Well here it is, flaws and all. People seemed to like it, so hopefully you all do too, but I don't think I did a very good job on this one. There are some glaring flaws, like what the fuck happened to Barbi? Why do the number of girls on the opposing team not really add up? Maybe you can ignore those, because I tried to go back and fix what I didn't like and I just didn't have the energy, so I'm posting it in its original form (with just a couple name changes).





The scoreboard glared down its foreboding warning, the seconds ticking away – 27, 26, 25… The home team led by a score of 57 to 55, and the girls on the court battled for position with gritty determination, hardly hearing the roaring chants of 'defense', and 'let's go Cardinals' cascading from the crowd. The air in the stadium seemed to pulse with a life all its own, an electricity flowing between the spectators and the participants locked in grim competition. The district championship was on the line, and a conclusion to the contest was fast approaching.

Picking up her dribble, Darla was trapped by a double team. Julie broke to the top of the key, cutting at such an angle that Darla was able to slip the ball past the harassing defense, into her awaiting, and very capable hands. The double team followed, almost instantly smothering her with suffocating defense, but Julie threw a head fake, suckering the opposing two guard into leaving her feet. She launched herself into the leaping defender, creating contact, hung in the air long enough to regain her balance, and released a perfect shot. The ball bounced off the back of the rim on its downward arc, dropping through the net with a sweet swishing sound, a sweeter music than the most practiced orchestra could ever hope to produce.

The whistle blew and the ref signaled for a defensive foul. Julie pumped her fist, gave a few high fives to her teammates, and strode to the free throw line with an air of confidence that was chilling. Drawing a deep breath, Julie's steely, cool blue eyes focused on the rim, blotting out all her other surroundings. In her mind, she was back in her driveway knocking down free throws, easy as shooting fish in a barrel. It was second nature. Countless hours of practice paid off, as she raised the ball and stroked it flawlessly through the net.

A glance at the scoreboard revealed the visitors now held a one point advantage, and less than twelve seconds separated them from victory. Neither team had any timeouts remaining. There was little time to celebrate, so Julie galloped down the court to D up. Number twenty-five, the lightning quick black girl she was saddled with guarding, caught a pass mid court and dribbled towards her, weaving ever so slightly left to right, then left again.

The offense spread out, running an isolation attack, leaving the lane open. The only thing between number twenty-five and the basket was Julie. A fake to the left, where Julie was leaning, followed by a dazzling crossover dribble left Julie in the black girl's wake. Turning on her heels and hustling like the devil, Julie struggled to make up ground, but it was hopeless. She was beat. As she gave chase, number twenty-five went up for a layup and Julie leapt with everything she had, knowing it was too late, knowing just as well that she had to try. Swatting at the ball, certain she would miss, she surprised even herself as the tips of her fingers made contact with rubber, and the altered shot bounced harmlessly off the backboard.

As she came back down to earth she spun around, trying to locate the ball, and saw that Teresa had already claimed the rebound. Her 6'2" teammate hunched over, protectively wrapping both arms around the rock, and the buzzer sounded. Stunned, the crowd fell silent, and Julie felt a surge of triumph coursing through her body, blotting out rational thought. In that moment, she was a rock star, the biggest sensation since the Beatles. Her team mauled her, whooping and hollering. It was pandemonium, and every Parker girl felt a high that is nearly impossible to articulate with any words.

The game was over; the Parker Bulldogs were district champs, and Julie couldn't believe it.





Mariah Carrey belted out hit after hit from the confines of Erika's boom box, helped along by Julie's badly out of tune but enthusiastic Soprano voice. Her pitchy lyrics were masked amid a myriad of other equally unharmonious voices. The atmosphere was euphoric, everyone laughing and in good cheer. Julie had thought the elation would subside, but on the contrary it only seemed to intensify. This was the best she'd ever felt in her life, even better than when her parents built a basketball court in the backyard for Christmas, better than being kissed by Omar Sifuentes in the schoolyard back in seventh grade, better than the first time she discovered her sexual organ and the orgasms it could produce.

They had only been on the road for less than an hour, and that evening's events had replayed in her mind countless times. Her break to the top of the key, her foul drawing jumper sinking like a dagger, her cool as ice free throw, her game saving block. All this on top of seventeen total points, eight assists, two steals, and five rebounds. It was a heroic tale of triumph with which she would undoubtedly regale her children, her children's children, and, God willing, her children's children's children for seventy or eighty years to come. Her heart swelled with pride as she anticipated how her parents would receive the news, and how she would share the story with just the right amount of humility when the subject presented itself at school. All this passed through her head as she belted out the chorus to Always Be My Baby.

It was on the third and final set of do do doop do do doop do doop da dum's when the evening took a turn for the south. A God awful noise rose from the floor of the bus, and the entire vehicle shook as though the smooth blacktop upon which they were travelling had suddenly turned to rubble. Mariah missed her line as the CD skipped, but no one noticed. There were some screams, some horrified faces, but no more gleeful singing. The bus fishtailed, then entered into a skid. While girls around her panicked, Julie braced herself for the impact that would come when the bus tipped onto its side, which judging by the inertia tugging at the roof was now unavoidable. The sounds from below, first of rubber shredding as the tires came apart, then of metal grinding against pavement, assaulted Julie's ear drums, drowning out the panicked shrieks of her teammates. Just when it seemed they would roll, somehow the vehicle righted itself and the driver, a square little man named Mario with greasy black hair, a walrus mustache, and a raspy voice that was the product of twenty six years of heavy smoking, was able to grind to a halt on the shoulder.

"Holy f*cking sh*t," Erika breathed. "What the f*ck was that?"

Julie looked at her friend and busted up laughing. "Oh my God, you almost sh*t your pants."

“I did f*cking sh*t my pants,” Erika shot back, which sent Julie into a fit of hysteria that neared delirium. Chuckling mildly, Erika asked, “weren’t you scared?”

Giggling too hard to respond, Julie only shook her head.

“Bullsh*t, you lying bitch.”

Finally getting herself under control, Julie answered earnestly, “No, I wasn’t scared, I was more worried about someone getting hurt so they couldn’t play in State.”

"Yeah, f*ck dude, that would f***ing suck."

“It was actually kind of exciting, you know, like invigorating somehow,” Julie confided. It was as close as she could come to articulating how alive this nearly disastrous accident made her feel.

“Bitch, you’re f*cking crazy.”

Julie supposed there might be something to that. Around that time Coach Lopez started making her way down the aisle, and when she asked Julie and Erika if they were alright they told her they were. A lot of the girls were a little shell shocked, but no one seemed to be harmed.

