Trapped

Meadow got up on all fours and shook his head. Whatever hit him in the face had hit hard, and his jaw throbbed like he had a toothache. He shifted onto his knees, blinked several times, and tried to brace himself for whatever was coming next.

A twig snapped on Meadow’s left. He turned, fist clenched and raised, and then caught the smell. An awful, rancid smell, like body odor and sweaty feet and rancid food.

Then someone tackled Meadow from behind. Meadow twisted, trying to grab his attacker, but he was forced onto the ground face-first, a knee pinning his back. His arms were stretched out, followed by his legs.

How many of them were there?

Meadow opened his mouth to yell for help, but as soon as he did a foul-smelling hand jammed something between his lips, forcing it inside. Something hard and round, like a golf ball, but rougher. Meadow shook his head and pushed at the object with his tongue, wincing as the pain hit. Sharp pain, in his cheeks, his lips, the top of his mouth, like he was chewing on a pin cushion.

Meadows sucked in air and gagged, blood seeping down his chin, comprehending what had been shoved into his mouth while disbelieving it at the same time.

“Meadow?” Tyrone called to him.

Meadow screamed in his throat, screamed for the very first time in his life, as his attackers dragged him off into the woods.

When Tom was a little boy, he wanted to be a race car driver when he grew up. He also wanted to be a pilot, an astronaut, a basketball player, a baseball player, a football player, a sniper, a hockey player, and a boxer, up until he got into a fist fight in fifth grade and another kid showed him how much it hurt to get hit in the face, which made Tom decide boxing wasn’t for him.

At first, his parents indulged his interests. Tom’s mother constantly shuffled him around from one sporting event to another, and his father bought a $300 flight simulator program for the computer that included NASA-approved specs for landing the space shuttle.

Tom quickly grew bored with the sports. He argued with coaches and teammates, and most of the playing time was spent waiting for something to happen. Tom hated waiting. He also hated the flight simulator. It wasn’t fun like his Xbox, It was slow and complicated and boring. Even the crashes were boring, and Tom crashed often.

As for becoming a sniper, the only way to do that was to join the military. The military meant lots of rules and following orders, two things Tom wasn’t good at. He’d have to settle for buying a gun when he got old enough, and maybe using it to go hunting or something, even though he didn’t know any hunters and had never even held a real gun before.

Driving, however, he loved. He could make his own excitement behind the wheel of a car, and Driver’s Ed was the only high school class he ever did well in, the rest resulting in Ds or worse.

But his parents didn’t buy Tom a car. Partly because of his bad grades, but mostly because every time he borrowed the family sedan it was always returned with another scrape, ding, or missing part. Tom continuously lied when asked what happened, blaming it on someone hitting him when he was parked, but when a State Trooper showed up at the house with pictures of Tom fleeing an intersection fender-bender that he’d caused, he was completely forbidden to drive. How was Tom supposed to know that some street lights had automatic cameras in them?

The Gransees didn’t fully realize their son’s obsession with driving, and the lengths he’d go to indulge his obsession. After the courts suspended his license, Tom stole a neighbor’s Corvette and led police on a forty minute chase, reaching speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour, appearing live on Detroit TV and as highlights on CNN.

An expensive lawyer, and a sympathetic judge whose son also had ADHD, allowed Tom to get off easy. Rather than doing hard time in juvee, Tom was sent to the Center.

The Center was okay. Sure, it was boring as hell, and Tom missed his freedom as much as he missed driving, but Sara and Martin were teaching him how to stay on task, how to set and reach goals, and how to make better decisions. Also, for the first time in his life, Tom was actually doing okay on his grades. Tests were still a nightmare, but he was allowed to speak his answers instead of having to write them down, and Sara usually helped him study.

Tom liked Sara. She didn’t yell at him all the time like other adults, and she seemed to understand a lot about him, things even he didn’t understand himself. He even thought she was kinda hot, though she didn’t wear hardly any make-up and mostly dressed like a guy.

Martin was cool too. He was pretty straight-laced around Sara, but one-on-one he was more laid back. Like he knew this was all one big joke.

Too bad it was all coming to an end. Unlike the rest of the Center kids who would go into juvee, Tom’s father had made arrangements to send him to military school. One of those bullshit boot camps that was supposed to scare teenagers into acting responsible. Tom decided he wasn’t going. As soon as they got off the island, he was going to run. Steal a car, drive someplace far away, like California.

That was the plan. But first he had to get off the island.

Tom stared hard at where Meadow disappeared into the woods, willing him to reappear, to say this all was one big frickin’ joke. But deep down Tom knew it wasn’t a joke. He’d heard the struggle behind those dark bushes, and something that sounded a lot like muffled screams.

Tom was scared. Scared even worse than when the police caught him after his big chase, twenty cops all pointing guns at him and shouting orders. Every instinct Tom possessed told him to get the hell out of there, to start running and never stop.

But there was nowhere to run. Instead, Tom began to pace, back and forth like a caged tiger, eyes locked on those bushes.

“Yo, Meadow!” Tyrone called. “Stop the bullshit and come out!”

Tom knew Meadow wasn’t bullshitting, knew that he wasn’t going to come out. Not now. Not ever.

“Something took him, Tyrone.”

“Nothing took him, man.”

“You saw the bushes shake. You heard the sounds.”

“He just messin’ with us.”

“Something frickin’ took him, dragged him away.”

“Bullshit.”

Tom backed up, toward the campfire, and walked to the other side of the clearing. No escape there. No way out. Just more bushes and trees and darkness. He veered left, began to circle the fire, eyes scanning the woods, neck snapping this way and that way to make sure nothing was sneaking up behind him.

“We need to find Sara.” Cindy stood next to Tyrone, and just like the boys she stared into the trees.

“They probably got Sara, too. Like they got Martin, and Laneesha, and Georgia.” Tom picked at the dry skin on his upper lip. “They’ll come for us next.”

Tyrone turned to face Tom. “And who is they?”

“I dunno. The ghosts of those war prisoners.”

“Ain’t no such thing as ghosts.”

“You can tell them that, when they’re roasting you on hot coals.”

Tom really itched to run. He walked the circle even faster, shoving his hands in his pockets, not liking them there, taking them out, clasping them behind his head, then sticking them back into his pockets again.

Cindy made a face at Tom as he passed. “Can you please stop pacing?”

Tom didn’t like Cindy, but one of the things Sara taught him was to listen when someone talked to you, to make eye contact and try to understand what was said. Then, after listening, reason out what they want. If you didn’t understand what they said, ask for clarification. Sara was big on asking clarification. One of Tom’s challenges, Sara constantly told him, was to focus his attention.

So Tom stopped, trying to process Cindy’s question. He’d heard her the first time, but hadn’t let it take hold in his head. Sara said ADHD was like doing four things at once but not focusing on any of them, sort of like watching TV while talking on the phone while playing a videogame while listening to music. That’s how Tom often felt, like everything wanted his attention at once, and because of that he couldn’t focus.

“Thank you,” Cindy said. “You were making me dizzy.”

Tom listened, and processed, and realized he’d unintentionally done what Cindy wanted. That made Tom angry, made him want to grab Cindy and shake her and scream in her face. He might have tried it, but then he noticed that she and Tyrone were holding hands. Tom wasn’t afraid of Tyrone. Tom was taller, and probably stronger. But Tyrone knew how to fight, and Tom didn’t.

Maybe if I had some sort of weapon to even the odds…

Tom cast a quick glance at the fire, seeking out a flaming branch or a log or something. Why the hell was Tyrone getting all lovey-dovey with that meth-head skank anyway? Maybe some firewood upside the head would knock some sense into him.

“Just calm down,” Tyrone said. “We need to figure this shit out. And you look like you’re ready to lose it, Tom. Remember group? Working out your anger issues? Remember what Sara said about keeping cool?”

Tom made a fist, his anger nearing the boiling point, and a little voice in his head told him to exercise some control, reminded him he had problems controlling anger when off his meds.

Which made Tom remember he hadn’t taken his nightly medicine.

Tom took two pills a day for his Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. The first was Adderall, which helped him focus even though it was a stimulant and should have made him even more hyper. He took those in the morning. At night, he took Risperdol, an anti-psychotic which helped him calm down.

Tom didn’t know what time it was, but he knew he needed his Risperdol. When he missed a dose he just got more and more agitated until he wound up in big trouble. He was already close to freaking out, and without his meds he might wind up running off into the woods, which would be big trouble for sure.

Tom walked toward Sara and Martin’s tent.

“You’re not allowed in there.”

“Mind your own frickin’ business, Cindy.”

Tom knew he wasn’t supposed to go in the tent. He also knew he was supposed to treat everyone with respect. But Sara and Martin weren’t there, and he needed his meds, and they were probably in Sara’s backpack because she was the one who gave Tom his pills. How else was he supposed to frickin’ get them?

He ducked through the entry flap, using a Velcro strap to hold it open so the fire from behind lit up the enclosed space. On the left were a sleeping bag, a small cooler, and a stack of canned goods. That would teach Tyrone to mind his own business—bouncing a can of creamed corn off his dome. On the opposite side of the tent were two backpacks. One was already open, some things lying beside it.

Tom knelt next to the open pack. It was dark, but he noticed a walkie-talkie, a first aid box, and a prescription bottle. He picked up the bottle, but it was Martin’s, not his. He tossed it aside and began to paw through the bag, finding clothing and some papers and nothing else.

Getting even more annoyed, Tom unzipped the second pack. Sara better not have forgotten his meds. If she did, whatever happened was her fault, and Tom couldn’t be blamed for acting—

“Holy shit.”

A big smile crossed Tom’s face, and without even thinking he picked up what he was staring at, holding it and extending his arm. It was heavy, heavier than he would have guessed.

But that was because the only guns Tom had ever held before were toys. This was a real one, big and black wicked-looking. He fussed with the switches on the side, finding the button for the clip and the safety next to the trigger. Tom pulled the top part back—the slide—like he saw on TV, jacking a round into the chamber. Immediately, he felt alive. Even more alive than when he was joy-riding.

Tom cocked the hammer back.

Who’s the frickin’ man now, Tyrone?

They watched as the woman and the girl found the bait. But they didn’t attack yet.

Lester was too close.

They feared Lester, almost as much as they feared The Doctor. So they left the woman and the girl and the man they’d hung up.

Their stomachs growled, but it was okay. They had found a boy. He would be enough for the moment. They could come back for the others when Lester was gone.

There was no rush. No hurry. They had time. Days, if they needed it.

No one who came to the island ever left. Ever.

There was a flash of light in the trees.

Lester.

They began to back up, but they didn’t have to.

Lester was leaving.

They waited. As soon as Lester was gone, they would attack.

Sara reached her hands up over her head and touched Martin’s shoes, making him twist slowly.

“We’ll get you down. Just hold on.”

Sara knew that was redundant—bordering on moronic—thing to say, but she didn’t stop to dwell on it, already shining the weakening Maglite up past her husband’s bound wrists. She followed the rope to where it looped over a high bough and stretched taut on an angle through the branches, all the way down to its end, tied around the base of a tree trunk a few meters to their right. Sara hurried over, sticking the flashlight in her mouth, attacking the knot with her fingers.

The rope was thin, nylon, the knots small and hard as acorns. She tried to pry at it with her fingernails, wincing as she bent one backward. The Center didn’t allow weapons or anything that could be used as a weapon. Matches, lighters, aerosol sprays, tools, and even the plastic cutlery they used for eating; all was kept under lock and key. This rule was retained for the camping trip; the sharpest thing they’d brought along was some fingernail clippers, but those were back at the campsite.

Another nail bent and cracked, and Sara felt like screaming. The agony Martin was in must have been unbearable, and if he’d been strung up there for as long as they’d been searching for him chances were good his hands had lost all circulation. No blood flow meant tissue death. Sara felt like whimpering. If they didn’t get him down fast…

“Try this.”

Laneesha stood next to Sara, and held a dirty rock about the size of a softball.

“It’s got a sharp edge,” Laneesha said, pointing.

Sara traded Jack and the flashlight for the rock, took a deep breath, and tried to keep her emotions under control.

“Good work, Laneesha. Hold this on the rope for me.”

Sara raised the rock up and struck the rope where it wound around the trunk. She hit it again, and again, and again, the bark slowly chipping away but the rope seemingly unmarred. Cramps built in her hands and shoulders, but Sara had to save Martin and she wouldn’t relent, gritting her teeth against the pain, willing the rope to break, not daring to stop until—

The twang sounded like a bass string being plucked, the rope whipping past Sara’s face as it shot upward. Martin fell to earth. He made an umph sound when he hit, tumbling onto his side, his back to her.

