Trapped

Laneesha startled herself awake, freaked out by a crazy dream she had about running through mountains of human bones.

She didn’t know why her head and chest both hurt, or why she was sitting down rather than lying in her bed, or why she couldn’t move her arms.

Then she saw the old man standing in front of her, an old man she’d never seen before, and it all came back to her in a horrible rush.

“Hello, child. I gave you a little something to help you wake up. I also took the liberty of removing that nasty bone from your shoulder. It was a fibula, if you’re curious. Very old. About a hundred and forty years old, to be more exact. I even stitched you up. No need to thank me. I am a doctor, after all.”

The old man tucked an empty syringe into his coat pocket. It was a white coat, the kind doctors wear. But this one was covered with ugly brown stains and peach-colored smears.

The man himself was also ugly. He had a bald head, freckled with liver spots, and a long neck with a lot of wrinkled loose skin hanging from it. His face was unusually dull, as if he had make-up on. He wore glasses, which were coated with a layer of dirt and grease so thick Laneesha wondered how he could see through them, and he stood in a stooped way, his back bending like a question mark.

Laneesha tried to stand, and realized her arms and legs were strapped to a wheelchair. She fought against the bonds, the leather digging into her wrists, and succeeded only in causing abrasions.

“My name is Doctor Plincer. You’re about to become part of a very important scientific study. An epic one, in fact. Unfortunately, you’ll be part of the control group. Sort of. Well, not really, but it sounds better.”

Laneesha looked hard at the doctor, more angry than afraid. “You better let me go, you dirty ol’ man. Or I am gonna kick yo ass.”

Doctor Pincer scratched at his chin and something flaked off his face.

“You see, my dear, there are wolves, and there are sheep. While I admire your spunk, I’m out of sheep at the moment, and I don’t want Subject 33 mad at me. So I’m giving you to him.”

“What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

“Hmm. Yes. Well, no harm in telling you, and truth told, I don’t have many people to talk to these days. The ferals are, well, feral, and they would prefer eating you to good conversation. Lester, dear Lester, he listens, but he’s heard all of my stories before, and I worry I bore him sometimes. And Subject 33, well, frankly, he frightens me. He frightens the piss out of me. Which is why I’ve kept him locked up. He hasn’t been out in over a year.”

Laneesha looked away from the doctor, taking in her surroundings. She was in some sort of hallway. The walls were brick. The only light was a bulb hanging from the ceiling. Her wheelchair was next to a large iron door with a slot in it at waist-level. Laneesha recognized it as a solitary confinement door. The slot was for food, and it was open. She peered through and it seemed to lead to another room, with another identical door and slot.

Through this second slot, a pair of bloodshot eyes stared at her.

“He’s watching you, I see. I think he likes you. If he doesn’t like what I’m giving him, he doesn’t keep looking. He’s one of my greatest successes, Subject 33. Too much of a success, really. The procedure worked like it was supposed to. Worked perfectly. But afterward he wouldn’t follow orders, couldn’t be trusted. Tried to kill me on several occasions. Once he even dragged me into that horrible room of his. If Lester hadn’t been there to help, I shudder at the things he would have done to me.”

Subject 33 blinked. Then his head moved up and he stuck his nose in the slot. Well, part of a nose. Even at this distance Laneesha could see the disfigurement. His nose twitched, and Subject 33 snorted.

He’s trying to sniff me, Laneesha thought. And that freaked her out even more than his scars and creepy stares.

“I don’t even remember his name,” Doctor Plincer said. “Isn’t that funny? My second greatest success. He was a soldier, I think. In bad shape when I got him. Broken back. And animals—wolves or coyotes or some other such apex carnivore—had been snacking on him. Bad shape, nearly dead. I can relate, let me tell you. But I patched him up. Even better than that. I enhanced him.”

Subject 33 stuck his tongue through the slot and licked the air.

“But he doesn’t follow orders,” Doctor Plincer continued. “Not at all. He hasn’t even spoken a word since the procedure. He writes me notes. That’s how he tells me what he needs. The last few have been, well, rather odd.”

Subject 33’s tongue disappeared, and then those red eyes were back. Wide and staring. Laneesha wanted to turn away, but couldn’t.

“He’s building something in there. I’ll be damned if I know what it is. Here I am, a future candidate for the Nobel Prize, and I can’t figure it out. Besides enhancing his appetites, the procedure also seemed to amplify his intelligence. So he leaves me notes, I order the parts, and give them to him when the supply boat comes. I’m curious to know what he’s building, but I’m too frightened to look. Some sort of pain machine, I suspect. The lambs I bring to him scream like I’ve never heard screams before. And, believe me, I’ve heard screams. Lester is very good at making people scream. I know this firsthand. But Subject 33… well, whatever he’s doing to those people, it’s inhuman.”

The doctor knocked twice on the iron door.

“I’m bringing her to you. Please assume the position.”

The eyes disappeared, and Laneesha watched Subject 33 turn around and stick his hands through the slot, palms up. They were bent and twisted and covered with gnarly scars, like the fingers had been cut off, broken, and sewn back on in the wrong places.

Laneesha shrank into her chair. “Old man, please don’ put me in there.”

Doctor Plincer reached into his pocket, removed a dart pistol. He winked at Laneesha. “He’s my greatest triumph, but he’s difficult to control. The second door in the antechamber isn’t locked. He can open it any time. But he stays in there, because he knows if he doesn’t I won’t give him food. Or any parts for his infernal machine. So he behaves, but I still can’t trust him. That makes me proud, in a way. I created an evil so powerful it only answers to itself.”

The doctor lifted the iron bar off the door, then opened it, keeping his pistol aimed at the inner room, at the slot in the second door.

“Keep your hands where I can see them, please. You should enjoy this one. Plenty of fire in her. Maybe she’ll last you two weeks. That’s your record, isn’t it? For keeping one alive? Two weeks, isn’t it?”

Still facing the inner door, the doctor backed up, walking carefully around Laneesha. Then he began to push her wheelchair into the small room, toward that second door. Laneesha’s eyes were locked on Subject 33’s ruined hands. On top of their deformities they were filthy, fingernails cracked, blood caked under them.

“No.” Laneesha shook her head. “No no no no no…”

“Please leave the wheelchair in the antechamber. I’ll pick it up when I bring breakfast in the morning. I’ll assume breakfast for two, unless you leave me a note stating otherwise. I know sometimes the lambs don’t have the strength to eat. Especially after the first night. I’m making French toast.” The doctor stared down at Laneesha. “Do you like French toast, dear?”

“You can’t leave me with him. Please. I’ll do anything you want. Anything at all.” Laneesha couldn’t stop the tears. “I have a daughter. Her name is Brianna. Please don’t put me in there with him.”

Doctor Plincer patted her head. “I won’t likely see you again. Or more to the point, you won’t see me. I’ll see you when he discards the remains. But, truth told, there haven’t been very many remains lately. The machine has something to do with it, I suspect. What can he be building in there? I don’t know. But you…you’ll soon find out, my dear, dear girl.”

The doctor backed away, and Laneesha heard the iron door slam closed behind her, the crossbar falling into place. She strained against her bonds, strained so hard she saw stars.

Subject 33 removed his hands from the slot, then he opened his door.

Laneesha’s scream would be the first of many.

Tom walked along the beach. He was still a little out of breath from his sprint. One moment he was holding a gun—an actual gun—then the next moment Tyrone was on top of him, and the next moment…

What the hell were those things?

Tom knew they were people. No duh. But they looked more like wildmen. All they needed were leather undies and some spears, and Tom could picture them hunting dinosaurs.

For about a zillionth of a second he felt bad for leaving Cindy and Tyrone there. He wasn’t really gonna shoot either of them. But those frickin’ wildmen looked crazy, and Tom knew when to fight and when to run, so he ran. Through the forest, through the trees, all the way to shore. And now he didn’t know what to do next.

So he began to walk around the island. It wasn’t a big island; Sara said it was only a few miles across. Tom figured he would keep walking until someone found him. It’s not like Sara and Martin were going to leave him here. They were responsible adults. Even if Tyrone told them about the gun, they still had to take him back to Michigan.

Tom tried not to think about the wildmen.

He walked, and walked some more, and then the beach sort of ended and rose up, becoming kind of a cliff with trees on it. Tom climbed, staying away from the edge, and kept heading in the same direction. The night was cool, but he was sweating and really thirsty and kind of hungry too. He thought about drinking lake water, but heard that all the water in the great lakes was dirty and could make you sick.

That’s when he smelled it. Barbecue.

He paused, trying to figure out where it was coming from. Obviously, Sara and Martin had come back to camp, and now they were cooking something. And then Tom shook his head, wondering how he could have been so gullible.

The wildmen. They were fake.

It must have been part of Martin’s stupid plan to scare them all. In fact, one of them might have even been Martin, all dressed up to look like a wildman. And Tom took it for the real thing, like a dummy.

No, not like a dummy. It wasn’t Tom’s fault he was scared. He was off his meds. He always acted stupid off his meds.

Which was a perfect excuse for why he pointed the gun at Tyrone and Cindy. It wasn’t Tom’s fault. It was Sara’s fault, for not giving him his Risperdol. Which meant they couldn’t punish him for anything.

Tom headed into the woods, toward the barbecue smell. He couldn’t wait to dig in.

Georgia stared at Lester’s pet, her hands over her mouth, the odor so bad it made her stomach roil. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. It looked like a giant, pale worm. But then she noticed the buttocks, the shoulder blades, the bumps of the spine beneath the dirty flesh.

It was a torso. No arms. No legs. Just a body with a head attached. And it smelled awful.

“Go on, Georgia girl,” Lester said. “Touch the pet.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Is it dead?”

“The pet is not dead.”

Lester kicked the crate, and Georgia watched in awe as the head swiveled up and faced them.

“Uhhhhhnnnnnn,” it said.

Georgia dropped her hands. “Holy shit. This thing is freaking alive?”

The man’s face was a ruin. Eyes gone. Ears gone. A big scar across the scalp. When he opened his mouth to make that hideous sound, Georgia noted the tongue was also missing.

“The pet Lester’s best friend,” Lester said. “Except for Doctor.” He glanced sideways at her, showing his fangs as he smirked. “And Georgia girl.”

“Did you do this to him, Lester?”

He nodded. “It took a long time. Lots of cutting.”

Georgia stared, fascinated. It was at once the most horrible and most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

“Want to see the pet do the funny dance?” Lester asked.

She nodded.

Lester walked over to the tool cabinet and grabbed something. He brought it over to the crate. It was a broomstick, with a nail sticking out the end.

When Lester poked his pet in the butt with it, the thing flopped around, rocking back and forth. When it rolled onto its back, Georgia noted that its genitals were also gone.

“Does Georgia girl want to make the pet do the funny dance?”

The next thing Georgia knew, the broomstick had been pressed into her hands. She stared down at this poor pathetic creature, rolling around in its own mess on a pile of dirty hay, and searched for any semblance of humanity. She didn’t see any. This wasn’t a person anymore. Just a mindless thing.

The thing began to roll again, making a moaning sound, and Georgia realized that without even being aware of it she’d given it a poke.

So she poked it again. And again.

The fourth time, she began to laugh.

“So I see you have a new guest for your playroom, Lester. But why isn’t she strapped onto your play table?”

Georgia turned, surprised at the voice, and saw an old man in a lab coat standing in the doorway. She instinctively backed away, bumping into Lester.

“This is Georgia girl. Georgia girl is Lester’s girlfriend. Georgia girl and Lester are going to make babies.”

Georgia looked up at Lester, then unconsciously rubbed her belly. She decided that now wasn’t the best time to tell him how she got along with babies.

The old man clucked his tongue. “You tried to make babies before, Lester. Do you remember? But whenever you get a new girlfriend you always wind up biting her too much. How many times have we been through this?”

“Georgia girl is different.”

The old man glanced at the stick she held, and then nodded. “Yes. Yes she certainly seems to be, doesn’t she?”

“You must be the doctor,” Georgia said, finding her voice. “Lester’s friend.”

“Indeed, indeed I am. Doctor Plincer, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, young lady.” Georgia shook the dry, bony hand he extended toward her. “You like playing with Lester’s pet, I see.”

“He’s funny,” Georgia said.

“Funny? Hmm. Yes, I suppose he is. No real brain activity anymore. Delta waves. More like delta bumps. Full frontal lobotomy. Had him for years, kept trying to escape, even without limbs. And the begging, all the time, non-stop. We finally did a little work on his prefrontal cortex, just to calm him down. Not much for conversation anymore. But he is kind of funny, isn’t he? Especially when you stick him with the nail. Yes?”

Georgia wondered if this was some sort of test. She responded by giving Lester’s pet a few more pokes.

The doctor stroked his dirty chin. “Interesting. Very interesting. Sadistic personality. No remorse. Obvious sociopathic tendencies. And I don’t see a single bite mark on you. For one of Lester’s girlfriends, that’s remarkable. Did he happen to tell you what kind of doctor I am?”

Georgia shook her head. She couldn’t tell if she passed this old coot’s stupid test or not.

“I’m a brain specialist. Perhaps the foremost in the world. And I think, I think that you would be perfect for my experiments.”

“Lester is keeping Georgia girl.” Lester draped his long arms over her.

Doctor Plincer nodded. “But of course, Lester, of course. But perhaps your little girlfriend could be,” he smacked his lips, “enhanced. By the procedure.”

Georgia didn’t like the sound of that at all.

“Lester doesn’t want Georgia girl to be like the ferals,” Lester said. “Lester and Georgia girl are going to make babies.”

“This one won’t go feral, Lester. This one has all the traits I’m looking for. Plus she’s young. Strong.”

Ferals? Lobotomies? Procedures? Georgia didn’t like the way this conversation was heading.

From somewhere else in the prison, Georgia heard screaming. A girl. It sounded like Laneesha. She held her breath, resisting the urge to run away, making sure her face was calm even when she was close to freaking out.

“Lester won’t let Doctor take Georgia girl.”

“You hear that, Frankenstein?” Georgia said. “Back the fuck off.”

The doctor nodded again. “I see. I see. But I think, Lester my boy, that this is the best for all concerned. For me, for you, and for her. So I’m going to ask you, very nicely, to bring her to my lab. I promise no harm will come to her.”

Lester’s protective hug turned into a grab, seizing Georgia in his gigantic hands.

“Lester!” she cried, squirming to get away. She might as well have been bound with steel cable.

