JACK KILBORN ~ TRAPPED (9 page)

But there was nowhere to run. Instead, Tom began to pace, back and forth like a caged tiger, eyes locked on those bushes.

“
Yo, Meadow!” Tyrone called. “Stop the bullshit and come out!”

Tom knew Meadow wasn’t bullshitting, knew that he wasn’t going to come out. Not now. Not ever.

“
Something took him, Tyrone.”

“
Nothing took him, man.”

“
You saw the bushes shake. You heard the sounds.”

“
He just messin’ with us.”

“
Something frickin’ took him, dragged him away.”

“
Bullshit.”

Tom backed up, toward the campfire, and walked to the other side of the clearing. No escape there. No way out. Just more bushes and trees and darkness. He veered left, began to circle the fire, eyes scanning the woods, neck snapping this way and that way to make sure nothing was sneaking up behind him.

“
We need to find Sara.” Cindy stood next to Tyrone, and just like the boys she stared into the trees.

“
They probably got Sara, too. Like they got Martin, and Laneesha, and Georgia.” Tom picked at the dry skin on his upper lip. “They’ll come for us next.”

Tyrone turned to face Tom. “And who is
they
?”

“
I dunno. The ghosts of those war prisoners.”

“
Ain’t no such thing as ghosts.”

“
You can tell them that, when they’re roasting you on hot coals.”

Tom really itched to run. He walked the circle even faster, shoving his hands in his pockets, not liking them there, taking them out, clasping them behind his head, then sticking them back into his pockets again.

Cindy made a face at Tom as he passed. “Can you please stop pacing?”

Tom didn’t like Cindy, but one of the things Sara taught him was to listen when someone talked to you, to make eye contact and try to understand what was said. Then, after listening, reason out what they want. If you didn’t understand what they said, ask for clarification. Sara was big on asking clarification. One of Tom’s challenges, Sara constantly told him, was to focus his attention.

So Tom stopped, trying to process Cindy’s question. He’d heard her the first time, but hadn’t let it take hold in his head. Sara said ADHD was like doing four things at once but not focusing on any of them, sort of like watching TV while talking on the phone while playing a videogame while listening to music. That’s how Tom often felt, like everything wanted his attention at once, and because of that he couldn’t focus.

“
Thank you,” Cindy said. “You were making me dizzy.”

Tom listened, and processed, and realized he’d unintentionally done what Cindy wanted. That made Tom angry, made him want to grab Cindy and shake her and scream in her face. He might have tried it, but then he noticed that she and Tyrone were holding hands. Tom wasn’t afraid of Tyrone. Tom was taller, and probably stronger. But Tyrone knew how to fight, and Tom didn’t.

Maybe if I had some sort of weapon to even the odds…

Tom cast a quick glance at the fire, seeking out a flaming branch or a log or something. Why the hell was Tyrone getting all lovey-dovey with that meth-head skank anyway? Maybe some firewood upside the head would knock some sense into him.

“
Just calm down,” Tyrone said. “We need to figure this shit out. And you look like you’re ready to lose it, Tom. Remember group? Working out your anger issues? Remember what Sara said about keeping cool?”

Tom made a fist, his anger nearing the boiling point, and a little voice in his head told him to exercise some control, reminded him he had problems controlling anger when off his meds.

Which made Tom remember he hadn’t taken his nightly medicine.

Tom took two pills a day for his Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. The first was Adderall, which helped him focus even though it was a stimulant and should have made him even more hyper. He took those in the morning. At night, he took Risperdol, an anti-psychotic which helped him calm down.

Tom didn’t know what time it was, but he knew he needed his Risperdol. When he missed a dose he just got more and more agitated until he wound up in big trouble. He was already close to freaking out, and without his meds he might wind up running off into the woods, which would be big trouble for sure.

Tom walked toward Sara and Martin’s tent.

“
You’re not allowed in there.”

“
Mind your own frickin’ business, Cindy.”

Tom knew he wasn’t supposed to go in the tent. He also knew he was supposed to treat everyone with respect. But Sara and Martin weren’t there, and he needed his meds, and they were probably in Sara’s backpack because she was the one who gave Tom his pills. How else was he supposed to frickin’ get them?

He ducked through the entry flap, using a Velcro strap to hold it open so the fire from behind lit up the enclosed space. On the left were a sleeping bag, a small cooler, and a stack of canned goods. That would teach Tyrone to mind his own business—bouncing a can of creamed corn off his dome. On the opposite side of the tent were two backpacks. One was already open, some things lying beside it.

Tom knelt next to the open pack. It was dark, but he noticed a walkie-talkie, a first aid box, and a prescription bottle. He picked up the bottle, but it was Martin’s, not his. He tossed it aside and began to paw through the bag, finding clothing and some papers and nothing else.

Getting even more annoyed, Tom unzipped the second pack. Sara better not have forgotten his meds. If she did, whatever happened was her fault, and Tom couldn’t be blamed for acting—

“
Holy shit.”

A big smile crossed Tom’s face, and without even thinking he picked up what he was staring at, holding it and extending his arm. It was heavy, heavier than he would have guessed.

But that was because the only guns Tom had ever held before were toys. This was a real one, big and black wicked-looking. He fussed with the switches on the side, finding the button for the clip and the safety next to the trigger. Tom pulled the top part back—the slide—like he saw on TV, jacking a round into the chamber. Immediately, he felt alive. Even more alive than when he was joy-riding.

Tom cocked the hammer back.

Who’s the frickin’ man now, Tyrone?

They watched as the woman and the girl found the bait. But they didn’t attack yet.

Lester was too close.

They feared Lester, almost as much as they feared The Doctor. So they left the woman and the girl and the man they’d hung up.