Sara ditched the rock and scrambled over, awash with concern. Laneesha came up from behind with the Maglite, shining it onto Martin’s shoulders, then around to his face.

“Oh, shit.”

Laneesha dropped the light, and Sara wasn’t sure what she’d seen. She picked it up off the dead leaves and knelt next to Martin, focusing the weak beam on his face.

Jammed into her husband’s mouth and protruding from his lips was a ball of nails. They jutted out of his cheeks like cat whiskers, dark with dirt and blood.

“Oh, jesus, oh baby…”

Sara’s first instinct was to help, to nurture, which she would have done with anyone in this situation. She worked soup kitchens every Thanksgiving. She spent a summer in Peru with the World Health Organization, helping to care for a TB epidemic. Sara had endless resources of empathy, and equal measures of strength to keep from breaking down. But seeing Martin—her Martin—like this, hit her right in the heart, and the tears came so quick and fast she wondered how she could have been so resolved to divorce this man if she still cared this deeply.

Sara put a hand on his forehead, her touch gentle so as not to hurt him any further. Her husband’s eyes found hers, locked on.

“ara…”

Sara handed Jack off to Laneesha. “Shhhh. It’s all going to be okay. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

He made the slightest of nods, then brought up his bound hands, tied together at the wrists. They were swollen, and the color of ripe plums.

Sara wasn’t able to hide her wince. She examined the rope, saw it was a simple slip knot.

“Okay, I’m going to count to three, then free your hands. When your circulation returns, it’s going to hurt really bad. You ready?”

Another nod. And Sara saw something in his eyes, something beyond the fear and pain. Trust. Trust, and unconditional love.

“Do you know I love you?”

She nodded, unable to answer because of the lump in her throat.

“Then we don’t have anything to talk about.”

Sara blinked away her tears, clamped the light under her armpit, and held his wrists.

“One…two…”

Sara went on two, pulling at the rope with one hand and pulling his right arm with the other. The rope resisted at first, then slipped off.

Martin’s eyes went glassy, then rolled up into his head as he let out the most chilling, agonized howl Sara had ever heard in her life. Sara bit her lower lip and kept her own cry inside, patting Martin’s chest, wishing she could bear some of the pain for him.

His back arched, bending at an almost impossible angle, and then, mercifully, he passed out.

Sara seized the opportunity. She worked fast, digging a finger into the corner of his mouth and touching the horrible gag stuck inside. It was a wood, roughly golf-ball sized, and Sara counted eight nails protruding out of it, each two inches long. Two skewered his right cheek, one his lower lip, and three his left cheek. The other two jutted from his mouth like tusks.

She stretched his left cheek back, forcing the gag further to the right, making the wounds on that side bleed fresh.

Martin’s eyes popped open and he lashed out, smacking Sara on the side of the head, sending her sprawling.

Sara opened her eyes and stared up at the forest canopy, a small opening allowing a few stars to shine through. She’d once again lost the flashlight, but little bright motes swam through her vision like sparks. Her head was ringing.

It was the first time Martin had ever hit her. Not his fault, of course. He’d been unconscious. But it was as good a blow as she’d ever sustained, especially since she hadn’t been on guard to block it.

She sat up, squinting as the light hit her eyes.

“You okay?” Laneesha asked. “He clocked you pretty good.”

“Shine it on Martin, Laneesha, and kneel next to him.”

When the beam rested on Martin’s face he was looking Sara’s way.

“orry,” he said around the gag.

Sara blinked a few times. “We need to get that out of your mouth. I know your hands hurt, but I need you to keep them behind your back for me. I have to put the rope on again.”

Martin’s red eyes went wide with panic.

“Not tight,” Sara assured him. “But I don’t want you lashing out and hurting me or Jack or Laneesha. Okay?”

He hesitated, then nodded. Sara located the rope and again tied the slip knot, this time higher up on his arms, near the elbows. Then she ran her palm across Martin’s sweat-soaked hair.

“This is really going to hurt. But I need you to keep still. If you thrash, it could tear your cheeks off. Understand?”

Martin squeezed his eyes shut. “urry…oo it.”

“I…I really don’t want to be here,” Laneesha said.

“I need to you hold the light for me.”

“This is awful. Just awful. What if the people that did this to him come back?”

“You’re jiggling the light. Hold it still.”

“If someone put one of those things in my mouth…shit…I can’t…”

“Goddamnit, Laneesha! Act like an adult and hold the goddamn light steady!”

Sara never yelled, never swore, at the kids. And perhaps this shocked Laneesha so much that she shut up, keeping the light perfectly centered on Martin’s ruined mouth.

Sara again stuck a finger into the hinge of his lips, peeling back the cheek, trying to free the left side while forcing the nails on the right in deeper.

Martin’s head twitched and he screamed again. Sara felt the wood and nails vibrate from the sound, making her even more determined to free her husband from this horrible thing, pulling back as hard as she could, stretching the skin to an almost ridiculous length, then, with one quick motion, she tugged fast and firm.

The nail gag came out so fast it jabbed Sara’s palm, and Martin twisted violently to the side, pressing his bleeding face into the leaves, his whole body wracking with sobs.

“Honey.” Sara crawled over to him and put a hand on his back. “We’ve got to get going. Laneesha’s right. Whoever did this to you was planning on coming back for you. You need to get up.”

Martin continued to cry. Jack joined him. Sara took Jack back, and tried to comfort both of her men at the same time.

“Sara…” Laneesha was whispering.

“Laneesha, help me with Martin.”

“Sara…”

“I know. The sooner we get him up, the sooner we can get out of here. We’ll find the orange ribbon on the trees, follow it back to camp, then use the radio to—”

“SARA!”

Laneesha’s scream trumped Martin’s in volume, and Sara turned and watched as something filthy and foul-smelling grabbed Laneesha around the waist and dragged her off into the darkness, taking the flashlight with her.

When Georgia was a little girl, she wanted to have a friend. It didn’t matter if it was a boy or a girl. Just someone to play with. To talk to. To understand.

Her parents divorced when she was a baby. Georgia only saw her father on weekends, and on those weekends he ignored her. During the weekdays, Georgia’s mom worked most of the time, leaving Georgia in the care of an assortment of uncaring babysitters.

While the adults in Georgia’s life were indifferent, the children were downright cruel.

Part of it was her looks, she knew. Georgia used to have a lazy eye before she learned a vision exercise on her own in order to correct it. She’d also been overweight since birth. The combination of the two made her a joke among her peers, and a constant target for ridicule and torment.

So, instead of friends, Georgia had pets at both households. Puppies and kittens and fish and birds and hamsters and gerbils and even an iguana.

Had her parents been paying more attention, they might have realized that the continuous deaths and disappearances of the animals they bought her were a warning sign that their daughter was severely disturbed. But they were busy with their own lives, and when one of Georgia’s pets met with a dubious accident, it was easier to buy a new one than question why.

Georgia pretended her pets were people. Usually her parents or schoolmates. In her fantasies, they would do something bad, and Georgia would be forced to punish them. Soon, her own steady stream of pets wasn’t enough to satisfy her urges, so the neighborhood dogs and cats began to disappear.

No one ever suspected anything, until Georgia turned fourteen and began babysitting kids in her mom’s apartment building.

At first, the job thrilled Georgia. These weren’t dumb animals she was dealing with. These were actual human beings, who depended on her. Maybe these children would be the friends she so desperately craved.

But it turned out the kids were needy, a lot of work, and just plain annoying. Georgia was smart enough to not hurt any of them—microwaving a gerbil was one thing, but Georgia knew that hurting a child would bring big trouble. But one of those brats she watched was just so freaking irritating, crying non-stop all the time no matter what Georgia did.

Georgia only stuck the child in the clothes dryer because she needed just a moment of peace. It’s not like she turned the dryer on or anything.

Then Georgia took a little nap because she was really worn out, and the baby’s parents came home earlier than expected. The baby didn’t die, but the lack of oxygen in the dryer did some sort of damage to its stupid little brain and Georgia went to jail.

In truth, she felt zero remorse. But she played it up big for the shrinks and the lawyers and the judge, crying like a drama queen and begging for forgiveness. The ploy worked. Instead of jail, she was sent to the Center.

Georgia fully expected to be let out early for good behavior. She figured she could con Sara and Martin the same way she conned everyone else, and they’d sign off on her mental well-being, and she’d be able to return to her so-called life.

But every time there was a court hearing, Sara said Georgia wasn’t ready to be released yet. Georgia had no idea how the bitch knew, but Sara knew, and it pissed Georgia off to the nth degree. So for the last two years, Georgia had been a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Do-Gooder, enduring countless bullshit therapy sessions, sticking to her story of mistake and regret even though it apparently wasn’t working.

Often, Georgia thought of running away. It was difficult, but not impossible. Since it opened, nine girls and two boys had run away from the Center, and ten of them were never ever caught. Georgia figured she was smart enough to get away with it. Certainly smarter than some of the rejects who succeeded. But if she did get caught, that would work against her at her next court hearing, blowing two years of acting and effort. Georgia had been tried as an adult, sentenced to seven years, and she didn’t want to be sent to an adult detention center when she turned eighteen. The smarter plan was to wait it out.

It finally looked like the plan would work. The stupid Center was closing, and Georgia would be sent to juvee. She could snow those dumb, overworked shrinks at juvee, no problem. Then she’d get released, and be sent back home.

She had business at home. Business she’d been planning for a while. The parents of that little retarded brat had taken away two years of Georgia’s life, and they needed to be taught a lesson. Them and their brain dead kid.

Georgia read a lot. She knew what she was. The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual called it antisocial personality disorder.

Georgia was a sociopath, and sociopaths couldn’t be cured. And why should they be?

Being one was so much fun.

Georgia ducked under a branch, pine needles tangling in her hair, and smirked once again at how she’d scared the shit out of that loser, Cindy. She wished it wasn’t so dark so she could have seen her expression better.

Frightening others was a pleasant sadistic thrill. Scaring the little brats she used to babysit was especially rewarding. It was easy, and satisfying, to reduce a five-year-old to hysterics. But since being trapped at the Center, playing the role of Good Georgia to the hilt, she hadn’t had any opportunities to let loose.

Tonight, she would do more than just let loose.

Georgia had been planning this for weeks, and had secretly smuggled all the supplies needed to do the deed. In her front pocket was an envelope containing five ounces of powder, a combination of four different materials. Powdered sugar, that she snagged while helping Sara make some insipid cookies. Iron oxide, in the form of rust particles, that Georgia meticulously scraped off a pipe behind the toilet at the Center. Saltpeter, which Martin had poured on an old tree stump out back to dissolve it. And non-dairy creamer.

The creamer by itself was flammable, as were most powders because of their high surface ratio. The other three ingredients combined to make a primitive form of black powder, a propellant used in bullets and fireworks. Georgia wished she could check the recipe on the Internet, but Center residents weren’t allowed unsupervised access, so she had to make do from the descriptions in old Civil War history books. She also wished she could test it first, but that hadn’t been possible due to the Center’s anal retentive lockdown on matches. It should work, though.

The plan was to wait for everyone to go to sleep, then sneak next to Sara’s tent, lift up the side, pour the powder in her hair, and set that bitch on fire. Georgia didn’t have matches, but the campfire was the perfect substitute. Maybe Sara would live. Maybe not. While killing her would be cool, leaving her horribly crippled and disfigured had its appeal. And with five other dysfunctional kids there, it couldn’t be conclusively blamed on Georgia.

Now all she had to do was get back to camp and wait for Sara to return and fall asleep. But that was becoming problematic.

Georgia had ducked into the woods to freak out Cindy, and had only gone maybe a dozen steps, but that was enough for her to be having some trouble finding her way back.

She thought about calling out to the others, but that wasn’t a real option. Georgia hated all of them. Hated them passionately. She preferred to stay lost than ask for help from those idiots.

So she began to wander around, which wasn’t working out too well. The darkness, coupled with too many damn trees that all looked alike, led Georgia on a meandering half-hour hike all the way to shore. When she saw Lake Huron, spreading out into infinity like a pool of black blood, she knew her only way back was to circle the shoreline and find the orange ribbons they’d dutifully tied to the trees. That would lead her to camp. Unfortunately, the island was a few miles in circumference, which meant a long, boring hike.

Georgia stared up at the stars and the bright orange moon, and tried to decide whether to go left or right. She chose left, walking along the sandy beach, holding her arms tight across her chest as the cool waterfront breeze raised chills.

After a hundred yards or so, Georgia realized she was being followed. She sensed it at first, then spun around in time to see a figure scuttle off the sand and into the tree line, less than a stone’s throw away.

