by Laura Burns
She shifted, trying to get comfortable on the hard floor, and something moved under her butt. She reached down, pulling free something long and narrow. A branch? She held it up to the faint light. A bone.
Sarah hurled it at the wall, unable to stop a horrified scream from clawing its way out of her throat. Maybe it was a prisoner’s. It could be decades old. She had no reason to think there’d been another student left to die in the cell. She leaned forward, studying the bone from a distance. It looked old and human. From a prisoner, she told herself. It’s definitely from a prisoner. That’s what makes the most sense. She wrapped her arms around herself as tightly as she could and pulled her hands inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt, but a shudder still ripped through her body.
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe it would help if she didn’t have to look at her prison. Wait! Her cell. She could call someone for help. She pulled her cell from her pocket. “Call Dr. Diaz.”
No signal.
Of course. Even with all the cell towers, there wouldn’t be a signal this far down into the stone of the island.
A groan suddenly echoed, pulling her from her thoughts. It wasn’t like the moans she’d heard that night on the cliff. It was possible to believe those low, soft sounds could be wind in a cave. This groan was human. She was certain of it.
Was it the spirit of the man who’d become so desperate he killed himself? Was that why it was freezing down here, because so many men had died down in these holes, their spirits trapped in the prison that had held their bodies? If one ghost could make a cold spot, why couldn’t hundreds turn the whole area icy?
Her whole body started to shake, so she hugged herself tighter, taking a deep breath. Her imagination was taking over. She wasn’t in danger from the spirits of the dead. She was in danger from cold-blooded killers. The moan came again, and Sarah couldn’t stop her thoughts from ricocheting back to the prisoner. Had he died instantly, smashed on the rocks? Or had the ocean sucked him away while he was still alive? Had it taken hours for him to drown, his bleeding body growing weaker and weaker as he struggled to the surface again and again for another breath?
At some point exhaustion must have claimed her because when she opened her eyes, the pale light of early morning shone down into her cell from the narrow opening high above her. How long were they going to leave her here? Her eyes caught on the bone. Had they decided not to come back until she was dead, until the flesh had rotted off her bones?
Sarah pushed herself to her feet, her legs cramped from hours on the cold, hard floor. For the first time, she could see the details of her surroundings. Despite the chill, droplets of sweat slid down her back.
What had happened here?
Someone had been tortured, had his mind completely destroyed. Every centimeter of the stone walls and floor had been carved with jagged, meandering letters and numbers, some crossed out with long, deep slashes.
One section was a calendar. Another might be a poem. Sarah wasn’t sure. The way the lines of words were arranged made it seem likely, but they were all in German so she couldn’t be positive. And etched into the floor, right along the base of the wall and running the entire circumference, was the same word, over and over and over, sometimes big, sometimes small, sometimes almost illegible.
Bromcyan.
Bromcyan.
Bromcyan.
She crouched down and traced one of the “B”s. Her fingertip ran over something sharp. Sarah leaned closer. Something was imbedded in the stone, something small and pale. She pried it free, holding it up to study it. It was a piece of fingernail stained with blood.
Bile rose in her throat. Could these words have been clawed into the stone? Was that even possible? How desperate would someone have to be to do that? To dig that word into the wall so many times. Bromcyan.
I have to get out of here. Now.
Sarah felt like she was trapped, not inside a stone cell, but inside an insane mind. And if she had to stay there much longer, she’d go insane herself.
6
Sarah sat with her eyes closed, but now that she knew the words were there, it was like she could see them, feel them, everywhere. They’re from a long time ago, she told herself. The man who wrote them is dead. She couldn’t help feeling like it was the same prisoner who’d killed himself. The room vibrated with desperation and despair and psychosis. Death would have felt like relief to any man trapped in here.
The man was a Nazi, she reminded herself. I’m feeling all this pity for a Nazi.
