JACK KILBORN ~ TRAPPED (34 page)

“
Careful, Tom.”

“
I know what I’m doing, Tyrone.”

Tom shifted again, reaching a bit more, and accidentally kicked the key a few inches further.

“
Shut up,” he said, even though Tyrone hadn’t said anything.

Tom laid down on his back, shimmying closer to the bars, pushing his thigh through almost up to his crotch. He felt around with his heel, listening for the tinkling sound of metal.

Then the lights came on.

“
Tommy. Someone’s coming.”

Tom heard the tinkle, felt the bump under his foot.

“
I found it.”

Footsteps echoed closer. Tom didn’t dare to look. He tried to focus all of his attention on getting that key.

“
Just forget it, man,” Tyrone ordered. “Get your leg back in.”

But Tom wasn’t going to forget it. No frickin’ way. His concentration was razor sharp, rock solid. He carefully bent his leg, dragging the key closer, and closer, tuning out the oncoming footsteps, tuning out Tyrone’s pleas to quit.

See? I can focus when I have to.

“
Hello, Tom. What is this?”

Frick. Martin.

Martin grabbed Tom’s ankle and lifted it up, revealing the key.

“
Whoa. Someone made a mistake here. If you guys had gotten this, you would have probably all escaped.”

Martin crouched down, picking up the key and pocketing it. Then he yanked Tom’s leg. The action was sudden and violent, bouncing Tom’s groin against the iron bar. The pain was like a gong being rung; sudden strike… building up… and then resonating, lingering.

Tom howled, sitting up. Martin leaned forward and frowned, feigning concern.

“
I sense a bit of distress, Tom.”

He jerked Tom’s leg once again, repeating the move.

“
Would you like to talk about how you’re feeling?” Martin asked. “You know I’m here for you.”

It hurt so bad Tom couldn’t even inhale. His vision was peppered by swirling red and gold specks.

“
Leave him alone,” Tyrone said.

“
We’ll get to you in a moment, Tyrone. Right now it’s Tom’s time to talk.”

“
You think you all badass? Why don’ you come over here, step in this cell wit’ me.”

Martin let go of his ankle, and thank God, because Tom didn’t think he could handle anymore. He pulled his leg back and brought his knees to his chest, curing up fetal on his side, staring as Martin walked over to Tyrone.

“
Do you know what you are Tyrone? Sticking your chest out, trying to act tough? You’re a stereotype. Poor African American kid, no father, grows up on the mean streets and joins a gang. Would you like to know why you never hear any stories about gangbangers who grow up to be happy, productive members of society? Because there aren’t any.”

“
You wouldn’t last two minutes in my hood.”

“
That’s because I wouldn’t ever go to your hood, Tyrone. It’s full of losers. That’s what you are. Born a loser, die a loser. You’re a statistic, Tyrone. And you know what else? You’re not tough at all. When we’re finished with you, you’re going to be crying like a little baby.”

“
Hells no.”

“
Hells yeah,”
Martin mocked.

Martin spread out his hands, as if welcoming a big group of people.

“
You still don’t know why I brought you here. Of course, why should you? You’re not the best and brightest of our nation’s youth. You’re not even in the top ninety-eight percent. So I’m going to be a nice guy and tell you what’s going to happen. A man is coming to the island. A very important man, who is going to change the world. But he’s going to need to be convinced. So you’re going to help convince him.”

Martin smiled, and it scared Tom to his core.

“
He’s going to tell us what to do to you, and we’re going to do it. Happily, I might add. Painful things. Bloody things.”

Tom couldn’t help it. He started to cry.

“
No tears yet, Tom. Save them for later. Besides, you three should actually feel pretty good about yourselves. You’ve defied all expectations, and done something productive with your lives. Something useful. Society always figured you would amount to nothing, but you’re the final pieces in this wonderful puzzle. Every ritual needs sacrificial lambs.”

Martin’s eyes drilled into Tom, and the man who counseled him, mentored him, taught him, and pretended to actually give a shit about him, winked.

“
Now if you kids will excuse me, I have to go upstairs and torture my wife.”

The bureau was Sara’s height. It was black, which made the dark red sketch on the front hard to see, but as Sara got closer, she could make it out.

A human outline.

Scrawled on the side, in chalk, were the words:

Taylor’s Magic Box

In fact, it looked like one of those magician’s cabinets, the kind where a woman went in and then was pierced with swords and cut into thirds.

It also had the same little doors on the front, so the audience could see different parts of the woman’s body, to prove she was still in there.

But Sara didn’t think this was an illusion. And a sickening sinking feeling in her gut told her who was probably inside.

She reached for the top door, the one that would expose the face, but she stopped inches from touching it.

All across the surface of the cabinet were round black knobs. Dozens of them. They were also on the sides, and the back, from top to bottom. Sara touched one, gently.

Someone inside the box screamed, making Sara flinch.

What the hell were these things?

She looked around, stared down at the umbrella stand next to the cabinet.

But it wasn’t filled with umbrellas. It was filled with long things that ended in black knobs.

Suddenly understanding what they were, Sara grabbed the end of a knob in the middle of the cabinet and pulled.

Just like the magician’s trick, Sara removed a six inch metal skewer from the box.

Unlike the magician’s trick, this skewer was slick with blood.

“
Oh, Jesus. Laneesha.”

Sara knew Lester was coming. Martin would be back soon, too. She and Jack had to get out of there. But she wasn’t going to leave Laneesha here with these monsters.