She felt the tiny hairs on her arms stand at attention, then quickly shook off the fear. It was probably one of those jerks back at camp, playing games. Georgia didn’t believe any of Martin’s silly campfire stories. Besides, if there was anything to be afraid of in the dark, it was Georgia. She was the one with the propellant in her pocket. She was the one with murder on her mind. Everyone else better stay the hell out of—

A twig snapped on her left. Georgia jerked her head toward the sound, and in the moonlight spotted a man-shaped figure leaning against a tree. It was too dark to make out any details beyond a shadow, but he looked thin and very tall, about the size of a pro basketball player.

Definitely no one from the Center.

Georgia wondered what to do. If the man intended to harm her, he was too big to stop. There was nowhere to run, and if she tried he would easily catch her. Hiding might be an option, if she could get back into the woods, but the trees were a good twenty feet away.

She filled her lungs with cool air and stood as straight as possible.

“What do you want?” she said, making her voice strong.

The figure didn’t answer. One arm hung limply at his side. The other seemed to be holding something.

“You deaf?” Georgia forced herself to take a step toward the man. “I’m asking you a question.”

A light flashed, followed by a familiar clicking sound.

He just took my picture.

Georgia stopped cold. She could feel her heart thumping, and her palms getting wet while her mouth went dry.

“Who are you!” Georgia screamed at him.

Instead of answering, the man began to walk to her. Slow, languid, with long, easy strides. Georgia stood her ground, having to crane her neck upward as he got within an arm’s reach. He had to be close to seven feet tall. Thin, but with thick wrists and a broad chest.

The moon was bright enough for Georgia to make out his features. He was white, and his face had a lot of sharp angles. High cheekbones, a long pointed nose, a chin that jutted out in a V. He wore denim overalls, like a farmer, and a dark sweater. A smiley face button was pinned to a bib strap.

“Lester,” he said, his voice soft and pitched too high for such a big man. He took her picture again, causing her to startle at the flash.

Georgia never wanted to run away so badly before. She had to clench to keep from pissing herself.

“That’s rude, Lester,” she managed to say without stuttering. “You should ask permission before you take someone’s picture.”

Lester cocked his head to the side, like a confused dog.

“Lester takes what Lester wants.”

“Not from me, he doesn’t. If you snap my picture again I’m going to shove that camera up your ass.”

Lester leaned down, close enough for Georgia to smell his breath. It smelled like a dog’s.

“Isn’t the girl afraid of Lester?” he purred.

Georgia’s knees knocked together. “N…no,” she stammered. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Lester smiled. Instead of flat teeth, his had all been filed to sharp points.

“The girl will be.”

Meadow counted four men dragging him off, two holding his arms, and two gripping his legs. They worked silently, in unison, binding his limbs to two long poles, then carrying him on their shoulders. They navigated the trees and underbrush at a quick clip. Meadow struggled like crazy, wore himself out, and eventually went limp, the nail gag in his mouth forcing him to twist his head sideways so the blood didn’t run down his throat. He began to shiver, from the cold, and from fear.

It was dark, real dark, but every few hundred yards a space opened up in the tree canopy, letting in the moonlight, and Meadow caught glimpses of his abductors.

They looked like cavemen, with long hair, beards, rags and furs for clothes, dirt smeared on their faces. And they stank of piss and sweat and blood. They were also hella strong, Meadow knew, from experience, how hard it was to carry somebody, even with three other guys helping. But these dudes didn’t stop to rest or change positions. They didn’t talk, neither. That scared Meadows most of all. Brothers talked when they threw down. If they were gonna pop a cap, they let you know why, let you know how they felt about it. Meadow had no idea what these men wanted, and he wasn’t able to ask. Not knowing was worse than the pain.

After five minutes of running, they stopped and dropped Meadow onto the ground, causing instant agony in both his tail bone and his mouth. He tried to tug at his bonds, but his arms and shoulders didn’t want to follow orders—they’d been stretched out for too long.

Meadow managed to roll onto his side. Strangely, the dirt seemed warm. In fact, this entire area seemed a lot warmer than the run through the woods. It seemed brighter, too, but he couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. He craned his neck, trying to see beyond a thick patch of bushes, when an old lady came out of nowhere and knelt down in front of him.

She was rail thin, and her white hair was scraggly and all knotted up. She wore a tattered sweater with more holes in it than threads. The lady grinned insanely at Meadow. He tried to say, “help me,” but it came out as more of a moan.

Then the crazy bitch stabbed him in the arm with something.

Meadow howled, trying to twist away. She pulled her weapon back, then held it in front of her face.

It’s a fork.

Meadow watched a line of spit snake down her chin, then she stuck out a drooly tongue and licked the blood off the tines. Just as she was raising the fork for seconds, one of the men batted her across the side of the head, knocking her over.

“Dinner… not… ready… yet.”

He reached for Meadow, who flinched away. The man, and a partner, grabbed the poles and dragged Meadow uphill, around the bushes.

Meadow now understood the source of the fire and the light. In a small clearing, they’d covered the ground with a bed of white-hot coals. On top of them was some kind of metal cage, big enough for a person.

“Grid… iron,” the man said.

Meadow, a devout atheist, prayed for the first time in his life. He prayed for forgiveness for all of his sins, prayed that there was an afterlife, and most of all prayed with all his might that these crazy fuckers would kill him before they put him on the fire.

His prayers were not answered.

Sara didn’t think, she reacted, thrusting Jack into her husband’s arms and lunging after Laneesha as the girl disappeared into the woods.

Sara had always wanted to have children, a desire that eclipsed all others in her life, compounded because she and Martin had such a hard time getting pregnant. When they founded the Center, the kids they cared for became Sara’s surrogate children, each one as dear to her as Jack. Losing them was the hardest part of the job.

In some cases, the losses were happy ones, with the teens being released back into society, the majority of them going on to live fulfilling, productive lives. But several—the runaways—proved particularly painful for Sara. Like Martin, Sara felt like she failed those children, and grieved for the loss, both hers and theirs.

So having Laneesha snatched away right under her nose was something Sara just couldn’t allow, even if she had to fight to the death to prevent it.

Sara was no stranger to fights.

Following the sounds of Laneesha’s cries, Sara navigated through the trees and underbrush, moving faster than safety allowed. Laneesha wasn’t a tiny girl, and whoever grabbed her was obviously struggling to carry her off, because in only a few dozen steps Sara saw the bouncing yellow beam of the Maglite. Sara poured on the speed, bursting through an elderberry bush into a small, rocky clearing, and found herself facing Laneesha’s abductors.

At first Sara thought they were homeless people, like she was used to seeing on the streets of Detroit; dirty and hairy with tattered clothes. But their snarls, and the crude tree clubs they brandished, made them look more like savages; some crazed prehistoric tribe of headhunters from an epoch long passed. Both of them were thin, bare arms rippled with muscles, wearing insane, malevolent expressions, and it took Sara a moment to realize one of them was a woman—the only way to distinguish her from her partner was the lack of facial hair.

The man snarled, spit flecking his filthy lips, and then charged.

He kept his arm high, ready to bring down his weapon in a clubbing motion. Textbook attack, even if he wasn’t a textbook assailant. Sara went in under the arc of his arm, pivoted her body while grabbing him, and flipped him over her hip, hard, using leverage and momentum to her advantage. She turned on him quickly, kneeling on his ribcage, and cocked her hand back.

She’d thrown the killing blow a thousand times in judo practice, but always pulled the punch. This time she didn’t, giving it all she had, her fist connecting with his bulging Adam’s apple. She both felt and heard something crack beneath her knuckles.

Without pausing to reflect on what she’d just done, Sara whirled on the second attacker, who now stood behind Laneesha, a rusty kitchen knife pressed to the teen’s throat.

“Instep!” Sara yelled.

A small spark of recognition registered in Laneesha’s eyes, the intended result of the many self-defense classes Sara taught at the Center, and she lifted up her right foot and ground the heel down onto the woman’s.

The woman howled, stumbling backwards, and then limped off into the night. Sara didn’t pursue her, instead running to Laneesha for an embrace.

“Are you okay” and “I was so scared” came out at the same time, and then Laneesha began to cry. Sara held the girl, but it didn’t take long for her to calm down. Laneesha was made of strong stuff.

“I thought…I thought I was dead.”

“I know.”

“Why’d they grab me? What’d they want?”

“I don’t know.”

First they went for Martin, and now Laneesha. What the hell was going on?

Sara turned and looked at the man. He was still on his back, hands clawing at his throat. Sara knew she’d broken his trachea, cut off his airway. There was nothing she could do to help him. Sara watched him struggle, even though it was excruciating to see someone suffer so. Mercifully, he stopped moving after a very long minute, and the weight of her actions pressed on Sara like a crate of falling bricks.

I took a human life. I’m a murderer.

“He dead?”

Sara watched his chest, didn’t notice it moving. “Yes.”

She patted the girl’s back, then took a step toward the dead man. Laneesha grabbed her wrist.

“Whatchoo doin’?”

Part of Sara wanted, needed, to touch him, just so she could persuade herself this was all real, that she’d really done what she knew she’d done. Since high school Sara had been involved in the martial arts and self-defense—a textbook case of empowerment and a way to gain mastery over her many fears. Every teacher she ever had, and even Sara herself when she began to teach, repeated time and again the importance of not holding back when in a real fight.

But none of her instructors told her how it actually felt to hurt—to kill—another human being. Part of Sara was exhilarated that she survived. But a larger part, the part that recognized how every human life was precious, made her feel like she’d just committed an unpardonable sin.

“I need to search him,” Sara heard herself say, “try to figure out who he is. I have to call the authorities, tell them what I did.”

“You saved me.”

Sara’s veneer cracked even further. “I… I just killed a man, Laneesha.”

“It was self-defense. You save my life.”

Sara managed a nod, then tried to pull away. Laneesha held her tight.

“Don’t go over there.”

“I have to check him for ID. This man might have a family somewhere.”

“Look at him, Sara. Any family he got won’t give a shit he’s dead.”

Sara stared hard at the corpse, his open mouth exposing a jungle of missing and rotten teeth, eyes bloodshot and staring into infinity. The shoes on his feet were battered old Nikes with the toes exposed, and his pants were held up with a length of rope. Even in death he looked fearsome. But still, he was someone’s son, and maybe someone’s brother, husband, father. Sara often felt she was put on this earth to help those in need, and here she’d just murdered one of them.

“You have to let go of my arm, Laneesha.”

“I’m afraid you go over there, he gonna jump up and grab you.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

“I seen the movies. He gonna jump up.”

Sara tugged her arm away, a move both sudden and angry. “He’s not going to jump up! He’s not going to do anything ever again except rot! I killed him, Laneesha!”

Then the trembling started, and the tears came. Sara stood there for a moment, feeling alone and impotent and dangerous, and then she felt Laneesha hugging her, giving her comfort, and Sara regained control.

“There…” Sara cleared her throat, “there may be more of them, out there. Let me check the body and then we’ll get back to Martin, and the camp. Cell phones don’t work out here, but we have that radio the captain gave us. We can call for help.”

Laneesha released her. Sara approached the body reverently, kneeling next to it and placing two fingers on its neck to feel for a pulse she knew wouldn’t be there. She jerked her hand back when she felt the broken windpipe beneath the skin.

Stay focused, get this over with.

Sara crinkled her nose against his odor and began to pat him down. His pockets were empty except for a rusty fork and a length of balled up twine.

The poor bastard.

She was putting the twine into her pocket when the man jerked up into a sitting position and lunged at her.

Tyrone wasn’t sure how they’d gone from being friends to holding hands, but he didn’t mind. He’d been with girls before, but never anything more than a quick lay at the club house. To bangers, girls were like liquor and drugs; a way to have some fun and kill some time. While Tyrone indulged, he was never really okay with the whole hooking-up thing. Not just because of diseases and babies and stuff like that, but because two of the people he respected most in the world were his moms and grams, and if they deserved respect then other women did too.

So Tyrone never actually had what he could call a girlfriend. For him, joining a gang was a financial opportunity, a better way to make some cash than some dead-end fast food job. His family needed money, and Tyrone took on that responsibility. He lived the thug life, but didn’t breathe it like some of the other dogs in the club, and certainly wasn’t going to do it forever. Getting arrested for hitting a liquor store was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. It gave him a chance to reevaluate things.

