"How do you feel?" said the man on her left, grinning. "Do you feel very good?"
He stressed the 'good' for a reason she did not understand. Apparently the word meant something to him. His grin was wide and his teeth showed remarkably white and firm. The other old man was grinning too.
"I'm hungry," she said. She did not ask these men why she was here. She thought she knew, and if she didn't she would find out soon enough.
"Very soon," the first man said, "if you are good enough."
Now again she did not know what he meant, but this was more obvious. The way he spoke, his grin fading, was particularly horrible. Before she had a chance to say anything more she was ushered into one of the small buildings beneath the trees.
She found herself in a room with several terrified girls, and two more of the old men. These looked even older and were much more businesslike.
One by one, too frightened to struggle, the girls were stripped. Like doctors, the two old men examined them clinically. There was an oldness, a foul and slimy something about these gaunt men that was almost overpoweringly horrible. She wanted to run, or to scream, or just to fight, but she held herself in and waited for the right moment.
She was allowed to take her clothes off herself, was pushed and prodded for several grisly moments. At last she was led naked into another room, where a massive machine of glass and metal was wheeled into place above her, and set to a deep, jarring hum. After a few seconds she was given back her clothes. Then she was taken outside into the sun again, where the other girls stood waiting.
The same two old men took her arms.
One bent over and looked closely into her eyes, his nose almost touching hers. He was grinning now with great joy.