"Alright, so listen up," Coach called to them. "We blew out our tires."

"All of them?" Teresa asked.

"Mario's checking it out, but it looks like we're going to have to wait here for another bus to come pick us up."

"Nice," Lucy, the backup small forward, chimed in sarcastically.

"I need for you all to just relax, take it easy, and stay on the bus. Okay?"

There were some unenthusiastic replies of, "okay," but Julie wasn't too put off by the whole ordeal. She was among friends, and they could laugh, tell jokes, gossip, and just be teenagers. It would be like a big slumber party. She was getting used to the idea of spending a few hours on a deserted highway when there was a cry of horror from the front of the bus.

It sounded like Kari, their mild-mannered team manager, whom used to be a descent player before she let alcohol and sex take command of her priorities. Averting her attention to discern the cause of this distress, Julie noticed several masked men, clothed completely in black rushing into the aisle. They were all armed with rifles, and casting her eyes towards the rear door in hopes of making an escape, Julie noted that some girls had already tried that way and been met with more of these mysterious gunmen.

“What the f*ck is this sh*t?” Julie whispered to Erika, and her friend gripped her hand, squeezing so tightly her knuckles turned white and her bones ached. The men were asking some of the girls to stand, and when one of them pointed his rifle at Julie and told her to get up, her heart leaped into her throat.

No way, no f*cking way is this happening, Julie thought, but she stood up on numb legs, legs that didn’t even seem to exist. She recognized the sound of Darla’s voice squealing in terror from somewhere behind her, and cringed. Darla was their starting point guard, and quite possibly the sweetest girl in the entire world. You bastards.

The gunman motioned for Julie to step into the aisle, then led her to the front of the bus, where Kari was already being escorted off onto the dark highway. Before climbing down the steps to join her, Julie cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw Becky and Lucy being shoved along behind her, with Darla and a final masked highjacker bringing up the rear. The fact that the five most attractive girls on the bus were being abducted did not escape her, and her mind immediately began speculating as to the motives behind their capture.

Rape was obviously high on the list, but such a well coordinated operation did not seem to be the work of backwoods yokels. These masked men were professionals, and a lot of money had been spent on this undertaking, which lent plausibility to her next theory - their kidnappers were involved with a human trafficking ring. Her conjecture did not stop there, however. Although they were almost certainly the fabric of urban legends, the thought of snuff films crossed her mind. Perhaps they would be gruesomely murdered, their deaths filmed, all to please some wealthy businessman in a foreign country who got off on this type of sh*t. Julie was surprised to discover that her hopes were riding on the human trafficking scenario; before now she had never realized just how badly she wanted to live.

Once they were all shuffled off the bus, the girls were herded into a boxed in cargo area on the back of a military style vehicle. The truck was designed for off road terrain, and the box was shut off from the night with a sliding door, leaving its reluctant passengers in utter darkness. Before all light was extinguished, Julie got a good look at her comrades' faces, and they appeared to be every bit as terrified as she was. Kari was weeping quietly, Darla's lower lip was trembling, Lucy's eyes were wide as saucers and Becky was ghostly pale, the color drained from her face.

The truck began to move, and judging by the bumpy terrain it was apparent they were travelling into the desert, away from the highway.

“Where are they taking us?” someone asked in a small voice, and Julie thought it might have been Becky, but her nerves were too frayed to properly identify the speaker. No one bothered to reply, and seconds later Julie’s eyelids felt impossibly heavy. To her amazement she felt herself drifting off to sleep, despite the chaotic turbulence stirring in her belly.





The first thing Darla noticed upon regaining consciousness was the foul stench of body odor resonating in her olfactory lobes. This was followed by baking waves of heat on her skin, and on the heels of that, the realization that her skin was bare. Recalling her last waking thought before passing out - the bewildered terror of being abducted with no known cause - Darla sat up with a lurch, taking in her surroundings.

Her teammates were with her, all of them still asleep on sweat-stained cots, all equally naked, and they were enclosed in a room with dimensions not much larger than their locker room shower back at the gym, fifteen feet by fifteen feet, concrete walls, concrete floor, concrete ceiling, the only way in or out being a steel door with a small slot in the bottom and a four inch by four inch grating at eye-level.

"Julie? Becky?" Darla called to her snoozing classmates. "Wake up!"

Julie was the first to stir from her slumber and join Darla in wakefulness. Her facial expression when she realized none of them were clothed would have been comical, were it not for their grim situaion. Still, Darla managed a smirk.

"We're naked," Julie exclaimed, beautiful blue eyes staring.

"You think?" Darla asked sarcastically.

Julie burst into inexplicable laughter.

Darla tried to remain serious, responding to her shooting guard's giggles with, "This isn't funny," but she couldn't help but chuckle. Julie's laugh was infectious.

The other girls were beginning to wake up now, and regarding the guffawing pair with wary eyes.

“What the f*ck, I’m naked, why am I f*cking naked?” Becky squawked. This sent Julie over the edge, splitting her sides to the point of tears.

“Why are you laughing?” Kari asked, sounding more than a little annoyed.

Julie looked at her, recognizing the blatant disapproval expressed plainly on her face, and tried to control herself. “I… eeeeheeeeheeeee… I’m… ooooohhoooooohaaaaaa… I’m sorr….eeeeeeeeeheeeeeee.” she squealed, then blurted out, “Oh sh*t, I can’t help it,” before losing it again.

“I think Julie’s gone bye-bye,” Darla told everyone with a wry smile.

“Yeah, well I don’t think this is funny,” Kari remarked. “We could end up dead, or raped, or something.”

Slowly, Julie began to sober up. When at last her ability to speak returned, she said, “You’re right, Kari, I’m sorry, you’re right,” while wiping tears from her wet cheeks. “Oh God, I don’t know why I’m laughing.” She chortled a couple more times, then managed a straight face.

“You done,” Darla asked her?

“I think so,” Julie said, then let loose another giggle. Once her laughter tapered out, however, dread began to set in, and Julie's sense of humor dampened.

“So why do you think we’re here?” Darla asked. “And where is here?”

Aside from the ratty cots, there was no other furniture in the room, and the only fixtures were a toilet mounted in the corner and a shower head with some recessed tiling and a drain beneath it, only one knob to control the water pressure, and a small indention in the wall which shelved a solitary bar of soap.

“Looks like we’re in some sort of luxurious resort,” Julie commented, grinning widely but maintaining her sobriety.

Becky laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, devoid of all good cheer.

“Good one,” Darla remarked, smiling out of the corner of her mouth.

