JACK KILBORN ~ TRAPPED (42 page)

The cut on her hand was bad, and Sara wondered if she would lose her fingers. But even if she did, it was a small price to pay for surviving.

The five of them, including the
Woman in Blue
, walked along the beach until they found Captain Prendick’s dinghy, hidden behind some rocks. As Sara had guessed, the bullets and Martin’s knife had barely made a dent in the painting’s Plexiglas frame. When something was worth twenty-five mil, it was a good bet it was going to be well-protected. Of course the glass was bulletproof. A master like Van Gogh didn’t deserve any less.

Cindy was the only one with two good hands, so she had to start the dinghy’s outboard motor and steer it out to Prendick’s boat. She was awkward at first, but quickly got the hang of it.

Once they were all in the dinghy, Sara spent a minute checking Jack for any injuries. Then, above the din of the motor, Sara whistled in Jack’s left ear, then the right one, relieved that he turned his head toward the sounds. She’d done her best to keep the pistol away from his ears, and was grateful her shooting hadn’t damaged his hearing.

“
He okay?” Tyrone yelled to her.

“
Just a poopy diaper!” she yelled back. “He needs to be changed!”

“
Me too!” Tyrone said, a big grin on his face.

That’s when Lester jumped out of the water, heaving his upper body onto the side of the boat and wrapping his arm around Tyrone’s neck.

Cindy screamed, turning the dinghy too hard, threatening to flip it. Sara pitched forward, dropping Jack onto the flat rubber bottom of the boat, and then a wave hit, knocking her back into Cindy.

The engine sputtered, and died.

Tyrone and Lester wrestled on the boat’s port side, raising up the starboard side with their weight until Cindy and Sara were several feet up in the air.

Jack began to slide toward the edge. He bumped into the inflatable side, only a foot from where Tyrone fought for his life. Sara reached for him, but her weight made the boat even more lopsided, threatening to flip it.

“
Back!” Sara yelled at Cindy. They leaned starboard, and the dinghy leveled off. But Sara couldn’t get to Jack, and she couldn’t help Tyrone, who had both hands locked onto Lester’s wrist.

Lester’s hand was locked onto a hatchet.

Then, abruptly, both Tyrone and Lester fell overboard.

The sudden redistribution of weight caused the boat to tilt up toward Sara’s side, launching Jack into the air in a high arc over Sara’s head.

Her balance lost, Sara reached up, her fingers barely touching Jack’s foot as she went ass over head and into Lake Huron.

The water was a shock, like falling into an ice chest. Sara held her breath, her eyes wide open, searching for her lost baby.

The water was dark, murky, the overhead sun not penetrating more than a few feet. Sara let out some of her air so she was neutrally buoyant, then methodically began to scan the depths.

No Jack in front of her.

No Jack on the left.

No Jack behind her.

No Jack on the right.

Jesus, where was—

Below her—she glimpsed the white of Jack’s onesie, sinking fast.

Sara dove, getting to him in two strokes, grabbing his little leg, spinning around and kicking to the surface, thrusting Jack up out of the water…

“
Cindy!”

Cindy reached for the baby, pulling him back in the boat. Sara hung onto the edge, waiting for Jack to move, desperately trying to remember the baby CPR class she took during the first trimester.

And then the little guy coughed and started to cry.

Sara spun around, looking for Tyrone and Lester. The waves were strong, but not so high she couldn’t see over them. There was no one on her side.

“
Cindy! Do you see Tyrone?”

“
I don’t see him!” Cindy said, her head swiveling all around. “I don’t see him, Sara!”

Then Sara felt the boat jerk. It jerked again, the inflatable edge bumping her in the face.

They were beneath it.

Sara took a deep breath and went under. She saw them immediately, Lester biting Tyrone’s arm as the boy tried to gouge out the giant’s eyes.

Sara swam to them, adding her good hand to Tyrone’s efforts, digging her thumbnail into Lester’s socket.

Lester released Tyrone…

…
and grabbed her.

Sara planted her feet on his chest, trying to get away, while his head drew closer and his bloody mouth opened, aiming for her neck.

Unable to break his grip, Sara again clawed at the monster’s face, hooking a finger into his nostril and ripping.

But Lester still wouldn’t let go. And Sara was almost out of air.

Spots appeared before her eyes—oxygen deprivation—and the urge to breathe was becoming overwhelming. Sara would be forced to inhale any second, even if it meant taking lake water into her lungs. As a last ditch effort she went completely limp, trying to play dead, hoping Lester would let her go.

Sara heard the boat motor start, but it sounded very far away. A small part of her mind—the part not crazed with a lust for air—hoped Tyrone had gotten away and that he and Cindy could get Jack to Plincer’s boat.

Then, incredibly, she was free.

Sara kicked frantically for the surface, her mouth open and sucking air the moment her face broke the surface. She wheezed, coughed, and then caught something in her peripheral vision.

Lester.
His hatched raised high up out of the water, poised to come down on her skull.

She caught the handle with both hands, screaming as the cuts on her fingers reopened.

Then, her absolute worst fears were realized. She looked in the direction of the approaching sound.

Rather than escape with her baby, Cindy and Tyrone were coming back.

Sara wanted to yell for them to get away, to save themselves. But she had nothing left. Lester shook off her grip and reared the ax back, about to take the killing blow.

That’s when the boat hit him.

But instead of running into him head-on, it had
backed
into him instead.

Lester screamed like a high-pitched tornado siren, his entire body shaking as the motor propeller ripped into his back.

