by Jack Kilborn
“There,” he said. “Now we’re ready to start a family.”
They kissed, lightly because they were both so injured. Then the three of them held each other until the helicopter arrived.
One Year Later
Deb had never been so terrified in her life.
A sea of eyes watched her, judged her. Deb turned and looked at Letti, who gave her an intense stare and a nod. Beside Letti was Maria, who mimicked Letti’s gesture.
Deb’s throat was dry. Her heart was beating so fast she felt ready to faint. The oppressive silence hurt her ears.
Then someone sneezed. A child. Deb glanced at the audience, saw it was the baby Maria and Felix had adopted, sitting on Felix’s lap. Next to them, Kelly was leaning forward in the pew. Kelly spoke silently, urgently, mouthing the words so Deb could read her lips.
“Say it!”
Deb looked down at her ridiculously expensive dress, the long train covering her prosthetics, making her appear completely normal. She looked at the minister, who was smiling patiently at her. Then she looked at Mal. So handsome in his tuxedo. So much love in his eyes.
And suddenly, Deb wasn’t scared anymore. With him by her side, she didn’t think she’d ever be scared again.
“I do,” she said.
Then she kissed him before the minister even had a chance to pronounce them man and wife.
# # #
Franklin Delano Roosevelt sat in the talking booth at West Virginia’s Northern Correctional Facility, waiting for his visitor. Franklin missed life on the outside. He missed the food. He missed sex with women. He even missed his job as hotel manager in Monk Creek. But most of all, he missed his Momma, and his kinfolk.
Prison life wasn’t so bad. The state gave him monthly transfusions, though they weren’t nearly as much fun as the ones he used to get at the Rushmore Inn. Franklin ran a tiny black market store within the walls, selling cigarettes, drugs, tattoo supplies, candy bars. After the Rushmore Massacre, as the papers had called it, Franklin inherited a tidy bit of money from his many dead siblings. And that didn’t count all the money Momma had stashed away. It was enough to hire a hotshot lawyer, who got his charges reduced from Murder to multiple counts of Accessory. Franklin got eight years, but would be out in four for good behavior.
Franklin’s mood brightened when Chester walked over and sat across from him. Chester B. Arthur Roosevelt was one of only five brothers still alive. The other four were wanted by the police, and had to stay in hiding. But Chester had bought hisself a swell fake ID, and the law couldn’t touch him.
“You find a place?” Franklin asked.
“Boardin’ house. Southern Georgia. Deep in the woods, outta the way. Big ole basement. Perfect for us.”
A boarding house? That would be easier to run than a bed and breakfast. Franklin never really warmed up to Momma’s plan for making the next President. All he really cared about was the fun he had with the women they caught.
At the prison, Franklin learned there was some newfangled chemical enzyme that turned regular blood into type O negative. That meant they didn’t have to be so picky and choosy. Now they could grab whoever they wanted.
“You buy it yet?” Franklin asked.
“Got the deed this week. Should have ‘er up ‘n runnin’ real soon. Be all ready for you when you get outta here. Have a nice bunch of sweet honeys all tied up and waitin’ for you.”
Franklin smiled. He’d already done a year of his sentence.
With this to look forward to, the next three would just fly on by.
AFTERWORD by Joe Konrath
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 a book called 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 (for me), 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 to 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 new version 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 do it alone and release TRAPPED and ENDURANCE myself.
I like ENDURANCE. So much, that I didn’t want to see it diminished by what I felt were unnecessary edits. Though it isn’t as horrific as TRAPPED (I don’t know if I’ll ever write anything as horrific as TRAPPED ever again) there were certain creepy elements to this book that weirded me out. In fact, the whole reason I wrote this book was because of an idea I had while on vacation.
We were renting a cabin in the woods in northern Wisconsin, and I was sitting on the bed when a disturbing thought hit me. What if the cabin’s owners were watching us, right now?
In fact, if you were a psychotic voyeur, it would be pretty easy to rig your house with hidden passages and peep holes, and then rent it out to unsuspecting guests.
I immediately became paranoid, and looked at the closet, the bathroom, the stairs, wondering if I was being spied on.
Then I heard something creak under the bed.
Could someone actually be under there?
No one actually was. But I kept thinking about awful it would be to stay in someone else’s house and suddenly realize someone was under your bed.
Of course, what could be even worse than that?