Holding Cindy’s hand, simple act that it was, felt better and more real than anything he’d done while rolling with the People’s Nation. It didn’t matter that Cindy was white, or a drug addict. She radiated an inner strength, and had plans for what she’d do when she was released. Cindy was going to get a job waiting tables and save up money to go back to school. A simple ambition, but Tyrone had been without ambition for so long it made him realize the simple things in life were the ones worth doing. He’d always been good at math. Maybe he should try to do something with it. Become an accountant, or some shit like that.

“We should check on Tom,” Cindy glanced at the tent. “He shouldn’t be in there.”

“I think he’s lookin’ for his meds. Sara didn’t give him none tonight.”

“Still, he could be messing things up. Or stealing stuff.”

“True that, but we know what Tommy Boy is like when he’s off his pills. You wanna have to deal with him running around, trippin’ out on everything, ‘specially when things are falling apart?”

Cindy shook her head. Tyrone gently rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. Too many people would rather fight to the death to defend their bullheaded positions. Tyrone was impressed whenever someone changed their mind. It meant acting on reason, and with reason came self-improvement, as Sara often said.

“Where do you think everyone else is?” Cindy asked.

“Dunno.”

“What happened to Meadow?”

“Dunno. Sounded like someone dragged him off.”

“How about Sara and Laneesha? And Georgia? And what about Martin?”

“Don’t do no good to speculate on what we don’t know. They either all okay, or they ain’t. We find out when we find out.”

“Wassup, bitches?”

Tyrone turned toward Sara’s tent, and saw Tom posing there. What Tom was holding made Tyrone’s neck muscles bunch up.

Where did he get a gun?

The first time Tyrone ever held a piece was at age thirteen. An old Saturday night special, thirty-eight caliber, with a history going back dozens of crimes. It was put in his hands by Stony, a cold-as-ice muthafucker who ran the local club like it was the Marines. To Stony, guns weren’t toys to play with or bling to flash. They were tools. Like any tool, it was only as good as the person who held it.

Tyrone learned to shoot in a slumhouse basement, plinking empty soda cans propped onto a stacked pile of dead sod from fifty feet away. There wasn’t no gangsta-style double gun shooting, and certainly no holding a weapon sideways, like Tom was doing now.

Aiming right at Tyrone.

“You never point a weapon at somethin’ you don’ intend to kill,” Tyrone said, keeping his voice even.

Tom laughed. “What’s wrong, brutha? Making you nervous?”

“Tom! Put that down!”

“You gonna make me, skank?”

Tyrone gave Cindy’s hand a tight squeeze, told her under his breath to be cool, then gave her a little shove to the side and took a step toward Tom. Tom switched his aim to Cindy, which wasn’t Tyrone’s intent. He wanted Cindy out of the line of fire.

“Tommy boy, put that shit down before you hurt yourself.”

Tom swung back to Tyrone. “You think you’re so badass, Tyrone. You and Meadow. Bangin’ and jackin’ and doin’ drive-bys and shit. Don’t look so tough now.”

Tyrone took another step forward. Tom’s aim was twitching back and forth. That sideways grip looked cool in the movies, but unless you were point blank it was real tough to hit anything. It was tough enough to hit anything with both hands on the weapon and a steady target. Aiming a gun was a lot harder than it looked. Tyrone had been in one firefight, him and a brother named Maurice against two boppers from a rival outfit. It went down in an alley, and they were twenty yards away from each other with no cover. Sixteen shots fired, no one hitting anything except for bricks and asphalt before both cliques ran off.

Still, Tyrone didn’t want to get ventilated by a lucky shot, and having a gun pointed anywhere close to him was a sobering situation. Time was moving so slow that Tyrone felt like he could sense each blood cell inchworming through his veins. He desperately wanted to get his life back on track, to live up to his potential, to make his mama and grandmamma proud. Dying out in the woods because some loony kid was off his meds was not the way he wanted to go out.

“You ever shot a gun before, Tom?”

Tom sneered. “Plenty of times.”

He was lying. Tyrone was good at spotting lies, but with Tom it was easy. Every third thing out of that kid’s mouth was BS.

“I bet you a ten-spot you can’t hit that log Martin been sittin’ on.”

Tom glanced sideways. “I can hit that, no problem.”

Tyrone put his hands in his pockets, all cool and casual, and walked two steps closer. He was fifteen feet away from Tom. As soon as the boy gave him a chance, he was going to bum rush the fool. No use trying to talk down a head case.

“I give you three tries to nail it.”

“You really don’t think I can hit that log?”

Tyrone took another step. “I’m puttin’ my money on it.”

“Log’s too easy.” Tom grinned, his eyes glinting in the firelight, and then he switched his aim. “How about I try for Cindy instead?”

Georgia walked alongside Lester, through the woods, barely able to see because of the darkness. The tall man had his hand under her armpit, gripping her biceps, and his fingers were so long they completely encircled her arm. It wasn’t a powerful hold, and Georgia probably could have twisted away, but to what end? She had nowhere to run to.

“Where are we going?”

“Lester is taking the girl to his playroom.”

“It sounds fun.” Actually, it didn’t sound fun at all. Georgia felt her whole body shudder, conjuring up images of what horrible things this man had in his playroom.

“It is fun. For Lester.”

“Maybe I’ll have fun too.”

He stopped and looked down at her. The moon peeked through the trees, silhouetting his massive form.

“No, the girl won’t. No one ever does. The girl will beg to die, like all the others.”

Georgia didn’t hesitate. She reached up her free hand and put it behind Lester’s neck—it was like hanging onto a tree—and then she leaned up and kissed him.

She’d never kissed a boy before, let alone a man, let alone a maniac. But she knew everything in life was about control. So far, he’d been calling the shots. But maybe she could confuse him a little bit.

Lester did seem confused, and when her mouth locked on his he pulled slightly back, lifting her up off her feet, her body pressing into his.

Georgia held on for a moment, couldn’t sustain her own weight, then dropped to the ground.

The rejection was almost as painful as the thought of what this psycho was going to do to her. She knew she wasn’t attractive. And even though she was seventeen, a year past the age of consent in Michigan, she often wondered if she’d die a virgin. Georgia preferred to remain asexual, and her fantasies were more about hurting others than getting laid.

But, still, her first kiss, and the creep pulled away.

“Don’t you like me?” she asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

Lester didn’t reply.

“I like you.” Georgia reached for his pants, her hand brushing against him. When she touched his fly she lit up. He was hard.

Were men really that easy to manipulate?

“You do like me. So why can’t you kiss me?”

Lester bent down again. “Lester can kiss. But he might chew on the girl’s lips and bite off the girl’s pretty little tongue.”

“The girl’s name is Georgia,” she said, tilting up her chin and kissing him again before she lost her nerve. At first, his mouth was closed, his lips cool and still. Then he opened his mouth, just a bit, and she probed inside with her tongue.

His teeth were sharp, sharp enough to draw blood if she pressed against them too hard. If he actually tried to bite he could probably tear off her lower jaw.

She forced her tongue in deeper, touching his, poking against it. Lester’s tongue was wet and slimy like raw liver, but not wholly unpleasant. Then his mouth closed a bit, the pointy teeth trapping her, exerting just enough pressure for it to just begin to hurt, for blood just to begin flowing.

Georgia didn’t pull away. Instead, she stuck her hand down the front of Lester’s pants.

Lester’s whole body went rigid, and Georgia thought she’d screwed up, that he was going to munch on her with those terrible teeth, gnaw every bit of flesh off of her face.

And then, unexpectedly, he moaned.

I actually made a man moan.

She felt almost giddy with power, kissing him even deeper, beginning to work her hand in a way she guessed a man would like.

Maybe it didn’t matter, and Lester would still take her back to his playroom and torture her to death. But at that moment, Georgia felt wonderfully normal, like those braindead cheerleaders she used to go to school with, or the old couple who lived in her mom’s apartment building that were always holding hands. She thought about returning to the campsite, and when those losers asked her where she’d been, she could them that she was in the woods, making out.

Georgia gripped him hard as she could, and then his huge hands were around her waist, making her feel dainty, and she might have even moaned a little too, and then she tasted something tangy and realized it was blood and that it was hers.

Sara jumped back so fast she fell onto her ass. The corpse of the man she’d killed flopped over onto its side. Then it was still.

Reflex action, Sara thought. Like a chicken still running around after its head has been cut off.

Sara had a pre-med roomie in college who told her all sorts of stories about dead bodies twitching, opening their eyes, even making sounds.

“I just had like fifteen heart attacks.” Laneesha had both hands clasped to her chest. “He really dead?”

Sara nodded. “Let’s go back, find Martin.”

“How many more of these crazies you think are in the woods?”

“I don’t know. That’s why we need to get back to the camp.”

They moved slowly, the flashlight so pathetically weak now that a match would have been brighter. Sara knew they hadn’t run far from Martin, and she felt they were going in the right direction, but the trees all looked the same and it was so easy to get disoriented. She considered calling out to him, but as badly as she wanted to find her husband she didn’t want to announce their presence to whatever else might be lurking in the woods.

Movement, to their left. Something was rustling a bush.

Sara aimed the beam in that direction, and that’s the moment the Maglight finally went dead.

She held her breath, Laneesha clinging to her arm so hard it hurt, listening to the rustling as it faded out. For a bad moment Sara felt like she was locked in that awful trunk again. The darkness was too big, too heavy, pressing on her from all sides and making it impossible to move.

“Sara?”

Martin.

“Are you and Laneesha okay?”

His voice broke the spell, and Sara tore away from Laneesha and ran to him, throwing her arms around his familiar form, Jack cooing and wiggling between them, the hug feeling so good and right that it made the desperation of their predicament fade just a little bit.

Then the relief was replaced by confusion, and anger. She took Jack and pushed Martin away, keeping him at arm’s length.

“Martin, what the hell is going on?”

Sara felt his shoulders slump. His voice was thick, pained, and he winced when he spoke. “I don’t know.”

“That whole campfire story. That civil war prison. You made that up. Right?”

“No. I mean…it’s just a story. A story that I remember from camp when I was a kid in Boy Scouts. Scared the wits out of me and my little brother. But it’s not true. It can’t be true.”

“What happened back at the campsite? Were you dragged off?”

“That was supposed to be a joke. I was going to pop out and scare everyone. But before I could, some people grabbed me, strung me up.”

“So you don’t know what’s going on?”

His face sank, his red eyes looking desperate. “Honey, I swear, I’m just as freaked out as you are. I picked this island because I’ve been here before. I didn’t know there was anyone else here; Sara. Jesus, I would never do anything to hurt you or the kids. You know that.”

Sara did know that. Martin got moody sometimes, but he was one of the gentlest people she had ever met. This man would catch and release spiders he found in the house rather than kill them. Sara knew he’d gladly die to defend her.

“What about Plincer? You said this was Plincer’s island. That name sounds familiar.”

“That’s just what we’ve always called this island. Sara, we need to get out of here. When they grabbed me—I counted at least five of those people. Maybe more. We need to get back to the campsite. Do you have the flashlight?”

“It died.”

“Give it here.”

Sara handed the flashlight over. Her husband moaned when he took it.

“Help me, we need to open it.”

Her fingers grazed his swollen hands, then grasped them gently. Together they unscrewed the back off the Maglite. Martin dumped the batteries onto his palm.

“Do you have an emery board?”

“No. Laneesha? You have a nail file?”

“I don’ go nowhere without one. Y’all don’ allow no acrylics, so I gotta make do with what God gave me.”

“Let me borrow it,” Martin said.

Laneesha handed Sara the thin strip of cardboard, the size of a popsicle stick. Martin pressed the batteries between his palms.

“Sand the tops and bottoms. Really rough them up. And then dab the ends in the blood on my wrists. This’ll make them more conductive, suck a bit more energy out of them.”

Sara followed instructions, then popped the Ds back into the flashlight. Light trickled out, faint yellow but better than nothing. She swept it over the trees. If she just found a single orange ribbon, they could get their bearings and get back to the campsite. Then they could use the radio, call for help, and get off this crazy island.

Sara spotted orange, but it was dead leaves, not a ribbon. The strips were phosphorescent, and glowed like reflectors when light hit them. Why couldn’t they find any?

“Where the hell are those ribbons?”

Martin put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll find them.”

She flicked the beam from one trunk, to another, to another. Nothing.

“We must have tied a few dozen.”

“We’ll find them.”

Sara spun around, tried the other direction. All the trees looked the same. Every damn tree looked the same. They just needed to find one, dammit. This island wasn’t that big. How hard could it be to find a single goddamn…

Then Sara heard something horrible.

“Oh, god, no…”

In the distance. Faint, but obvious.

Screaming.

“Can you hear that?”

“What, hon?”

“Someone screaming.”

