JACK KILBORN ~ TRAPPED (6 page)

Meadow tapped his fist. “Hells yeah.”

Tom laughed, but it sounded clipped and forced. “So you guys are scared?”

Tyrone felt the challenge and narrowed his eyes. “Ain’t scared of nothin’. You sayin’ I am?”

Tom squatted next to Tyrone. He picked a pine cone up from the ground and chucked it into the fire. “You don’t have to sell me. I know you’re all bad ass. But when you saw that guy get shot when you were eight, did you look into his eyes when he died?”

What is it with white people?
Tyrone thought.
Why do they feel the need to talk about stuff like that?

He shrugged. “Naw, man. My moms hustled me inside soon as the shots were fired.”

Tom stared at Tyrone. He had a pretty intense gaze.

“
I was holding Gram’s hand when she died, looking her right in the eyes. I know this sounds shitty, but we weren’t really close. I mean, she was my Grandma. She was always there, for my whole life, giving me money and shit for holidays, babysitting me when I was a kid, going to church with us every Sunday.”

Tom seemed to be waiting for a response, so Tyrone said, “Me ‘n my gramma are tight. She’s a good lady.”

“
So was mine. But we weren’t tight. When she got sick and moved into our house, my parents made me sit with her. I didn’t want to. She smelled, you know? Had diapers on and shit. Plus she was on so many drugs she didn’t know where she was most of the frickin’ time. Or who I was. Or what was going on. But right there, at the very end, she could recognize me. She knew who I was. And she said something.”

Tom looked around for another pine cone. Instead he found a small rock and tossed that into the flames.

“
What did yo gramma say?” Tyrone asked.

Tom’s face pinched. “She said,
‘There’s nothing, Tommy. Nothing.’
Then, when she was still staring at me, her eyes went blank. I mean, they were still open, still looked exactly the same. But
blank.
Like something was missing. Like she wasn’t a person anymore.”

Tyrone stared at Tom. The skinny kid got busted for jackin’ a car and joy riding. No damn purpose to it. Wasn’t to sell it, or strip it for the parts. Just for shits and grins. Tyrone thought it was a real stupid-ass crime. But maybe it made sense. When people were scared on the inside, sometimes they did things to show they weren’t scared.

“
My moms, and my grams, they say your soul leaves your body.”

Tom shook his head. “Naw. There was nothing spiritual at all. One minute she was a person, the next she was just, I dunno,
meat.
There wasn’t any soul.”

Tyrone didn’t like that explanation. He remembered having to say his prayers every night before bed. Soul to keep, and all that. If men didn’t have souls, what was the point?

“
You can’t see a soul, dog.”

“
It was scary, Tyrone. Like a light turning off. And her saying
there’s nothing
. I mean, she went to church every week, never missed it once, and she was about a hundred years old. I thought there was supposed to be a bright light, and clouds, and an angel choir. That’s how it is supposed to be, right?”

“
Maybe there was,” Tyrone said.

“
So why’d she frickin’ say that?”

“
Tom, you said she was on drugs, acting funny. Maybe she saw all the lights ‘n clouds n’ shit, but her words were all messed up. You don’ know for sure.”

Meadow guffawed. “Man, this conversation is wack.”

Tyrone stared at Meadow. “Don’t you believe in God?”

“
If there’s a God, what he ever done for me? I grew up poor, my moms spendin’ the welfare on drugs. I joined a gang just to keep my belly full. God? Bullshit.”

“
God’s up there.” Tyrone looked skyward, up at the big orange moon. “He just prefers we work this shit out ourselves.”

“
Ain’t no point in having a god, man, if he’s just a slum lord never does nothin’.”

Tyrone turned to Meadow. “How do you know? You ever pray for anything before?”

“
Naw.”

