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Here’s another story about a “girl,” only this one really was one, a teenager not yet old enough to vote under the laws of August, 1959, when I wrote the story that I called the “The Spoiled Brat.” (Once again, Scottie changed my title. Mine was typical of the flatfooted names he used to hang on stories, but it must have been too flatfooted even for him, so he replaced it with the more incisive one that I use here.) I have no idea whether any readers under fifty know what a Thunderbird was, so I feel impelled to point out for their benefit that it was an expensive sports car manufactured by Ford and much favored at the time by the sort of pampered heiresses featured in this story.
It appeared in the May, 1960 issue of Trapped under the byline of Dan Malcolm, along with stories by Dirk Clinton, Mark Ryan, Eric Rodman, and Charles D. Hammer—a nifty quintet, just about half the total content of the issue having emanated from my red-hot typewriter. But the issue had one sinister aspect that had nothing to do with the deeds of the characters in the stories. That issue should have been dated April, 1960, if Trapped was to remain on the strict every-other-month schedule that the magazine had followed since its inception four years earlier. But the general malaise that was affecting the whole magazine industry had finally filtered down to Scottie’s little crime mags, and as of the spring of 1960 Trapped and Guilty went on a quarterly schedule. That made eight magazines a year instead of twelve, and, even though I was by far the busiest contributor, it meant a substantial reduction in the number of stories I could sell the magazines every year. The handwriting was on the wall.
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GIRL IN THE THUNDERBIRD
She had the upper-class look, she was real class on wheels.
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You started noticing the car when it was still a quarter of a mile away. That was the kind of car it was, and that was the kind of girl who was driving it. It was a four-seater Thunderbird convertible, creamy white and gleaming with chrome. It was coming down the road from the direction of the fancy hotel two miles out of town. The four fellows sitting on the stoop of Culver’s General Store gave the car more than a passing interest.
“Here comes that rich bitch from the hotel,” Marty said. “Man, listen to that car vroom!”
“Yeah,” Spook said. “Seventeen years old and she’s got her own T-Bird. Like I mean, it’s okay to have dough, huh?”
“Wonder where she’s going?” Dummy asked. “Maybe over to Holtsville to visit the other millionaires.”
“Nah,” Specs muttered. “She’s just out for a drive to show everybody how much money her old man has. Spoiled little bitch.”
The Thunderbird roared into the center of town, now, and came to a screeching halt in front of Culver’s. For the last three weeks, the girl and the car had been plenty in evidence around the town of Craryburg. The girl was staying at the hotel up the road; she was fond of driving around in the evenings, showing off. But now it was the middle of the afternoon, a hot day. She had the top down. She was quite a sight as she got out of the car.
She was wearing a halter and a pair of tight shorts, nothing else. She was even driving barefoot. A lot of her skin was showing, and it was all evenly tanned. A dazzling crop of blonde hair rode easily on her shoulders.
There was a big ring on her finger. Everything about her shrieked money. She had the upper-upper-class look. High, exciting breasts, firm buttocks, trim tapering legs—the best body money could buy, except that she had been born with it. And only seventeen.
The boys on Culver’s stoop were practically drooling as she got out of the car and walked toward them without even appearing to see them.
Ignoring the whistles and wolfcalls, she went right on into the store. She passed so close to Spook that he could have put his hand right up on her backside, only he was too rattled to do it. And then she was inside.
“Whoo-ee,” Specs whistled. “What a frame!”
“I bet nobody’s gotten to her yet, either,” Dummy said. “She ain’t the type to give it away. She’ll sell it for a million bucks when the right guy comes along.”
“Suppose somebody took it?” Marty suggested.
“You mean it for real?” Dummy asked.
“Why the hell not? There’s four of us and one of her. And a car. And nobody in town can stand up to us and tell us what to do.”
They turned and peered into the store. The girl was sitting at the counter, sipping a Coke. Marty gave a signal and the four of them got off the stoop and waked down to the T-Bird. She had taken the keys with her, but the doors were open. Marty got inside and sat down back of the wheel. The other three guys leaned against the fenders, waiting for the girl to come out.
Three or four minutes later she appeared. She looked at the group clustered around her car as though she couldn’t believe her eyes.
After a long pause she said evenly, “What the hell do you think this is, a public showroom? Get out of that car!”
Marty looked up and grinned. “I was just thinking of taking it for a little spin, m’dear. Come and join us.”