Martin looked around. “That’s the wind.”

“It’s not the wind. It’s one of the kids. Do you hear it Laneesha?”

The teen cocked her head. “I don’ hear nothin’.”

Sara began to walk faster. “Which direction is it coming from? We have to help.”

“Sara…you need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Martin. That’s one of our kids out there.”

The screams seemed to get louder, more frantic. What was happening to that poor child? What could cause someone to scream like that? The thought of somebody hurting one of her kids was—

Sara felt herself get grabbed from behind. She went on automatic, widening her stance, shifting her body to flip the attacker. But he got his leg between hers, preventing her leverage, one hand snaking over her mouth and the other reaching for the flashlight.

Sara bared her teeth, ready to chew the bastard’s fingers off, when Martin’s voice whispered in her ear.

“Kill the light. They’ve found us.”

Sara tapped the Maglite button just as she noticed three…four…six…no, at least eight people—filthy and ragged and obviously insane—walk into the clearing just ten yards ahead of them.

Cindy watched Tom turn the gun on her, so clear and precise that it seemed like slow-motion. He aimed it at her chest. She could feel a cold spot where the bullet would enter, right next to her heart. It made her knees shake.

Growing up in northern Michigan, Cindy knew guns. Her dad had several, and when money was tight—and it usually was—he would supplement groceries with fresh rabbit, possum, and deer.

Knowing the damage guns could do, and the respect they demanded, made her understand the depths of Tom’s stupidity. Even at this distance she could see the pistol was cocked, which meant the slightest touch of the trigger, or even dropping the gun, could cause it to fire.

It made Cindy realize, with a combination of both fear and relief, that she didn’t want to die.

Being in rehab before, and being around other addicts, showed Cindy how deadly meth was. It killed you three times. First, it killed your will, making you a slave to another fix. Then it killed your looks, turning you into a toothless, underweight skeleton. Then it finally snuffed out your life, but by that point the end was welcome.

Cindy had begged, borrowed, and stolen to get high, giving up everything she cared about. She even had meth mouth, her teeth starting to rot in her head, losing three molars before being put into the Center. Her first few months at the Center, Cindy didn’t care if she lived or died. She thought she wanted to straighten out her life, but she was unsure if that was just the therapy talking.

But now she knew. Staring down the barrel of the gun, Cindy wanted to live.

“Tom. Don’t point that at me. It’s not funny.”

Tom stuck out his chest. “Who’s trying to be funny? I know what you—what all of you—think of me. You think I’m some kind of joke. You laughing at me now?”

Cindy cast a quick glance at Tyrone, his knees bent and his head slightly lowered, and figured he was getting ready to rush Tom. Tyrone was fast, but bullets were faster.

“I never thought you were a joke, Tom. I always liked you.”

“Is that why you were holding hands with Tyrone? You pretending he was me?”

Cindy forced a smile, tried her best to make it look genuine. “If you wanted to hold my hand, all you had to do was ask. But how much do you think pointing a gun at me will make me like you?”

“I don’t care who likes me.”

“Sure you do, Tom. Isn’t that why you stole that car? For attention? But there’s good attention and bad attention. This is just more bad attention.”

“Give me a break, Cindy. I’m not the loser here. How many guys you suck off to get a fix? Is that why you’re playing Tyrone? You think he’s got some ice?”

Cindy let the smile fall away, and anger replaced some of her fear.

“Do you like it here, Tom? Because if you shoot me, the place you’re going will be a lot worse, and for a much longer time. No juvee hall. You’ll be tried as an adult, stuck in general pop. Then we’ll see how many guys you suck off to stay alive.”

Tom lowered the gun, just a fraction. Then Tyrone lunged, crossing the distance between him and Tom in two steps, driving a shoulder into the kid’s chest while stiff-arming Tom’s gun hand up and away from Cindy.

Tom toppled like he was on hinges, the gun arcing out of his hand and plopping into the campfire with a puff of sparks.

Cindy’s automatic instinct was to reach for it, but she stopped. She’d gotten burned before. Second degree on both hands. That’s why she didn’t roast a hotdog or marshmallows earlier. Fire scared the crap out of Cindy.

She often had nightmares about it. The meth lab, her friend cooking a batch, the flask of chemicals exploding and setting him ablaze. He ran at her, screaming, and she had to push him away to keep from dying herself, scorching her hands in the process. They healed, with minimal scarring, but the pain wasn’t anything she’d ever forget.

Badly as she wanted the gun, Cindy knew there was no way she’d reach into fire to get it.

Instead, she ran toward Tyrone and Tom. Tyrone was straddling him, one hand on Tom’s neck, the other raised to punch him in the face.

Cindy caught Tyrone’s fist, held it back.

“Don’t.”

“Fool needs to be taught.”

“He’s off his medicine, Tyrone. Beating him up won’t teach him anything.”

Tom looked small, terrified, a big difference from the swaggering macho dipshit he’d been seconds ago.

“Apologize to the lady,” Tyrone told him.

Tom wheezed out, “I’m sorry.”

“You ever gonna try that shit again?”

Tom shook his head, much as he could with his throat being squeezed.

“We’re all on the same side, fool. We gotta watch each other’s backs. And y’all are trippin’ on Clint Eastwood. Be cool.”

Tom nodded, and Tyrone got off him. Cindy still held Tyrone’s fist, which opened and then clasped her hand, and then he turned and looked at her, his face soft and his pupils wide. His free hand slid around her waist, pulling her a little closer, and Cindy felt her legs get weak again.

Tom had been wrong. She hadn’t ever done anything sexual for drugs. When she was so far gone she was willing to, the boys she hung out with her too far gone to want any. So her experience was limited to a few French kisses, and a freshman year groping session on a couch that felt more like wrestling than foreplay.

But looking up at Tyrone, she felt her knees start to shake for the second time in only a few minutes, and as his lips moved slightly closer she tilted her chin up and began to close her eyes.

“Jesus!”

Tom’s outburst was followed by him tearing ass into the woods, disappearing into the dark.

Both Cindy and Tyrone looked in the opposite direction, at what had made Tom run.

Three men stood along the tree line. They were each tall and thin, dressed in dirty, ripped clothes. Cindy knew Martin had made up that Civil War cannibal story, but that’s exactly what these men looked like. Like crazed cannibals out of an old horror movie.

“What do you want?” Tyrone barked at the men, moving Cindy behind him.

Astonishingly, the one in the middle stepped forward, and out of his pockets he pulled a rusty knife and fork.

Meadow had gone insane with pain, sometime shortly after his eyes boiled and burst. But now, even though a thin thread of consciousness remained, he was at peace. The agony was gone. He had no way of knowing it was because most of the nerves on the front side of his body had burned away, but had he known, he wouldn’t have cared. All that mattered was he didn’t hurt anymore. His throat was too swollen to scream anyway.

Then they flipped him over onto his uncooked side, and the screaming began again.

When Georgia felt Lester’s horrible teeth begin to pierce her tongue, she squeezed his testicles. Not hard enough to cause damage, but as a warning; if he didn’t let up, neither would she.

Lester’s jaw clenched, and Georgia realized she’d judged him wrong. He was going to bite off her tongue, and her lips, and her face, and that would just be the beginning. The first man she’d ever kissed was going to make headcheese out of her.

But then his mouth opened, his own tongue snaking out of her mouth and across her lips in a way that made her chest feel heavy and her breath quicken. He stuck the tip into her ear, sending sparks throughout her body. His tongue flicked across her chin, down her neck.

This was all happening fast. Too fast. She’d never done anything like this before, and she didn’t know this guy at all. Plus he was psychotic. Georgia knew she should be scared, and maybe she was. Her heart was beating so fast she couldn’t differentiate between fear and exhilaration.

Then he reached down, for the front of her jeans.

That was too fast for Georgia. As exciting and dangerous as this all was, she wasn’t going to let this psycho fuck her.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to be taken back to his playroom either.

So she compromised and jerked him off.

It wasn’t erotic, at least not for Georgia. In fact, she found the whole process strangely mechanical, and more than a little tiring. But she did feel a tremendous sense of control. The same kind of control she felt when cutting the feet off a gerbil. Lester was moaning and helpless in her hands, and even though it made her feel powerful Georgia wondered what the hell he was going to do to her when she was finished.

When Martin was a little boy, he wanted to be a doctor. He didn’t really have an interest in medicine, and got woozy at the sight of blood. But he had an inner drive to care for people who needed help.

At fifteen years old he and his older brother Joe went on a camping trip, a tradition that began when both boys were younger and would continue on into adulthood. This particular excursion was in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Three days in the woods, no adult supervision. Martin and Joe didn’t suffer from the sibling rivalry that plagued most brothers born a year apart, and they were the best of friends. Camping with Joe was Martin’s favorite time of the year.

The second day into their hike, Joe slipped and broke his leg—a nasty compound fracture that swelled up to the size of a melon. It was a decade before cell phones and GPS became commonplace, and a compass miscalculation put them two miles from the spot they told their parents they would be. Worst of all, it had happened in gray wolf territory. Joe was hurt so bad he couldn’t move, drifting in and out of consciousness. If Martin left him, chances were high the wolves would kill Joe before he could return with help.

So Martin stayed with his brother, gathering food and water, keeping the fire going. And most importantly, talking.

Martin hadn’t understood the true power of words before that fateful trip. How talking about the future, of dreams and hopes, of fears and failures, could sustain a person in an increasingly hopeless situation. Martin learned more about Joe than he ever could have imagined. He also learned about himself. As sure as man needed to eat, sleep, and breathe, he needed to communicate.

The boys were rescued after four days. In a way, Martin was almost sad to see it end. He had bonded with, and helped save, a human being, and that was rewarding on a level he’d never dreamed possible.

Ironic how, so many years later, Joe would wind up in even worse trouble.

As for Martin, this incident led him from an interest in medicine to an interest in social science and psychology. Human nature, and the way people interact, never ceased to fascinate Martin. He thought he was unique in that curiosity, until he met Sara.

Sara’s desire to help others was only matched by her desire to learn. Unlike Martin, who believed that certain psychological problems could inhibit socialization, Sara was convinced that actions, not thoughts, dictated a person’s social potential. They were a perfect match for getting wayward youth back on track, Martin working on healing their psyches, Sara teaching them how to integrate into society.

And now, with the funding for the Center being cut, Martin was cut off from Sara as well. He’d hoped, on Plincer’s Island, to bond with Sara in a way they’d never bonded before.

But being attacked and hunted like animals hadn’t been part of the plan.

Martin hurt. His swollen hands throbbed in time with his pulse, and his face felt like it had been pulled off and sewn back on off-center. But these aches disappeared when he saw the tribe of crazies cross his path only a few dozen feet ahead.

Being caught by them once was enough for a lifetime, and the thought that they might get Sara or Laneesha was unacceptable. Because of this, his pain was surpassed by a surge of adrenalin that made him grab both women and drag them and Jack to the ground so they wouldn’t be seen. The trio collectively held their breath. Martin’s imagination boiled with images of horrific tortures and screaming victims, and he squeezed his eyes shut and decided, if need be, he’d fight to the death right here rather than let those bastards take him again.

The tribe moved closer, not bothering with stealth, marching single file and slapping wayward branches out of their way. Martin felt Laneesha squirm, and he kept hard pressure on her shoulder, preventing her from bolting and giving away their position.

Laneesha whimpered, a single sharp vowel, brief but unmistakably human. And loud enough to be heard by the hunters.

Martin watched as one of the feral people fell out of line, cocking a head in their direction. He took two steps toward them and stopped again, sniffing the air like a dog. This man was fatter than the others, his shoulders broad and powerful looking.

Again Laneesha squirmed, kicking some dead leaves, making a shuffling sound.

Dark as it was, Martin could see the hunter raise his arm. He was holding an ax.

Martin felt the tension in his legs, wondering how he could spring up from a prone position. He adjusted his toes, silently digging them into the ground for traction, forcing his crippled hands to grasp some loose dirt to throw in their attacker’s face.

Then there came a scream.

Not from Martin or the women, and not from any of the hunters. This came from deep in the forest, shrill and agonized, a sharp note that went on and on.

The axman turned toward the scream, then lumbered back into the woods.

Martin let out his breath. “Let’s wait a minute,” he whispered, his jaw throbbing and his tongue and cheeks feeling like he’d just gargled acid. “Make sure they’re gone.”

“Who’s screaming?” Laneesha said.

“I don’t know.”

“Martin.” He felt his wife’s hand grip his shoulder. “That’s one of our kids.”

Martin placed a thumb and forefinger on his eyes, rubbed them gently. “We don’t know that.”