“Do you think they… did anything to us?” Kari asked.

“I dunno, I’m a virgin, how would I know if I’ve been f*cked?” Julie asked. “Should my pussy hurt?”

Glancing at the smooth, creamy skin of Julie's inner thighs, Kari speculated, "Well, if you were raped, either you're lying about your virginity or they did a hell of a job cleaning up after themselves."

"What makes you say that?" Julie asked.

"You're spotless," Kari answered. "You do know why they call it popping your cherry, right?"

Julie glanced at her crotch for a moment, then blushed brightly when she realized what Kari meant. "So I guess that's a good thing, cuz I'd like to be conscious when my cherry gets popped." Quickly shifting subjects, she asked, "did you all fall asleep in the truck, too?"

They all nodded, with Lucy adding, "I think they gassed us."

"What do you think they're gonna do to us?" Kari asked.

There was an awkward silence before Julie spoke up. "Have you ever heard of snuff films?"

Apparently none of them had, and Darla asked, "What's a snuff film?"

"I'ts like a porno for people that get turned on by death. They kill somebody and show it on camera."

"Oh God, Julie, don't even joke about that stuff," Darla said apprehensively.

“Who’s joking?” Julie shot back.

“Who gets turned on by death?” Kari asked, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

“Some people do,” Julie said, withholding the fact that she was one of said people.

“That’s crazy. So you think that’s what they’re gonna do to us? Kill us and tape it so some sick f*cks can get their rocks off?” Kari asked, horrified at the thought.

“I mean, I guess it’s possible. But I’m not really sure these snuff films even exist. Like, they’re just like, urban legends,” Julie answered.

“Maybe they’re just holding us for ransom,” Darla suggested.

“Dude, Vicky’s parents are loaded, why wouldn’t they take her? My parents don’t have sh*t," Julie said.

"You think it’s a coincidence they took all the best looking girls on the team?” Kari asked, cutting straight through the red tape and addressing the elephant in the room. “Maybe they just wanna rape us?” she said, phrasing it as a question. She looked hopeful. Julie couldn’t blame her; remembering how appealing the prospect of forced prostitution had been to her when compared with certain death.

“Do you think somebody would hire all those masked men to hijack our bus, kidnap us, gas us, and bring us to this cell in God-knows-where, just so they could rape us? That’s a lot of money and effort to spend when all you gotta do to rape a girl is slip a couple pills in her drink when she’s not looking.” Julie replied. "The good news is they want us alive, at least for now. Otherwise we'd already be dead."

The girls took turns showering, and within an hour of their waking, trays of food were pushed through the slot in the door. They were served small portions of runny scrambled eggs, stale toast, and cartons of low fat milk. Just as Julie began to dig in, Karica lent a word of warning.

“You’re gonna eat that?” she asked.

“Why the f*ck not? I’m hungry,” Julie responded.

“What if it’s drugged or poisoned or something?” Kari asked.

“What if it is? If these f*ckers wanna drug me they won’t have much trouble doing it. Meanwhile, I’m gonna eat.”

Convinced by this line of reasoning, the rest of the girls joined Julie and scarfed down their meals. A short time later a face appeared behind the metal grating that functioned as their window to the outside world, and explained their predicament.

“You all have been chosen based on a combination of athletic ability, youth, and a certain aesthetic quality,” the stranger told them.

“But I’m not an athlete,” Kari protested. “I’m just a manager. I don’t run or exercise or anything, I just drink beer.”

“You were not scouted. You were a last minute addition; too cute to pass up, I suppose.” The anonymous person told her.

“You should be honored,” Julie told her jokingly. Kari elbowed her in the ribs, and Julie giggled quietly.

“You will take part in a game show, broadcast only to a select crowd. In this game you will risk death, and should you triumph your reward will be your freedom and a sum of $250,000.” There were several gasps at the mention of death, and several more at the mention of the sizeable cash prize. “You will compete as a team against a group of five other girls, whose selection was based on the same criteria as yours.”

“Uhmm, how is this legal?” Becky asked.

“It is most certainly illegal, stupid girl. Julie, Kari, you two will take part in the first challenge. You will need to come with me when I open this door. Should any of you try to escape, you will be gunned down. Is this clear?”

"Wait a minute, if this isn't legal, how do we get paid a reward? Why would we be set free?" Julie asked, smelling a rat.

"While this operation is not legal, a lot of very wealthy people have paid a lot of money to ensure the public remains ignorant of what we do here. We only recruit in countries where top ranking government officials have agreed to keep things quiet. Should you survive, no one of any importance will question your new-found wealth, and you will have no knowledge of this location."

"How come nobody ever talks about this game show competition thingy, like after you set them free? You'd think there'd be a news story or something on youtube or something," Julie continued her questioning.

"Those that talk, are killed."

"Yeah, I guess I could see that," Julie conceded. Then, to Kari, she said, “You ready to go risk your life for entertainment’s sake?”

“Uh, not really,” Kari answered, her voice quivering with fear.

“I don’t think we have much of a choice here,” Julie told her, and recognizing the cracks in her manager’s composure, she added, “let’s just do what we have to do and we’ll get through this.”

Still looking a little uncertain, but somewhat less wavering, Kari followed Julie through the steel door when it opened.

The two girls were led through an empty corridor lined with armed guards, through another heavy steel door bolted shut with padlocks, to which their escort possessed a set of keys, and into the bright morning sunlight. Outside more armed guards stood watch, and a couple of pretty, naked, young girls awaited them, along with a man dressed sharply in a business suit, silver hair, and a salt and pepper mustache. Beyond the guards was a vast wood, thick with tightly growing sandalwood and saman and banyan. Julie looked back at the complex they had just exited, a stout concrete structure built strictly for utility, utterly lacking in style or fanfare. There was no second floor and little space for much else save for a few simple cells similar to the one that held her and her teammates captive.

The well dressed man introduced himself as Gerard, and explained what the girls would be facing. “You will be hunted as wild animals until dusk tomorrow evening,” he told them. “If you successfully evade our hunters and are still alive when this horn sounds at sunset tomorrow,” he pulled a cord dangling beside the door and a deafening air horn blasted apart the peaceful silence of the morning, “then you will remain in the running for your cash prize of $250,000, and your freedom.”

“Sounds like fun,” Julie joked.

Gerard motioned to some clothes folded on the ground. “You’ll be outfitted with cargo shorts, a tank top, hiking boots, a survival knife, a canteen, and jerky.”