Maybe Bromcyan was the name of his town in Germany. Or the name of someone he knew that died. Or that he killed. The way the word repeated meant it had to be deeply meaningful to him. But none of that stopped her horror—whoever he’d been, he’d lost his mind here.
Maybe Bromcyan was his last name. Maybe he was trying to hold on to his identity, his sense of self, as the insanity began to take hold. Sarah felt like she was exposing herself to his insanity, poisoning herself, with every breath.
When were they going to let her out of here? And what were they going to do?
She slowly looked around the cell again, this time ignoring the strange markings on the wall. Had she missed something she could use as a weapon? There was the bone. She could inflict pain with that somehow. Or … What else? She could tear up her sweatshirt and use the bone to shove pieces of cloth through the small slit in the rock. If someone on the outside saw them, maybe—
Crazy. No one would see them. All that was down there was spiky rocks, not soft sand that anyone would want to stroll on.
The sound of approaching footfalls interrupted her thoughts. Two figures in dark hooded robes that brushed the floor moved up to the cell door.
Her executioners.
“Look, I don’t care what you did. Being here, at this school, is a way to change my life. That’s all I care about. I’m not going to tell anyone anything,” she babbled. “Just let me go and I’ll pretend none of it ever happened.”
Neither of them answered. One slid a key—an old-fashioned one with three teeth and a curlicue handle—into the lock and opened the door. They both rushed in. Sarah lunged for the bone, but didn’t reach it before they each grabbed one of her arms.
The boys—Sarah was almost sure they were boys—marched her down a narrow corridor in silence. They turned a corner and entered a large room carved out of the rock. Torches burning in holders on the walls revealed two lines of figures, all in maroon—the color so dark it was almost black—hooded robes.
“I already told these two, I don’t care what you did last night. I won’t say anything. Izzy? Karina?” She searched for a sign of recognition among the hooded people. “You know me. You know what my life was like before I came here. All I care about is graduating and getting a chance at something better. Even if I did say something, who would believe me? No one.” She could hear the panic rising in her voice, and swallowed hard.
She scanned the room, searching for an escape route. Her eyes locked on a towering form at the far end of the room. It was made of bones, hundreds of them, some stained with dried blood the way the fingernail in her cell had been. A cluster of skulls had been lashed together to create a giant head. The mouth, open in a howl, was lined with teeth made of jagged rocks. Bones had been roped together with seaweed to form arms, and the enormous fingers were made of ribs. More seaweed wrapped around the bones creating the torso, and there were ragged pieces of cloth and leather tangled in it. Sarah realized one was a red armband with a swastika on it, and a shudder ripped through her.
Dread overwhelmed her as she was forced to kneel before the grotesque figure. At eye level she saw a dull gold pin on one of the strips of cloth, a bird on the top, another swastika below that, and a submarine at the bottom. The whole thing was ringed with a garland of leaves.
German U-boat insignia, she guessed. The cloth is scraps of a German prisoner’s uniform. It reminded Sarah of an immense voodoo doll or something from an ancient Druid ritual. Except for the Nazi stuff. P
aying attention to the details helped push down her terror.
A chant started up behind her. “Heil, Jager! Heil, Jager! Heil, Jager!” The words grew louder, turning to shrieks, as a new robed figure arrived. His or her robe was different. More elaborate. Black velvet, and hooded, with a belt made of seaweed studded with what looked like human teeth.
The figure stopped next to Sarah, and faced the lines of chanting people. “Heil, Jager! Heil, Jager!”
The hysteria in their voices set Sarah’s heart skittering in her chest. They sounded frenzied, like a mob barely under control. All she wanted to do was run. Adrenaline was surging through her body, but she didn’t see any exit in front of her, and behind her were those rows of crazed people. If they attacked, she’d never get by them.
The black-robed figure raised his hands, and the crowd instantly went silent.
“Why do we gather here today?” The voice was a booming echo.
Nate.
Before last night, he’d seemed like a guy who had turned his life around, someone who’d made her think it might be possible for her too. Why was he involved in this? Why were any of them?
