the back where an old wooden ladder, rickety, splintered, rusted, still leaned precariously against the side, running up to the dark window into the hayloft.

“Let me go first.” Meredith said, gingerly placing her foot onto the lowest rung. Despite her misgivings, the ladder held sturdily enough, and soon she was up inside. The area she came into was dark, a few old, musty bits of hay, cobwebs and dust. Ahead, she could see light, brighter now, but from her position by the window, she couldn’t see down into the barn, to find out what was going on here.

The teen waited a minute, while her three other friends shimmied up the ladder into the barn. The four lay down, on the old floorboards and crawled towards the edge, until they could peer down into the barn. As she got her first glimpse, Meredith’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god…” She thought. Beside her, the other girls gasped, or suppressed the urge to cry out.

Below, the barn had been cleared out, a pile of junk likely making up whatever had been inside the barn when its current occupants had moved in. In the place of the rusted old farm tools and equipment, someone had put in dozen or so cages, each about the size of a large dog kennel, with thick steel bar frames and metal wire walls, locked with sturdy padlocks. But the shocking thing were the cages’ occupants.

About half the cages were occupied, each of them holding a single person. Near as Meredith and the others could tell, all of the caged people were women and all of them youngish, in their late teens, twenties at the latest. They could tell little more because all of the occupants wore hoods, strange pieces of leather that circled the captives’ heads, with extra pieces across where their eyes would be and across their mouths. A few had openings that allowed their wearer’s hair to cascade out the back in long ponytails. At the bases of the hoods were thick, tall, leather collars.  

The prisoners knelt, bent almost double in the cramped confines of their cages. Leather cuffs, joined by short steel chains, were locked around every woman’s wrists and ankles, keeping them from moving about too much. Lastly, each wore a wide leather belt around her waist. A second strap ran from the front of the belt between her legs, joining at the back. The straps did nothing to hide their nudity however. The four snoops wondered what they could be for until Meredith noticed one of the girls, who was kneeling facing away from their position. As she squirmed, trying to take some of the strain of her position off her legs, she spread them enough they could see, beneath the strap, the bases of two large plugs, penetrating both of the girl’s holes.

The four snoops remained where they were, paralyzed by fright as they wondered what was going on here. Any thought that this was some sort of game, twisted and devious, was proven wrong after a moment’s study of the cage occupants, the way they squirmed, struggling against their restraints, of listening to their muffled sobs and squeals and whimpers of fright. It was obvious, whoever these women were, they were here against their will. But who had put them here, and why?

“Come on…” Meredith whispered to her friends. Though at the moment, there didn’t seem to be anyone in the place, apart from the captives, no captors, no guards, there was no guarantee it would stay that way for long. They needed to get out of here, find someone in authority and hope they believed the fours; story, crazy as it sounded. But, just as they were turning to go back down the ladder, they heard the crunch of tires against the dirt road. A truck was coming up the road to the barn.

Nervously, the four remained where they were, trying to stay as still as they could, hoping the quiet creaks and groans the boards made whenever they twitched in place couldn’t be heard over the muffled groans of the captives below them while they waited for the kidnappers to appear.

A minute later, they did so, swinging the wide barn doors open. Two men walked into the center of the barn. They were tall, burly and dangerous looking men, wearing dark coats and hats. Each had the figure of a young woman tossed over one shoulder. The new captives were bound, hand and foot with tape and from the muffled screams that they gave as they squirmed, bound legs kicking, were gagged with tape as well.

Walking to the front of the cages, the kidnappers set down their latest victims in the center. Up in the rafters, the four snoopers were horrified to see the two bound teens were two of their classmates: Kimberly and Jasmine. The two teens whimpered in fright as they took in the sight of the cages and their naked, shackled occupants.

While one of the men kept watch on the two, though where they could go with their hands and feet tied was anyone’s guess, the other walked to one corner of the barn. He returned a second later with a cardboard box. Inside were more hoods and shackles, like the ones the earlier captors sported.

“Let’s do her first.” He nodded toward Jasmine. The dark skinned girl shook her head, whimpering into the tape covering her lips as she was picked up and set roughly on her feet. Her eyes widened in shock as the man produced a scary looking knife. Even up in the rafter, some of the four snoops couldn’t help but gasp in fright, worried for their friend.

While his partner held the struggling teen as still as he could, the one with the knife stepped forward. To the relief of the snoops, though not Jasmine, he only cut her clothes, starting with her blouse. Over the course of a few minutes, her outfit was soon reduced to tattered shreds littering the dirt floor around her feet while she stood, naked and red faced with embarrassment.

Turning to the box, the man now took out hood and shackles. Working steadily, the tape binding Jasmine was cut away, to be replaced by the leather bondage gear. As they worked, the two men talked. “We bagged a nice pair of pussy tonight.” The man holding Jasmine said. She squealed in outrage as his hands felt up her naked body. “How many do you think we need for the buyers to be happy?”

“Oh, I don’t know, at least two or three more. Four would be better. They’re expanding, opening up a new location and they need the girls. We’ll see what we can grab tomorrow night, then once we’ve got them, we’ll move these bitches out.” The captives, those in the cages and the two new ones sobbed miserably.

Up in the rafters, the four snoops gasped in horror. These were human traffickers! The girls down there had been abducted into the slave trade. And unless she and the others could get away with a warning, tomorrow all of them would be shipped out someplace overseas, never to be seen again.

Tammy pulled back, partly because, having fitted her with the hood and cuffs, the captors now brought out the leather belt and strap, and the two rubber prongs it was meant to hold in and she didn’t want to watch as her friend was forced to bend over, her privates shamefully exposed and prepared to be penetrated.

The other reason was because she was starting to believe there were only two kidnappers here, and both of them seemed pretty preoccupied with their present captives. With luck, the four of them could slip away, undetected and go for help. Without a word, she started to crawl backwards, in the direction of the hayloft door, moving as quietly as she could. Just a few more inches and she’d be at it…

Tammy had reached the window and was feeling around with her foot for the first rung of the ladder. A second later, she found it quite by accident. As she brought her foot back, it connected with the left side of the ladder, at the top, where it overhung the ledge of the loft. Though the ladder had stood in place relatively stable for years, the four girls clamoring up it had managed to loosen it up from its place. It started to swing back.

Tammy flinched, face going pale. The ladder rocked back, going straight up. If it fell back down, it would make noise, for sure, but the four would still be able to scramble down it and run for their lives. For a few seconds, it seemed to hang in space, moving in slow motion. To her horror, though, after slowing, the ladder began to pick up speed again as it continued its fall. With a mighty crash, the ladder fell back onto the ground below.

Down in the main part of the barn, the kidnappers jumped with a start at the crash. It didn’t take them long to figure out what had caused it. Eyes began to look up at the loft. It was only a matter of time before the snoops were spotted. Up in the loft, the other three members looked at Tammy, expressions of horror on their faces. She looked back, her face pale, eyes wide with shock. She opened her mouth. Only one word came out:

“Oops...”