A brunette from what Julie supposed was the opposing team was the first to make a move for the gear. She had been standing there with her arms folded across her chest, and was clearly eager to put something on. Reluctant to mingle with the "enemy," Julie waited patiently while the brunette's red-headed teammate joined her in outfitting herself, and when they had finished she and Kari took their turn getting dressed. The jerky fit snuggly in one of the thigh pockets of the cargo shorts, and the twenty-four ounce canteen fit just as well in the other thigh pocket. The survival knife came equipped with a compass on the handle and a sheath that snapped onto the waist band of their shorts. The shorts were dark green and the tank was a slightly lighter shade of green, which would help provide them with some camouflage when in the jungle. Julie's hopes were high.

"You'll have fifteen to twenty miles in every direction in which you can conceal yourself, but beyond that you'll find escape to be impossible. When you hear this air horn," Gerard gestured toward the cord he had pulled earlier, "you can return to this complex for medical aid, if necessary, and food and shelter. We'll give you all a two hour head start. Julie, Kari, you girls head west, and Lauren and Lola, you two will head east. Your time begins now."

Julie grabbed Kari by the arm and began running west, in the direction Gerard had pointed them. Kari seemed reluctant to follow at first, but one look at the urgency on Julie's face cured her of that. It took them less than thirty seconds to cross the tree-line and disappear into the surrounding jungle, at which point they slowed to a more deliberate pace.

“Maybe we should split up,” Julie said, once they were well into the thick of the bush. “It’ll make us harder to spot, and if they get one of us the other still has a chance to get through this.”

“Julie, no, don’t leave me. I’m scared.” Kari was on the verge of tears, and Julie didn’t have the heart to abandon her, even though she knew that by sticking with the girl she lessened her chances of survival. Using her compass as a guide, Julie kept them heading due west, in order to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the complex, where she assumed the hunters would be based. After what felt like several hours of travel, they both paused for a strip of jerky and a swig of water.

“How far do you think we’ve gone?” Kari asked.

“I dunno, seven or eight miles maybe?” Julie guessed.

“What do you think that guy meant when he said escape is impossible?” Kari wondered.

“Maybe we’re on an island or something,” Julie answered. Karie appeared to mull it over. “So listen,” Julie continued, “I think we better alter our course so we’re not so easy to track. What do you think, north or south?”

“What? I… I don’t know, Julie. Maybe we should just stay here?”

“F*ck that, I’m not sitting around waiting for whoever’s coming after us. You can stay if you want.”

"North, then," Kari replied.

"Okay, why north?"

Kari shrugged. "Why not?"

"Works for me," Julie agreed.

"Julie?"

"Yeah?"

"Aren't you scared?"

"Terrified."

"You don't act like it."

"I don't have time to act like it," Julie replied coolly.




It had been decided, and the girls spent the next several hours trekking north, until Kari could no longer stand it. She was flagging badly, a consequence of her unhealthy lifestyle, and she finally spoke up.

“Juh… Julie, please, we gotta stop. I can’t do this.”

Julie looked back at her companion with a critical eye. Kari was leaning against a sturdy Malabar chestnut and wheezing heavily, and Julie knew the girl couldn’t continue. Faced with a decision to either abandon her manager or seek out shelter and hope for the best, Julie opted to stick with her friend. “Alright, I’ll look around for a spot we can hole up in. Just take a breather.”

Seeing the immense relief on Kari's face, Julie found it impossible to suppress a smile. “Lazy slut,” she called playfully as she trudged further into the wood. Kari was too tired to retort.

It wasn't more than five minutes before Julie heard the sound of rushing water, and her heart pounded and hope surged. She had worried they left too clear a trail as they trampled their way through the wood, but a brook would help them move without a trace, losing all but the most skilled of trackers. She hurried back to the maple where she had left Kari, and coaxed her into following her a little farther.

Once they were in the stream the going was much easier. The water refreshed them, and there were long stretches where the river bed dropped away beneath them and they could simply float while current carried their weight. When they reached a bend and an eddy, and the sun dipped below the western tree line, they decided to seek shelter for the night.

Julie led them several hundred yards from the northern shore, they concealed themselves in brush and leaves, and while Kari drifted off to sleep, Julie lay awake and kept watch. The night passed uneventfully, and several hours before sunlight Julie felt her eyelids gaining weight, woke Kari up, and the girls swapped duty. At dawn both girls roused from their nest and made their way back down to the brook to wash up.

They had not been outfitted with underwear, so they needed only to strip off their tank tops and their shorts before they were fully nude, and they rinsed the dirt and sweat from their lithe, young bodies in the stream. Julie refilled her canteen, drawing an objection from her brown-eyed friend.

“You’re gonna drink that? What if you get sick? Isn’t that how people get malaria?”

Julie laughed. “Really? We’re probably gonna die today, butchered by a bunch of lunatics, and you’re worried about me getting malaria from drinking river water?”

“You think we’re gonna die?” Kari asked, suddenly fearful.

“Well, you are,” Julie teased. “I might make it out of here alive, though. Who else is gonna put up twenty points a game for our team?”

“That is not funny, Julie,” Kari said sternly.

Julie giggled and splashed her. “Relax, bitch. I’ll protect you from the scary hunters.”

"You're f*cking crazy," Kari replied.

Julie only laughed, as if to imply agreement with Kari’s diagnosis, then quietly exited the water and ascended the embankment.

The girls had left their clothes atop the acclivity, where they would remain dry, and Julie shook the excess water from her body before breasting the slope to dress herself. Her spectacular body gleamed with dampness in the early morning light, and Kari felt a tinge of jealousy at the sight of the gloriously stunning shooting guard. It should not have been possible to look so good, as if such perfection was an obscenity in the face of nature. Julie pulled her shorts up over her waist, and as she fastened the button across her lower belly she suddenly squawked and fell forward. She caught herself just in time to avoid tumbling and rolling down the hill, but her balance seemed spoiled, all the grace and poise which made her such a threat on the basketball court suddenly absent.

She rambled awkwardly down to the shore, clutching her right buttock, her face contorted in pain. “They shot me in the ass,” she explained plainly, and Kari stared at her, perplexed.

“I didn’t hear a shot,” Kari said, not yet fully alert to the danger.

“Arrows,” Julie exclaimed through gritted teeth, and, twisting her hips, she gave Kari a view of the shaft jutting from her right butt cheek.

“Holy sh*t,” Kari breathed.

“Help me,” Julie groaned as she sloshed into the stream. Without hesitation Kari came to meet her and put Julie’s arm around her shoulders, then supported her until they were in deeper waters.

“How far back are they?” Kari asked.

“I don’t know,” Julie answered. “I didn’t look, I just ran.”

