JACK KILBORN ~ TRAPPED

TRAPPED

a novel of terror

by Jack Kilborn

Copyright © 2010 by
Jack Kilborn

Afterword copyright © 2010 by Joe Konrath

Cover and art copyright © 2010 by Carl Graves
Excerpt from Desert Places copyright © 2010 by Blake Crouch

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Joe Konrath.

May 2010

From the author: This ebook is actually two ebooks. I wrote TRA
PPED twice. The final version is the one I prefer, and it is presented first. But I’ve gotten a lot of email from fans who wanted to read the original, uncut first draft, so I’ve included it as an extra after the Afterword. The Afterword explains why there are two versions of this book in the first place…

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

—
Mark Twain

It’s lonely here, there’s no one left to torture.

—
Leonard Cohen

What’s he building in there?

—
Tom Waits

PROLOGUE

He couldn’t move.

The table he lay on was cold against his naked back. There were no ropes binding his arms, no belts securing his legs. But he was immobile, paralyzed.

Yet he was still able to feel.

Panicked thoughts swirled through his brain.
Where am I? Was I in an accident? I can’t open my eyes. Am I blind? Am I dead? I can still think, so I must be alive. But I can’t move. Can’t talk. What’s happening to me?

He concentrated, hard as he could, trying to move his hands and touch his face.

Nothing happened.

Noise, from the right. Footsteps. His body didn’t seem to work, but thankfully, his ears did.

Someone’s in the room.

He felt a hand touch his face, and then saw painful bright light.

A doctor in a green smock stared down at him.

He just pried my eyelids open.

“
Good morning. You’re disoriented, I bet. Confused. Probably can’t even remember how you got here.”
The doctor’s voice was scratchy, strained, as if he wasn’t accustomed to using it.

Please, tell me what’s going on…

“
You can’t move because you’ve been given a paralytic.” He was an older man, bald, his scrubs stained. “Unfortunately, you have to remain conscious for this procedure to work.”

The doctor walked off, out of sight. The man’s eyes remained open, unblinking, gazing into the light overhead.
Am I in an operating room? What procedure? Who was that doctor?

It was bright, but it didn’t seem bright enough to be a hospital. The light was yellowish, dingy, coming from a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. And there was a smell. Not an antiseptic, care-facility smell. A smell of rot and decay.

“
The drug immobilizes the skeletomuscular system.” The doctor was somewhere near his feet. The man couldn’t move his eyes to see him. “You’re completely helpless. One more dose and you’d stop breathing altogether.”

The doctor rested a hand on the man’s knee, gave it a pat.

“
You’ve lost your reflexes, your ability to flinch. But other vital functions remain active.”

A sudden pressure, between his legs. The doctor was squeezing his testicles. The agony bloomed, white hot and inescapable. His vision went blurry. He tried to pull away, tried with all of his might, but he didn’t budge an inch.

“
You can still feel pain, as I’m sure you notice. Lacrimation is normal, for now. Your pupils can dilate. And, of course, your pulse and heart rate just shot up considerably. The drug keeps you from moving so I can do the procedure, but it doesn’t shut you down completely.”

The man felt the tears flow down the sides of his head, the throb still lingering after the doctor released his grip.

This wasn’t a hospital. It couldn’t be. A doctor wouldn’t do that to me. What the hell was going on?

Then he heard the most agonizing scream of his life.

It didn’t come from the room, but from someplace else in the building. Nearby, maybe a room or two over. The scream was so shrill it didn’t sound human at first. Then it lost pitch and was replaced by shouting.

“
NO! PLEASE NO! STOP IT! JESUS NOOOOOO!”

What are they doing to that poor guy?

And what are they going to do to me?

“
That’s one of Lester’s guests,” the doctor said. “Lester has been with him for a few hours now. I’m surprised he still has a voice left. I shudder to think what’s being done to make him cry out like that. Do you recognize who it is?”

And then, all at once, the man knew who was screaming. He remembered how they got there. The strange noises. Being chased. Hunted. Running terrified. And then being caught. Caught by…

“
No need to worry.” The doctor leaned over him, smiling. Crumbs wedged in the corners of his thin lips, on his chin, and a small streak of something brown—
blood?
—smeared across his age-spotted forehead. “You won’t end up like that. You’re being given a gift. An invaluable, extraordinary gift. The world is full of lambs. But very few get to be wolves. Lester’s playmate, sadly for him, is a lamb. But you,
you
, my lucky fellow—you’re about to become a wolf.”

The doctor raised a gigantic syringe.

“
This is going to hurt. Quite a bit, in fact.”

The man couldn’t move, couldn’t turn away, and he was forced to watch and feel as the needle descended and plunged into his unblinking eye.

PART 1

CAMPFIRE STORIES

Sara Randhurst felt her stomach roll starboard as the boat yawed port, and she put both hands on the railing and took a big gulp of fresh, lake air. She wasn’t anywhere near Cindy’s level of discomfort—that poor girl had been heaving non-stop since they left land—but she was a long way from feeling her best.