Doctor Plincer came closer, smiling. He was bent over with age, and Georgia could see straight down his collar. He wore no shirt beneath his lab coat, and his hairless pink chest was covered with shiny, puckered scars.

“Don’t you worry, my dear. I’m going to take very good care of you. You may even thank me for this later. Thank me, or…God forbid…try to eat me. Let’s all hope it’s the former.”

Georgia tried very hard not to scream as Lester dragged her off to the lab.

She almost succeeded.

Martin closed his eyes. The throb in his jaw was finally going away. He wondered how this had all gone so horribly wrong, and questioned his decision to bring everyone to this island.

He rubbed his eyes and dismissed the thought; regretting the past was a fool’s game. The thing to do now was think ahead. But was that even possible? What could he do to save Sara, the one-time love of his life, from the horrors in the woods?

The key to saving her was predicting her next move. What would she do next? Where would she go?

He stared down at his son, asleep in the sling, and an idea came to him.

Martin began to plan.

Moments after Cindy dropped the gun, Tyrone was dragging her away from the scene. It had been a mistake to try and shoot the cannibals. No one could have looked at that horrible feast and still been able to act. Tyrone would never be able to forget that image, even if he scrubbed his mind with steel wool.

He winced at the pain—he’d stuck his burned right hand under Cindy’s armpit to pull her, while his less-injured left held the torch. The extra illumination allowed them to move fast, sidestepping obstacles, minding their footing. Unfortunately, it was also like a beacon to those cannibals. From the sounds of it, they had no problems moving quickly in the dark. Tyrone guessed they were less than twenty yards behind them.

Seeing he had no choice, Tyrone ditched the torch, tossing it into a clump of bushes and then tugging Cindy to the immediate left, breaking their current trajectory. Without the light it was like swimming in ink. Tyrone was forced to slow down to a quick walk, moving with one hand in front of him so he didn’t knock himself out on a tree. Gradually his night vision adjusted, and the trees thinned a bit to let occasional moonlight in, and the pair moved at a jog, Cindy in step beside Tyrone.

The figure stood in front of them, so still it almost looked like a tree. But the outline was definitely human, and there was only one, and rather than change directions yet again Tyrone lowered his head and charged.

His aim was good, and he prepared for impact, bunching up his neck and shoulder in a driving tackle.

But then, as if by magic, he was ass over head, flipping through the air, landing on his back so hard it knocked the wind out of him.

Tyrone had heard the term before, and knew what it meant, but he’d never had the wind knocked out of him before. It felt like a car was parked on his chest, and he couldn’t draw a breath, couldn’t make a sound.

This brought instant panic, and he began to flail around. Not at the figure. Just random, spastic movements, as if that could somehow fill him with the oxygen he so desperately craved. Little sparkly motes began to float through his vision. He felt close to passing out.

Then something dropped on his stomach. A person. Miraculously, the pressure forced his diaphragm to work again, and Tyrone wheezed in air like a vacuum. He tried to raise his arms, to defend himself against whoever had thrown him, and then he heard Cindy yell, “Sara!”

“Tyrone?”

It was Sara sitting on him. She was the one who flipped him. Maybe there was more to that judo shit than Tyrone had thought.

“You beat on all yo kids like this, Sara?” he whispered.

She immediately got off him, and Tyrone felt her hand grab his, pulling to help him up. He flinched away, her touch on his raw palm making him swear.

“Are you okay, Tyrone?” Sara asked. She sounded pretty frazzled.

“Hands are messed up, ‘n my pride just took a beatin’, but I’m okay.”

Sara tried again to help him stand, this time lifting by the elbow. When he was vertical, he had to endure a hug. Then Cindy came by and also hugged him, which Tyrone found much easier to endure.

“Girl, I know this ain’t the time, but, damn, if you don’t look good in nothin’ but that bra.”

“Thanks,” Cindy said. “Look, Tyrone, about—”

“Not your fault.” He rubbed his fingertips along the small of her back. “I couldn’t do it neither. That’s why I gave you the gun.”

“You found the gun?” Sara asked.

“I dropped it.”

Tyrone pulled Cindy closer, “It’s not her fault.”

“Where are the others? Are they okay?”

Tyrone and Cindy spent the next few minutes filling Sara in on everything that had happened, eventually asking her where Jack was. Sara, in turn, told them about all she’d been through.

“Mountains of bones?” Tyrone still had his left hand on Cindy’s back. It hurt, but he could deal with it. “How many damn cannibals are on this island?”

“These bones were old. Real old. I think Martin’s legend about there being a civil war prison here may have been right. There were thousands of soldiers missing after the war, soldiers that have never been accounted for. Thirteen thousand men died at the Confederate prison, Andersonville. Six thousand at its Union counterpart, Camp Douglas. It’s possible the Union army also had another, secret prison. A place they’d kept hidden, off the record books, in case the South won the war.”

Tyrone didn’t get it. “Those cannibals move damn fast for bein’ over a hundred years old.”

Sara shook her head. “Those people, the ones after us, they aren’t from the prison. They’re something else.”

“What are they?”

“Martin called this Plincer’s Island, and the name has been nagging at me.” Sara paused, then said, “But I think I finally remembered who he is.”

Laneesha tried to think about Brianna, tried to cling to sanity by picturing her daughter’s sweet little face. But she couldn’t concentrate over the sounds of her own agonized screams.

Georgia couldn’t move. She thought she might be strapped down, but she didn’t feel any straps. In fact, she felt naked. Naked and lying on a cold table.

Lester’s play table? Isn’t that what the crazy doctor called it?

No. That had shackles, and was wooden. This table felt like metal.

She tried to open her eyes and, amazingly, she couldn’t. Nor could she turn her head, clench her fist, or so much as moan. Nothing seemed to work at all.

Georgia remembered Lester holding her tight, then the doctor sticking her with some kind of needle. Must have knocked her out. But she wasn’t knocked out any more. She was awake, and aware, and could feel. But she couldn’t move any of her muscles.

Then, abruptly, light.

It took a moment to focus, and then Georgia found herself staring up at Lester, who was leaning over her. She realized he’d opened her eyelids with his fingers.

“Don’t worry, Georgia girl. It only hurts for a little while.”

She stared hard at Lester, imploring him to stop this, to help her get away. He smiled at her, then brought something in front of her eyes.

His camera.

The flash made Georgia’s pupils painfully constrict. Then Lester stepped back, and Doctor Plincer’s face came into view.

“I can’t express, my dear, how excited I am by the opportunity to try my procedure out on you. I’ve experimented on dozens of people over the last decade. Not nearly enough, considering the importance of my work. Only about ten a year, average. I’m limited, you see. Not many people visit the island. And those that do, well, I usually don’t have the opportunity to work with them. My, failures, I suppose you can call them, are quite hostile toward strangers. And quite hungry too, I’m afraid. I’m an old man, on a fixed income. I really can’t afford to feed so many.”

She felt the doctor’s hand touch her neck, then smooth her hair behind her ear. From deep within the bowels of the prison, Georgia heard screaming.

“Pardon the bluntness,” Dr. Plincer said, “but you really aren’t much to look at. You do have something about you, however. Something extraordinary. You see, most of the people I’ve had the pleasure to experiment on, they’re normal people. I’ve only had one success with a normal person. True, I’ve only had two successes with sadistic personality types, but the overall percentage is much greater.”

Doctor Plincer kept his hand on Georgia’s ear. Then he began to squeeze the lobe. Hard. Digging his nails in. Georgia’s eyes teared up, but she couldn’t flinch away from the pain, not even a millimeter.

“The drug used to paralyze you is called succinocholine. It renders you completely immobile. This is necessary, as I’m working with a very precise area of the brain. If you moved, even slightly, you could end up being lobotomized, or having your language center damaged, or your neuron clusters regressed. That would be a waste. Unfortunately, for you, I have to keep you awake for the procedure. The brain is an amazing organ, and it has many different states of consciousness. For this experiment to be successful, you need to be in a beta wave state. Fully awake.”

He moved in closer, smiling. Georgia could smell his sour body odor.

“I’m using a serum. A special serum. It contains, among other things, pluriopotent stem cells. You’ve heard of stem cell research, I’m sure. The bans. The controversy. The ethical dilemma.”

The doctor scratched his chin, and a bit of dried skin flaked off. Georgia felt the crumb land on her lower lip.

“The reason stem cells are so important in research is that they are, in layman’s terms, blank. A stem cell can develop into any sort of cell at all, if properly coerced. Skin cells. Bone cells. Nerve cells. Brain cells.” Plincer shrugged. “Alas, the only continuous and plentiful source for stem cells is unborn babies. Hence the banning and the controversy. But I have an arrangement with a doctor on the mainland, one who specializes in terminating pregnancies. He supplies me with all the stem cells I require.”

Georgia willed herself to move. She had to get away from the maniac. But no matter how hard she tried, how much she concentrated, her muscles refused to obey her commands.

“Lester is right. This is going to hurt. The only way I can inject my experimental serum to the correct area of your brain is through your tear ducts. My colleagues, the fools, didn’t think it could be done. But it can. I’m going to enhance certain portions of your brain. Make them grow larger. With a little bit of luck, you may soon join my other successes.”

Doctor Plincer held something in front of Georgia’s line of vision. A syringe. A big fucking syringe, with the longest needle Georgia had ever seen.

He can’t plunge that into my eye. Dear god sweet jesus oh no he can’t…

“From what I’ve been told, the first injection is the worst.” The doctor smacked his lips. “The five after that aren’t as bad.”

He raised the needle above her eye, leaning in even closer, the point coming down slowly, methodically, until it rested on her tear duct. It was a minor sting, like a piece of grit caught in her eye. But Georgia couldn’t rub it away. She couldn’t even blink.

Then Doctor Plincer shoved.

The pain was preternatural. Blinding. Explosive. Like her eyeball had burst and her brain was boiling and it went on and on and ON…

Plincer extracted the needle, sighed, and used his dirty coat sleeve to wipe away some sweat that had beaded up on his bald head. Georgia’s head still throbbed. Somehow, each thought, each sense, had taken on an almost physical manifestation. Words that she cognated felt like stab wounds, each syllable a twist of a knife. Doctor Plincer’s BO smelled like Georgia’s nose was on fire. His hand on her face was a jumper cable attached to her nerves, roasting her alive. Every single sensation, every single thought, brought agony she couldn’t escape from.

Then her vision turned red.

“Good girl. I’ll give you a lollipop later. Let me suction off some of this blood.”

Dr. Plincer held a tube to her tear duct. It hurt worse than a hornet stinging her eyeball, and the sound made her ache like her teeth were being drilled.

“What you’re feeling now is called synesthesia. It’s when each of our senses mixes up its signals on the way to the brain. It’s how someone taking LSD thinks he can smell the color red, or taste a Led Zeppelin song. But in your case, every sense you experience is activating your pain receptors. And because of that, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve lied to you.”

Doctor Plincer raised another syringe. “These next five injections are going to hurt quite a bit more.”

Tom’s stomach was really making noise now, loud enough for it to be heard above his stomping and crashing through the forest. The smell of cooked meat was intoxicating. The faster he got there, the faster he could stuff his face. Then he could take his meds, go to sleep, and try to enjoy the rest of this mini-vacation before his dumb-ass father sent him to that dumb-ass military academy.

He wasn’t worried about getting in trouble for the gun incident. A large component of his ADHD was an inability to take responsibility for his actions. Tom didn’t feel empathy, or remorse, especially since everything that went wrong in his life was someone else’s fault.

Tom was getting close now, because he saw the flickering orange light of the campfire through the trees. He was so intent on reaching it, and the food, that he didn’t watch his footing and tripped over an exposed tree root. Right into a burr bush.

“Aw…shit.”

The burrs clung to his shirt like little Velcro jelly beans. He got on his knees, fussing to tug them off, then on impulse he reached up and checked his hair.

More burrs.

“God damn it!”

They were stuck good, too. The last time Tom encountered burrs he was a kid, maybe six or seven. The only way to remove them was with a haircut. A drastic haircut that made him look like frickin’ Homer Simpson. He yanked at one stuck in his bangs, pulling until his eyes watered.

Frickin’ great.

Tom didn’t like being laughed at, and he was sure everyone else would think this was the funniest thing ever. It wasn’t even his fault. Stupid root. Stupid burr bush. Stupid Martin and Sara for taking him on this stupid trip. He debated whether he even wanted to go back to camp. Maybe if he went back to the lake, went swimming, the burrs would loosen up.

No. Bad idea. It was too easy to get lost.

He sucked in air through his teeth, seriously annoyed, and decided he would punch anyone who made fun of him. Ten steps later, he was at the campsite.

Except this wasn’t the right campsite. First of all, there were no tents. Second, what he thought was a fire wasn’t really a fire. It was a big patch of glowing orange sticks and what looked like charcoal. And there was some kind of broken swing-set sitting in the middle of the fire.

Tom walked around the fit pit, searching for people. No one was around. But the cooked meat smell was definitely coming from here. In fact, it was coming from that swing-set thingy.

He gave it his full attention. There was some kind of meat roasting there, a large hunk between the metal bars. Maybe half a cow. No, not big enough for a cow. A pig, maybe. Or a big turkey. Hard to tell by looking at it. The meat was really scorched, and there weren’t any features to identify it.

Whatever it was, it smelled awesome. And no one appeared to be nearby, so no one could protest if Tom helped himself. The burrs in his hair were forgotten. Another symptom of ADHD was a severe lack of memory retention, coupled with an ultra-short attention span. Tom had been told this many times, but for some reason it never stuck with him.

He took a quick look around for some sort of barbecue fork or tongs that he could use to grab some of the meat, then figured he could probably just stick his hand between the bars and grab a hunk from the top part. So he did just that.

It was hot, almost too hot to touch. But Tom was quick, and the meat was so tender it fell off the bone. He brought back a nice, long strip, and played hot potato, tossing it from hand to hand, blowing on it. When it was finally cool enough, Tom raised the greasy morsel to his lips.

Hmm. Tastes like chicken.

Damn good, though. Needed some sauce, and some salt, but as far as mystery meat went it sure beat the frickin’ meatloaf Sara cooked every frickin’ Sunday.

Tom licked his fingers clean and reached for seconds.

Sara squatted on her haunches, and she instructed Tyrone and Cindy to do the same. They listened to the night, straining to hear the distinctive sounds of pursuit. The night only offered crickets, and the whistling wind.