Someone under your bed, and you don’t have legs so you can’t run away.
I hope you had as much fun reading ENDURANCE as I had writing it. If you did, I encourage you to check out AFRAID, TRAPPED, and my J.A. Konrath books, which also have some good scares in them.
And if you’d like to see a sequel, email me. I may not listen to my publishers, but I always listen to my readers…
April 13
Chicago, IL
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Excerpt from AFRAID by Jack Kilborn
The hunter’s moon, a shade of orange so dark it appeared to be filled with blood, hung fat and low over the mirror surface of Big Lake McDonald. Sal Morton took in a lungful of crisp Wisconsin air, shifted on his seat cushion, and cast his Lucky 13 over the stern. The night of fishing had been uneventful; a few small bass earlier in the evening, half a dozen Northern Pike—none bigger than a pickle—and then, nothing. The zip of his baitcaster unspooling and the plop of the bait hitting the water were the only sounds he’d heard for the last hour.
Until the helicopter exploded.
It was already over the water before Sal noticed it. Black, without any lights, silhouetted by the moon. And quiet. Twenty years ago Sal had taken his wife Maggie on a helicopter ride at the Dells, both of them forced to ride with their hands clamped over their ears to muffle the sound. This one made a fraction of that noise. It hummed, like a refrigerator.
The chopper came over the lake on the east side, low enough that its downdraft produced large eddies and waves. So close to the water Sal wondered if its wake might overturn his twelve foot aluminum boat. He ducked as it passed over him, knocking off his Packers baseball cap, scattering lures, lifting several empty Schmidt beer cans and tossing them overboard.
Sal dropped his pole next to his feet and gripped the sides of the boat, moving his body against the pitch and yaw. When capsizing ceased to be a fear, Sal squinted at the helicopter for a tag, a marking, some sort of ID, but it lacked both writing and numbers. It might as well have been a black ghost.
Three heartbeats later the helicopter had crossed the thousand yard expanse of lake and dipped down over the tree line on the opposite shore. What was a helicopter doing in Safe Haven? Especially at night? Why was it flying so low? And why did it appear to have landed near his house?
Then came the explosion.
He felt it a moment after he saw it. A vibration in his feet, as if someone had hit the bow with a bat. Then a soft warm breeze on his face, carrying mingling scents of burning wood and gasoline. The cloud of flames and smoke went up at least fifty feet.
After watching for a moment, Sal retrieved his pole and reeled in his lure, then pulled the starter cord on his 7.5 horsepower Evinrude. The motor didn’t turn over. The second and third yank yielded similar results. Sal swore and began to play with the choke, wondering if Maggie was scared by the crash, hoping she was all right.
Maggie Morton awoke to what she thought was thunder. Storms in upper Wisconsin could be as mean as anywhere on earth, and in the twenty-six years they’d owned this house she and Sal had to replace several cracked windows and half the roof due to weather damage.
She opened her eyes, listened for the dual accompaniment of wind and rain. Strangely, she heard neither.
Maggie squinted at the red blur next to the bed, groped for her glasses, pushed them on her face. The blur focused and became the time: 10:46
“Sal?” she called. She repeated it, louder, in case he was downstairs.
No answer. Sal usually fished until midnight, so his absence didn’t alarm her. She considered flipping on the light, but investigating the noise that woke her held much less appeal than the soft down pillow and the warm flannel sheets tucked under her chin. Maggie removed her glasses, returned them to the night stand, and went back to sleep.
The sound of the front door opening roused her sometime later.
“Sal?”
She listened to the footfalls below her, the wooden floors creaking. First in the hallway, and then into the kitchen.
“Sal!” Louder this time. After thirty-five years of marriage, her husband’s ears were just one of many body parts that seemed to be petering out on him. Maggie had talked to him about getting a hearing aid, but whenever she brought up the topic he smiled broadly and pretended not to hear her, and they both wound up giggling. Funny, when they were in the same room. Not funny when they were on different floors and Maggie needed his attention.
“Sal!”
No answer.
Maggie considered banging on the floor, and wondered what the point would be. She knew the man downstairs was Sal. Who else could it be?
Right?
Their lake house was the last one on Gold Star Road, and their nearest neighbor, the Kinsels, resided over half a mile down the shore and had left for the season. The solitude was one of the reasons the Mortons bought this property. Unless she went to town to shop, Maggie would often go days without seeing another human being, not counting her husband. The thought of someone else being in their home was ridiculous.