Strangely enough, Jack seemed to be enjoying it. The three-month-old baby in the sling around Sara’s chest had a grin on his face and was drooling happily. Sara pulled a tissue from the sling’s pocket and wiped off her son’s chin, wondering how anyone, especially someone so small and fragile, could actually like this awful motion. Even though she was feeling ill, she smiled at the sight of him. Just like she did every time.

Sara closed her eyes, bending her knees slightly to absorb some of the pitch and roll. The nausea reminded Sara of her honeymoon. She and Martin had booked a Caribbean cruise, and their first full day as a married couple found both of them vomiting veal picata and wedding cake into the Pacific. Lake Huron was smaller than the ocean, the wave crests not as high and troughs not as low. But they came faster and choppier, which made it almost as bad.

Sara opened her eyes, searching for Martin. The only one on deck was Cindy Welp, still perched over the railing. Sara approached the teen on wobbly footing, then rubbed her back. Cindy’s blonde hair looked perpetually greasy, and her eyes were sunken and her skin colorless; more a trait of her addiction to meth than the seasickness.

“
How are you doing?” Sara asked.

Cindy wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Better. I don’t think there’s anything left in me.”

Cindy proved herself a liar a moment later, pulling away and retching once again. Sara gave her one last reassuring pat, then padded her way carefully up to the bow. The charter boat looked deceptively smaller before they’d gotten on. But there was a lot of space onboard; both a foredeck and an aft deck, a raised bow, plus two levels below boasting six rooms. Though they’d been sailing for more than two hours, Sara had only run into four of their eight-person party. Martin wasn’t one of them. It was almost like he was hiding.

Which, she supposed, he had reason to do.

A swell slapped the boat sideways, spritzing Sara with water. It tasted clean, just like the air. A seagull cried out overhead, a wide white M against the shocking blue of sky. She wondered, fleetingly, what if be like to feel so free, so alive like that.

In the distance, a green dot against the expanse of dark water, was Rock Island. Even from this far away, Sara noticed its wedge shape, the north side of it several times the height of the south, dropping off at a sharp cliff.

Sara shivered, protectively cupping her hands around Jack.

There was a soft thump, next to her. Sara jumped at the sound.

Another gull. It had hopped onto the deck, and was staring at her with tiny black eyes. Sara touched her chest, feeling her heart bounce against her fingers.

Just a bird. No need to be so jumpy.

Sara squinted west, toward the sun. It was getting low over the lake, turning the clouds pink and orange, hinting at a spectacular sunset to come. A month ago, when she and Martin had planned this trip, staring at such a sun would have made her feel energized. Watching it now made Sara sad. A final bow before the curtain closed for good.

Sara continued to move forward, her gym shoes slippery, the warm summer breeze already drying the spray on her face. At the prow, Sara saw Tom Gransee, bending down like he was trying to touch the water rushing beneath them.

“
Tom! Back in the boat please.”

Tom spun around, saw Sara, and grinned. Then he took three quick steps and skidded across the wet deck like a skateboarder. Tom’s medication didn’t quite control his ADHD, and the teenager was constantly in motion. He even twitched when he slept.

“
No running!” Sara called after him, but he was already on the other side of the cabin, heading below.

Sara peeked at the sun once more, retied the flapping floral print shirttails across her flat belly, and headed after Tom.

She stopped at the top of the stairs. The stairwell was tight, and the sunlight didn’t penetrate it.

“
Tom?” she called down after him.

He didn’t respond. Sara hesitated, adjusted the knit cap on Jack’s head, then took the first step down.

As she descended the staircase, the mechanical roar of the engine overtook the calm tempo of the waves. The hallway was dark, cramped. Sara didn’t like it, and she picked up her pace, her palms on the walls searching for a light switch and not finding any. Her breath quickened, and her fingers finally grazed some protuberance which she grasped like it was a life preserver. She flipped it up and an overhead light came on.

Sara sighed, then chided herself for feeling so relieved. She tried to remember the Captain’s name.

Captain Prendick. A peculiar name, but a familiar one; Sara recalled it used in an old H.G. Wells horror novel.

Prendick was the ninth person on the boat, and Sara hadn’t seen him lately either. Her only meeting with the man was during their brief but intense negotiation when they arrived at the dock. He was grizzled, tanned, and wrinkled, with a personality to match, and he argued with Sara about their destination, insisting on taking them someplace closer than Rock Island. He only relented after they agreed to bring his extra handheld marine radio along, in case of emergencies.

Sara wondered where the captain was now. She assumed he was on the bridge, but didn’t know where to find it. Maybe Martin was with him. Sara wasn’t sure if her desire to speak with Martin was to console him or persuade him. Perhaps both. Or maybe they could simply spend a few moments together without talking. Sara could remember when silence between them was a healthy thing.