Without another word, both girls took a deep breath and dropped beneath the surface. Julie’s injury limited her kicking and stifled her ability to propel herself through the water, but Kari took her hand and valiantly tugged her along. They covered an admirable distance before Kari popped up for a breath, while Julie remained under, not daring to risk exposure. When Kari came up a second time, Julie joined her, and they both spared a glance back up the banks of the creek, neither of them spotting any sign of the hunters.

Opting for prudence over recklessness, the girls submerged themselves once more and swam another fifty yards before resurfacing and making their way to shore.

They climbed the southern embankment, hoping to lose the hunters on the other side of the stream. Kari had to help Julie up the incline, their arms around each other’s shoulders, and when they reached the top, Kari’s soft, hazel brown eyes widened and her back arched. She looked at Julie with incredulity, and her left hand, the one that was not helping support her friend, reached around to the small of her back where Julie had buried her survival knife.

Kari’s mouth opened as she sought to articulate her amazement, but she couldn’t find the words. Instead she let out a small whimper as the knife was pulled from her back, then rammed home a second time, slightly higher up.

“I’m sorry, Kari,” Julie whispered to her, and with that she plucked the blade from her friend's flesh and wiped it on her shorts, put it back in its sheath, and limped off into the jungle, leaving Kari to fend for herself.





“What the f*ck,” Kari breathed. Nothing that was happening made any sense. She had no idea how badly she was hurt, but her bowels felt like they had been filled with molten wax, and she could feel alarming amounts of blood spilling over her bare buttocks and down the backs of her thighs. She tried to chase after Julie and distance herself from the hunters, but her legs had turned to rubber, and she repeatedly lost her footing.

Perhaps a minute had passed since Julie stabbed her in the back, both literally and figuratively, and Kari had managed to cover approximately forty yards when the first arrow struck her. It speared into her lower back, far to the left of her spine, and the tip poked through the left side of her abdomen.

“Awwwahhhh!” Kari wailed, twisting in agony as she dropped to her knees. She looked to the bloody arrowhead protruding from her gut, glanced back over her shoulder, then struggled to get back on her feet. Before she could manage to stand another arrow skewered the meat of her left thigh.

“Ayyyuhhhh,” she cried, falling forward onto her elbows. She remained that way and continued onward, crawling on her knees, until she caught a glimpse of one of the hunters in her left peripherals. Rearing up on her haunches, Kari looked at the man who had tracked her down, her eyes wild and panicked. The man wore a khaki hunting vest over green fatigues, his face was hard and wrinkled like tanned leather, his hair was white as ice, and he held a loaded crossbow out in front of him. “Please,” Kari blurted, but she earned herself no sympathy.

The hunter fired a bolt into the gentle bulge of her left breast, and she went down, collapsing onto her back. As she lie writhing on the forest floor, clutching at her wounded tit, a second hunter approached and put an arrow into the right side of her tummy. She grunted and squirmed, reaching for the newest shaft to become embedded in her torso, and the hunters watched with grim indifference.

They filmed her demise, which included nearly half an hour of choking, pleading, and finally gasping for breath as she stared wide-eyed at the trees above her. When she finally lay still their cameras lingered on her lifeless body, still naked from her bath in the stream, and panned up and down each lovely curve and crevice.





They were moving too slowly to have any chance of escape, and Julie was leaving behind a trail of blood a blind man could follow. She could see only three possible ways this situation could resolve itself: 1) Kari could leave her behind, and the hunters would eventually catch up to her and kill her, 2) Kari could stay with her and the hunters would kill them both, or 3) Julie could disable Kari somehow and leave her as bait, throwing the hunters off her trail, at least temporarily. The first two options were just not feasible. It broke her heart, but Julie did what needed to be done.

With Kari left bleeding in her wake, Julie moved east along the stream, then climbed back down into the water. Burying her face beneath the surface to stifle her scream, she yanked the arrow from her hind quarters. Just before she chucked the projectile into the current, inspiration struck. The bolt was forged of fiberglass, with a screw on tip and tail, and Julie worked quickly to unscrew both ends, leaving her with a hollow tube. She wrapped her full, lush lips around the shaft, dipped her head under the water and drew a breath of air as if from a snorkel. It works! she thought, bubbling with excitement.

Using her make-shift breathing apparatus Julie floated downstream for hours, concealed within the muddy confines of the brook, until she came to a steel grating rooted deep beneath the bottom of the river bed. She chanced a brief glance above the surface, and noted the mesh was just a tiny portion of a massive fence that stretched to the horizon in either direction. The structure was capped with rolls of barbed wire waiting to shred anyone fool enough to scale it.

So now Julie had the answer to Kari’s question, although Kari was no doubt dead, murdered for sport by savages.

There Julie remained until sun down, and when the air horn sounded she was still beneath the rippling brook, the sound of her triumph muffled by water. The journey back to the compound was particularly arduous, the stiffness in her ass plaguing her all the way, but she arrived before dawn and was led to an emergency room buried within the bowels of the earth, where her wound was treated, and she was allowed to rest.



Darla stared across into Lucy’s big brown eyes, and she knew she couldn’t hold on. It just wasn’t possible. She had held the weights up for seven grueling minutes, but her arms were spent, her muscles were worn away to nothing, and she could feel her hands lifting against her will. When they rose above her hips a mechanism was released and a blade shot forward into Lucy’s lower back. It was positioned to narrowly miss her spine, and the tip jutted several inches from the girl’s trim belly. She, like the rest of the girls in this challenge, was topless, wearing nothing but tiny denim shorts, so there were no clothes to hide the unsightly wound.

Lucy’s eyes widened, but remained staring straight ahead, without so much as a flicker downward. Darla blinked as spurts of Lucy's blood spattered her lovely face, her mouth twisted in horror at the cruel fate befalling her companion. Once your guts were pierced, you would not be saved; the man in the stiff suit had made this rule painfully clear. Lucy was doomed, yet, amazingly, her slender arms remained at her side, sturdy as steel.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Darla groaned, still straining to keep the weights down. It was a losing battle, however, and as her hands continue to rise, so did the blade protruding from Lucy’s midriff. When Darla's fists had risen above her shoulders and all the strain was released from her arms, the blade had furrowed neatly through Lucy’s tummy and was wedged up against her sternum. Long, slithering pink snakes glistening in the sun spilled from her belly and fell at her feet, but Lucy never once lowered her eyes to look at them. She stood still as stone, staring with unflinching determination into Darla’s kind, horrified face.