The scream returned, a high-pitched chord that Martin could feel in his molars.

“That’s Meadow,” Laneesha said.

“We don’t know it’s Meadow, Laneesha.”

“Jesus, what are they doin’ to him?”

“Laneesha, you have to stay calm.”

“It’s Meadow. I know his voice. What could make him scream like that?”

Sara clutched Martin’s arm. “We have to help him, Martin.”

“Sara, I counted eight, eight, of those people. And even if it is Meadow, and it might not be, someone is making him scream like that. We have no idea how many of them there are on this island.”

Sara got up onto her knees. Their son was in his sling, asleep. Martin admired the child’s resilience.

“We still have to try,” his wife said.

Martin put his hand on the small of her back. “We will. I promise. But we need to get back to the campsite first.”

Another scream, weaker this time, ending in a horrible sob.

“We don’t have time,” Sara said, standing up.

Martin debated whether or not to tell her, and decided he had no choice. He painfully got to his feet and caught up with Sara, who was already heading toward the scream.

“Sara, I have something at the campsite we can use.” He paused. “A gun.”

Though he couldn’t see it, he could imagine the shocked look on his wife’s face.

“A gun, Martin?” Her voice was sharp. Sara didn’t like weapons of any sort. Knives especially, but guns were high on her list too. “Why the hell do you have a gun?”

“I took it as a precaution. Camping can be dangerous.”

“Do you know how dangerous it is to bring one along, especially with our kids? What if one of them found it?”

“It’s hidden.”

“Jesus, Martin, I didn’t even know you owned a gun.”

“Look, hon, I understand you’re angry, but this isn’t the time for righteous indignation. If that is Meadow out there, we need to find our camp, get the gun. That’s the only way we’ll have a chance against those people.”

Martin held Sara’s elbow, felt her tense up.

“Look,” he said, keeping the edge out of his voice, “I was a Boy Scout, remember? My brother and I both got our shooting merit badges. I know how to use weapons, Sara. Safely. And this could be Meadow’s only hope.”

He heard her sigh, and she stopped tugging against him. “How do we find camp?”

“The orange ribbons.”

“I’ve been looking for those for more than an hour.”

“I’m pretty sure I know where one is. Come on.” He walked back toward Laneesha, spoke quietly. “You doing okay?”

“This is one fucked up trip, Martin.”

Martin kept the smile off his face because it would have hurt too much. “That it is. Sara? The flashlight?”

She handed it over. Martin walked past, through a patch of dogwood, and found the large elm tree he remembered tying a ribbon to earlier. Sure enough, the reflective orange strip was wound proudly around the trunk.

“The next one should only be a few yards away,” he said. “Let’s all stick together, and try to stay quiet.”

Something touched Martin’s hand, and he flinched at both the surprise and the jolt of pain. He spun, saw Sara at his side.

Her touch was gentle but firm.

Much as it hurt, he grasped her hand back.

Tyrone pushed Cindy behind him, standing between her and the three men. He’d never seen cannibals before, but this trio looked just like he pictured they would. The dirt on their tattered clothing wasn’t dirt at all, but dried blood. Their beards and hair were tangled with burrs and twigs. Their eyes were crazy, darting every which way. The one in the middle—the one with the knife and fork—was actually drooling.

Tyrone reflexively reached for his hip, but there was no weapon. The only weapon nearby was currently roasting on a burning log in the campfire. On the one hand, Tyrone had no idea what the heat had done to the mechanisms and the bullets. He didn’t want to depend on a pistol and have it jam on him, or worse, blow up in his grasp.

On the other hand, he didn’t want to be eaten.

He quickly picked up one of the sticks they’d used for marshmallows and nudged the pistol off the log and through the ash, to cool ground, one eye on the cannibals. They just stood there, staring. Then the one with the cutlery spoke, his voice dry and raspy.

“Give…the… girl… and…we… let… you… go.”

He smiled when he said it, revealing a witch’s mouth of blackened and missing teeth.

Tyrone felt Cindy press against him.

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

The drool dribbled down the man’s beard. “Then… you… both… die.”

Tyrone shook his head. “That ain’t happenin’ neither.”

The cutlery man grunted at his two companions, and they each walked off in a different direction. Circling the campfire, moving toward Tyrone and Cindy.

Tyrone dug a hand in his pocket, pulled out the lining, and ripped. It tore away.

“Y’all don’ wanna do this.”

“Yes… we… do.” The cutlery man reached into his pants and pulled out…

No fucking way, Tyrone thought. It’s a salt shaker.

The two men flanking them came in low and slow, stalking like lions. The cutlery man stood his ground, cutting off that escape route. In just a few moments, Tyrone and Cindy would be surrounded in a tightening triangle.

Go time.

Wearing the ripped pocket like a sock puppet, he bent down and grabbed the pistol.

The cloth offered some protection from the heat, but in the time it took Tyrone to raise the gun and seek the trigger, the pain became overpowering and he dropped it between his feet.

None of the cannibals reacted to Tyrone’s attempt, not even pausing in their approach.

“Shit,” Tyrone said. Again he reached for the gun.

It felt like holding a hot coal, and every instinct, every nerve in his body, screamed at him to drop it, to pull away from the pain.

Tyrone grimaced, aimed, fighting to hold on, his finger frantically seeking the trigger, trying to get it inside the trigger guard—

And he dropped it again.

His hand was definitely burned, and he felt that sick dizzy feeling of being badly injured. He chanced a look. The cloth of the pocket had burned away in spots, revealing bloody blisters.

The cannibals now had them surrounded.

Tyrone stared down at the gun, gritting his teeth, his hand twitching. He needed to pick that son of a bitch up, but his brain and his body were deadlocked. Even as he bent for it a third time, his hand refused to go near it.

So Tyrone grabbed it lefty.

This time his finger got inside the trigger guard on the first try, and the gun was already cocked, making the pull easy. He raised, aimed, and fired in less than two seconds. The weapon kicked in his hand, and he let go again, it falling to the ground beside him.

His target, the cannibal approaching on their right, jerked his head back. The bullet hit him just above his right eye. He stood there for a moment, then dropped like his strings had been cut, flopping onto his knees, then his side.

Tyrone had both hands to his face, blowing on them, eyeing the next immediate threat while psyching himself up to reach for the gun again.

But there was no next threat. Rather than continue their attack, the cutlery man and his companion slunk over to their fallen comrade.

The knife and fork flashed in the firelight. Tyrone refused to watch, pulling his shirt up over his head, backing up, and wrapping the hot gun in the fabric.

He heard Cindy gag. “Oh…my god…”

“Don’ look at them.”

“They’re eating him.”

Tyrone kept his eyes averted. “We gotta get outta here. When I say run, we run.”

“He’s still wiggling. Tyrone, he’s not even dead yet.”

Tyrone stared into the woods. They were dark. Too dark. Without light they’d be walking around in circles. He needed a torch.

“Gimme your shirt,” Tyrone said. He turned and stared at Cindy. She was watching the cannibals, her face a mask of horror and revulsion. He gently touched her chin, turning her face toward his.

“Cindy. I need your shirt.”

She nodded, lifting it up over her head. In just her bra she looked smaller and younger, and she automatically folded her arms, either out of cold or shame.

Tyrone located the half-full bag of marshmallows near the fire. He had no idea if this idea would work, but he knew from recent experience these things burned nice and slow. He wrapped Cindy’s shirt around the bag, then tied that to the end of a two foot branch from their firewood pile.

When he placed the branch in the flames to ignite it, he chanced another look at the cannibals, just to make sure they weren’t planning another attack.

The cutlery man’s mouth was full, his cheeks distended. Blood dribbled down his face, mingling with the drool. He noticed Tyrone’s gaze, and while watching him, shook some salt onto something red and shiny he held in his hand.

Tyrone felt the bile churn in his stomach. He picked up the torch, tucked the shirt and gun under his armpit, and told Cindy it was time to go.

Twenty yards into the forest, Tyrone dropped the gun, dropped the torch, and fell to his knees and vomited.

Cindy knelt next to Tyrone, patting his back, comforting him until he was ready to go on.

When Lester Paks was a little boy, he was diagnosed with Stereotypic Movement Disorder. Rather than the more common repetitive behaviors associated with SMD, such as hand waving, rocking, or fiddling with fingers, Lester’s affliction was more severe.

He could not stop biting himself.

While SMD was often associated with mental retardation, Lester had a higher than average IQ. But something wrong in his brain compelled him to stick his fingers, hands, arms, and even feet, into his mouth and gnaw.

Medications and behavior modification therapy had little effect. In the first grade, his disorder escalated sharply. Instead of limiting his bites to himself, he began biting other things. Furniture. Appliances. Pets.

It culminated when he locked his jaws onto a classmate named Jesse Sloan, and it took six people to pull him off.

Lester went into an institution after that. They kept him drugged up, and when that didn’t stop the biting, they removed his baby teeth.

When his adult teeth grew in, he was given an orthodontic device that prevented him from opening his mouth more than a centimeter. After more drugs, and therapy, and nine years in the institution, he was finally able to get his disorder under enough control to be released. By then puberty had arrived, and blessed Lester with a large stature. At age fifteen, he stood a foot taller than most adults.

Lester celebrated his release by running away from home, removing the orthodontic block with a hammer and pliers, and abducting a forty-year-old woman at a gas station. During his two days with her, he learned about the joys of sex, of causing fear and pain, and of biting without any restraint at all. Her cause of death was listed as exsanguination—blood loss resulting from over three hundred of his special little kisses.

Lester was caught, tried as an adult, and caught an incredible break. A brilliant doctor testified in his defense, and got him free. Later, the doctor was able to cure him of his SMD. Lester still had the compulsion to bite, but he no longer desired to bite himself. This meant he could finally live out a lifelong dream without fear of self-mutilation.

It took countless sessions, sitting in front of a mirror with a power drill and a nail file. But when he was finished, twelve of Lester’s front teeth had been sharpened into points that rivaled any predator in the animal kingdom.

The biting became much more fulfilling after that.

Lester’s hips spasmed and he came, moaning deep in his throat.

Then he smiled and took a picture.

Prior to this, Lester never had any sexual experience that was consensual. This Georgia girl was the first person to ever come on to him. And though, like the others, she seemed afraid, she also seemed very willing.

Because of that, Lester had no immediate desire to chew her into little pieces. The idea of an active participant was so exciting that he was able to keep the biting urge in check.

He bent down to kiss her, and she didn’t pull away. She opened her mouth to him fully, jabbing at his tongue with hers, even grinding her hips up against him.

Yes indeed, this Georgia girl was something special.

“Lester is taking Georgia girl home.”

Her eyes got big, and she sucked on her lower lip. “To your playroom?”

“Yes. But Lester won’t hurt Georgia girl. He likes her. He wants to show her something.”

Her hands moved down, grabbing him again. “Lester already showed Georgia girl something. And she really liked it.”

Lester blushed, and then felt the stirrings of a second arousal. But this wasn’t a good place for sex. The feral people were around. They feared Lester, but there were too many, so he had to stay on guard.

He zipped up the fly in his overalls. “Lester wants to show Georgia girl the pet. Lester thinks Georgia girl will like it.”

The girl tugged up her pants and stood, and for a brief moment she looked scared and Lester thought she was going to run. That would be bad. Lester would have to chase her, and then he’d take her to the playroom and tie her up and hurt her very badly.

But she didn’t run. Georgia girl reached out and took his arm, resting her cheek against his elbow.

Yes, she would like meeting the pet. And afterward, Lester would introduce her to Doctor. But Doctor wouldn’t give this one to Subject 33. Not this one.

This one, Lester was going to keep.

Sara found the next ribbon in the direction Martin said it would be. After hours of fruitlessly searching for the damn things, her relief was palpable. But so was her fear. Every moment they remained undiscovered seemed like borrowed time.

The trio moved slowly, stopping often to listen if they were being followed.

All they heard was screaming. Meadow’s screaming.

Sara walked with her shoulders rigid, her fists clenched, tucking Jack’s blanket up around his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear it.

Please, stop screaming.

Every wail was worse than a slap. As a psychologist, she knew about the mental processes involved in certain instances of child abuse—research she boned up on to better understand Georgia, who put a child in a clothes dryer. The trigger of Shaken Baby Syndrome was usually a frustrated caregiver who couldn’t take the crying, and began to resent the very life they were supposed to protect.

For God’s sake, just stop.

Then Sara had her son. She was in labor for eight and a half hours with Jack. Toward the end she was exhausted, wracked by pain, and just wanted the whole damn “miracle of birth” thing to be over with so she could get some sleep.