That posed a problem. There were dozens—perhaps over a hundred—of these skewers sticking in the cabinet. Did Sara even have time to remove all of them? And if she did, would Laneesha bleed to death?

She looked around for an answer, and saw two things on the floor that made her stomach churn. A car battery with jumper cables, and a handheld blowtorch.

She
had
to get Laneesha out of there.

“
Laneesha, honey, it’s Sara. I’m going to help you, okay? I need to get these things out of your face first. Jesus, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…”

Sara lifted her hands, hesitated, reached closer, hesitated, and then pulled the six skewers out of the outline of the head as fast as she could, Laneesha’s cries of pain scarring her soul. Then she opened the door to view Laneesha’s face.

“
Kill me,” Laneesha croaked.

Sara recoiled in horror. The blood. The damage. The agony the girl must be in.

That’s when Sara sensed someone behind her.

She didn’t hear it. She sensed it. Like feeling a glance from across a room. Since the door Sara came through hadn’t opened, the person must have come from the other door in the room.

Not Lester. Not Martin. This was the one who had done this to Laneesha. This had to be Taylor, the owner of the Magic Box.

Sara spun around, tugging the utility knife out of her jeans, ready to stab.

It was a man. A fat, scarred man, naked except a black rubber apron that stretched from his chest to his thighs. He’d come out of the door—the bathroom door—Sara had been about to open. His greasy hair was shoulder-length. His pocked cheeks glistened with sweat over several days’ worth of stubble. His patchwork skin was lined with long, parallel scabs, like stripes, some of them still bleeding.

And in his crippled right hand he was clenching a meat hook.

Lester’s rage was a diesel engine in his chest, pumping and burning and threatening to blow. The pet was special to Lester. He came to the island with Martin, and Lester had bitten off some of his sensitive parts, but left him mostly untouched. He liked the funny
uhhhnnnnnn
sound the pet made. But he didn’t care for the begging, or the attempts to get away. So Doctor fixed him for Lester. Fixed his brain so he stopped talking. Fixed his arms and legs so he couldn’t run or fight back.

For years, Lester had taken good care of the pet. He was Lester’s friend.

But now someone had killed him.

The doctor was in the lab. Martin was out. The stairs were the only way up to Lester’s room, and he didn’t pass anyone while bringing the hay.

That left one person. The only other person on the second floor.

Subject 33.

Lester looked around for a weapon, wrapping his large hand around a filet knife. Razor sharp. Perfect for detail work.

He stormed out his room, heading down the corridor.

When
Marshal Otis Taylor
was a little boy, he wanted to kill people when he grew up. If his parents had known any abnormal psychology, they would have noted little Taylor wet the bed, started fires, and liked to hurt animals. These behaviors were documented precursors to psychopathy.

But they were too busy physically and sexually abusing Taylor to notice that he might be a little off-kilter.

Perhaps they should have paid more attention, because when Taylor turned twelve he turned on the gas stove, blew out the flame, and waited in the back yard while the carbon monoxide filled the house and poisoned them to death.

It was deemed an accident, and the neighbors corroborated that Taylor was a handful and his parents sometimes made him sleep outside.

Taylor did the foster home shuffle for several years, eventually running away at fifteen and joining a travelling carnival. He learned how to be charming there, and how charm was the key to deception. He was taught street magic, and the art of the hustle, and may other carny tricks. He also learned how to drive the double-clutch eighteen-wheelers used for hauling equipment from town to town.

By age nineteen his boyish good looks had bloomed into masculinity, and he’d saved and swindled enough money to buy his own truck.

The truck-stop hookers thought he was so cute, they often gave him freebies.

He killed his first one in Wisconsin. His second in Nebraska.

Over the years, Taylor’s route, and his hunting ground, encompassed the entire lower forty-eight. He killed one in every state, and after that lost count.

When they finally caught him, he was only charged with twenty murders, which wasn’t even a third of them.

Taylor received the death sentence, and he had memories of being strapped to the table, the prison doctor hooking up the IV that contained the lethal injection.

Then his memories got fuzzy.

He remembered snippets of things. Some sort of military training. A special forces unit. Foreign countries. Missions that involved even more killing. Screaming people. Lots and lots of screaming people.

And coyotes. Taylor remembered the coyotes, eating him alive while he was unable to fight back.

Then somehow, well over a year ago, sewn back together like a crazy-quilt, Taylor had wound up here.

He wasn’t even sure where
here
was.

His good looks were ruined. His body didn’t work like it should have, due to muscle loss, his voice was gone, and his fingers jutted out at odd angles and were barely functional. The insane doctor who kept him here—Doctor Plincer—had tinkered with Taylor’s brain.

Before the tinkering, Taylor had enjoyed causing others pain.

After the tinkering, causing pain was the only think Taylor lived for.

It was an addiction, stronger than any drug.

And the doctor fed his addiction, for the most part, supplying him with a steady stream of victims.

Of course, the one victim Taylor longed for most was the doctor himself.

He just
had
to get the bastard in his Magic Box.

The box was based on months of testing and experimenting. Every skewer positioned and angled so it wouldn’t hit anything vital. Taylor’s biggest wish was to get the doctor in there, and make him suffer for weeks.

But until that day came, he had other victims to play with.

Like this tender little morsel clutching a baby.

The woman was cute. Cute ones were so sexy when they screamed.

But the baby…

Taylor had never done a baby before.