Cindy gunned the throttle, revving the engine, and Sara stared, horrified, as the prop blades rode up his shoulders and separated most of his head from his spine.

The giant’s bloodshot eyes rolled up into his head, and his chin touched his chest, a geyser of blood spraying out of the stump like a Fourth of July roman candle. Then the engine stalled out and Lester Pak’s dead body sank into Huron.

The remainder of the trip back to Captain Prendick’s boat was uneventful. Except for shivering, they were all okay. Once on board, Cindy found a stack of thick beach towels and a hairdryer, and they all dried off.

Jack fell asleep naked, wrapped in a sheet and nestled in the center of a life preserver.

Sara located Prendick’s radio, and called the Coast Guard. The
real
Coast Guard. And just to be sure, she spoke with ten other boats currently on Lake Huron and asked them for help too.

She was exhausted, but she refused to so much as sit down until they were safe.

“
So what we gonna do,” Tyrone said. “Put the ho up on eBay?”

For all the tossing and tumbling on the dinghy, the
Woman in Blue
hadn’t gotten so much as splashed.

“
I don’t think the Van Gogh Museum willingly sells their paintings,” Sara said, figuring the military must have unlawfully persuaded them. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to buy it back.”

“
For twenty-five million?”

“
I don’t know, Tyrone.”

“
You not gonna keep all the money, on account of me being a minor, are you?”

Sara allowed herself a small smile. “I think a three way split is fair, don’t you both?”

Tyrone nodded. “That’s eight million, three hundred thirty three thousand, three hundred thirty three dollars each.”

Cindy gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. “How’d you figure that out so quick?”

“
Girl, you got yourself involved with a society’s worst nightmare. An intelligent black man.”

“
And I thought I was only interested in your body and your money.”

“
You really interested in my body?”

They kissed, and Sara gave them their privacy.

She went onto the deck. Lake Huron was a giant blue mirror, stretching out as far as Sara could see. She closed her eyes. Even with all the pain she was in, the sun felt glorious on her face.

Then, to her left, she heard a soft thump.

Sara’s heart didn’t race. Her palms didn’t sweat. Her mouth didn’t go dry. She didn’t so much as flinch.

It’s nothing. But even if it is something, I can handle it. I can handle anything.

Languidly, Sara opened her eyes. A seagull stood on the deck, a few feet away from her. It cocked its tiny head, did a little hop, and then spread its wings, flying past Sara. She watched it glide off across the big water, beautiful and free and marvelously alive, changing directions to avoid hitting the Coast Guard cutter heading their way.

Most of them were dead. Martin was dead. Lester was dead. Subject 33 was dead. Doctor Plincer was dead. The island was quiet, almost peaceful.

There would be authorities coming soon. They would stay for a while, try to make sense of it all. Search the prison, and discover the lab, and the serum, and take all of it away.

It didn’t matter how hard they searched. They wouldn’t be able to search everywhere.

There were many places to hide on the island.

There would be hoopla for a while. Media. News and TV. Not only because of Dr. Plincer and the deaths of the children. But because there was a previously unknown historical discovery on this island. A secret prison, piled high with the bones of dead Confederate soldiers.

Rock Island—Plincer’s Island—would soon become a landmark.

Landmarks meant visitors. Lots of visitors.

All the seven surviving ferals had to do was be patient.

They would hunt again.

Soon.

AFTERWORD
by Joe Konrath

This was the hardest book I’ve ever had to write.

Not because of the violence. I was okay with the violence. Unfortunately, my editors weren’t.

In 2007 I wrote a horror novel called AFRAID under the pen name Jack Kilborn, and that landed me a two-book deal. My publishers wanted a book similar in tone to AFRAID, so I pitched them the idea for TRAPPED and wrote the first few thousand words. They placed an excerpt for TRAPPED in the back of copies of AFRAID, hoping to release the book in the winter of 2009.

Unfortunately, my editors
hated
TRAPPED when they read the whole thing.

Personally, I liked it. The novel was more intense than AFRAID, and probably a little meaner and gorier (maybe more than just a little), but I believed it kept with the same theme and tone of the first Kilborn book. Namely, regular people in a dark, confined setting, confronted with an overpowering, horrible threat.

Since I wanted to get paid, I rewrote TRAPPED according to the editorial notes I’d been given. I don’t believe it made the book better, but it did make it different. I toned down a bit of violence and sex, added a bit more violence in other areas, changed a few characters, cut a sub plot, and wrote a new ending.

My editors hated the rewrite as well. So I put TRAPPED away, figuring it would find readers eventually, and instead wrote ENDURANCE, the third Jack Kilborn book in my two-book contract. My editors liked ENDURANCE, but wanted me to make some significant cuts. Having been down that road before, I told them no, and I pulled ENDURANCE from publication.

So now I had two intense horror novels, ready to publish. All I had to figure out is what to do with them.

During the 18 months I’d been working on TRAPPED and ENDURANCE, I’d turned some of my older books (written under my real name, J.A. Konrath) into ebooks. To my surprise, they sold like crazy. Rather than pursue traditional print publication, I decided to avoid do it alone and release TRAPPED and ENDURANCE myself.

So which version of TRAPPED did you just read? The rewrite, or the original?

This one you just read is the rewrite. Though there were some scenes I liked more in the first version, I think the rewrite hangs together better, and it is the one I prefer. That one also is more of a direct sequel to AFRAID, where the previous version only alluded to it.

But is the rewrite the definitive version of the novel?

I don’t believe so. I can see going back to this book in a few years, putting in all the parts I cut out, and making some sort of “fully uncut” edition.