“
Maybe you should try it once, see if it—”

The scream cut Tyrone off. High-pitched, piercing, coming from right behind him. The scream of someone in absolute, complete agony, so shrill it seemed to burn into Tyrone’s head. Tyrone twisted around, feeling his whole body twitch like he did back in the day when something bad was going down. He automatically reached for his belt, his fingers seeking out a knife, a gun, a bike chain, anything at all to defend himself with. They came up empty. So he stood up and stumbled sideways, bumping into Tom, steadying himself even though his legs were jonesing to run him the hell out of there.

His eyes scanned the tree line, seeing only random shadows flitting across the trunks. Beyond that, a darkness so vast it seemed like the forest was opening its giant mouth to eat them all.

“
The fuck was that?”

Meadow was standing next to Tyrone, also slapping his pants in search of a weapon he wasn’t going to find. Tom was on Tyrone’s other shoulder, holding out his weak-ass marshmallow stick like that would protect them.

Tyrone held his breath. Crickets and silence. This island was too damn quiet. Never got this quiet in Motown. Never got this dark, neither. Tyrone could survive on the street for weeks when he had to, but out here in bumblefuck he knew he wouldn’t last a day. Can’t B&E for duckets or pop in a homie’s crib for food when you’re in the middle of the woods. And if something was chasing you, where were you supposed to hide?

“
It’s one of the girls, messing with us,” Tom said.

Tyrone felt a stab of concern for Cindy, then dismissed it. This scream came from the opposite direction. Tyrone didn’t know what exactly it was about the girl that he liked, but he just liked her, is all. He never did anything about it. Never even said anything. Both he and Cindy were in the Center to improve themselves. That was a big enough job without adding all that relationship baggage to the mix.

Still, she was a sweet girl. Strong too, in her way. And getting better looking every day since kicking meth. Maybe one day they—

Something flashed, in Tyrone’s peripheral vision. He spun toward it, squinting into the dark trees.

“
You dudes see that?”

“
See what?” Tom said. He looked left, then right, then, comically, up into the sky.

“
Some kinda light. Same direction as the scream.”

“
Someone’s gotta be messing with us.” Tom rubbed his palm back and forth over his scalp, so quick it looked like he was going to give himself a rug burn. “Lights and bullshit screams. Trying to scare us.”

Meadow shook his head. “Didn’t sound like no bullshit scream. Sounded real. And close.”

“
You maybe wanna go check?”

“
You go check, white boy. With your little stick.”

Tyrone shushed them. “Quiet. I hear somethin’.”

He recognized the noise, because they all made the same noise earlier, on the hike to this clearing. It was the sound of people in the woods, trampling over dead leaves and twigs, pushing branches out of the way.

And the sound was moving toward them. Fast.

“
Somethin’s comin’,” Meadow whispered.

The trampling was too noisy for one or two people to make. It sounded like at least half a dozen folks, rushing through the forest, getting closer.

The bushes at the treeline shook like a bear was caught in them. Tyrone couldn’t move. He couldn’t even swallow. He knew,
knew
, that some crazy Civil War cannibals were going to burst out and start chomping him, and he was too scared to do anything about it.

Then, all at once, the bushes stopped moving. The sound of approaching footsteps ceased. All Tyrone could hear was crickets, and the thumping of his own heart.

“
Are they still there?” Tyrone had never heard Tom speak so quietly.

“
Dunno.” Meadow’s voice was just as soft. “Didn’t hear them leave. Might still be there, staring at us.”

Tyrone’s back became really hot—he was standing too close to the fire. But he didn’t dare move away. He could feel eyes on him. Predator eyes. Something was in those woods, and it wanted to do him serious harm.

“
Hey!”

They all turned to the right, Tom bumping into Tyrone, who backed into Meadow. Walking toward them, arms spread open, was Cindy. She smirked, and Tyrone was surprised how relieved he felt to see her.

“
You guys look like you just saw a ghost.”

“
Were you over there?” Meadow pointed in the direction they’d been facing,

Cindy jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I came from there. Did you hear Georgia scream?”