But then Jack finally entered the world, and when she was holding him in her arms and looking into his tiny eyes the implication of it all hit her harder than the labor did. Sara felt love like it was a physical force, and she swore she would do everything in her power to make this little person happy. It was an absolute joy she hadn’t ever experienced, before or since.

The idea that anyone could lose control and hurt a child was monstrous.

But after listening to Meadow’s screams for more than ten minutes, Sara began to lose control. She recognized it happening, knew the reason why, and still couldn’t stop it. Rage coursed through her, and it wasn’t directed at whoever was hurting Meadow.

It was directed at Meadow.

Just shut up, please just shut up. Why won’t you fucking shut…

And then the screaming stopped. Sara stood still, listening.

Crickets and nothing else.

The silence came with a real measure of relief. But at the same time, Sara feared it meant Meadow’s death. The fear trumped the relief, the weight of the realization threatening to sink Sara into the ground. Having one of her kids run away was bad enough. But Meadow actually dying? Dying when it was her job to protect him?

Oh no. Oh no no no.

Sara fell apart.

Laneesha sidled up to her. She’d been walking with her fingers in her ears, and in the moonlight her face glistened like a wet plum. Sara hugged the teen, who hugged back, and they spent a moment sobbing.

Martin touched Sara’s hair.

“We have to keep going, hon.”

“But Meadow… he’s…”

Martin pulled Sara in close, and she felt herself melt into him. “I know. But we have other kids that need our help. We have to be strong for them.”

Sara nodded, wiped a fist across her face, rubbing away tears, and began searching for the next ribbon. As she walked, she raged against the conflict going on inside of her. One part, grateful the screaming had ended. The other, angry at herself for being grateful. Add this shame to the horror of murdering a man, and Sara questioned her capabilities to counsel children, or anyone else for that matter. Her job description required empathy, along with the ability to dispassionately disconnect. Sara seemed unable to do either.

That made Sara even more disgusted. On top of everything going on, she had to throw herself a pity party.

“We should be there soon,” Martin said, coming up behind her. He spoke deliberately, a measure of pain in his voice.

Sara knew this was a completely inappropriate time to bring it up, but she did anyway.

“Martin. You haven’t signed the divorce papers yet.”

He was silent for a moment, then said. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. But if that’s what you really want…”

“What I really want is you.”

In the darkness, his hand found hers.

“Then let’s not give up on us yet,” he said, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Can I hold Jack? That screaming…well…it got to me.”

Sara understood completely. She gave her sleeping son a kiss on his head and passed him, sling and all, over to his father. Martin slipped the straps over his shoulders and patted Jack’s back. It was something she’d seen dozens of times before, and the thought of never seeing it again was devastating.

If—no—when they got out of here, she would do everything she could to make their marriage, and their family, work.

“How many ribbons have you counted?” Martin asked.

“Ten or eleven.”

“If we’re going in the right direction, the campsite should be very close.”

“Or we’re heading toward the lake, and will have to retrace all of our steps. We need to pick up the pace, Martin. If there’s any chance Meadow is—”

Laneesha’s scream cut Sara off. She rushed over to the teen, flashlight bobbling, and aimed the beam at the large hill of rubble the girl was facing.

The hill was well over ten feet high, and stretched on for dozens of yards. It was pale gray, made up of what appeared to be stones and branches.

Laneesha clutched Sara’s shoulder, hard enough to make her wince. It pushed Sara closer to the mound, and in a moment that seemed utterly surreal, Sara realized that those weren’t stones and branches.

It was a gigantic pile of human bones.

The boy wasn’t quite dead yet, but his meat was so tender it practically fell off the bone. They feasted, filling their bellies to bursting, fighting among themselves for the juiciest parts.

Though they hunted as a pack, they had no bonds with each other. Their broken minds reduced them to something less than human, driving them to fulfill their base needs at any cost. Higher mental functioning was gone, leaving only a compulsion to kill, to feed, to kill again.

If there were no strangers on the island, they showed no reluctance in attacking one another. For food. And for something just as primal; the unquenchable desire to hunt and kill.

This was a compulsion buried deep within all creature’s brains, as primitive as the first vertebrates to inhabit the planet, eons ago.

In most human beings, this compulsion was repressed.

In them, it had been liberated.

When the urge came upon them, they couldn’t control it. And if there was no fresh meat to hunt, they hunted each other.

But now there was fresh meat on the island. Plenty of it.

And though their hunger for food was momentarily sated, their hunger for death was not.

When Laneesha was a little girl, she wanted to be a big girl. Or more precisely, an adult. She found children her own age boring, much preferring the company of grown-ups. Dolls and games of tag weren’t nearly as stimulating to her as learning to cook, sew, and knit from her mother, change the oil on the car and spackle drywall like her father, bake like grandma, and repair appliances like Uncle Ralph.

Uncle Ralph wasn’t actually her uncle. He was a friend of Dad’s. He was also the nicest adult Laneesha knew, treating her as an equal even when she was as young as six. He never talked down to her, never reprimanded her, never was anything but 100% cool.

When Laneesha turned sixteen, she realized the next step in adulthood was motherhood. She babysat all the neighborhood kids, and wanted one of her own. So she decided to get pregnant. To accomplish this she sought out the one person who she knew would make an excellent father, and after riding with him to a house to install a satellite TV system, she seduced Uncle Ralph in the back seat of his repair van.

He resisted, at first. But she was legal, and insistent, and Ralph didn’t have a girlfriend at the time. The affair was short lived—a guilt-ridden Uncle Ralph broke it off after only three trysts. But three was enough. Laneesha, now pregnant, assumed that stand-up Uncle Ralph would do the right thing. She was mature enough to know he wasn’t going to marry her, but expected child support and shared custody.

Instead, her father beat the hell out of Uncle Ralph, ordering him to never see her again, and then insisted she terminate the pregnancy. Laneesha refused, and her father kicked her out. Uncle Ralph also refused to see her again, offering her the money for an abortion and nothing else.

Laneesha had no friends because she’d never bothered to make any. She was forced to live in shelters, and eventually gave birth to her beautiful daughter, Brianna. But welfare checks didn’t stretch very far for a young mother. Without a babysitter she couldn’t get a job, and without a job she couldn’t get a babysitter, so she took to shoplifting to survive.

Chicago had many chain department stores, and Laneesha kept her strategy simple. She’d steal something at one store, then return it at another store for the cash. If they refused to give her cash, as they sometimes did without a receipt, she traded the item for something she needed, or something she could pawn.

It worked for several months. Laneesha began looking for a place of her own, and was planning on getting a job and a nanny once she saved up a thousand dollars. She was only sixty bucks short of her goal when a dumb department store clerk became distracted and left a pair of expensive diamond earrings on the counter unattended. It was only for a few seconds, but Laneesha couldn’t resist the temptation. She grabbed them, shoved them in Brianna’s diaper, and beat a hasty retreat.

But she was caught. Even worse, the store had tapes of her stealing four other items over the course of several months. It had been a trap. They pressed charges for grand theft, social services took Brianna, and Laneesha wound up at the Center.

The Center made her realize two things. First, people her own age weren’t so bad. Meadow, for all his frontin’, was actually a pretty good guy. Not daddy material, but they developed a bond that Laneesha could honestly say was love. Second, Laneesha was more determined than ever to get released and get Brianna back. And she was on track to do so. A hearing was coming up, and Sara was going to recommend parole, and once she had a job she was going to begin the steps to reclaim her child. Maybe Meadow would even be in the picture.

But staring at that huge pile of bones after half an hour of listening to Meadow’s tortured screams made Laneesha doubt she’d ever get off the island alive.

Laneesha clung to Sara, digging her carefully manicured nails into the psychologist’s arm, staring at the most horrifying thing she’d ever seen.

“How…how many you think?” she asked.

“Thousands,” Sara whispered.

Martin took the light from Sara, moved closer to the pile. “These bones are old. Really old.”

“Who are they?” Laneesha asked.

Martin shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Sara began to back up, pulling Laneesha along with her. “Martin, those… wild people. They must have retied the ribbons. To lead us to this place. They’re probably coming right now.”

Martin went rigid, then whispered. “I think they’re already here.”

Laneesha felt like she stuck her finger in a socket, electricity jolting through her and prompting her to run somewhere, anywhere. She broke away from Sara and dashed into the field of bones.

There were no trees here, and the moon was bright, so Laneesha could move much faster than she had in the woods. Part of her brain registered Sara yelling her name, but Laneesha wasn’t going to stop. Not for Sara. Not for anybody. While Laneesha feared those crazy cannibal people, she had more to think about than just her life. If she died, Brianna would be motherless.

Not a day, not an hour, went by when Laneesha didn’t long for her beautiful daughter. Being separated from Brianna was a physical ache that dominated Laneesha’s every action, every thought. She would see her daughter again, and love and protect and raise her, and nothing was going to stop that. Not now. Not ever.

Laneesha turned a quick corner around the mound, kicking something that she realized was a skull, switching directions again and seeking out the woods. She could hide in the trees, wait until morning. Then she would find the camp, radio that boat guy, and live to be with Brianna again. Hopefully, Sara and Martin and the rest of them would make it too. But a part of Laneesha, a large part, also made her understand that if those cannibals were busy eating the others, they would have full bellies and be less inclined to track her down.

It’s all for Brianna, she told herself.

But stupid as it was, she couldn’t find the trees. Earlier, she thought she’d be stuck in the woods forever, never seeing the clear sky again. Now all she saw was sky and bones.

The bones were everywhere, a giant garbage dump of various-sized mounds, some only as high as her hip, others too tall to see over. There was no real path, no real direction, and Laneesha took another turn and found herself standing on top of an unstable pile. She stopped, turned, and her foot got stuck. Lanessha looked down, saw she was caught in some sort of trap.

No, not a trap. A man’s ribcage.

Another spark of panic made her cry out, kicking the foul thing off her foot, pushing onward through the bone field. There was no ground any more, no dirt. She waded, calf-deep, through bones. When she tried to get on top of them, they wouldn’t support her completely. Laneesha had a ridiculous thought about Chuck E Cheese, that children’s pizza slash arcade with the room filled with thousands of plastic balls. It was impossible to stand up in that room, and almost as difficult standing here.

Laneesha attempted to backtrack, feeling bones snap under her weight—bones, Jesus, these were once inside human beings—and she tripped, falling face first into the pile.

The pain was sharp and made her draw a breath. She turned onto her side, tried to sit up, her hands fluttering around the knife embedded in her shoulder.

But, of course, it wasn’t a knife at all.

I’ve got someone’s bone sticking in me.

Laneesha felt the blood drain from her head, the whole world start to spin. But she couldn’t pass out, for Brianna’s sake, so she twisted onto all fours and began to crawl, determined to get away, determined to survive.

Then the smell hit her. A musty, rotten stench, moist and cloying. It reminded Laneesha of food gone bad. But this wasn’t food, this was people. People who once breathed and loved and laughed and feared just like her. Laneesha shut her eyes and crunched up her face so her lips blocked her nostrils, and moved even faster while she tried not to puke.

The throb in her shoulder stabbed deeper, hurting ten times worse, and Laneesha cried out. She tried to move, but couldn’t.

The bone had caught on something.

Laneesha didn’t want to touch it, and she tried to ease back, but she felt like she’d been staked to the spot. Eyes still closed, she raised a hesitant hand to her shoulder, felt the object she was stuck to.

The bone had caught on something large and bumpy, shaped sort of like a big pretzel.

Someone’s pelvis.

Laneesha pushed, but the pelvis held firm. Then she tried to pull the bone from her shoulder and almost passed out. While the bone was no bigger than a hot dog, it was old and brittle. When Laneesha tried to remove it, the bone splintered, digging in like a fishhook barb,

Laneesha had to take a breath, becoming dangerously light-headed, her gorge rising fast. She cradled the pelvis in her hand and tried to lift. It was attached to something. Not having any choice, she looked down.

Legs. Bits of sinew still connected the pelvis to two decimated leg bones.

Laneesha jerked up, and the hip joints pulled free of their sockets with a cracking sound. Then she crawled, one hand pressing the pelvis to her chest, crawled through the bones until she could stand up again.

Only a few yards away, silhouetted by the moonlight, a man rushed at her.

Laneesha got to her feet, stumbling away from the man, ignoring the pain and dashing through two large mounds of bones. The trees had to be close. The bone piles seemed to end just ahead. If she could just make it, just get away long enough to—

She stopped abruptly. The bone field did end, but instead of the forest Laneesha found herself facing a large stone building. It looked like a fortress, two stories high, stretching out a hundred feet in each direction.