Sara had calmed down a bit, but still wished she had a light. If Tyrone hadn’t run into her, Sara knew she would still be standing in that same spot, freaking out. But slipping into the role of responsible adult had forced her to push back her fear of the darkness, at least for the moment. Plus Sara surprised herself by being able to flip Tyrone, even in her semi-catatonic state. Maybe she wasn’t as helpless as she thought.

Her mind once again flitted to Martin and Jack, and she absently touched her chest, missing her son’s weight. She hoped like hell they were both okay.

“So who was Plincer?” Cindy whispered.

The question took Sara back to college, more than a decade ago. “A footnote in abnormal psychology. I learned about him in school, in an advanced psych class. In the 90s, he made waves as an expert witness in serial killer trials. For the defense. If I remember right, Plincer thought evil was a genetic physical trait.”

Cindy leaned in closer. “You mean like hair color? Or height?”

“Exactly. He believed some people’s brains were different, that they were born that way. If it was their brain that made them evil, it wasn’t really their fault, so they couldn’t be blamed for their crimes.”

Tyrone snorted. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s far out, but it does have some basis in fact. The amygdale, thalamus, hypothalamus, and the cingulate gyrus—these are all parts of the brain responsible for forming emotions. Studies in animals have shown if these parts are damaged or removed, it has radical effects on behavior. They can be made more aggressive, more violent. There have also been cases in humans where injury or aneurism completely changed someone’s personality. I heard of a recent murder trial in Chicago where a brain tumor allegedly contributed to a police officer going on a killing spree.”

Sara also recalled the famous case of Phineas P. Gage. She had written a report on him in school, as had every other aspiring psychologist. Gage was a railroad worker in the 1800s. He was blasting rock and the explosion drove a three foot long iron bar through his head. Incredibly, he survived. He was even coherent, and could speak moments after the accident. But after the bar was removed, Gage’s personality changed dramatically. He’d become more impulsive and violent, prone to risk-taking. Friends said that he was unrecognizable, a completely different person.

This incident proved revolutionary. Science hadn’t previously known that specific regions of the brain effected behavior.

“Whether or not we want to think about it,” Sara continued, “who we are as people is very much tied into a bunch of cells, chemicals, and electrical changes in our brains. Tampering with this delicate balance can turn someone into someone else.”

The wind died down, and the crickets stopped. Sara listened for the sounds of approaching footsteps. There was something in the distance, a branch snapping.

Then, nothing.

“So this Plincer cat,” Tyrone said, startling Sara. “He believed people could be born evil?”

As a psychologist herself, Sara didn’t believe in evil. Morality was dictated by the majority in any given society. In Roman times, it wasn’t considered evil to throw Christians to the lions. The Nazis didn’t consider themselves evil, they were judged so by the victors. Human beings throughout history did terrible things to each other, but whether or not these things were evil remained subjective. To some, the death penalty was evil. To some, not going to church every Sunday was evil.

Sara preferred to believe that human beings were inherently selfish, and when this selfishness infringed upon the well-being or lives of others, a psychological problem was usually at play. Evil had no place in psychology.

“I don’t believe evil exists, Tyrone.”

“You do know we hidin’ from some folks tryin’ to eat us, right?”

“That could be because of many different psychological and physiological factors, including hunger.”

“But Plincer thought people were evil because they had evil brains?”

“Plincer thought people could be born with brain irregularities that made them evil. Irregularities that were so extreme, it was impossible to stop violent impulses.”

“Was he right?” Tyrone asked.

“Tough to say. Morality, free will, personality, impulse and action, even consciousness itself, still aren’t completely understood. The brain holds a lot of secrets science hasn’t figured out yet. But Plincer bragged he knew the exact parts of the brain that made people evil. He even said he could prove it, that he could make a person evil with drugs and surgery.”

“Could he?”

Sara closed her eyes. She couldn’t even remember her professor’s name from that class, let alone anything he specifically said about Plincer. The only reason she remembered Plincer at all was his 15 seconds of news coverage after his last trial.

“I might be wrong, but I remember some newspaper printing something about an orangutan Plincer experimented on. He did something to his brain, and basically turned the orangutan into a psychopath. It killed six other research animals.”

“So what happened to Plincer?” Cindy asked. She was whispering.

“Some would call it karma. One of the criminals Plincer was called to defend…” What the hell was his name? “Parks. No, Paks. Lester Paks. He killed a woman by biting her to death. Doctor Plincer testified Lester wasn’t responsible for his actions, and he also said that if the court released Lester into his care, he would be able to cure him. The court allowed it.”

“Did Plincer cure him?”

Sara shrugged. “No. Lester almost killed him. Soon after, both Doctor Plincer and Lester disappeared. Neither have been seen in years.”

“So you think Plincer came here?”

“I don’t know, Tyrone.”

Cindy spoke so softly that Sara had to strain to hear her. “Maybe he came here and kept doing his research. Only instead of monkeys, he did it on people.”

“If so, Cindy, we’re in a lot more trouble than I thought.”

Another branch broke, this one so close it made Sara flinch. She squinted into the dark, saw something move. Then something else.

“We need to run,” she told the kids. “Right now.”

When Archibald Mordecai Plincer was a child, he was picked on a lot. He didn’t understand why. He was thin, and a little small for his age, but otherwise relatively happy and well adjusted. But, for whatever reason, he was a magnet for bullies.

The abuse got so bad that Plincer’s parents finally plucked him out of public school and enrolled him in a private academy. This new school also had bullies, and one of the worst was the headmaster, who seemed to delight in doling out punishment.

Plincer eventually had a growth spurt, bringing him up to average height and making him a less desirable target for his peers. Since he did what he was supposed to, Plincer also managed to keep away from the headmaster for the most part. But he remained fascinated by schadenfreude—the act of taking joy in the misery of others. He decided to become a doctor and specialize in psychiatry, just to figure out what made sadistic personalities tick.

But where others in the psychiatric field gravitated toward drug therapy and talking sessions and their effect on the conscious and subconscious, Plincer was fascinated by the physical nature of the brain itself. If the heart was malfunctioning, you didn’t use a couch trip to cure it; you went in with a scalpel. Why should the brain be any different?

His early research was done on animals. Plincer used psychosurgery and implanted electrodes to perform what he termed reverse lobotomies. While his predecessors used frontal lobotomies to neutralize aggressive behavior—like what happened to Jack Nicholson at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—Plincer was able to stimulate parts of the brain to make the subject more aggressive.

Unfortunately, there proved to be little research money available for doctors interested in making meaner animals. Because Plincer was more curious about the brain’s physiology than psychology, and there were laws against tampering with people’s gray matter, human experiments were impossible. So he drifted into criminal psychology with the intent to study anti-social behavior.

He met with criminals in prison, got them to donate their bodies to his research after they died, but they weren’t dying fast enough or in large enough numbers for Plincer to conclusively prove the link between brain deformity and evil. So he began to testify in criminal trials, pushing for the courts to entrust a psychopathic criminal into his care.

Lester Paks was that criminal. By that time, Plincer was sure he knew which parts of the mind controlled violent behavior, and if he could cure Lester it would usher in a whole new era of psychiatry.

But he wasn’t as careful with Lester as he should have been. Lester managed to escape his room.

What happened next still gave Plincer nightmares.

Though he survived Lester’s attack, it effectively ended Plincer’s career. No one would give a job to a doctor proven so dramatically wrong. They turned their back on him, and his research. He became an outcast, unable to publish in the journals, unable to work at even a community college.

Luckily, Plincer’s family had some money. Old money, earned in blood, going back to the Civil War and his great-great grandfather. Plincer secretly set up shop on Rock Island, and he brought Lester with him, committed to revealing the true physical nature of evil.

But Plincer did more than reveal it. He discovered he could enhance the part of the brain to make people even more evil.

The scientific community might not care, but Plincer found out that others did. He wound up in bed with some powerful people who found this result intriguing. Since then, Plincer was supplied with money and prisoners to experiment on, along with a guarantee that his island would be left alone.

Unfortunately, Plincer couldn’t repeat the results he had with Lester. He managed to come close with Subject 33. But Subject 33 proved impossible to control. The procedure drove the other subjects insane, making them regress to the point that they were more animal than human. The ferals.

Plincer kept working, kept revising his procedure. He has one more success, and many more failures. But only a few weeks ago he had overcome the final hurdle and perfected his enhancement technique. It was not only 100% effective, but it was repeatable.

They’d laughed at his theories.

Soon, no one would be laughing.

If the world wouldn’t give him the recognition he deserved, it would make him disgustingly rich instead.

That it also might bring about the end of civilization didn’t bother Plincer in the least.

Dr. Plincer sat behind his desk, applied more putty to his chin, and frowned at the letter once more. Plincer didn’t get much mail, but he maintained a PO Box in Traverse City, and his delivery man checked it once a month and brought it along with the rest of his supplies.

The doctor read it again, as if the words were going to say something different from the other thirty times he’d read it.

The letter was from his accountant, and described several recent events in the news which Plincer knew nothing about because he didn’t follow the news—there was no phone, cable television, newspaper delivery, or Internet service to the island. The letter went on to say the market had taken a beating, the economy was in ruins, and Plincer was very close to broke.

Plincer wondered, not for the first time, if his accountant was crooked and stealing funds. The doctor could easily send Lester to his house and get the truth out of him. But if the country really was at war in the Middle East, and the Dow Jones had really crashed, torturing the man wouldn’t provide anything more than the empty thrill of vengeance.

Still, an hour with Lester might teach that idiot the importance of diversification in a portfolio.

It was all water under the bridge. Plincer’s only chance at funding now hinged on how his meeting tomorrow would go. He checked another letter from the pile on his desk, and rechecked the arrival time. The helicopter would be arriving at nine a.m. Plincer had instructed them to land on the east side of the prison, where there was a clearing.

While the doctor rather enjoyed the isolation the island provided, he did wish he could confirm this meeting again by phone or email. So much was riding on this venture. If they were a no-show, it would take weeks to contact them again to find out why. By that time, he’d be broke, and perhaps forced to scrounge for food alongside the unfortunate cannibals he’d inadvertently created.

Doctor Plincer closed his eyes. There was still much to do before the meeting. He’d given that black girl to Subject 33 on the understanding that there would be other volunteers to use in his demonstration tomorrow. And while performing the procedure on that Georgia person was an unprecedented opportunity, the doctor wondered if he hadn’t been too eager, too hasty. But the prospect of another success was impossible to pass up.

Unfortunately, that currently left Plincer with a deficit of victims.

According to his intel, there were still five likely candidates on the island. Though the ferals had surprised the doctor by proving themselves able to work together, he doubted they would be able to grab all of the new arrivals. Some would survive.

Plincer glanced at the clock. He had less than eight hours to get his hands on them. It would make for a much more effective presentation if he were able to grab all five. But all he needed was a single volunteer.

It was time to send Lester back out to find one.

Martin stared below him, through the leaves of the bough he perched upon. His swollen hands had resisted his efforts to climb the tree, and his ruined cheek resting against the rough bark of the oak’s branch made his injury light up every time he swallowed. But he felt lucky to have gotten up in time.

A few moments earlier, in a semi-frantic search for Sara, he’d come upon a group of feral people. He fled before they saw him. Or so he thought. Within ten minutes, the ferals were on his trail, closing fast. Martin ran as hard as he could, not daring to use the flashlight, fearing he’d give his position away. Only moments into the chase, something surprising happened; he bumped into another group.

After his third right turn, Martin’s gut burned with realization. They had him trapped. These insane, witless cannibals had somehow managed to surround him.

With no choices left, he shifted Jack’s sling from his chest to his back, picked a large tree, and hoped for the best. The ferals closed the circle and converged, twelve of them total, right beneath his perch. More than expected, too many to be able to handle, less than ten feet beneath him.

The largest man in the group, the one with the ax, grunted orders at the others, pointing in various directions. Then he leaned up against the tree and reached into the sack he had hanging over his shoulder.

Martin couldn’t make out any details, but the axman pulled out a dark round object the size of a football. He brought it to his face and took a bite. The scent of cooked pork wafted up to Martin. But Martin knew whatever this guy was eating, it wasn’t pork.

The axman sat down. He began to really gnaw on the thing, shaking his hairy head from side to side like a dog worrying a bone. Martin’s leg began to fall asleep. The pins and needles sensation grew from a minor discomfort to a spreading numbness. He shifted slightly, anxious to stay quiet, twisting his pelvis so the blood flow could return.

Then Jack shifted on Martin’s back, throwing off his precarious balance. Martin’s adrenaline spiked, flushing his body with heat, causing every muscle to contract as Martin lost his grip and began to fall.

Cindy knew she was hurting Tyrone—clenching his left hand so tight—but she was too frightened to let go. They ran as fast as safety allowed, heads down to keep from getting lashed in the face by wayward twigs and branches, arms swinging like walking sticks for the blind, so no one head-butted a tree. Cindy had no clue how many pursuers there were, or how close they’d gotten, and she was ready to circle the island ten times before she slowed down to find out.

But her lungs and legs and stamina were casualties of meth, and though she’d been off the drug for a while her body still hadn’t fully recovered. After only a few minutes of running, Tyrone practically had to drag her, and Cindy’s panting was becoming increasingly labored and loud.

When Sara finally stopped, Cindy fell to her knees, pressing a hand hard against the stitch in her side and gasping for air.

Sara came over, and whispered, “Shh.”

Cindy’s face pinched as she tried to get her breathing under control. Sara crawled ahead, up to a bush, and stuck her head inside. It was still dark, but Cindy could see pretty well. She moved her head to the side, so Sara’s shadow didn’t block her vision.

Wait… shadow?

On all fours, Cindy crept closer to Sara. All at once she understood where the light was coming from, and the importance of being quiet.

Somehow, they’d gotten back to their campsite.

Their fire was smaller, the few logs left burning slow and steady. The last time Cindy was here there were two cannibals, eating their fallen friend. Only one remained. The one with the knife and fork and salt shaker. His head was resting on the chest of the dead one, using it like a gory pillow.

Cindy turned her head away before viewing any details.

“He asleep?” Tyrone whispered.

“Can’t tell.” Sara withdrew her head from the bush. “But he’s right next to the tent. That’s where the radio is.”

“I’ll go,” Tyrone said. “I’ll be real careful, won’t wake him up.”

Sara shook her head. “No. I’ll go. You both stay here.”

“You be better off watchin’ my back. If I’m in that tent, lookin’ for the radio, I won’t know if this crazy dude wakes up. But you know that judo shit, can stop him better than I can.”

Sara shook her head. “You stay here, guard Cindy.”

“How’m I supposed to guard Cindy when I can’t even make a fist?”