Tyrone managed to swallow, find his voice. “Heard someone, that way.”

“
Georgia was going to try to scare you guys. But she ditched me. She’s in the trees there?”

Cindy walked past them, heading for the bushes. Tyrone caught her wrist.

“
I don’t think that’s Georgia.”

Cindy’s face crinkled up. “Why not?”

“
It’s more than one person,” Tom said, his voice low.

Cindy stepped backward, next to Tyrone. Her hair smelled like shampoo. He relaxed his grip a bit but still kept hold of her wrist.

“
Maybe she found the others. Maybe they’re all trying to scare us.”

“
It ain’t them.”

Tom flinched, bumping into Tyrone, pressing against him. It violated all sorts of personal space, and normally would have resulted in a rough shove and a threat, but Tyrone didn’t move because he saw what Tom saw, just beyond the bushes, barely illuminated from the light of the fire.

A person.

Someone was standing in the darkness, watching them. It creeped Tyrone out so bad he finally uprooted his legs, sidestepping the campfire, backpedaling away while tugging Cindy along. Then that fool Tom came up fast, knocking into them, toppling everyone over.

The act of breaking eye contact with whatever was in the woods scared Tyrone even more, as if losing sight of the enemy meant it could suddenly be anywhere. He looked back at the bushes, seeking out the silhouette, barely noticing Cindy’s hand moving into his and gripping tight.

The dark figure was still there, features obscured by night. Tall, thin, silent.

The moment stretched to the breaking point. Even the crickets stopped chirping.

“
You want some of me, mutha fucka?” Meadow was frontin’ now, sticking out his chest and slapping it with his palms. “I’ll rip you a new one.”

Tyrone watched as Meadow walked toward the figure. He knew he should be backing his boy up. Didn’t matter that they rolled with different crews when they were bangin’. Didn’t matter that Meadow was a pain in the balls sometimes. At the Center, Meadow was his brother. They were tight there, much as they were rivals on the street.

But this wasn’t the Center, and it wasn’t the street neither. This place might as well have been the planet Mars. Throwing down in a gang fight was one thing, and Tyrone wasn’t scared of that. But scrapping in the woods with some crazy cannibal—that was horror movie bullshit.

So Tyrone stayed put, squeezing Cindy’s hand, watching as his friend clenched his fists and stomped toward the darkness.

The light came on, faint and yellow, shining on the bone Sara clenched in her hand. It was long, over eighteen inches, covered on one side with clumps of dirt. The other side, the side Sara stared at, had strips of dried brown flesh clinging to it.

The smell was an assault, so overpowering and fetid that Sara dropped the bone immediately, violently turning away and retching onto the ground.

“
Was that a leg?” Laneesha moved closer to Sara. The girl was clutching the Maglite she’d obviously found.

Sara wiped her mouth with her sleeve, her throat feeling raw, her tongue foul with stomach acid.

“
I don’t know.”

“
Looked like a dude’s leg.”

“
I don’t know.”

“
Why is there a dude’s leg on the ground? Where’s the rest of him?”

Laneesha played the light across the ground. Sara followed the beam as it washed over twigs, dead leaves, chunks of dirt, coming to rest on a single, brown shoe.

“
Holy shit! There a foot in that shoe?”

The shoe looked old. Leather decayed and laces gone, flattened by time.

Sara summoned up a bit of strength from some inner well and forced herself to speak calmly. “The light, Laneesha.”

Laneesha didn’t move.

“
Laneesha. Give me the light.”

Sara reached for it, and the girl complied. Still on her knees, she hobbled over to the shoe. Using a stick, Sara poked at the tongue, peering inside.

Empty.

“
Maybe the cannibals ate the foot,” Laneesha said.

Sara spit—the foul taste in her mouth wouldn’t go away—then got to her feet. She pushed away all questions and doubts and focused on the facts, fighting not to leap to conclusions. “The shoe is old. Really old. That bone still had meat on it. They aren’t related to each other.”