She gaped, speechless for a moment. Then she said, “Come on, creep. Get out. And the rest of you get off the fender. If you don’t stop bothering me I’ll call a cop and—”
“Ain’t got no cops in this town, sis,” Spook said. “It’s too small.”
“Besides, if they had any cops they’d be afraid of us,” Dummy grinned. “Us, we’re tough.”
The girl glared. “Get out of the car or—”
“Pull her in,” Marty ordered.
–
Dummy, Spook and Specs left the fender and clustered around the girl. Dummy took her left arm, Spook the right, and Specs got behind her. They hustled her into the car before she could make a sound. Spook took her little pearl-inlaid handbag from her, opened it up, found the keys to the car, and tossed them to Marty and Specs sat in the front seat, Dummy and Spook in the back with the girl jammed between them.
She tried to fight her way loose. Dummy and Spook each gripped one arm, and each locked his inside foot around her ankle, keeping her motionless. Marty got the car started fast, and it left town in one quick throb of power.
“Man, look at that car go!” Specs breathed.
“Right up to sixty in nothing flat,” Marty said. “That’s real power. That’s five thousand bucks’ worth of car.”
“What are you going to do with me?” the girl asked. She looked panicky, but she was staying in control. “This is kidnapping, you know.”
“We’re just gonna have some fun,” Dummy assured her. “We been seeing you zoom past us in this car for weeks, now. We figured it was time to find out what it was like to ride in a bird like this one.”
“And you been snooting at us,” Spec said. “So we figured we’d take you down a peg or two.”
“This is an outrage!” she gasped. “Do you know who my father is? When he finds out about this he’ll have you hunted down and put away for the rest of your lives!”
“Ah come off it,” Marty snapped. “So your father is Sam J. Gotrocks the Third. He ain’t any better than we are. And you ain’t any better than any other girl in the country.”
“Where we gonna take her?” Spook said.
“Haviland Park,” Marty said. “It’s nice and quiet there. We go in the side entrance and nobody sees us. And then we have some fun.”
–
The girl sat huddled in the back seat, shivering with fright. It was no use screaming for help—there was nothing around but empty farmland, and the road was clear at this hour of the day. Trying to fight her way free didn’t make any sense, either, not with the Thunderbird zooming along at sixty miles an hour.
The four of them looked at each other and smiled in victory. This was going to be a big day, a real big day!
They reached the park, a secluded area with picnic grounds and a lake. Hardly anyone ever came here, and the woods were heavy.
“Okay,” Marty said, pulling up in a clearing. “Out with her. Better gag her so she don’t make a fuss. We’ll work her over and leave her here, and take the car for a nice big ride.”
They hauled her out.
“Please,” she whispered. “I’m a virgin. Don’t do anything to me. I’ll give you all money if you’ll let me go—”
Dummy stuffed the wadded-up handkerchief into her mouth, and she was silent. She thrashed and kicked as they dragged her through the underbrush to a peaceful part of the woods.
“Okay,” Marty said. “Stop here.”
“Who gets her first, Marty?” Dummy asked.
Marty stopped, plucked four stalks of grass, and turned his back to arrange them in his hands.
“Short stalk gets first,” he announced. “Second shortest second, and so on. Here. Pick.”
They picked. Specs got the shortest stalk. His eyes went wide and he practically drooled. After him came Marty, Dummy, and Spook.
“When do we start?” Specs asked.
“Right now,” Marty said. “Spook, you and Dummy hold her tight.”
The girl made incoherent noises behind the gag. Her eyes were glassy with terror. For the first time in her life, she was in a situation where her money was worthless. These four wanted only her body. And all the years of polish, of finishing-school, of posture coaching wouldn’t mean a thing any more. They would rape her and leave her bleeding and senseless.
Suddenly a tall figure in uniform appeared.
A park guard!
“Hey!” he roared. “What’s going on around here, anyway?”
“Scram!” Marty yelled, “Run for it! Run for it!”
They ran.
–
They ran for their lives, because the park guard had a gun. He fired three shots into the woods, but Marty, Spook, Specs, and Dummy had gone, streaking away like frightened antelopes, and none of them were touched. They paused at the other side of the grove, and looked back. The park attendant was bending over the girl, removing the gag from her mouth, asking if she was all right.
“Jeez,” Dummy muttered. “If only that dirty son hadn’t come along—”
“What a lousy break!” Specs grunted. “Just when I was about to—”
“The hell with that,” Marty hissed savagely. “We got to get out of here now. And we got to get back to town.”