Cindy touched Tyrone’s shoulder. “The best way to do this is to crawl. You can’t crawl with your burns.” She looked deep inside herself, and was surprised by what she found there. “But I can.”

“Hells no.”

“No way, Cindy.”

Cindy’s mind was made up. She looked at Sara. “Tyrone is right. If that man gets up, you’re the only one who can stop him.”

Sara looked away. “I…I don’t think I could do that again.”

“Yes you can. You’re strong enough.”

And so am I.

Before she lost her nerve, Cindy scrambled through the bush and into the clearing. She rested her belly on the ground and craned her neck. The cannibal was to her right, five yards away, lying down in front of the tent. His chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically.

You can do this. You can prove you’re more than just some selfish meth addict.

Cindy crept forward, slow and easy and quiet as a mouse wearing slippers. That was what her father used to say when he took her hunting. The image would make her laugh, which of course wasn’t quiet at all.

God, she missed him. Missed him and Mom so bad. They hadn’t visited her at the Center, and she couldn’t blame them—Cindy had stolen everything of value in the house, pawning it to get more meth. But now more than ever she wanted to see them again, to tell them how sorry she was, to promise she’d pay back every cent. She would too, if she lived through this.

Cindy kept low, eyes darting back and forth between the tent entrance and the sleeping killer. She was so focused on her destination that she didn’t see whatever it was she rested her extended palm on.

But Cindy didn’t have to see it. She knew without looking. It was warm, and wet, and squishy, and she’d helped Mom prepare it enough times that the smell normally evoked pleasant, homey feelings.

This time it didn’t.

Her stomach clenched, and she felt ready to hurl. In fact, she was eighty percent there, mouth already open, the gagging sound working her way up her throat, glancing anxiously at the cannibal to see if he could hear her.

She squeezed her eyes shut and repressed it, forced the reflex down. Vomiting was noisy, noise would draw attention, and that could kill her.

The moment passed. Cindy breathed through her mouth, slow and deep, relaxing her abdomen. Then she carefully lifted her hand off and wiped it on the dirt. Gravel and ash stuck to the moisture on her palm, and she vowed that she would never, under any circumstances, eat liver again.

She adjusted her direction to avoid encountering anything else, and continued forward. But it didn’t matter. The cannibals had been messy eaters, and Cindy’s fingers kept brushing against various bits and parts strewn all over the ground. The knees of her jeans soaked through, and her hands glistened in the flickering campfire. She pressed forward, getting to within ten feet of the tent.

At eight feet away, her mouth went completely dry, making swallowing impossible.

When she was within six feet, her breath was coming out in pants.

Four feet from the tent, her head began to feel strange and hollow.

Two feet away, hyperventilation made her dizzy to the point where she was going to pass out. She paused, trying to suck in air through her nose and slow down her heartbeat.

Just a few more inches, Cindy. You can do it…

Then the cannibal grunted, shifting his body. The knife and fork, resting crisscross on his chest, shifted, sliding off and making a clanging sound that to Cindy felt like a shotgun blast. He was now on his side, facing her.

She froze, staring at his still-closed eyes. His cheeks were wet with blood, and little stringy things were caught in his beard. If he opened his eyes it was over. Sara and Tyrone wouldn’t be able to save her in time. Here was a man who ate what seemed to be his friend. What would he do to someone he considered an enemy?

Cindy glanced right, her shallow breathing causing her vision to blur. The entrance to the tent was tantalizingly close, but she was too scared to move. She thought she’d hit rock bottom when she’d passed out in a disgusting gas station toilet, a needle stuck in her arm, lying in a puddle of someone else’s urine for hours until the owner discovered her and called the police. But this—an arm’s length from a crazy man who wanted to snack on her—this was the all time low.

Quiet as a mouse in slippers, little girl. Move like you live in the woods.

Cindy tore her eyes away from the killer, locking them onto the tent. Moving oh so slowly she forced herself toward it, hand, knee, hand, knee, ignoring the horrible, slippery things she crawled over, and then, all at once, her head and shoulders were inside the tent, relief coursing through her like the meth she was so intent on quitting.

That’s when Cindy heard the snoring.

The other cannibal was in the sleeping bag.

Tom patted his full stomach and yawned. He was dog-ass tired, and had eaten waaaaay too much. All he wanted was to curl up someplace and go to sleep. He was even considering doing so right there, in front of the coals. It was warm, and comfortable, and whosever camp this was hadn’t been around for over an hour. If they did come back and get mad that he ate their food, it was their own frickin’ fault for leaving it here.

Sara and Martin would be frantic, of course, if he stayed out all night. But it was their frickin’ fault for playing that stupid trick and trying to scare him. Screw those two anyway. It wasn’t like anything Tom did mattered at this point. The Center was closing and Tom was going off to some frickin’ boot camp. Let them worry themselves to death.

He yawned again, stretched out his arms, and stood, looking for something that would serve as a pillow. There was some sort of cloth near the coals, and he bent down and picked it up, immediately recognizing it.

Meadow’s shirt.

Huh. Weird. But then, Meadow was probably in on the prank too, pretending to get grabbed in the woods. Maybe he was in the trees right now, waiting to jump out.

Tom turned in a full circle, scanning the treeline. It looked just as dark and quiet as ever.

Then Tom did something he almost never did. He doubted himself.

For just a fraction of a second, he wondered if maybe this wasn’t all some big joke, and that there actually were cannibals in the woods. Hell, that mystery meat he just stuffed himself with could have even been a person.

Tom was all about impulse, forging ahead, not looking back. Doubt and guilt existed only as fleeting thoughts. Without his ADHD medication, Tom couldn’t stand still long enough to spell the word worried, let alone act worried.

So he dismissed the doubt as soon as it came, rolled Meadow’s shirt into a ball, and propped it behind his neck as he stretched out onto the ground, facing a severed human hand.

Tom jerked back into a sitting position, unable to believe what he just saw. He looked again.

A hand. Cooked and fleshy, except for three skeletal fingers that had no meat on them.

Never one to pay attention to his surroundings, Tom twisted around quickly, his eyes scanning the ground for the first time. In short order he found four rib bones, a burned lump that looked like a kidney, and a partially eaten leg that still had the foot attached.

“No way. No frickin’ way.”

He reached out, touched the leg bone.

It wasn’t a plastic prop. It was the real thing. And the blackened, melted shoe still attached had a green Nike swoosh on it, just like Meadow wore.

Tom threw up so hard and fast it felt like his throat was being torn out. That’s when the tall thin man with the camera stepped out of the woods and snapped his picture.

Martin’s lower body slipped off the branch, then his chest followed the lead. He hung in a chin-up position, his feet dangling within reach of the axman sitting beneath him. Martin held this position, his fingers screaming at him, knowing he’d be unable to swing his body back up, and knowing what dropping down meant.

Then Jack began to shift. Martin only had one shoulder strap around him, having moved too quickly to buckle the second strap or the waist belt. Jack moved along Martin’s back, under his armpit, and hung over his belly. He opened his tiny eyes, looked up at Dad, and gurgled happily.

Martin’s arms began to burn, then tremble, then unbend slowly, like the air being let out of a pneumatic jack. Below him, the axman continued to gnaw on that large round object. But it was only a matter of seconds until he looked up. Martin knew his best chance was to move closer to the trunk, find a toe hold. But he wasn’t sure his hands would hold out.

Jack gurgled again, blowing a tiny baby spit bubble that burst against his father’s neck.

Martin reached out an aching hand for a grip near the trunk.

His fingers missed the branch.

Jack’s sling slid right off his shoulder.

Martin frantically reached down, catching the strap, tangling Jack only a foot above the cannibal. The hand still holding the tree felt like it had been set on fire. He let out an involuntary grunt.

The cannibal kept his attention focused on his snack, and didn’t see the baby swinging over his head.

Martin summoned up his last bit of strength, swung Jack’s sling in a wide arc, and the strap hooked onto a broken twig.

Jack apparently enjoyed the quick motion, because he squealed with joy.

The cannibal looked up.

The tug was sudden and violent, ripping Martin’s hands from the bough. He slammed into the ground on his side, the shock of the impact making him bite his already injured tongue. Inches from his nose was a severed, cooked head, much of its face eaten away.

Martin instinctively rolled left, just as the ax struck where he’d been lying. Martin continued the roll until he had room to get his hands and knees up under him. A moment later he was on his feet, dizzy and hurting, but with his fists raised. He looked up, saw Jack hanging precariously from the tree branch. Then he took another quick look at the head.

Meadow.

“That was one of my kids,” Martin said softly. “My kids. You think you can kill one of mine?”

The axman was large, powerful, with thick arms and a neck like a tree stump. But when he swung the ax again, aiming at Martin’s chest, he showed his weakness. The bigger man was slow.

Martin side-stepped the swing and kicked out his foot, connecting between the axman’s legs. The he grabbed the ax handle and twisted it sideways, trying to tug it from its owner’s thick fingers.

Leverage and momentum were on his side. The axman grunted, stumbling forward, and Martin did a quick spin, propelling the weapon around, burying the head into his adversary’s shoulder. The axman howled, dropping to his knees.

“My kids, asshole.”

It took six more whacks before the creature was dead. Martin surveyed the carnage, breathing heavily, and then reached up to pull his son from the tree.

Jack was blowing more spit bubbles.

“Let’s go get Mommy.”

Martin adjusted Jack so the sling was in front, made sure both straps and the belt were secure, and then went to go find his wife.

General Alton Tope was career Army, and those under his command joked that when he nicked himself shaving he not only bled red, but white and blue as well. For more than thirty years he practiced keeping his face unreadable, his thoughts invisible, but anyone looking at him in his bedroom would have noticed obvious signs of worry creasing his weathered features.

He loosened his tie and undid his top collar button, poured himself the last finger of twenty-one-year-old Dalwhinnie single malt, recapped the bottle and placed it in the empty waste can next to his desk, and took the glass over to the bureau. General Tope set the scotch on top and used both hands to open the cabinet doors, then took a moment to frown at the OSST monitor. He tapped the flatscreen with his left hand and retrieved the liquor with his right, bringing the rocks glass to his mouth and smelling notes of heather and honey amid the ethanol vapors.

The monitor flickered on, showing an orbital view of a familiar green planet in perfect high-definition color. He touched the familiar mitten shape of Michigan, and took a sip while waiting for the Orbiting Strand Satellite Telescope to track his command. The whiskey was warm and smooth, and he finished it too quickly.

Self control, Alton. Always. Get a hold of yourself.

He went back to his desk and opened the drawer where he kept his spare bottle. It wasn’t there. His maid knew he was to always have a spare on hand, and the lack of one meant she’d either forgotten to stock it, or taken it for herself.

General Tope shook off his annoyance. It was a forgivable mistake, and he was a forgivable leader. In the morning, he’d write her a brief note as a reminder. He set the empty glass on his desk and returned to OSST.

The image got bigger and bigger, zooming in to Lake Michigan, and ultimately Rock Island, at a viewing distance equivalent to three hundred feet above it. The picture was too dark to make out anything, so he pressed the top corner of the monitor and opened the onscreen operations panel. He switched the view to infrared and had the telescope software calculate a body count.

The number surprised him.

Twenty-seven.

According to the read out, there were twenty-seven people on the island.

But that shouldn’t be. That had to be wrong.

He had the program recalculate.

“Twenty-seven,” he said, reading the reconfigured total.

General Tope’s brow creased even further. Certain key military personnel knew about Rock Island. It had been on their radar for quite some time. He pondered what this new development meant, and realized he should have acted sooner.

“Tomorrow,” General Tope said. “I’ll take care of it all tomorrow.”

Then he picked up the phone, apologized to his secretary for the late hour, but instructed her to find him a bottle of single malt scotch, even if they had to send a platoon to break into the nearest liquor store to do so.

The interior of the tent was warm and sour, smelling of fresh blood and old sweat. Though the light was low, on her left Cindy could make out the shape of a person wrapped in a sleeping bag—the dirty, hairy man she’d seen earlier, the one who tried to grab her and Tyrone. He snored wetly, making the hair on Cindy’s arms stand on edge.

Cindy’s first reaction was to back up, get the hell out of there, and she went so far as to lean toward the exit. But her limbs stayed put. The radio was in that tent, and it was their only chance to get off this island alive. So she ignored all the voices in her brain screaming at her to leave, and instead inched forward.

There were backpacks to her right, their contents strewn about, probably by Tom. Cindy squinched her eyes, not even sure what the radio in question looked like. Before she rushed bravely in, possibly to her own death, she should have at least asked how big it was. In the dimness she could make out some clothing, Jack’s crib, a stack of cans, and something square-shaped. Were radios square? She crawled closer to the square thing, keeping the instinct to flee at bay.

The snoring cannibal kept a steady rhythm, every snort a reminder that death was less than three feet away. As Cindy got closer she saw a familiar red cross on the box.

A first aid kit. Tyrone needs this for his hands.

She picked it up and carefully placed it on the ground behind her, near the entrance. Then she began to paw through the discarded clothing.

After carefully setting aside one of Martin’s shirts, Cindy noticed a tiny red light, no larger than a BB. She reached for it, touching something hard and rectangular. Her fingers brushed over an antenna. It was either a very old model cell phone, or…

A walkie-talkie.

Cindy seized it, snugging it to her chest, and it let go with a loud burst of static hiss when she accidentally pressed a button.

She froze, holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable; the cannibal waking up and reaching for her.

It didn’t happen. There was only stillness, and silence.

Cindy paused, her hands shaking, her kidneys aching. If attacked, she needed to scream to alert Sara and Tyrone. She also needed to find a weapon. The radio had some heft, but she couldn’t risk damage by throwing or swinging it. The first aid kit was in a metal box. Heavier and stronger.

If he wakes up, scream first, then go for the kit.

Still no sound. Cindy hadn’t exhaled yet.

If she had to defend herself, she needed her hands free. Carefully feeling around the walkie-talkie, she discovered what she sought; a belt clip. Ever so slowly she hooked it onto the top of her pants.

Silence continued to pervade the tent. The cannibal wasn’t moving at all.

Cindy let her air out slowly, through her teeth, in an extended, soft hiss. She wanted to take another breath—her heart was thumping like mad—but she was too frightened.

Just get out of there. Get the hell out.

She began to back up, nice and easy, the quiet pressing down on her like a weight, when the obvious hit her.

Why isn’t he snoring anymore? Could he be awake?

That’s when the cannibal sprung up, winding his filthy arm around Cindy’s mouth before she had a chance to scream.