Darla knew it was only a matter of time until Lucy broke, and when her arms gave out Darla’s own entrails would be spilled, but somehow that wasn’t happening. Four long minutes passed. Lucy’s face was a mask of pain, her eyes a haunting window into the unfathomable depths of terror, and blood and gore poured from her soft lips and her savaged belly, but still she didn’t budge.

After some time, there came a horrible cry from Hannah, one of the girls against whom Darla and Lucy were competing, and Darla glanced over to see that Hannah’s midsection had sprouted a steel flower, painted blood red. It all happened fairly quickly after that. Not bothering to keep up the struggle, Hannah immediately released her weights and held her hands around the blade running through her abdomen. This caused her teammate, a stunning brunette named Vanessa, to be promptly disemboweled, and ended the match. Cold, harsh metal slid upwards through Hannah’s soft flesh, and the blade behind Darla was locked in place, sparing her.

Lucy’s reaction was immediate, her arms going slack and her entire body sagging. She was kept on her feet and held upright by the harness around her shoulders and her waist and the blade transfixing her stomach, but she slouched with exhaustion, on the cusp of death. Released from her own trap, Darla rushed to her dying friend, tears streaming down her pudgy, round cheeks.

“Oh God, Lucy, I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. Lucy was unresponsive, her eyes bulging in sightless terror, and Darla broke down into hysterics. Two pairs of powerful arms gripped her, and she was dragged, kicking and screaming, from her dying friend.





“Becky, come with me.”

Becky was sitting on her cot chewing on her fingers when the iron door swung open and they came for her. She and Lucy grew up in the same neighborhood, and had been best friends since they were toddlers. The news of her close friend’s death had been particularly hard on her, and she spent the ensuing twenty-four hours trying in vain to imagine what Lucy had felt during the final moments of her life.

“Awk, oh sh*t,” Becky mumbled, with a nervous smile. She eyeballed Darla and Julie, the only comrades she had left at the moment, then laughed awkwardly as she made her way to the door. “Wish me luck,” she told them. In spite of it all, Becky remained doggedly cheerful. She was a girl with the unique ability to find humor in everything.

She was led outside, across an open field, and toward a fenced off section of forest which came equipped with a gate facing her and her captors. She was offered no clothing, and along the way she passed a stark naked, attractive young blonde being escorted back to the compound. My competition, she thought to herself.

“That there is Barbi,” a sharply dressed man told her. “She survived this little challenge. We’ll see if you can do the same.”

"Barbi!" Becky laughed, and with that, she took heart. Whatever horrors awaited her, they were not unconquerable.

“Beyond this gate is a stretch of jungle the size of two football fields. Your goal will be to make it across, to the gate on the other side,” Sharp Business Suit said.

“Sounds easy,” Becky told him.

“Now, for the tricky part. Inside you’ll find two hungry hyenas. Pray they don’t find you.“ With that Becky was shoved through the gate, and lock and latch fell in to place behind her.

For just a moment she froze, scanning the trees wildly for any sign of the beasts. Wherever they were, they weren’t here. A deep breath raised her small, perky breasts high on her chest, and she was off like a bullet, tearing through the woods with reckless abandon. “Two hundred yards, just two hundred yards,” she kept telling herself. “Piece of f*cking cake.” She burst through a patch of trees and briefly caught sight of a blur of teeth and fur and claws, and she suddenly felt a terribly unpleasant pulling sensation in her belly. In a natural reflex to try to reclaim the loop of intestines being yanked from her body, her hands went to her midsection, but before she could even begin this twisted game of tug of war, a violent collision sent her sprawling.

They were on her then, tearing her abdomen wide open. Unlike lions or other big game cats, they didn't bother going for her jugular. These scavengers were content to feast upon her innards while she lay squirming in unimaginable torment.

"Awwwwkk, ahhkk, aawwulh," she groaned as her insides were devoured by these callous and uncaring creatures. I guess I know now how Lucy felt, Becky thought. She clung to her life for another ten agonizing minutes before finally dying of shock and blood loss.








For the next week Julie and Darla faced no more challenges, and they lived together in their drab cell, with nurses making an occasional visit to see that Julie's wound healed properly. When the hole in her buttock was nothing more than a fleshy scar, both Julie and Darla were visited by the man in the suit and his hired muscle. They were escorted outside, where an elaborate obstacle course had been constructed in the clearing surrounding their prison. They were met with four lovely girls, all of them nude, and Julie knew this was what remained of the opposing team.

"This is the labyrinth," suit man told them. "Now that each of you has participated in at least one test of stamina and survival, this event will bring us closer to our conclusion, and it's entirely possible a victor will be named today. One contestant from each team must pass through the labyrinth for that team to move on. We will begin with our Sacramento girls. Lauren, you'll be first."

Lauren's bright green eyes widened, and she was grabbed by a pair of hulking goons and drug over to the entrance of the fearsome structure. The first task in defeating the obstacle course was to navigate a plank nearly two feet wide and twenty feet long, while avoiding the giant bladed pendulums swinging above. The pendulums were spaced far enough apart that one could stop and stand still in between each of them, but there was precious little space for such a feat, and one's timing would need to be impeccable. Likewise, it would be impossible to crawl across the plank without being sliced in half. Lauren stepped forward onto the plank, just past the first pendulum, and sucked in her breath as she watched the second pendulum whip past her with frightful speed, inches from her face.

Her generous bosom narrowly avoided a messy size reduction, and she stood still as a statue while the blade pivoted back down in front of her. After a beat she took a quick step forward and she was past the second pendulum, and she began to settle into a rhythm. She stepped easily past the third and fourth blades, but slipped a bit after passing the fifth. Her arms extended to steady herself and avoid a fall, and the pinky and ring fingers on her left hand were sheared off above the second knuckle as the sixth pendulum rebounded in front of her.

Lauren screamed in pain and clutched the severed fingers with her good hand. Spurts of blood splashed her breasts, providing a bright red contrast against her milky white skin. Sobbing miserably, she forced herself onward, but her composure was noticeably besmirched. She managed to dodge the sixth blade mostly out of pure dumb luck, and the seventh took off her right nipple as it passed her. She threw herself forward onto the platform beyond the seventh and final pendulum, narrowly surviving the first of many obstacles.

Lauren picked herself off the deck, and eyed the next hurdle in her path to survival. She held both hands over her wounded tit, still clutching the stumps of her severed fingers, and her blood streamed down the right side of her belly. Ahead was a rolling log positioned above fifteen feet of spikes. Each spike was several feet high, and although their spacing was somewhat sporadic, no more than eighteen inches separated one spike from the next. If Lauren lost her footing on the log, her doom would be certain.