“We gather to renew our spirits and our strength,” voices answered solemnly, as if the stone room was a church.
“And what is it that has the power to renew our strength?” Nate demanded.
“Blut und Knochen,” came the reply.
“Yes, Blut and Knochen. Blood and bone.” He used two fingers to beckon someone forward. One of the maroon-robed followers approached and held a clay bowl at the base of Sarah’s throat. Her heart seized.
Enough.
Sarah leaped to her feet. Immediately dozens of hands were on her, pushing her back to the ground, pinning her ankles to the stone floor, clamping both sides of her head, restraining her hands behind her back. The bowl was repositioned at the base of her neck.
Nate turned and bowed low to the horrendous sculpture, then straightened. He reached into the bone chest and withdrew a knife, the blade jagged on both sides, reminding Sarah of the serrated teeth of the thing’s mouth.
“We honor the sacrificed by taking their blood and bone into us, and they gift us with the vigor and vitality of the spirit released,” Nate intoned. He stepped up to Sarah and rested the knife against her throat. She tried to jerk her head away, but the hands holding it were like a vise. Her breath came in harsh gasps, each breath drawing her throat harder against the knife.
He was going to slice her throat. They were going to drink her blood out of the bowl. Then gnaw on her bones. And no one would know. No one would even care that she was gone. She had no parents, no family, nobody to notice that Sarah Merson had vanished from the earth. She squeezed her eyes shut, promising herself she wouldn’t cry. And she didn’t. Even when the blade pierced her flesh, and a trickle of her blood ran down her neck and into the bowl, she still did not cry.
“If we drink of your blood, you will become one of us,” Nate told her. “You will become part of the pack. But first you must prove yourself worthy. You must trust us with your darkest secret. It will be recorded in the sacred scrolls, along with the secrets of every member from now to the very first pack.”
Pack. He’d used that word twice. Sarah brought back the words Eliza had spoken: “Maybe it’s a secret society thing. They must have crazy pranks. The Skull and Bones society at Yale makes its members do insane stuff before they graduate and become presidents and moguls and whatnot.”
Was that what this was? A secret society? Was what she’d seen in the woods a prank?
Sarah struggled to get her breathing under control. They weren’t going to sacrifice her to their freaky god. She was safe.
She’d read an article in a magazine once about secret societies throughout history. It talked about the Skull and Bones, plus the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, the Illuminati. Groups of influential people bound to one another in secret, able to achieve incredible success in everything they did. What Eliza said was true—the members of these societies went on to be the most powerful people in the world. This was a secret society, one at the most exclusive school in the country, and they wanted her to join. The school was a ticket to a better life. But the society would be a ticket to something phenomenal.
Nate flicked one finger, and the bowl was pulled away from Sarah’s throat. She was lifted back to her feet. “Will you make your confession? Or will you leave now and never speak of this again?”
“Confession,” Sarah answered. If that’s what it took to get in, she’d do it.
“Confession.” The hooded figures repeated in low whispers.
Nate put his hands on her shoulders. The low-hanging hood hid his eyes, but he gave her a reassuring squeeze as he turned her to face the group. “Begin,” he instructed.
What was she going to say? What was her deep, dark secret? That she shopped at Walmart—when she got to buy something new? That she’d gotten bounced from home to home because … because who knew why? Because she wasn’t good enough. Because she was damaged.
“Begin,” Nate said again, a harsh edge in his voice now.
“I’m a freak.” The words rushed out, surprising her. “My brain. It’s not normal. I remember everything. Even from when I was just a baby. No one believes me, but it’s true. Sometimes it’s not even like I’m remembering. It’s like, like I’m thrown back in time, back into something that happened to me in the past. I can see it all, but not just that. Smells, tastes, sounds—whatever I experienced then, I experience again. There are times I think I’m crazy. More times, it’s others who think I’m crazy. Or lying. Or on drugs. So, not such great recommendations for my college application, right?”