Sara felt ready to explode. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since Cindy crawled into the tent, but each second seemed like a little stretch of eternity in hell. Not being able to see her, not knowing what was happening to one of her kids, made Sara’s imagination run riot with atrocities.

She forced herself to count the seconds. A minute was more than enough time for Cindy to find the radio. After a minute, Sara was determined to go in after her.

Sara began a slow count to sixty.

“How long Cindy been in there?” Tyrone nudged her.

“Not long,” she whispered back.

The numbers ticked through Sara’s mind, and she pictured them as she thought of them, each one big and red and sounding like a gong.

By the time she reached number twenty, it felt like a year had passed.

“I’m going after her.”

Sara held Tyrone back. “Give her a minute.”

“Been more than a minute.”

The number thirty shone like a spotlight in Sara’s head. “He’s still asleep. She’s okay.”

“There were two of those cannibals,” Tyrone said.

Number thirty-four hung in the air, then disintegrated. “Two?”

“I just had a bad thought. Maybe the other guy is in the tent.”

“Oh… shit.”

Sara abandoned the count, springing up from the crouching position, making her way through the thicket to the campsite.

It’s murder, Sara. You can’t murder another human being. Not while he’s asleep.

She crept over to him, crossing the damp ground where blood had mixed with the dirt, making mud. Bits of sinew clung to her hiking boots, and organ meat squished beneath her feet. On the ground, next to him, were some filthy eating utensils, dried bits of gore stuck to them.

This is cold-blooded. It’s not even self-defense.

Sara stood next to the sleeping cannibal, raising up her foot, ready to stomp down on his neck.

He’s asleep for chrissakes. You’re killing a defenseless, sleeping man.

The cannibal opened his eyes.

He’s not asleep anymore.

Sara brought her heel down as hard as she could. She put her weight into it, twisting her hips, trying to separate his head from his body.

But he moved at the last moment, and her foot hit his shoulder.

Then Sara was stumbling backward, thrown off balance, and the cannibal was on his feet and eyeing her malevolently, crouching in an attack position. He’d picked up his cutlery, the blood-stained fork in his right hand, a rusty steak knife in his left. Sara found her center, spread her feet, and waited for the charge.

Behind her, in the tent, Cindy screamed.

That distracted Sara long enough for the cannibal to slip inside Sara’s defenses, feinting with his left, jabbing the right at Sara’s thigh.

The fork penetrated her jeans, her skin, her muscle, and stuck firmly in the bone.

Sara spun, whipping her elbow around, hitting her attacker squarely in the nose. The cannibal staggered back, arms pinwheeling, and then tripped and fell onto his ass, right in the middle of the campfire.

He laid there for a second, then began to flap his limbs, almost like he was making a snow angel in the burning ashes. He cried out—trying to turn over—his legs getting tangled in some of the firewood—getting to his feet—slipping and falling face-first—getting to his feet again with his hair and beard on fire—and finally running into the woods, screaming like a police siren as he retreated into the night.

That’s when the pain hit. Sara doubled over, her hands fluttering around the utensil sticking out of her leg, afraid to touch it. This was worse than a charley horse, reducing Sara’s world to nothing but an agonizing throb. She whimpered, saw Tyrone in her peripheral vision. He was streaking out of the woods and heading for the tent.

Now there are two of my kids in danger.

Sara slammed her eyelids closed, clenched her fingers around the fork handle, and yanked.

She staggered sideways, her balance, her stomach, her mind all going wavy. Jerking her eyes open, Sara oriented herself and limped to the tent, ducking inside, seeing Tyrone struggling with a man, a man who was growling and biting Cindy on her shoulder. Cindy beat at his head and whined like a kicked dog.

Sara made a fist, pressing her thumb down hard across the top of her index finger knuckle, and threw the punch.

Her thumbnail jabbed into the cannibal’s eye. He opened his teeth and howled, allowing Tyrone to snake his arm across his neck. Sara grabbed his torn, filthy shirt, and she and Tyrone manhandled him out of the tent, forcing him to his knees. The eye she’d poked was bleeding. The other one was bloodshot and… crying.

He ceased struggling, his arms limp at his sides.

“I… am… bad… man.” His voice was odd, somewhere between a croak and a hiccup.

Sara paused. She was hurt, and sick to her stomach, and part of her knew she needed to end this monster’s life, but another, bigger part saw he was not only docile, but quite possible in need of help himself.

“Who are you?” Sara asked.

“My… name …John.”

Cindy crawled out of the tent, crying. She held a white gym sock to her bleeding shoulder.

“What’s your last name, John?”

He blinked. His body shook with sobs, but there were no tears.

“Don’t… know.”

“How many of, uh, your group, are on this island?”

“Many.” The wildness in his red eyes was still there, but behind it was a tinge of sanity. “Like… animals. We… hunt. We… kill. We… eat.”

Sara bent down, wincing at the pain in her leg. “What happened to you, John?”

“Brought… here…” He swallowed, and moaned. “Doctor… did… something… to… brain.”

“Dr. Plincer?” Sara asked.

John made a nodding motion, restricted by Tyrone’s grip.

“Maybe we can get you help, John.”

“I’ve…done… things.”

By his tone, Sara could assume what those things were.

“Maybe that’s not all your fault, John.” She felt revulsion, and pity. Sara was a big proponent of free will, but she also knew that decision-making, morals, values, and even personality could all be altered with drugs or damage to the brain. But the fact that he was aware of his actions meant he had a choice.

His breath came faster. “I… want…”

Sara looked into his eyes. They seemed to implore her.

“What is it, John?”

“Want… to…”

“Want to get help?”

Sara wondered if she could get him help. They would have to restrain him somehow, maybe tie him up. Then, when the Coast Guard arrived, maybe he could be taken somewhere and treated. Sara had no clue what Plincer had done to this poor man, but perhaps it could be reversed.

“…to…”

“Maybe we can get you help, John. Maybe you don’t have to be like this.”

The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile.

“Want… to… EAT!”

He grabbed Sara’s hair, pulling her close, his ugly mouth opening to bite her face. His breath was hot and the few teeth he had left were tinged red.

Tyrone pulled him back, muscling him to the ground. They wrestled for a moment, and then everyone heard the crack.

Both Tyrone and John stopped moving. Then, slowly, Tyrone disentangled himself, letting John slump onto his face, unmoving.

John blinked. “Can’t… feel… body.”

Tyrone scooted further away on his butt and elbows. “I think I broke his neck, man. I think I broke his fuckin’ neck.”

John let out a breath, blowing dirt away from his mouth. His eyes darted around, frantic.

“Kill… me.”

Sara went to Cindy, peeled the sock back. The bite was ragged, ugly, but not very deep. She limped over to the tent and almost stepped on the first aid kit. She picked the box up and opened it. Inside were bandages, hydrogen peroxide, acetaminophen, and—thank God—a mini flashlight.

John began to wail. “They… will… eat… me! Kill… me!”

“Tyrone. Come here.”

After pouring peroxide on Cindy’s shoulder, Sara had Tyrone hold out his hands. She dumped half the bottle into his palms, the blisters foaming pink and gray from blood and dirt.

“KILLMEKILLMEKILLME!”

“There are bottles of water inthe tent. Get a few, and each of you take some painkillers.” She handed him the acetaminophen, which he gingerly took using two fingers. “Don’t come out until I say so.”

Sara and Tyrone exchanged a knowing look, and he nodded, putting his arm around Cindy and leading her away. Sara moved over to John. He looked pathetic, sad, terrified. Human.

“Please! They… will… cook… me… alive.”

Sara chewed on her lower lip. She knew what the right thing to do was, and it made her stomach churn. With effort, she sat down next to him.

“Chi… children…”

“Are you a father, John?”

He blinked. “Yes…”

She didn’t want to do this. She really didn’t want to do this.

“Do you remember their names, John?”

“Greg… Jen…”

“Do you want me to,” Sara swallowed the lump in her throat, “give a message to your children?”

“You… can’t…”

Sara closed her eyes, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Yes I can, John. When I get off the island, I’ll make sure I find out who you are. I promise I will, John.”

She looked at him, and he was smiling again. Sara placed her other hand under John’s chin, winding her fingers in his hair.

“Tell me, John. What should I say to your kids?”

His eyes opened really wide. “I… ATE… THEM!”

Human beings always had a choice. If you knew the difference between good and evil, you could choose good. If you knew the difference between mercy and vengeance, you could choose mercy.

Sare looked deep inside herself, and found mercy.

The crack when John’s neck hyper-extended wasn’t as loud this time. It was more like a pop.

Lester peered at the vomiting boy through the viewfinder, then pressed the button again. The flash went off, and he looked at the screen on his digital camera to see how the picture came out.

Very nice. He glanced up at the boy, who was looking around, wondering what was happening.

Time for Lester to show him.

Lester tucked the camera into the bib pocket of his overalls and walked out of the scrub brush. He smiled at the boy’s reaction, a mixture of fear and awe.

“The boy shouldn’t try to run. It will just make Lester mad.”

Lester strolled over, appearing casual but ready to bolt if the boy took off. But the boy stayed on his knees, mouth hanging open, some barf on his chin.

Lester stood next to the boy and peered down at him. He reached down, and with his index finger, caressed the lad’s cheek.

“What is the boy’s name?”

“T…Tom.”

“Lester.”

Lester glanced down at the mess Tom made, locking his eyes onto one of the bigger chunks. He tried to remember all the things he’d ever put in his mouth, but knew he’d never be able to remember them all. If Lester could bite it, he had. But he didn’t think he’d ever eaten something that had already been eaten by someone else.

Unable to control the impulse, Lester snagged the piece of meat from the puddle of stomach acid. He opened his jaws and tossed it in like popcorn.

Tangy.

“Lester has a girlfriend,” Lester said, chewing.

“That’s…uh…cool.”

Lester nodded. “Does Tom have a girlfriend?”

Tom’s eyes were very wide. He shook his head. “No.”

“That’s sad. Does Tom have a boyfriend?” Lester asked.

The boy shook his head again.

“That’s good.” Lester got on his knees. He still towered over the boy, and had to lean down.

“Lester doesn’t have a boyfriend either. What a lucky day for Tom and Lester.”

Lester felt Tom scream in his mouth as he kissed the boy’s deliciously tangy lips.

Doctor Plincer got under the bed covers, then reached onto the nightstand for his earplugs. Subject 33 was really coaxing some screams out of his new playmate, and Plincer needed to get some sleep before the meeting tomorrow.

He found the two foam plugs by the base of the lamp, and spent a minute taking off his prosthetic ears and shoving the plugs into the holes. When the cries were dulled to a whisper, Plincer placed his glasses where the earplugs had been, switched off the light, and rested his head back on the pillow.

Oops. Almost forgot.

Plincer flicked the lamp back on, sat up, and spent a minute picking the facial putty out of the divots in his nose, chin and cheeks. Specifically made for burn victims, this make-up was used to smooth out scar tissue. It didn’t hold up to close scrutiny, giving his complexion an artificial dullness, and when it dried it would flake off, making him look like he had crumbs on his face. Still, it was preferable to looking like a loaf of headcheese.

When he had a decent sized ball of it, he set that next to his glasses and again killed the light.

The doctor actually did sympathize with the poor suffering girl. Sympathize, and empathize.

Plincer rested his hands on his bare chest and ran his fingers over the rubbery scars. There were several dozen gnarled, shiny bumps, in precise, even rows. It felt like touching a truck tire.

The plastic surgeons weren’t able to do skin grafts, because there was no place on the doctor’s body where skin could be harvested. His arms, legs, back, and even buttocks had the same scars.

Scars from Lester.

Doctor Plincer knew, firsthand, what it was like to be completely at the mercy of a psychopath. After the court ordered Lester into Plincer’s care, the doctor had been so intent on curing the teenager he hadn’t given enough thought to precautions. Lester was smart, and managed to escape his room one night and sneak into the doctor’s.

For two days, Doctor Plincer had been victimized by the boy. Lester stripped him naked, tied him up, and began the methodical process of biting him over his entire body.

Human beings can clench their teeth with a hundred and fifty pounds of force. It hurt worse than being pinched with pliers. Not to mention the obscene intimacy of it. Plincer often imagined he could still feel Lester’s lips, his warm breath, his slick tongue, on his skin. Followed by the piercing, tearing pain.

Plincer had screamed during the ordeal. Screamed until his throat went numb. And when Lester finished, when he’d covered almost every bitable square inch on the Doctor’s body, he started over. Nibbling off the scabs. Reopening the wounds. Ramping the agony up to surreal levels.

The maid saved Plincer’s life. Coming in for the weekly cleaning, she heard the doctor’s whimpering and called the police.

Doctor Plincer needed over two hundred stitches and staples, and three pints of blood. The most extensive reconstruction work was done on his face and genitals, to little effect. It took him weeks to recover, and Plincer knew that perhaps he never truly did get over the psychological aspects of the attack.

But he didn’t blame Lester, any more than he could blame a shark for following its nature. When Plincer healed, he resumed his experiments with Lester. But instead of curing him, he enhanced him, making the boy even more evil.

The world didn’t care about him curing psychotics. But it turned out people were willing to pay big bucks to Plincer to create psychotics.

So strange how life works out.

Plincer sighed, digging another bit of putty out of the gap in the bridge of his nose and flicking it off into the dark. Funny, that he’d still have so much vanity he had to put on his face before the new arrivals saw him. He had no reason to care if they saw his disfigurement or not. Even if one of the female visitors on the island took a liking to Plincer, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Lester had bitten off those parts of him.

Chalk it up to an old man’s pride, Plincer thought. We’re all entitled to our little idiosyncrasies.

He sighed deeply and burrowed his head into his pillow. If all went as planned, by this time tomorrow he would no longer have money troubles.

Plincer allowed himself a small smile. Perhaps he should write a letter to his accountant, have him invest in a company that made ear plugs.

If the meeting went as well as Plincer anticipated, there would soon be a lot of screaming, all around the world.

The flashlight from the first aid kit was small, but it had a nice bright LED bulb. Sara clenched it between her teeth and bit down, hard, as she peeled off her jeans. The wound didn’t look too bad when she cleansed it; just four tiny punctures and a growing oval bruise. But it bled like hell and wouldn’t stop. Sara knew that a vein, or maybe an artery, was torn beneath the sin, and wasn’t sure what to do about it. She settled for wrapping it as tight as she could, then putting on a fresh pair of jeans and a sweater.