Their stomachs growled, but it was okay. They had found a boy. He would be enough for the moment. They could come back for the others when Lester was gone.

There was no rush. No hurry. They had time. Days, if they needed it.

No one who came to the island ever left. Ever.

There was a flash of light in the trees.

Lester.

They began to back up, but they didn’t have to.

Lester was leaving.

They waited. As soon as Lester was gone, they would attack.

Sara reached her hands up over her head and touched Martin’s shoes, making him twist slowly.

“
We’ll get you down. Just hold on.”

Sara knew that was redundant—bordering on moronic—thing to say, but she didn’t stop to dwell on it, already shining the weakening Maglite up past her husband’s bound wrists. She followed the rope to where it looped over a high bough and stretched taut on an angle through the branches, all the way down to its end, tied around the base of a tree trunk a few meters to their right. Sara hurried over, sticking the flashlight in her mouth, attacking the knot with her fingers.

The rope was thin, nylon, the knots small and hard as acorns. She tried to pry at it with her fingernails, wincing as she bent one backward. The Center didn’t allow weapons or anything that could be used as a weapon. Matches, lighters, aerosol sprays, tools, and even the plastic cutlery they used for eating; all was kept under lock and key. This rule was retained for the camping trip; the sharpest thing they’d brought along was some fingernail clippers, but those were back at the campsite.

Another nail bent and cracked, and Sara felt like screaming. The agony Martin was in must have been unbearable, and if he’d been strung up there for as long as they’d been searching for him chances were good his hands had lost all circulation. No blood flow meant tissue death. Sara felt like whimpering. If they didn’t get him down fast…

“
Try this.”

Laneesha stood next to Sara, and held a dirty rock about the size of a softball.

“
It’s got a sharp edge,” Laneesha said, pointing.

Sara traded Jack and the flashlight for the rock, took a deep breath, and tried to keep her emotions under control.

“
Good work, Laneesha. Hold this on the rope for me.”

Sara raised the rock up and struck the rope where it wound around the trunk. She hit it again, and again, and again, the bark slowly chipping away but the rope seemingly unmarred. Cramps built in her hands and shoulders, but Sara had to save Martin and she wouldn’t relent, gritting her teeth against the pain, willing the rope to break, not daring to stop until—

The
twang
sounded like a bass string being plucked, the rope whipping past Sara’s face as it shot upward. Martin fell to earth. He made an
umph
sound when he hit, tumbling onto his side, his back to her.

Sara ditched the rock and scrambled over, awash with concern. Laneesha came up from behind with the Maglite, shining it onto Martin’s shoulders, then around to his face.

“
Oh, shit.”

Laneesha dropped the light, and Sara wasn’t sure what she’d seen. She picked it up off the dead leaves and knelt next to Martin, focusing the weak beam on his face.

Jammed into her husband’s mouth and protruding from his lips was a ball of nails. They jutted out of his cheeks like cat whiskers, dark with dirt and blood.

“
Oh, jesus, oh baby…”

Sara’s first instinct was to help, to nurture, which she would have done with anyone in this situation. She worked soup kitchens every Thanksgiving. She spent a summer in Peru with the World Health Organization, helping to care for a TB epidemic. Sara had endless resources of empathy, and equal measures of strength to keep from breaking down. But seeing Martin—her Martin—like this, hit her right in the heart, and the tears came so quick and fast she wondered how she could have been so resolved to divorce this man if she still cared this deeply.

Sara put a hand on his forehead, her touch gentle so as not to hurt him any further. Her husband’s eyes found hers, locked on.

“
ara…”

Sara handed Jack off to Laneesha. “Shhhh. It’s all going to be okay. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

He made the slightest of nods, then brought up his bound hands, tied together at the wrists. They were swollen, and the color of ripe plums.

Sara wasn’t able to hide her wince. She examined the rope, saw it was a simple slip knot.

“
Okay, I’m going to count to three, then free your hands. When your circulation returns, it’s going to hurt really bad. You ready?”

Another nod. And Sara saw something in his eyes, something beyond the fear and pain. Trust. Trust, and unconditional love.

“
Do you know I love you?”

She nodded, unable to answer because of the lump in her throat.

“
Then we don’t have anything to talk about.”

Sara blinked away her tears, clamped the light under her armpit, and held his wrists.

“
One…two…”

Sara went on two, pulling at the rope with one hand and pulling his right arm with the other. The rope resisted at first, then slipped off.

Martin’s eyes went glassy, then rolled up into his head as he let out the most chilling, agonized howl Sara had ever heard in her life. Sara bit her lower lip and kept her own cry inside, patting Martin’s chest, wishing she could bear some of the pain for him.

His back arched, bending at an almost impossible angle, and then, mercifully, he passed out.

Sara seized the opportunity. She worked fast, digging a finger into the corner of his mouth and touching the horrible gag stuck inside. It was a wood, roughly golf-ball sized, and Sara counted eight nails protruding out of it, each two inches long. Two skewered his right cheek, one his lower lip, and three his left cheek. The other two jutted from his mouth like tusks.

She stretched his left cheek back, forcing the gag further to the right, making the wounds on that side bleed fresh.

Martin’s eyes popped open and he lashed out, smacking Sara on the side of the head, sending her sprawling.

Sara opened her eyes and stared up at the forest canopy, a small opening allowing a few stars to shine through. She’d once again lost the flashlight, but little bright motes swam through her vision like sparks. Her head was ringing.

It was the first time Martin had ever hit her. Not his fault, of course. He’d been unconscious. But it was as good a blow as she’d ever sustained, especially since she hadn’t been on guard to block it.