Laneesha heard a creaking sound, looked up, saw an arch above her. Hanging on chains was an ancient wooden sign.

Rock Island Prison.

Then something hit her on the head and everything went black.

Cindy felt her heart sink when the screaming stopped. It was awful to hear, the most awful thing she’d ever heard. When it ended she had a very real feeling that Meadow—and it sure sounded like Meadow—was dead.

Still, she and Tyrone headed in the direction the cries had been coming from. Cindy didn’t like Meadow. But if there was a chance to help him, she would take that chance. One thing the Center had taught her was the value of life. Every life.

She held the torch, grateful for both the light and the warmth it emitted. In only her bra, the night air gave her goosebumps. Tyrone walked at her side. He held the gun, now cool enough to touch, in his left hand. His right hand was wrapped in his T-shirt. After fleeing the campsite, Cindy had insisted on examining his injuries. His left only had a few small blisters. His right looked like raw hamburger.

Still, Tyrone didn’t complain. He marched onward, just as determined to save Meadow as she was.

Neither of them talked about what they’d seen at the camp. But Cindy couldn’t help but think the same thing had happened to Meadow. She shivered. In the past, she’d thought a lot about death, and always expected it would be with a needle in her arm. But death by cannibals? Who could have ever conceived of such a thing?

And yet, it might actually happen to her. But instead of fleeing from it, she was heading toward it.

“Smell that?” Tyrone asked.

Cindy stopped, sniffed the air.

Her mouth watered.

Barbecue. Smoke and meat, reminding her of the venison steaks her dad would cook over an open fire.

Then Cindy’s brain caught up with her salivary glands, and she realized what she was probably smelling.

“Tyrone…could that be…?”

She saw him stiffen. “I’m gonna kill ‘em. I’m gonna kill every one of those fuckers.”

Tyrone stormed forward, rushing through the woods, Cindy unable to keep up. Running with a torch wasn’t easy, It threw sparks, and if she moved too quickly the wind shrank the flame, threatening to snuff it out. Cindy feared Tyrone would get too far ahead and she’d lose him, feared not only for herself, but for him as well. They’d counted six bullets still in the gun, but that may not be enough, and he was already injured and—

Cindy stopped abruptly before she tripped over Tyrone, who was on all fours, wheezing like he’d been punched in the gut. Beyond him she saw a faint light, coming through a gap in the trees. The roasted meat smell was overwhelming. Awful as it was, Cindy’s stomach rumbled, and she cursed herself for missing dinner.

“Don’ look,” Tyrone said.

At first, Cindy thought he meant don’t look at me. She turned away, and Tyrone caught her ankle, even though squeezing it must have caused him pain.

Tyrone meant don’t look at where the smell was coming from.

She was fine with that. Cindy already had enough images seared onto her brain for a lifetime of nightmares, and had no desire to add to them.

“How many are there?” she asked, crouching next to Tyrone.

“I dunno. Five or six. I’m gonna take ‘em down, soon as I catch my breath.”

Cindy didn’t bother to argue. Every human life was indeed sacred, but when someone was trying to eat you, the best defense was a good offense.

“Can you shoot lefty?”

“Did okay back at camp.”

“My dad taught me about guns. Used to take me hunting.”

“You ain’t doin’ it, Cindy.”

“I’m not afraid.”

Which was a lie. She was terrified. But even scarier than shooting some cannibals was thinking about what would happen if they caught her and Tyrone.

“You don’ want this on your head, girl.”

“Let me see you hold the gun.”

“I ain’t playin’”

“Neither am I. Hold it.”

Tyrone picked the gun up off the ground, held it in his left hand. He winced, unable to keep it steady.

“Give me the gun, Tyrone.”

“No way.”

“Your hands are ruined, and you won’t be able to aim. Not at six people. After the first shot, they’ll scatter, be moving targets. One of them might even run at us. So either give me the gun, or we get the hell out of here.”

Tyrone narrowed his eyes. “You can really shoot?”

“I can hit a rabbit at a hundred yards.”

She didn’t tell him that she’d never actually hit a rabbit, only rabbit-sized targets, and that was with a rifle, not a pistol. Cindy didn’t like hunting. While she had no problem eating meat, doing the killing herself was a little too personal, and after several attempts her father stopped taking her on his hunting trips because she would never pull the trigger when the moment of truth arrived.

Thinking of that, she questioned her own commitment here. How could she shoot a person when she couldn’t shoot a deer?

But it was too late. Tyrone was nodding, passing the gun to her, butt-first. She took it, handing him the torch.

“We gotta do this. For Meadow. For ourselves. But Cindy…”

Tyrone paused. She waited.

“…try not to look at what’s on the fire.”

Cindy nodded. The gun felt warm in her hand, and she automatically checked the clip, the safety, the round in the chamber, just like her father taught her.

Don’t think about it. Just do it.

She crouched, creeping toward a nearby bush. The pistol seemed to get heavier with each step. When she reached the thicket she planted her feet a shoulder’s width apart, gripped the gun in two hands, and sighted down the length of the barrel.

It was an image straight out of hell.

A gridiron.

Meadow.

Fire.

A circle of cannibals.

Eating.

Cindy froze. The smell of roasted pork didn’t jibe with the parts they were putting in their mouths. Her finger was on the trigger, but she couldn’t shoot. She couldn’t so much as breathe.

The largest of the tribe—a wide, hairy man with an ax propped against his leg—was chewing on…

Jesus, that’s Meadow’s—

The man looked up, his eyes meeting Cindy’s. He bellowed like a bull, raising the ax.

The other cannibals turned to look.

Cindy experienced fear so visceral it hit her like a punch. She staggered back, unable to support her own weight, screaming as loud as she could, the gun dropping from her hand and disappearing into the underbrush.

Clutching Lester’s hand as he led her through the forest both frightened and exhilarated Georgia. She attributed her survival so far to her cunning and determination, but she also knew that Lester might not be as smitten as he seemed, and he still had every intention of taking her to his “playroom.”

During the walk, Lester made what he must have thought was small talk, mentioning some of the horrifying things he’d done to previous playroom guests.

Georgia had a strong stomach, but some of his descriptions made it do flip flops. She did not want to wind up at this psycho’s mercy.

That meant coming up with some kind of plan.

“Lester is home.”

Georgia was lost in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed they’d arrived at a building. The façade was gray stone, old-looking, sort of like a medieval castle. Lester released Georgia’s hand to pull a key out of his pocket and fuss with a very big and heavy iron door. After unlocking it he needed to tug hard to get the rusty thing open. It squealed like a tortured pig.

“It’s strong,” Lester grunted, “so the ferals can’t get in.”

“Ferals?”

“On the island. Ferals run free and eat people. People like Georgia girl.”

Georgia peered into the unlit building and hesitated. She had the same feeling she did when her parents took her to that haunted house on Halloween, on one of their rare family outings. Georgia knew there were scary things inside, and while she liked scaring others she didn’t like being on the receiving end.

Lester seemed to sense her hesitation, and if he mistook it as reluctance, she lost her edge. Mustering her courage, Georgia marched inside, a hand stretched out in front of her so she didn’t bump into anything in the dark.

The room was cold, damp, and smelled like mildew. Georgia sensed it was large. The floor beneath her was hard, possibly cement. She took a few more tentative steps and then touched something cold. Feeling around, she realized it was a rusty iron bar.

The lights came on, accompanied by a buzzy, electric sound. Even though there were only bare low-watt bulbs hanging from the ceiling every ten feet, Georgia still squinted against the sudden brightness. It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then she realized what sort of building this was.

A prison. The iron bar she grasped was part of a cell, one of hundreds, stretching out in all directions in a wide open space almost as big as a football field. Except, upon closer examination, she wondered if it was perhaps a kennel instead. Or some sort of barn for livestock. The cells were so small that there wasn’t enough space for even a child to lie down.

“Each cell held four Confederate prisoners,” Lester told her. “They shared half a loaf of bread and a single bucket of water each day. The bucket was also their toilet. Many died from scurvy, dysentery, and smallpox. But starvation took the majority. Others murdered to get more of the bread. The dead were stacked in piles and left to rot. Thousands of them. It drove many of the prisoners mad. All that fresh meat, spoiling, just out of reach. They broke out of here just to get to the meat.”

It sounded like Lester was reciting something he memorized.

“This is Plincer’s prison?” Georgia asked.

“Rock Island Prison. Warden Plincer was Doctor’s great great grandfather.”

Georgia couldn’t believe that Martin’s stupid story was actually true. “So those…ferals…those are civil war cannibals?”

Lester smiled at her, his teeth making him look like a shark. Seeing him in the light brought color to his face. His complexion was pale, teeth yellowish, the whites of his eyes bright pink. “Don’t be silly, Georgia girl. Those Confederate soldiers died a hundred years ago.”

“Their descendants?”

“No descendants. They were men. It takes a man and a woman to have descendants.” He took her hand and rubbed his finger along her knuckles, the intimate gesture making her shiver. “Georgia girl knows that.”

Lester led her through the ranks and files of cages, their footsteps echoing off the iron and stone, making the space seem even emptier. Georgia tried to picture it filled to capacity with starving, desperate men, men who killed each other for a crust of bread or to feast on their flesh.

The image was kind of exciting.

“How did you get here?” Georgia asked. “On this island?”

“Doctor brought Lester here.”

“Why?”

Lester stopped, then looked down at her. “Doctor is Lester’s friend.”

“Georgia girl is Lester’s girlfriend, too,” she said, giving his hand an extra squeeze.

They walked out of the cell room, up a barely lit stone staircase. Unlike the first floor, which was all open space except for the bars, there were walls up here. Lester took her down a hallway, passing several closed doors.

“This is where the prisoners were punished. Beaten. Whipped. Branded. This is where Lester’s playroom is.” They stopped before an ancient wooden door. “Is Georgia girl ready to meet Lester’s pet?”

Georgia nodded. He opened the door and they went inside.

The smell hit her first. Like a public bathroom, but worse. On one side of the small room was a long metal table. There were shackles at the head and foot. Next to the table, a workbench, on top of which were various tools and devices, many of them rusty from blood. Near a small dresser, on the far wall, was a box spring with a stained mattress on top. Behind it, covering the wall, were dozens of photographs, many of them close-ups of people screaming.

On the other side of the room was a large wooden crate, the top off.

“The pet is in the box,” Lester said.

Georgia couldn’t see what was in the crate from where she stood, and she got that same haunted house vibe. On one hand, it might be something harmless in there, like a dog or cat, or maybe some animal indigenous to the island, like a raccoon. On the other hand, Lester was a psychopath, and he might be expecting her to nuzzle a rotting corpse.

Either way, Lester was watching her, judging her. She had to make a good impression.

Besides, what’s the worst thing that could be in there?

She chewed on her lower lip and approached the crate cautiously, the foul smell getting stronger. At first, all she noticed were clumps of hay. And then she saw it.

“Georgia girl can touch the pet,” Lester said. “The pet is tame.”

Georgia clamped both of her hands to her mouth and tried not to throw up.

Sara ran. Not from their pursuers—she didn’t even see their pursuers. Sara ran after Laneesha, determined to catch her and bring her back. They needed to stay together. Sara couldn’t handle losing any more kids.

But the teen was fast, and it was dark, and after two quick turns Sara lost her among the piles of bones.

Sara stopped, turning in a full circle, looking and listening for any movement.

Laneesha was gone. So were Martin and Jack.

Sara tried to backtrack, weaving her way through the bonefield, fighting the urge to yell out either of their names. She didn’t want Laneesha to be alone. Martin either, especially with his injuries.

She ran, frantic, thinking only of them and not her personal neuroses, rounding a particularly large mound of the dead, coming face to face with the forest, the darkness. From the darkness, came a cry.

It wasn’t Meadow. It was a girl, high-pitched, a scream of fright rather than pain.

Laneesha?

If so, she’d gotten pretty far pretty fast. The sound came from deep in the woods. Without thinking, Sara ran into the trees.

When the forest surrounded her, she froze.

Martin had the flashlight.

Sara whirled around. Trees. Shadows. Darkness. Looking up, the dark had even swallowed the sky.

She felt it in her chest first, a tightening that made her pant. Her palms got wet. Her mouth went dry. Sara was nine years old again, back in the trunk, waiting for someone to free her. She tried to get her feet to move, tried to battle the weight of the darkness pressing upon her. But she remained locked in place, a statue, too frightened to even blink.

Sounds, to her left. Someone coming.

No, more than just someone. A lot of people.

Move! Dammit, Sara, move!

But she stayed rooted to the spot, even when they burst through the bushes and rushed at her.