While Sara chugged a bottle of water she went through the backpacks, searching for anything useful. She pocketed some fingernail clippers, a lighter, and a compass when something caught her attention. Resting unfolded on the ground, like a dead dove, were the divorce papers.

Seeing them brought a lump to her throat.

Martin, her Martin, was out there, in the woods, with their son. So were Tom and Laneesha and Georgia. Of course she worried about Jack, and the others, who were like surrogate children.

But I’m worried sick about him, too.

The thought surprised her. Here they were, a signature away from never seeing each other again, which was something Sara initiated. Yet the thought of Martin being killed—it scared her down to the marrow.

Sara reached down, picked up the papers, and crumpled them into a ball.

If we get out of here, Martin, we’re going to find a way to make it work between us. I swear.

Then she left the tent to check on the kids. Both Tyrone and Cindy had put on shirts. Cindy had opted for something less baggy and a bit more flattering, a gray button-down top that showed she had a waist. Tyrone was in a familiar red and blue plaid shirt, but it wasn’t familiar on him.

“Meadow’s,” he said, noticing Sara’s stare.

She nodded at him. They’d told her about Meadow, and Sara had compartmentalized that particular horror, sealing it away until she had time to deal with it.

“I’m going to use the radio.” She knew she didn’t need to add anything else, but she said it anyway. “Stay on guard. There are twenty more of them out there.”

Sara studied the walkie-talkie, a Core-Sea VHF One Way Radio. On its face were an LCD screen, which was empty gray, a tiny red light near the base, and half a dozen buttons including wx band, 16/9, band, hi/lo, and mem. She had no idea what any of that meant. There were two equally confusing dials on the top, and a large black call button on the side. Sara hoped Captain Prendick already had it set to his unique channel or frequency, so she pressed call.

“Um, I’m calling for Captain Prendick, or the Coast Guard, or anyone who can hear me. This is Sara Randhurst. I’m stranded on Rock Island in Lake Huron with my husband, baby, and five children. We’re under attack, and one of my children was…” The words wouldn’t come out. “We need immediate help.”

She released the button and waited for a response. There was only silence.

“Please, we’re fighting for our lives. Can anyone hear me?”

More silence. Sara stared at the buttons, wondering which one to try, and then the radio squelched at her.

“Mrs. Randhurst, this is Captain Prendick, I read you, over.”

Sara felt like crying in relief.

“Captain, thank God, there are people on this island. They’re trying to kill us. You have to call for help.”

“Did I hear you correctly, Mrs. Randhurst? Someone is trying to kill you? That’s an uninhabited island, over.”

“Not anymore. Please. You have to hurry.”

“Is this some kind of joke, Mrs. Randhurst. There are stiff penalties for using a marine radio for pranks.”

“This isn’t a joke, Captain. I swear. We’re under attack. You have to believe me.”

Sara waited, hoping he would believe her.

“Do you know how to work the radio? Can you call the coast guard?”

“No. I don’t understand what any of these buttons mean.”

“I’ll call them right now. I’m in the area, only a few miles away, so I should be able to get there quickest. Can you make it to the spot where I dropped you off?”

Sara glanced into the black void of the woods, her hands shaking. “I don’t think so. We’re lost.”

“Do you have a compass?”

“Yes.”

“Follow it north-east. That’s where the beach is. If you reach the cliffs, you went too far north, so go further east. I’ll meet you there in an hour, maybe less.”

“Thank you, Captain. Please hurry.”

“I will. Over and out, Mrs. Randhurst.”

Sara held the walkie-talkie, wondering what to do next. Though she had a responsibility to Cindy and Tyrone, and a duty to get them to safety as soon as possible, Sara wasn’t going to leave without the others. But she couldn’t go after Martin and the kids by herself. She needed the Coast Guard, or the police, or a whole Army platoon to do that. And she certainly couldn’t do it dragging Cindy and Tyrone along. She had to get them on the boat before she searched for anyone else.

Hopefully, Captain Prendick would arrive with the cavalry.

Sara considered turning the dials, pressing a few buttons, to see if she might be able to raise the Coast Guard herself, but she was afraid she would change the setting and no longer be able to contact Prendick. Besides, there wasn’t time to play with the radio. Three cannibals had already found their campsite. Sara didn’t want to spend any more time here than necessary.

Just in case any of the others showed up, she found a notebook and left a message.

We went north-east, to the beach, to wait for the boat. Captain Prendick is coming with help. Hide nearby and wait for us to return. Sara, Tyrone, and Cindy.

She left the notebook open to that page, sitting on the ground near the fire. For a few seconds she wondered if maybe she should use a stick to point north-east, but her time in the woods had shown Sara how easy it was to lose your sense of direction.

Sara took a last, lingering look at John, his head askew and his red eyes staring off into infinity, and told the kids it was time to go.

Captain Edward Prendick got off the radio with the Coast Guard, and wondered if everything was going to work out okay.

Prendick considered himself a good man. He loved his mother, and visited her on every holiday, Labor Day and Valentine’s Day included, even though she lived out of state and it cost a fortune. He treated other people with decency and respect. He had an aquarium on board his boat, which contained a single goldfish, named Goldie, which he’d dutifully taken care of for more than five years.

That’s why the distress call from Mrs. Randhurst was, well, so distressing.

Rock Island was a bad place. It even had an aura about it. An evil vibe. And something shady was definitely going on there.

He’d tried to warn them, to get them to camp elsewhere. But they’d been insistent.

Now he was forced to head back there. Something he didn’t relish at all.

“Mama told me not to become a sailor, Goldie.”

Goldie was asleep in his tank. Or her tank. Prendick didn’t know if it was a boy fish or a girl fish. Actually, he didn’t know if Goldie actually slept, either. She certainly didn’t close her eyes and start snoring. But sometimes she’d stay in one place for an extended period of time, not even moving when he fed her, and Prendick assumed she (or he) was sleeping.

He glanced from the tank to the locked cabinet next to it. A gun cabinet, containing two revolvers and a rifle. Prendick checked the GPS and turned the wheel, silently praying he wouldn’t have to use them.

Tom didn’t think he could possibly be more frightened, and then the giant kissed him.

His first reaction was shock. Not only was the act totally unexpected, but it was so frickin’ gross, so frickin’ sick, that Tom didn’t know what the hell to do.

The obvious answer—push the freak away—scared Tom even more. This guy was so big and scary that rejecting him didn’t seem like an option.

So Tom closed his eyes as the psycho explored his mouth with his tongue, nibbling on his lips with those horrible needle teeth and making an awful, moaning sound in his throat.

Worst of all, this was technically Tom’s first French kiss. Yuck.

It was almost as bad as realizing he’d eaten Meadow.

Tom endured it, staying stock-still, praying for it to end. Eventually it did, and this crazy Lester person looked down at Tom and patted him on the head.

“Mmm,” Lester said. “Tom tastes yummy.”

Lester moved in closer, like he was going for another kiss. Tom leaned away and quickly said, “Uh, are you the one that cooked my buddy?”

The giant shook his head. “Lester doesn’t cook people. He likes to eat his raw.”

That was enough for Tom. He shoved Lester as hard as he could, then broke the land-speed record for sixteen-year-old boys and ran the hell out of there. It was too dark to see, and the trees were everywhere, so he stuck his hands out ahead of him to avoid busting open his head. When he did finally hit the tree, he was spared a concussion, but it hyper-extended his pinky, which hurt worse than just about anything Tom ever felt before.

He was cradling his injured finger, wondering how to get it to stop throbbing, when someone grabbed his shirt from behind.

“Tom shouldn’t have run from Lester,” the giant whispered in his ear. “Now Lester is taking Tom back to his playroom.”

“My finger,” Tom said, whining. “I think I broke my finger.”

Lester grabbed both of Tom’s wrists, encircling them like handcuffs. He raised them to his lips, and then—oh god no—he put the jutting pinky into his mouth.

Tom felt like throwing up again. Lester swished the finger back and forth in his mouth, causing such incredible waves of pain that it made the darkness come alive with orange and blue flashes. Tom began to beg, and when that didn’t stop the manipulation he fell to his knees and alternated between crying and screaming. There was no possible way the pain could get any worse.

Then the biting began.

General Alton Tope slugged down his fourth shot of scotch. It was a single malt, but a young one, and the alcohol burned his throat. The private who brought him the liquor needed a lesson in the selection of fine spirits, but he was grateful to the lad nonetheless.

He glanced at the OSST monitor again, frowning at the new population count.

Twenty-six.

Jesus, they’re dropping like flies.

General Tope understood the chain of command. He lived by it. Orders were orders, and the soonest he could get to Rock Island was tomorrow. There was no leeway.

He hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

Tyrone hurried through the woods alongside Cindy, three steps behind Sara. His palms were slathered in burn cream, which contained a topical anesthetic. It didn’t really kill the pain, just sort of turned some of the throbbing into tingling. He could manage.

Cindy had a finger stuck in his belt loop, which was a poor substitute for holding hands. But the persistent tug made him feel closer, connected. After they’d dressed, Cindy had been the one to apply the burn cream. It hurt, and the ointment smelled foul, but her tenderness and dedication touched Tyrone. For a moment, he actually felt like a kid again, way back when safety was taken for granted, and love was given freely, and life had possibilities.

“Do you think we’ll get out of here?” Cindy had asked, not meeting his eyes.

“We will.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I won’ let nuthin’ happen to you.”

Then she looked at him and all at once Tyrone felt nervous. Because he knew what he wanted to do, and the risks involved. Funny, there they were, surrounded by cannibals, and the thing that scared him most at that moment was leaning in for a kiss and being rejected.

But he did lean in. Cindy’s eyes got wide, then closed, and his lips lightly touched hers.

For ten beautiful seconds, all was right with the world.

Now they were trekking through the forest, heading for shore. That kiss had felt so right, but it had raised the stakes. Tyrone had spent so long just caring about himself, he’d forgotten all the pressure that came with caring about someone else. He couldn’t let anything happen to Cindy. Not now. He’d die first.

Sara got slightly ahead of them, even while limping, so Tyrone picked up the pace. She kept the light cupped in her hand, only flashing the beam occasionally to check the compass.

Tyrone always liked Sara. She was one of those people who actually wanted to help. She didn’t pretend to understand all the things the kids at the Center were going through. She didn’t make the mistake most adults did, trying to relate. Unless you were bangin’ and jackin’ and scoring drugs and hootchie mamas and livin’ day by day, how the hell were you supposed to know what the thug life was like? But Sara never fronted like that. She just showed the kids how they could change their lives if they tried, and that was cool.

But Tyrone hadn’t known how strong Sara actually was. He watched when she broke that guy’s neck. That was some tough as hell shit. Tyrone felt better knowing she had his back.

Sara stopped again. When she shined the light on the compass, Tyrone saw a face behind her. A crazed, snarling, charred and bloody face, the long hair and beard half-melted away, the burned lips and swollen to twice their size.

The cutlery man.

He lunged at Sara, his knife and fork raised. Tyrone shot forward, pulling Cindy off her feet, straight-arming the cannibal in the shoulder. The shock of the impact made Tyrone stagger back, and it knocked the cutlery man sideways. Then the pain came, starting off slow like a distant train, speeding in to become huge and loud and unstoppable.

Tyrone fell to his knees, staring at his right hand. The skin on his palm, already blistered and loose, had sloughed off.

A roar, almost like an animal, drew Tyrone’s attention upward, and he watched the cutlery man’s attack, the knife slicing down through the air, a perfect angle to bury itself into his neck.

Then, just as fast, the cutlery man was knocked to the side, the knife spinning harmlessly in the air and dropping to the ground.

Sara pivoted and brought her other foot around, landing this second kick on the cannibal’s face. Another inhuman roar escaped the burned man’s ruined lips, and even though his face looked like one of those Picassos in the art book Martin made them read, he continued to come at them.

The cutlery man dashed forward, and Sara turned slightly, bumping out her hip, flipping the cannibal over. She immediately followed up by dropping her knees onto his chest, and raising her fist back.

But she paused.

Why wouldn’t she hit him? Why didn’t she kill the fucker?

The cutlery man used the advantage, flailing at Sara’s bad leg, stabbing it with his fork.

Sara cried out, knocking his hand away. She hit him twice more. First in the nose, snapping his head back. Then in his bare neck.

The cutlery man’s eyes rolled up. He clutched at his throat, bucking Sara off and rolling onto his knees. Tyrone saw that the cannibal couldn’t breathe, that Sara must have broken something in his neck.

Cindy crouched next to Tyrone, her arm around his back, burying her face in his shoulder. Sara got to her feet, limping worse than before, then touched Tyrone’s head.

“We need to keep going.”

Tyrone didn’t move. The pain wasn’t what immobilized him. It was the terrible spectacle of watching the cutlery man desperately try to gasp for breath. The madness and evil in his eyes had been replaced by a very human look of raw panic. Seeing that made Tyrone understand why Sara had hesitated.

This wasn’t a monster. It was a human being. A suffering, dying, human being. And it was horrible to watch.

Then the cutlery man brought his rusty fork up to his own throat, dug it in, and tore a big hunk out.

The blood sprayed in Tyrone’s face, accompanied by a sound not unlike the whoosh of a fire extinguisher. Then the cannibal raised the fork again, a piece of him still hanging from it, and leapt to stab Sara, who was turned away.

Again Tyrone reacted, both hands up, blocking the cannibal’s attack. Again Tyrone’s raw palm hit the cutlery man’s filthy shirt, making his vision go red with pain.

Sara noticed the movement and spun around, dodging the thrust, striking at the cutlery man’s throat and temporarily losing her fist in the hole. She pulled away with a sucking noise, and the cutlery man fell to his knees, then onto his side, convulsing.

The pain built, getting stronger and stronger, and when the train finally hit him Tyrone couldn’t handle it and everything went blurry, then black.

Conflicting feelings assailed Sara so quickly she felt like she was playing emotional ping-pong. Rage and pity, fear and triumph, disgust and elation, concern and regret. She wasn’t sure whether to scream, weep, or laugh. Sara held everything back, including the pain in her thigh, and went to Tyrone, lying on his back. She sat next to him, stretching her leg out, and checked his pulse.

Tyrone’s eyelids fluttered, then opened, his wince expanding into a rictus of pain.

“Cindy, the med kit is in my backpack. We need to wrap his hand up.”

Cindy dug into the bag. Sara held up Tyrone’s wrist.

The boy’s palm looked like he’d dipped it in red paint. His whole arm was shaking, and he had a far-off look that made Sara question his connection with reality. She touched his forehead. Cool and clammy.