With seemingly suicidal disregard for the danger she faced, Lauren bounded forward onto the log. She made it only a quarter of the way across before her balance failed her and she flopped face first onto the trestle spinning out from under her feet. She tried to cling to the timber as it tipped her over, but it was no good. Her grip was spoiled by her lack of fingers and the slickness of the blood on her hands, and her inertia was too great. She was thrown to the spikes below and skewered in half a dozen places.

She was still squirming on the prongs when Business Suit Guy led Lola to the entrance of the labyrinth. Getting right to it, the fit, slender brunette stepped past the first pendulum with a calm composure, then continued methodically across the plank with surprisingly little difficulty, emerging safely on the platform beyond. With the graceful fluidity of a deer, she bounded across the rotating log in the blink of an eye, not even bothering to glance down at her dying comrade. Two obstacles down, Lola had not even broken a sweat.

The third challenge was a glass corridor with slots at various levels in the sides, through which buzz saws randomly passed, but there was no pattern which they followed, making them virtually impossible to anticipate. Lola moved cautiously forward, and when a spinning blade whirred into motion, nearly sawing off her feet, she leaped over it and rolled forward. When she rose up another saw spun at her waist, which she leaned back to avoid. There wasn't enough time, however, and the blade behind her blocked her retreat, so she could only watch helplessly as the teeth bit into her midriff, splashing her blood on the walls, and her belly was sliced wide open. Loops of intestines pushed their way through the gaping laceration, and Lola did her best to hold herself together.

With both hands pressed grimly against her stomach, she lurched awkwardly forward. A saw came at her shoulder-high, threatening decapitation, and Lola screamed and threw herself to the floor, narrowly averting disaster. Keeping her left hand on her belly she picked herself up and pressed on. When she was nearly through a blade passed too close to her right thigh, leaving a shallow gash in her leg, but she otherwise avoided further injury. Miraculously emerging from the far end with her guts in her hands, Lola prepared herself for the fourth obstacle.

A pool of crystal clear water lay before her, and she could see the entrance to the tunnel beneath the still surface. Approximately one hundred yards ahead lie a similar pool, where the tunnel no doubt ended. Lola had been a life guard before her capture, and under ordinary circumstances she could make this swim with her eyes closed. She didn't imagine it'd be quite so easy going in her current state, however. She plunged into the water, immediately tainting its transparency with clouds of red, floundered over to the edge of the tunnel, drew several deep breaths to fully expand her lungs' capacity, and went under. The wound in her thigh did little to hinder her progress, but water tugged on the open cavity of her abdomen, and she could feel it pulling her apart as she propelled herself forward. Streams of entrails flailed about her feet, and occasionally her toes would catch on a loop of intestines, sending searing jolts of pain through her belly. Still, she powered on.

It was slow work, and nearly fifty yards in she estimated she had been under for close to a minute. A year or two earlier, in what now seemed another lifetime, Lola had made a sport of timing herself as she held her breath underwater. Her personal record was one minute and forty-six seconds, and that had been while remaining perfectly still. At her current pace it would take her more than two minutes to reach the surface, and she was exerting a tremendous amount of effort, putting a strain on the limited supply of oxygen her lungs had reserved. It was hopeless, but she swam stubbornly onward anyway.

The end of the tunnel was tauntingly close when white spots began to blot out her vision, and she realized she was going to pass out. If she lost consciousness now, she'd never wake. Before she was completely gone, she slammed her fist into the opening in her belly, grabbed a handful of guts, and gave them a wrenching twist. Frightening amounts of pain blasted through her entire body, and with it came a release of adrenaline and the return of her vision. Somehow she made it out of the tunnel and to the surface, where she gasped deeply at the fresh, open air.

Lola clumsily climbed onto the next platform, which led her to the fourth obstacle of the labyrinth, a narrow ledge along a wall, positioned above an aquarium teeming with hungry piranha. Adding to the challenge were spears which periodically shot forth from the wall, seeking to puncture firm, lithe girl flesh. Gathering up as much of her fallen entrails as she could, Lola edged her way out over the fish tank. Her rapidly deteriorating condition made it all but impossible for her to try to avoid the sharp tips protruding from the wall, so she just had to work her way across and hope for the best.

Luck seemed to be on her side as she inched along, with spears popping out all around her, until she neared the halfway point. It was there that a pointy metal rod suddenly popped out of her right thigh, coated red with her blood, then just as quickly disappeared into the wall behind her. Lola screamed and reached for the wound with her right hand, while keeping her left hand pressed against the wall for balance. Not more than two seconds later another spear poked through her chest above her left breast, and Lola's sultry brown eyes opened wide. For one terrible moment she felt a sense of vertigo and was sure she'd go toppling face first into the water, making a fine lunch for the school of eagerly awaiting piranha, but her balance returned and she took a moment to regroup before continuing across the ledge.

Three fourths of the way across a spear pumped through her stomach, above her navel and the gash in her belly, and Lola released the handful of guts she was holding and arched her back as the iron ran her through. Long ropes of her bowels sagged well below her feet and dipped into the water, where they were quickly devoured by hungry, greedy fish. When the spear was retracted and Lola was once again pressed flat against the wall, she scooped up what remained of her plumbing and scooted the rest of the way across the ledge without further incident. At last she had reached the final obstacle.

Separating her from safety, and the end of this nightmare, was a treadmill spanning forty feet, and positioned above it were five massive blades which were fixed to pistons, and they alternately pounded the belt with a fierce, relentless rhythm. Lola lurched forward, ducking under the first blade, and narrowly dodging the second. She had to pause to allow the third blade to fall in front of her before lumbering past it, and she stumbled too close to the fourth, severing the toes from her left foot. When the piston rose up she threw herself forward, no longer capable of walking or running. She managed to pull herself mostly clear of the fifth blade before it came crashing down and removed her right foot, just above the ankle. What remained of her made it off the treadmill and across the finish line. Paramedics immediately went to work on her, but she died just minutes later.

There was a thirty minute recess while blood was filtered out of the water and Lola's remains were cleaned up and disposed of, and then Julie was escorted to the entrance to the labyrinth. She ducked and dodged her way through the pendulums, slightly less graceful than Lola, but equally effective. She lunged across the spinning log, but midway through her footing slipped and she tilted forward. Certain disaster awaited her on the spikes below, disaster she somehow averted by throwing all of her power into her legs and throwing herself at the platform on the far end. She caught the ledge chest high, and with a few kicks of her feet and a heave of her arms, she hoisted herself to safety.