She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. No one responded. They were waiting. What else did they want? She went for the darkest moment of her life.
“When I was not even four, I saw my parents murdered right in front of me. I remember every detail. I’ve experienced it again, and again, and again. People say it’s impossible. They say there’s no way a three-year-old could remember anything. But it isn’t. Not for me.” Her voice began to waver, but she pressed on. “It was like an execution. This man made them get on their knees and shot them. I don’t know why. And so I don’t know who my parents really were. You don’t get shot like that, all cold and professional, if you’re just Mr. and Mrs. Suburbs, right? And my dad had told me to hide in the air-conditioning vent. He made sure I knew what to do in every hotel room we went to. Like he knew it might happen. We kept moving from place to place, and he set up all the rooms the same way and made me go over the rules. So, that’s my secret. I’m a freak, with a freak brain, who had parents that might have been truly bad people.” She choked in a breath, her whole body suddenly feeling drained, spent.
“We accept the confession.” Nate stepped up next to her. “If you join us, Sarah, you will never be alone again. We will be your family and you will be ours.”
She would have connections to the people in this room for the rest of her life. They would help her create a life she hadn’t even dreamed about. She nodded. “I want to.”
“First, you must pledge your loyalty. Do you vow to put the commands of the Jager before your own desires?” Nate asked.
“I do,” Sarah answered. The air around her felt like it was crackling with electricity. It was as if the attention everyone was focusing on her had taken on a physical form.
“Do you vow to put your brothers and sisters, your packmates, before all others?”
“I do,” Sarah replied. They had chosen her, and she would never forget that.
“Do you vow to guard the secrets of the Wolfpack, including its very existence, from all others?” Nate, her Jager, asked.
“I do.” She would never betray them. Betraying them would be betraying herself.
“We honor our newest Wolfpack member by allowing her to take the Blutgrog with us. She honors us, by sharing her blood.” He raised the clay bowl up to her lips. Dazed, Sarah realized it was filled with liquid, dark
and oily, the drops of her own blood somewhere in the mix. Nate rested one hand on her head. “Drink and be one with us.”
Sarah didn’t hesitate. She opened her lips, allowing some of the liquid to be poured into her mouth. It sent a bolt of fire down her throat and into her belly as she swallowed. Instantly, the hands released her, and someone helped her to stand.
Every sensation became magnified. Her heartbeat turned to a drumbeat in her ears, and she could feel it pulsing in her throat, inside her wrists, behind her knees. She could feel the blood cells bouncing off her veins and arteries running through her entire body. The awareness of the individual hairs on her head made her scalp prickle. The seams of her jeans felt like thin metal wires running up and down her legs. The inside of her sneakers felt porous. And she swore she could even feel the individual molecules of air brushing against the inside of her nose, tickling when they reached her lungs.
She could feel everything.
And the smells! She could smell the salt and rot of the seaweed, the metallic tang of the dried blood on the monstrous sculpture, the chalky scent of old bones, a dozen kinds of perfume and cologne, the musty odor of mold and mushrooms.
Nate returned the knife to the chest of the monstrous sculpture. Then he threw back his hood, took the bowl, and drank. Sarah couldn’t stop staring at his face. His pupils were surrounded by a beautiful starburst of brown that was a few shades deeper than the caramel color of the rest of his irises. There were tiny creases at the edges of his eyes, smile lines. His lower lip looked so soft, so puffy, that Sarah had to press her teeth together to stop herself from leaning forward and biting it.
“What is in that stuff?” she breathed.
“Ground bone from the POW prisoners, and their dried blood,” Nate replied. It should have repulsed her, but it didn’t. Nothing did. Even the mold on the walls now seemed miraculous, with its strange illumination.
“And a lot of alcohol,” someone shouted from the back of the room.
“Bone, blood, and a few other odds and ends.” Nate smiled at her. “Welcome to the Wolfpack, Sarah. I knew from the moment I met you that you should be one of us. You made it happen a little faster than I planned when you saw our mission last night.”