“Tyrone, can you hear me?”

“Huh?”

“It’s Sara. You need to stay awake. Cindy, when you’ve got the kit, put the pack under his feet to elevate his legs. Also, give me that vial of ammonia.”

Cindy handed over the bottle. Sara avoided looking at the cannibal, who was still twitching. She pulled the stopper and waved it under Tyrone’s nostrils. He tried to turn his head, but she kept it close until he lifted up his good hand to push the ammonia away.

“We have to get going,” Sara said. “Can you understand me?”

“Hand hurts bad,” he mumbled.

“Can you understand me, Tyrone?”

“Yeah.”

Cindy raised Tyrone’s feet, increasing the blood flow to his brain.

“Can you wrap his hand?” Sara asked.

Cindy nodded and got to work. Sara took the time to examine her new injury. It was just a few inches below the previous one, and not bleeding as badly. Sara found an Ace bandage in the kit and wound it tight around both her wounds. Then she checked her watch.

Half an hour until the boat arrived. Hopefully the Coast Guard was en route as well. Sara pulled the radio off her belt and pressed the button.

“Captain Prendick, this is Sara Randhurst. Can you hear me?”

A few seconds of quiet, then, “I hear you, Mrs. Randhurst. I should be there soon.”

“How about the police?”

“I contacted the Coast Guard. They’re on their way. Over.”

Sara pressed the call button, but didn’t speak. She wasn’t sure how to say what she was thinking without sounding paranoid.

Not that she didn’t have good reason to be paranoid.

Captain Prendick must have guessed her intent, because when she released the button he was in mid-sentence. “…try it for yourself. Emergency frequency is on channel A, one, five, six, point, eight, zero, zero. Use the word mayday. The Coast Guard will respond. Over.”

“Say that again. What do I press?”

“Hit the 16/9 button two times. That resets it to the emergency channel. Then hit it two more times to be able to reach me again. Over and out.”

Sara followed instructions, then pressed the call button again.

“Mayday, mayday, this is Sara Randhurst. I’m on Rock Island with several children and we need help.”

After a pause, a nasally voice said, “Mrs. Randhurst, this is the Coast Guard. We have been informed of your situation. Estimated time of arrival is nineteen minutes. We’ll be coming ashore on the north-east beach, over.”

“Thank you so much,” Sara said. She took a quick glance at the still-twitching cannibal and added, “Bring guns. Lots of guns.”

“Roger that, Mrs. Randhurst. Coast Guard over and out.”

Sara clipped the walkie-talkie to her belt and let out a long breath. They needed to get moving. Not only because of the danger, but because Sara didn’t want to sit still long enough to deal with everything on her mind. She and Cindy helped Tyrone to his feet, Sara shouldered the backpack, and the trio got on their way.

The woods were dark. Quiet. Scary. Sara stopped often to check the compass and scan the outlying foliage for pursuers. Tyrone was moaning softly, but not soft enough. Sara was afraid he might be heard.

Cindy whispered, “How much farther?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tyrone is really cold.”

“I think he’s going into shock, Cindy.”

“What do we do?”

“We keep going. Help is on the way. They’ll take care of him.”

A few steps later, Tyrone couldn’t walk anymore. Sara sat him down and handed Cindy a bottle of water.

“Make sure he drinks this.”

“Where are you going?” The teen looked panicked.

“I think I can hear waves. I’m only going a few yards ahead.”

“Please don’t leave us, Sara.”

Sara drilled her eyes into Cindy. “I won’t. You have my word. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Leaving Tyrone in Cindy’s capable hands, Sara pressed ahead. In just a few steps she found something. Not Lake Huron, but something that indicated the water was close.

A boat.

It was on its side, the hull split wide open, vines and overgrowth obscuring the outline. Sara guessed it had been here for years. She played the tiny flashlight beam across the bottom, up the side, to the stern, and read the fading name painted there.

SS MINNOW

That was the boat from the TV show Gilligan’s Island. But it was also the name Martin had used in his campfire story, when he talked about the party of eight who had come to the island and were attacked.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. This must have been the boat he was talking about. But how could he have known? Unless…

Sara crept around to the other side of the boat, a growing feeling of dread creeping up her back. She had to fight the thicket, and branches poked at her hair and caught on her clothing. The cabin was setting on the ground, partially crushed like a stepped-on soda can. Two of the bridge windows were broken out. Sara shone the light through one, peering into the cabin interior.

The inside was filled with mud and dead leaves. Pieces of a deck chair, part of a life preserver, and various other detritus vied for space with an abandoned raccoon nest. Amid the mess, resting on a pile of disintegrating magazines, was a hardcover book that looked disturbingly familiar. The silver embossing on the cover was faded and dirty, but it clearly said, LOG.

Sara reached through the window, brushing the book with her fingertips. She leaned in further, snagged it, and then something screeched. Before she could pull back, it pounced, scrambling up her arm, over her shoulder, and racing into the forest.

Guess that raccoon nest wasn’t abandoned after all, Sara thought, leaning against the wreckage, clutching the book to her hammering heart. When her pulse returned to something resembling normal, she took a closer look at the log.

Please don’t let this be what I think it is.

The book was damp and smelled of mildew. The cardboard cover wilted as she opened it up. There, on the first page, Sara’s fears were confirmed. Handwritten on the first blank line was:

SS MINNOW, CAPTAIN JOSEPH RANDHURST

Joe. Martin’s brother.

Sara had always liked her brother-in-law. Joe was sort of like a more playful, less serious version of her husband. Rather than dedicating his life to making a difference, Joe preferred the life of leisure, day trading and blowing his money on travel and toys. Sara could remember the day Joe talked about buying a boat. He’d come over for Thanksgiving dinner before she and Martin had gotten married, extolling the many virtues of living on the open water. The three of them killed four bottles of wine, and afterward Martin and Sara disregarded Joe’s plans. Joe always talked about doing silly things like that, but never did.

For Christmas that year, Sara had bought Joe the captain’s log book as a gag gift, a goofy nod to that memorable night.

That spring, Joe disappeared.

Martin had taken some time off to search for him. He still continued to take occasional weekends to follow down some old lead or ancient hearsay, refusing to believe his brother was dead.

It seemed Joe had bought that boat after all. He’d apparently named it the SS Minnow, and taken it here.

Which meant Martin knew Joe had come here. After all these years, he’d followed his brother’s trail to Plincer’s island.

Sara shook her head, not wanting to believe it. How could her husband bring the children here? How could he risk all of their lives?

“I didn’t know there was anyone here, Sara. Jesus, I would never do anything to hurt you or the kids. You know that.”

But was that the truth? Was he so anxious to find his brother that he had jeopardized all of them?

No, not Martin. Martin couldn’t have brought them here if he thought it could do them harm. Especially Jack. Martin wouldn’t ever willingly put their child in danger.

Yet Sara couldn’t help but wonder. If Martin had kept this secret from her, what other secrets had he kept?

Sara was dwelling on that when she heard someone scream.

Martin followed the cries, hurrying through the woods as fast as he could, one hand protectively covering his sleeping child.

Meticulous a planner as Martin was, he couldn’t have predicted all of the misfortunes that occurred on this trip. It was all his fault, he knew. Hopefully the consequences wouldn’t be as dire as they were shaping up to be.

He hurdled a cluster of Hawthorn shrubs and stopped dead, his flashlight focusing on Tom.

Tom wasn’t alone. A large man with sharp teeth was munching on his finger.

Martin’s first reaction was surprise. Then came disbelief, swiftly followed by anger.

“Hey! Freakshow! Get your goddamn hands off my kid!”

“Martin…” Tom whimpered.

The tall psychotic opened his mouth, releasing Tom’s finger; the bone was still attached, but the flesh had pretty much been stripped off. The giant smiled at Martin, flashing his vampire teeth.

“Martin. Tom hurt his finger. Lester is making it all better.”

Martin clenched his fists. “Lester better back the fuck off.”

Lester stuck his hands in his overalls, winked, and then quickly backed into the woods. Good thing, too. Seven feet or not, Martin was so angry he had been ready to throw himself at the larger man.

“Martin…”

Tom was on his knees, his body wracked by sobs. Martin went over, placed his hand on the teen’s shoulder.

“Easy, Tom. Easy.”

“That guy…that guy Lester…he was…”

“Lester is gone.” Martin’s eyes darted around the forest to make sure. “He won’t hurt you anymore. I promise. I’ve got you, now.”

He patted Tom’s back, then eased his hands under his armpits, gently guiding him to his feet. The kid looked shattered, and with good reason.

“We’ve got to find the others, Tom. Do you have any idea where they are?”

Tom sniffled, seemingly getting his control back. Then he looked at his hand and began bawling again. Martin could appreciate the pain and fear, but they didn’t have any time to waste.

“Tom, do you know where Sara is?”

“That’s my bone… Jesus Christ… my bone is sticking out.”

“Your finger can be fixed,” Martin lied. “Now do you know where Sara is?”

“How can it be fixed?” Tom whined, drawing out his vowels. “Theeeere’s nooooo skiiiiiiiiin leeeeeeft.”

Martin put his hand on Tom’s chin, forcing the boy to look at him. “Focus, Tom. Sara. Where is she?”

“I dunno.”

“How about the kids? Cindy?”

“She’s with Tyrone. I think they’re still at the camp.”

“Meadow?”

“Oh, God.”

“Where’s Meadow, Tom?”

“I aaaaaaaate Meeeaaaadooooow…”

Martin grimaced. This had gone from bad to horribly worse. But this wasn’t the time to dwell on the loss. Martin needed to keep a clear head, needed to figure out what to do next.

“He tasted like chicken!” Tom wailed.

Martin realized he wasn’t going to get anything out of Tom. He stared off into the woods, thinking of Sara, and felt like putting his fist through a tree.

Calm down. This island isn’t that big. You’ll find her.

Martin knew he would. He swore on it.

He just hoped Sara would still be alive when he did.

They approached the giant iron door, the only entrance to the prison.

There were people inside, they knew. They could smell them. Practically taste them.

The doctor was in there too. The doctor who had made them like this.

They hated the doctor.

Two of them yanked on the door, trying desperately to open it.

They strained and groaned, but it wouldn’t budge.

It never budged.

But they kept trying. Every day, they kept trying.

Waiting for the day when it wouldn’t be locked.

Their efforts were interrupted by screams, coming from the woods. Several of them peered into the forest. Then, as one, they headed for whoever was screaming.

They would try the door again later.

Cindy used the last of the burn ointment on Tyrone’s hand, then wrapped it in gauze. Her shoulder hurt like crazy, so she couldn’t imagine the pain he must have been in.

“Sara said you need to drink this. When she comes back, I’ll ask if you can have more aspirin.”

Cindy tilted the water bottle up to Tyrone’s lips. Some spilled down his chin, but he managed to swallow a few gulps. She cupped his cheek, feeling such a flood of affection for him she was ready to start crying.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

Cindy wanted to hug him, to comfort him, to take his pain away. Almost as badly, she wanted him to comfort her, to tell her it was all going to be okay, that they’d live to see the morning. But she didn’t want to seem clingy or needy. She cast her nervous eyes over Tyrone’s shoulder, scanning the woods, knowing what was hiding in there, knowing they could pop out at any time and attack.

“Sara will be back soon,” Tyrone said. “The boat is coming. We’re gonna be safe.”

He didn’t sound convinced. Neither was she.

“You’re in a lot of pain, huh?” she asked. After she said it, Cindy looked around for a hole to bury her head. Of course he was in a lot of pain. He was probably thinking she was an idiot.

“Ain’ so bad,” Tyrone said. His eyes softened. “Cuz you’re here.”

Cindy felt nervous again. Not because people were trying to kill them. But because she was suddenly overcome with the oldest insecurity known to teens. The abrupt change from one kind of apprehension to another was silly, but at that moment she couldn’t help it. Staring at Tyrone, one thought blocked out all others.

Does he like me?

A totally inappropriate question, considering they were in a life-or-death situation. But right then, Cindy’s silly, girlish anxiety mattered more than the pain and the fear. She’d spent her last few years either doing drugs or trying to get drugs, so this completely normal emotion took her by surprise. Especially since she’d never actually had one like it before.

Does he like me?

On one hand, Tyrone has always been nice to her. When he kissed Cindy, it made her heart feel like it would pop like a birthday balloon. But Tyrone probably kissed a lot of girls. It might have been the stress of their current predicament. Or—God forbid—it could have been a pity kiss.

Does he like me?

And what if he did? What did it mean? Cindy liked Tyrone. A lot. But how did this relationship thing work? Did that kiss mean they were going out? Were they exclusive? Was she Tyrone’s girlfriend?

“You look kinda freaked out,” Tyrone said. He reached out and stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “I don’t want my girl to be freaked out.”

Cindy didn’t know how to read that. But she knew how to find out. The girl who had the courage to crawl into that tent could certainly find the courage to ask him.

“So, uh, I’m your girl?”

He gave her a sly grin. “Yeah. I mean, if you wanna be.”

Cindy lit up. “I wanna be. So we’re going out together?”

“Yeah. I won’t be no good at holding hands for a while, though.”

“I know.” Cindy moved a little closer. “But maybe we should, you know, kiss to make it official.”

He nodded. “That would probly be best.”

She put her hands on his chest and leaned into him.

The kiss made her toes curl.

Cindy held the embrace until she realized how exposed they were. With neither of them paying attention, those wild people could sneak up.

She moved back, just a millimeter. “We should, um, watch the trees. Make sure no one is coming.”

“Yeah.” Tyrone learned backward. He looked quickly over her shoulder, then back at her. “One helluva first date, huh?”

Cindy smiled shyly. “Best I ever had.”

“Me too.”

Cindy watched one side, Tyrone the other. The woods were quiet and dark, and though a sliver of moonlight broke through the tree tops, it was hard to see more than a few yards. Her eyes swept back and forth, like a security camera.

When she heard the scream it made her feel like she needed to pee again.

“That’s Tom,” Tyrone said.

“He doesn’t sound too far away.”

They listened, and the sound made Cindy want to claw her ears off. She didn’t like Tom, especially after he acted all crazy with the gun. But he didn’t deserve whatever horror was happening to him.

“You think they’re cooking him?” Her tone was hushed. “Like Meadow?”

“Dunno.”

“What should we do?”

“We have to wait here for Sara. That’s what she told us to do.”

Tom was begging now, screaming, “No!” and “Stop!”

What could they be doing to that poor kid? Something even worse than burning?