The glass hallway loomed ahead, and Julie belted into it at a full on sprint. The first saw to threaten her came at her midsection, and an image of Lola's guts spilling out of her belly flashed through Julie's mind as she dove over the blade. Her landing was smooth, and she tucked and rolled as a second saw passed above her head. As she rose to her feet a third saw spun towards her legs, and she hurdled it with liquid agility. Just before the exit one final blade came at her breast-high, and Julie dropped to her knees, leaned back, and slid beneath it like a girl doing the limbo. Then she was out.

Feeling fully invigorated, Julie flung herself into the pool and paddled over to the tunnel. She did not have the training Lola had, but with her healthy young body fully in tact, she dove underwater and was able to negotiate the tunnel in just over a minute. There was a bad moment around twenty yards from the exit when she thought she wouldn't make it, but her lungs held more air than she realized, and she emerged winded but otherwise none the worse for the wear.

The next obstacle gave her some pause, because she didn't like the idea of having to choose between being skewered unexpectedly from behind or taking a swim with piranha. She took a moment to study the spears, trying to pin down a pattern, and when she finally edged out over the water she kept her belly facing the wall. This allowed her to stick her butt out and put some space between herself and the holes from which pointy objects were dispensed.

A third of the way out Julie displayed remarkable reflexes by twisting sideways, just in time for a spear to shoot past her. Carrying on, Julie was nearly across when she spotted movement in the hole directly in front of her chest. She leaned back, her balance shifting to her heals until she was falling backwards toward the pool of piranha, but she caught the metal bar protruding above her and remained momentarily suspended above the fish tank, then rode the momentum as the spear retracted until she was back on the ledge. After taking a moment to steady herself, she inched the rest of the way across.

From there, Julie hopped onto the treadmill and matched her pace to the belt spinning beneath her feet. It was little more than a casual trot, and she found it easy to up her speed at just the right time to pass beneath the first blade, then slow down to avoid running into the second. Using this method, she passed just as easily below each of the next four blades, and she was out of the obstacle course, without so much as a scratch on her.

Her spirits soared, and she felt a rush that dwarfed what had followed the district championship victory. She knew then that she would be okay. The odds were now in her favor, with only one remaining girl on the opposing team, and she had survived the hunt and the labyrinth. Besides, it would be Darla's turn to compete in whatever challenge awaited them next.






After being led to a clearing outside the compound, Julie and Alicia were instructed to suit up, Julie in a white latex one-piece with a zipper in the back, which left her shoulders, arms, and calves bare, and Alicia in an identical black latex outfit. Julie balked, questioning why she should be the one participating when Darla had only put her life on the line once, and she was assured that Darla would be an active participant this round. When Julie and Alicia were strapped into position, their feet anchored to stakes in the ground, and their hands tethered to posts on either side of them, Julie remained skeptical, but she had no choice but to comply.

It was then that she caught sight of Darla and a well built blonde girl, both stark naked, being escorted to a marked off area fifteen feet in front of her and Alicia. Gerard, dressed in typical fashion, addressed them all.

"This will be the final event of the competition. Each team requires two people to participate. Therefore, we have brought in an outsider to fill out Alicia's team. Because of this, Alicia will not be allowed to win this competition." He cast his eyes on the trembling brunette, and then turned his gaze to Julie. "Both of you will die here, today." Julie's heart stopped at that. She tried to object, but her voice caught in her throat. Why should she die? This was all wrong. She strained against her binds, but they wouldn't give an inch. Meanwhile, Gerard turned his attention to Darla and the blonde girl.

"You will each in turn be handed a pistol loaded with one shot, and you must shoot your partner in the torso. The shot must be placed above the hips and below the neck. Shots in the shoulders or the arms will be scored as a miss. Shots must also be placed at least one inch apart from each other. If your shot strikes your partner within one inch of a previous shot, that shot will be scored a miss. Missed shots will result in one penalty shot, and the original shot will need to be replayed. Penalty shots must also meet the stated specifications. After every four successful shots, you may target your partner from the knees to the hips. The first girl to kill her partner loses. Questions?"

Numerous questions floated in Julie's mind, but her tongue felt like cotton, her mouth as dry as sandpaper. While Gerard spoke, a woman in a white coat stuck a syringe in her neck. When neither Darla nor Blondie asked for clarification, Julie suddenly spoke up. "So if she dies first," Julie nodded her head towards Alicia, "then I can live? You'll stitch my wounds?"

"We'll do what we can, but in all likelihood you'll be too far gone," Gerard answered. "No one in your position has ever survived this event. The shot Nurse Francis administered was adrenaline, and it will keep you both alive and conscious long after you should have succumbed to your wounds. Alicia, if Julie is the first to die, we will make no attempt to save you. Your team has been eliminated. All that remains is to see if Darla can triumph."

And with that, Darla was handed her weapon. She looked at it, then looked at Julie with uncertainty.

"Okay, it's okay, Darla. Just do what you gotta do," Julie said, remembering how she had left Kari behind in the woods. You didn't just leave her behind, a voice whispered inside her head, but she did her best to ignore it. "Just aim for my stomach, but try not to…" Julie's voice cracked, and she whimpered meekly before continuing, "try not to hit too close to my spine."

Darla leveled the gun at her, and Julie felt her heart pounding quickly in her chest. She swore she could hear the bullet punch into her guts before the sound of the shot crashed through the air. "Uhhnn," she grunted, and looked down at the neat, round hole in her latex suit, two and a half inches to the right of her navel. Bright red blood was already spilling down her thigh, and her insides burned something fierce. When her eyes returned to Darla's, she remarked flatly, "Sh*t."

"I'm sorry, Julie!" Darla cried back.

"No, that was a good shot," Julie told her, fighting to stay brave. Maybe the other girl will die quickly. Maybe blondie there will plug her in the heart. Maybe she'll f*ck it up.

"F*ck, does that hurt?" Alicia asked her, eyes wide.

"Hell yeah, it hurts," Julie answered. "You should probably just tell her to shoot you in the chest. It'll be less painful." Please tell her to shoot you in the chest. Right between those perky breasts of yours. But blondie didn't shoot her in the chest. Instead she answered with a well placed shot in a nearly identical location. Alicia moaned and cried, but she didn't die. "Oh f*ck," Julie murmured. Then, to Darla, she said, "Okay, same thing, just aim for the other side now."

Darla's pistol was loaded, she took the weapon, aimed, and fired, but Julie felt nothing. She looked for the fresh bullet hole in her body, and found she had not been hit. "You missed?!" she cried in despair.

"Sh*t!" Darla cried. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Julie."

"A penalty shot is required," the man in the suit told her, and sh