Reassured by that thought, Maggie closed her eyes.
She opened them a moment later, when the sound of the microwave carried up the stairs. Then came the muffled machine-gun report of popcorn popping. Sal shouldn’t be eating at this hour. The doctor had warned him about that, and how it aggravated his acid reflux disease, which in turn aggravated Maggie with his constant tossing and turning all night.
She sighed, annoyed, and sat up in bed.
“Sal! The doctor said no late night snacks!”
No answer. Maggie wondered if Sal indeed had a hearing problem, or if he simply used that as an excuse for not listening to her. This time she did swing a foot off the bed and stomp on the floor, three times, with her heel.
She waited for his response.
Got none.
Maggie did it again, and followed it up with yelling, “Sal!” loud as she could.
Ten seconds passed.
Ten more.
Then she heard the sound of the downstairs toilet flush.
Anger coursed through Maggie. Her husband had obviously heard her, and was ignoring her. That wasn’t like Sal at all.
Then, almost like a blush, a wave of doubt overtook her. What if the person downstairs wasn’t Sal?
It has to be, she told herself. She hadn’t heard any boats coming up to the dock, or cars pulling onto their property. Besides, Maggie was a city girl, born and raised in Chicago. Twenty-some years in the Northwoods hadn’t broken her of the habit of locking doors before going to sleep.
The anger returned. Sal was deliberately ignoring her. When he came upstairs, she was going to give him a lecture to end all lectures. Or perhaps she’d ignore himfor a while. Turnabout was fair play.
Comforted by the thought, she closed her eyes. The familiar sound of Sal’s outboard motor drifted in through the window, getting closer. That Evinrude was older than Sal was. Why he didn’t buy a newer, faster motor was beyond her understanding. One of the reasons she hated going out on the lake with him was because it stalled all the time and—
Maggie jack-knifed to a sitting position, panic spiking through her body. If Sal was still out on the boat, then who was in her house?
She fumbled for her glasses, then picked up the phone next to her clock. No dial tone. She pressed buttons, but the phone just wouldn’t work.
Maggie’s breath became shallow, almost a pant. Sal’s boat drew closer, but he was still several minutes away from docking. And even when he got home, what then? Sal was an old man. What could he do against an intruder?
She held her breath, trying to listen to noises from downstairs. Maggie did hear something, but the sound wasn’t coming from the lower level. It was coming from the hallway right outside her bedroom.
The sound of someone chewing popcorn.
Maggie wondered what she should do. Say something? Maybe this was all some sort of mistake, some confused tourist who had walked into the wrong house. Or perhaps this was a robber, looking for money or drugs. Give him what he wanted, and he’d leave. No need for anyone to get hurt.
“Who’s there?”
More munching. Closer. He was practically in the room. She could smell the popcorn now, the butter and salt, and the odor made her stomach do flip-flops.
“My...medication is in the bathroom cabinet. And my purse is on the chair by the
door. Take it.”
The ruffling of a paper bag, and more chewing. Open-mouthed chewing. Loud, like someone smacking gum. Why wouldn’t he say anything?
“What do you want?”
No answer.
Maggie was shivering now. The tourist scenario was gone from her head, the robber scenario fading fast. A new scenario entered Maggie’s mind. The scenario of campfire stories and horror movies. The boogeyman, hiding under the bed. The escaped lunatic, searching for someone to hurt, to kill.
Maggie needed to get out of there, to get away. She could run to the car, or meet Sal on the dock and get into his boat, or even hide out in the woods. She could hurry to the guest bedroom, lock the door, open up the window, climb down—
Chewing, right next to the bed. Maggie gasped, pulling the flannel sheets to her chest. She squinted into the darkness, could barely make out the dark figure of a man standing a few feet away.
The bag rustled. Something touched Maggie’s face and she gasped. A tiny pat on her cheek. It happened again, on her forehead, making her flinch. Again, and she swatted out with her hand, finding the object on the pillow.
Popcorn. He was throwing popcorn at her.
Maggie’s voice came out in a whisper. “What...what are you going to do?”
The springs creaked as he sat on the edge of the bed.
“Everything,” he said.
Excerpt from TRAPPED by Jack Kilborn
He couldn’t move.
The table he laid 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?