“It’s awful.” Cindy wanted to cover up her ears, but was afraid if she did she would miss the sounds of someone coming.

“Be strong, girl. I know you strong.”

Cindy nodded, trying to stay strong. Being strong didn’t make it any less horrible.

Then, after a very long minute, the screaming stopped.

Now what?

They waited. Cindy’s imagination went into overdrive. Is he dead? Are they eating him? Or did they gag him with a spiked ball, like Sara said they gagged Martin?

Cindy stood perfectly still, staring into the woods, waiting, hoping, to hear Tom scream again.

Then something flashed. Bright and quick, temporarily blinding her.

Cindy took a step back. “Tyrone…”

“I saw it too.”

“What was it?”

“Maybe Sara’s comin’ back. She got a light.”

Another flash, lasting only a few milliseconds. From the thicket to their right. Cindy realized with a shock what it was.

“It’s a camera,” she whispered. “Someone is taking our picture.”

Tyrone stepped in front of Cindy. “Who’s there? Answer me.”

Another flash. Cindy doubted the cannibals had a camera; they seemed too primitive and animalistic.

So who is it? And why don’t they say anything? This is seriously freaking me out. Where is Sara?

“Maybe we should go,” Tyrone said.

“What about Sara? We have to wait for her.”

The bushes shook. Whoever had the camera was coming toward them. Cindy decided that Tyrone was right. The smartest thing to do was get the hell out of here, fast.

Tyrone apparently wasn’t waiting for her to approve, because he had his left arm around her waist and was already leading her away. The pair had only taken three steps when they heard:

“The boy and girl are Martin’s kids.”

The voice was soft, almost effeminate, but definitely male. Whoever it was, he knew Martin. Cindy stopped and swung around to face him.

The man was ridiculously tall and thin. He wore blue denim farmer’s overalls, and even in the low light Cindy could see a smiley face button pinned to one of the straps.

Tyrone had also turned to look. “Who the hell are you?”

“Lester.”

Lester raised his camera and took another picture, causing Cindy to blink. She was still scared, and this guy totally qualified as creepy. But he seemed extremely relaxed. So far, his appearance was more menacing than actually threatening.

“Do you know Martin, Lester?”

“Martin is Lester’s friend.”

Cindy didn’t know if she bought that. But Martin was a psychologist, and he did work with all types of people.

“How do you know Martin, Lester?” she asked.

“Martin is Lester’s friend.” He paused, cocking his head to the side. “Would the boy and the girl like to follow Lester to Martin?”

God, did she ever. Martin was smart, and strong, and Cindy trusted him like she trusted Sara. Unlike most teens, Cindy liked adults. During her drug years, Cindy had begged for money from hundreds of adults, and the overwhelming majority were either indifferent or somewhat caring. But as much as she wanted to trust this tall man, he had a strange vibe to him.

She came out from behind Tyrone and took a tentative step closer. “Do you know where Martin is, Lester?”

“Lester knows. The boy and the girl should come with Lester.”

Lester smiled. Cindy was shocked to see fangs in the big man’s mouth.

Tyrone shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He backed up, pulling Cindy with him.

“Lester won’t hurt the boy and the girl. That would make Martin angry. They should come with Lester.”

“Where’s Martin?” Cindy asked.

Lester took another picture.

“Stop taking pictures and tell me where Martin is!”

The strength in her voice surprised her. It must have surprised Lester too, because his smile became a deep frown.

“The girl yelled at Lester. Lester doesn’t like that.”

Tyrone pulled her closer. “You know where Martin is, man? Then tell us.”

It hit Cindy all at once, like a physical blow. Lester. Lester Paks. This was the serial killer Sarah had told them about, the one that crazy doctor had experimented on.

“Lester will take the boy and girl to Martin.” The giant moved toward them, spreading out his arms. His reach was so wide he looked like he could hug a truck. “Martin will be so happy.”

When Lester got within five yards he’d officially gone from menacing, to threatening, to terrifying. She and Tyrone continued to back up, but Lester’s strides were so big he’d be on them in only a few seconds.

“The boy and the girl shouldn’t try to run. Lester gets angry when they run.”

That’s when Cindy was grabbed from behind.

Sara couldn’t find the kids.

After hearing Tom’s screams, she quickly stuck her head back through the window and into the cabin to grab something she saw inside. By the time she had it, the screaming had stopped.

Her first intention was to go after Tom, to protect him, to save him, and without considering anything else she’d impulsively headed in the direction of his cries.

But Sara wasn’t sure where he was, or even how far away, without the sound cues. Even worse, once she lost sight of the boat she became lost, unable to find her way back.

Oh God, I’ve abandoned Cindy and Tyrone…

She spent a good minute studying the compass, panicking to the point of hysteria, and then decided to follow a south-west direction, keeping as quiet as possible, listening for their voices.

Luckily, she found them, coming up from behind and placing a hand on Cindy’s shoulder so she didn’t get trampled by their quick pace.

Unluckily, they weren’t alone.

The man chasing them was so grotesquely tall it was almost funny. But unlike the cannibals, he had short hair and was clean shaven, and his clothes, though odd, looked relatively new.

Sara raised the weapon in her hand, pointing it at the tall man.

“Stop,” she said, Not loud enough to attract undesired attention, but hard enough to show it wasn’t a request, but rather an order.

The tall man stood still, his arms still outstretched. “The woman has a flare gun.”

Sara had hoped it would be mistaken for the real thing, but she rolled with it. “And if you come any closer, I’m going to shoot it at you. It doesn’t shoot bullets, but I’m pretty sure it can set you on fire.”

He lowered his arms and titled his head at an angle, like a confused dog.

“Is the woman Martin’s wife?”

She wasn’t prepared for the question, but she answered. “Yes. I’m Sara.”

“Lester will take the Sara woman to Martin.”

“Where is Martin?”

“Martin is at the prison. With Tom boy, and Georgia girl.”

“Is Jack there?”

Lester smiled, baring teeth that looked like they belonged to an alligator. “Baby Jack is there. Doctor is taking care of baby Jack.”

“Doctor Plincer.” Sara felt the lump in her throat. “And you’re Lester Paks.”

“Lester is Lester Paks. Doctor Plincer is Lester’s friend. Martin is Lester’s friend. The Sara woman should come with Lester.”

Sara’s hand was shaking now. She believed, hoped, he was lying, and desperately wanted this man to get the hell away from her and the kids. But first…

“How about Joseph? Joe? Joe Randhurst? Is he at the prison, too?”

Lester’s eyes got wide, and his angular head bobbed up and down in a nod. “Of course Joe is there.”

Sara limped in front of Cindy and Tyrone, putting herself between them and the serial killer. Her gun hand was shaking, but she made sure her words were strong.

“Thank you for talking with us, Lester. But we aren’t going to go with you right now.” She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. “We’d like you to go away.”

Lester pulled something out of his pocket, and Sara cringed, trying to shield the kids. But Lester didn’t have a weapon. It was only a camera.

He snapped a picture, the flash momentarily blinding her.

“The Sara woman is pretty.”

Sara blinked a few times, tried to focus.

“Thank you for the compliment, Lester. Now you really do have to go. I don’t want to have to shoot you.”

Lester took another picture.

“I’m serious, Lester. It’s time for you to leave.”

A tongue flicked out of Lester’s mouth, running across his bottom lip. He seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. “Lester is going to ask Martin.”

“We want you to leave us alone, Lester.”

“Lester will ask. Lester wants permission first.”

“You need to go. Now.”

“Lester wants permission to bite the Sara woman’s pretty face off.”

He opened and closed his jaw several times, his sharp teeth making clicking sounds.

“Get. The fuck. Back.” Sara said.

Lester raised the camera, took one more picture, and then advanced on them.

Sara didn’t think. She reacted. Planting one foot, pivoting her hips, swiveling them around and kicked Lester as hard as she could, throwing her bad leg into his stomach.

The pain was otherworldly, making her vision burn orange.

But the blow had its desired effect, doubling the tall man over, making him fall onto his ass.

Lester stared up at Sara, his face a mask of disbelief. Blood tricked from the corner of his mouth.

“Lester bit his tongue.” The aforementioned tongue darted out, licking at the line of blood, making an even bigger line of blood.

Lester’s eyes got a glassy look, and he smiled, his vampire teeth streaked with red. He held up his hand and stared at it, as if in a trance. Then he opened his jaws wide, and began to gnaw on his fingers.

The blood really started to flow after that.

“We need to leave,” Sara said.

Tyrone nodded. “No shit.”

Lester moaned, then locked eyes with Sara. She saw depths of hatred there that she didn’t think possible in a fellow human being. He tugged his bleeding hand from his mouth, spat at her, and then rolled over, scurrying on all fours off into the woods.

Sara stood guard for a moment, listened to the woods. All she heard were crickets.

“That was seriously effed up,” Tyrone said. “I would have shot his ugly ass.”

Sara nodded. “Me too. But the flare gun is empty. I couldn’t find any cartridges.”

“He dropped something.” Cindy began to move toward the spot where Lester was sitting. “It’s his camera.”

She brought it over to Cindy. It was a digital model, with a large LCD screen on the back. Dread perched on Sara’s shoulders like a gargoyle, weighing her down. Even though she didn’t want to look at any of the pictures, her finger hit the play button, beginning a slideshow.

A photo of Sara appeared on the screen, the one Lester had taken a few moments ago.

A second later, a photo of Cindy and Tyrone came on.

Then a photo of everyone sitting around the campfire, Martin telling his story.

Then a photo of Georgia, alone on the beach.

Then a photo of Tom, looking terrified.

Then a photo of Sara and Laneesha, walking in the woods.

Then a photo of Meadow, locked into the gridiron…

Sara put a hand over her face, stifling the cry. The image was the single most horrible thing she’d ever seen.

But the next picture shook her even more. Sara let loose with a cry that was half sob, half scream, and she fell to her knees, her whole body trembling.

It was a picture of Jack, being held by an old, bald man in a white lab coat.

Tom hurt. Physically, and emotionally. As he walked the tightrope between hysteria and unconsciousness, he knew he was going to die.

A weighty realization. Tom’s ADHD meant he took self-interest to a whole new level, and the thought of him no longer existing was almost too much to grasp.

And yet, having spent his whole life not caring about anyone but himself, Tom was somewhat surprised that another thought entered his head. A sympathetic thought, for someone other than himself.

That poor baby. Jack never hurt anyone. How can something this awful happen to him?

Tom prayed to God, asking for an answer.

God didn’t reply.

Martin rubbed his eyes, then extended the motion into probing the puncture wounds on his face.

This had all gone so terribly wrong.

He thought about Sara, and the kids, and his brother Joe, and how this simple trip had become a horrifying clusterfuck.

Martin took a deep breath, let it out slow, and hoped for some miracle to make everything right again.

The OB/GYN rubs the transducer over Sara’s distended belly. The conducting jelly it glides across is cold and wet, and Sara shivers.

Martin grips her hand tighter. They’re both focused on the ultrasound monitor, staring at a triangular cone that is revealing their baby’s head.

“Did you want to know the sex?” the doctor asks.

Sara and Martin had discussed it, ultimately deciding not to know. But seeing her child’s perfect little face on that blue screen, eyes closed and actually sucking his tiny thumb, Sara changes her mind.

“Let’s find out,” she says, looking at Martin.

“Are you sure?”

They had already bought paint for the nursery—a sexless, neutral green—and crib blankets and sheets to match, and enough onesies to last the child until Kindergarten. But the prospect of exchanging everything for pink or blue is so tantalizing that Sara can’t resist.

“I’m sure,” she says.

The doctor slides the transducer around, revealing the baby’s right leg. Sara thinks back to Martin’s promise when they got pregnant, of letting her name their child.

Sara had bought baby books, scoured the Internet, and even kept a dictionary next to the bed to leaf through in case some random word lent itself to the perfect name. But her choices ultimately came down to the obvious ones, and she decides to share them with Martin for the first time.

“If it’s a girl, let’s name her Laura,” Sara says. “After my mother. And if it’s a boy, how about Joe?”

Martin smiles, but it’s painful. “I appreciate the gesture, but I’m not sure I want to think of my lost brother every time I hold my kid.”

Sara knew he might act that way, so she has a back-up.

“Jack.” After Martin and Joe’s father.

Martin’s smile is genuine this time. He holds Sara’s hand so hard it almost hurts.

“Mr. and Mrs. Randhurst,” the doctor says, keeping the transducer steady. “Meet your son, Jack.”

Sara starts to cry. “I want him to be like you, Martin. I want him to grow up to be just like you.”

Her husband bends over and kisses away her tears.

Sara’s tears fell on the camera screen, onto her baby’s face.

She flinched when someone placed a hand on her shoulder. Cindy.

“I’m sure he’s okay, Sara. The doctor has him, not the cannibals.”

Sara wanted to scream that’s even worse! but she kept it reigned in.

“Sara,” Tyrone also put his hand on her, even though it must have been painful. “We have to get to the beach.”

Sara stared up at her kids. She had to find Jack. But she also had to make sure they get to safety. Prendick and the Coast Guard would be here soon. As soon as Cindy and Tyrone were okay, they could go in search of Jack and the others.

An image of Martin appeared in Sara’s mind. If the doctor had Jack, what had he done to her husband?

“Please, Sara.” Cindy looked ready to cry. “We need to go.”

Sara nodded, allowing the teens to help her to her feet. She took a last look at the picture of her beautiful baby boy, then tucked the camera into her pocket, digging out the compass.

After a big breath she said, “This way.”

Sara led them through the woods, heading north-east. The water noises were faint at first, almost imaginary. But they grew stronger, the unmistakable sound of waves lapping at the shore. Then the trees finally parted, revealing…

“It’s the beach,” Cindy said, her enthusiasm making her sound ten years younger.

Sara was relieved as well. That relief became excitement when she saw the running lights of a boat moored offshore. She headed for the boat, her leg hurting a little bit less, her energy level kicking up several degrees.

“Do we have to swim to it?”

“No, Cindy. The Captain will use the dinghy again.”

The dinghy was a sixteen foot inflatable, shaped like a large U. It sat five. When they’d arrived at the island, it took two trips to get everyone from the boat to the shore. Sara listened for the outboard motor, but the lake was quiet.

“Maybe he just got here,” Tyrone said.

“Or maybe he’s already here.”

Sara spun around. Captain Prendick stood on the sand. Sara’s joy in seeing him was immediately dampened when she saw the pistol in his hand.

It was pointed at her.