“We’re twelve miles out, huh?”
“Yeah. And we can’t take the T-Bird. That guard’ll shoot us if we try to get back to the other side,” Marty whispered. “We gotta get out of here on foot and try to hitch. If we hang around, we’re cooked.”
Silently, the four began to tiptoe through the forest toward the main road. They kicked the ground in disgust and frustration. To get so far, and then to get chased! What a lousy break!
They reached the road and started to walk back toward town. The road was absolutely empty of cars in both directions. Overhead, the afternoon sun blazed mercilessly down.
Dummy said, “Hell of a shaft, huh? We come here all set to give her the works and go for a joy-ride in the T-Bird, and we wind up having to hoof it all the way back to town!”
“We’re lucky he didn’t kill us,” Spook said.
Specs shook his head. “Funny about that girl. She’s so snooty and everything until you get her where she can’t fight back. Then she starts to crawl. You see how scared she looked?”
“All that snootiness just crumbles right up,” Spook said.
“We’ll get another chance,” Marty told them. “And the next time we catch her, we’ll fix her good. We’ll grab her and take her down to the old cave near the Falls, and there won’t be any park guards around to mess things up. And we’ll rape her six different ways from Sunday, and when we get through with her we’ll slit her spoiled throat!”
“Yeah,” Dummy said. “That’ll teach her!”
“But we gotta do it fast. Before she gets her old man to send out the State Troopers after us,” Marty said. “We’ll go back to town and wait for her. She’ll have to stop at the traffic light coming into town, and we can hop into the car and get her. And this time we won’t foul things up.”
“Right,” Dummy said.
“Hey,” said Specs. “Here comes a car. Thumbs up, all of you!”
–
Indeed, a car was coming. They had walked for nearly half an hour, and they were a good distance from the park, and this was the first car that had come along. They saw it plainly, outlined against the gray road and the clear blue sky.
A white Thunderbird convertible. With the top down.
And the driver was a girl, a blonde, her hair streaming in the breeze. They could see her bare shoulders above the wheel.
“It’s the girl!” Dummy whispered.
“Jeez! She’s gonna beat us back to town and get the Troopers out!” Specs cried.
“I figured for sure she’d be too shaken up to drive home right away,” Marty said.
“Yeah, but look at her drive! She must be doing seventy.”
The Thunderbird was approaching at a fantastic rate. The four stepped off to the side of the road as it came near. She saw them, no doubt. And she would step on the gas and zoom past them, and phone in a report to the police when she reached town.
Only she didn’t zoom past.
She slowed to about fifty and swung away into the wrong lane. The four walkers saw what she was going to do, but it was too late for them to do anything. The gleaming T-Bird crashed right into them.
Specs was picked up and hurled thirty feet straight in the air. He came down with a crunching impact and didn’t move. Dummy fell right under the wheels, and was crushed. Spook was lifted off the ground and tossed off to the left, flying twenty-five feet and colliding head first with a thick oak tree, making a sickening cracking sound.
Only Marty escaped the sudden onslaught. The car had not been able to reach him. He stood by the side of the road. Stunned. The T-Bird had continued straight on for about a hundred yards, but now it was making a quick U-turn and coming back.
Marty stared bug-eyed at the car, at the girl. There was blood all over the front of the car.
And the girl was smiling.
She was in her element, now—no longer the frightened virgin cowering naked before four eager rapists, but the sleek, confident heiress behind the wheel of her powerful, throbbing sports car.
“D-damn you,” Marty sobbed. “Just because you got money—you think you can just run us over like ants—”
He turned and tried to run. But fear clogged his legs, and it was like running through a field of molasses, and he heard the deadly throbbing of the engine behind him, and finally he ran out of energy completely. He toppled face-forward on the shoulder of the road. The T-Bird was practically on him. He could see the girl’s face as he looked back—the flawless mouth set in a smile of murder; a smile of revenge.
And nobody will ever do anything to her for this, he thought sickly. She’ll get away it. With murder.
He heard the girl laugh.
Then the car hit him, and he saw the headlights like mocking eyes, and felt the tremendous weight of the car pressing down at him, squeezing the life out of him, killing him the way it had killed Specs and Dummy and Spook...
The girl went over him twice, just to be sure. Then she turned the car around and drove calmly back to town with a smile on her face, a smile of satisfaction, and the wind singing in her hair.