by Jack Kilborn
Sara didn’t mind. She liked her cousins, all girls except for a pudgy boy named Timmy who was a few years older. Being on a farm, Aunt Alison was a bit more lax in her childrearing techniques than Sara’s mom, and she let Timmy do all sorts of potentially dangerous things, like drive the riding mower and light firecrackers and play with knives.
Timmy had a bunch of knives, mostly small ones, but he had a blade in particular that frightened the heck out of Sara. It was one of those long Army knives with a jagged back. He called it a survival knife, which made no sense to Sara, because anything that got stabbed with that awful thing most certainly wouldn’t survive. She refused to go in Timmy’s room, because he kept it on his desk on a little stand and it scared her to see it.
For the first few days of Sara’s visit, everything had gone well. She had fun playing with her cousins, the food was terrific, and creepy Timmy was told not to handle any knives around Sara.
On the morning of her fourth day there, the girls were gathering wildflowers by the old barn when Timmy came over, his scary knife in his belt, and asked if they wanted to play truth or dare.
Mostly, it was just dare, without any truth. Timmy, being the oldest, tried to show off by performing unimpressive feats of heroism like climbing trees, jumping down hills, and standing on the roof of the old barn.
The barn had a hayloft, which Aunt Alison used for storage. Among boxes of clothes and baby toys was an antique trunk. Made of leather and wood, with a rusty latch and tarnished brass corners and edges.
Timmy dared Sara to get inside and close the lid.
Sara didn’t like how the trunk looked, all old and beaten up, and she didn’t like how it stunk when Timmy opened it. Musty and moldy.
“That’s what a coffin smells like,” Timmy said.
“Is not,” Sara answered, even though she’d never smelled a coffin before.
“You too chicken to get in?”
“No. But I’m sick of truth or dare.”
“This will be the last one. Then we can play something else.”
“Let’s play something else now.”
“Chicken. Bock bock bock.”
Sara knew she wasn’t a chicken, but she didn’t want to get in the trunk. Especially since her other cousins had also gotten tired of the game and were leaving the barn.
“It’s a dare,” Timmy said. “You have to.”
He had his hand resting on the hilt of that scary knife when he said it.
“For how long?” Sara asked.
“Ten seconds. Then you can come out.”
Sara decided she was brave enough to do anything for ten seconds, so she got in the trunk, tucking her knees up into her chest so she could fit, and Timmy closed the lid.
It was dark. Dark as the darkest night. It was also tight and stinky and uncomfortably warm.
Sara counted to ten in her head as fast as she could then reached up to open the lid.
The lid wouldn’t open.
“Timmy! Open up!”
Timmy didn’t answer.
Sara pushed with all of her might. She heaved. She strained. Then she screamed.
The screaming went on for a long time.
Sara had no idea how long she was in that trunk. So long she’d wet her pants. So long she became tired enough to go to sleep, if the fear would have allowed it. But the fear didn’t leave. It kept building, and building, each passing minute worse than the last. And in the silence, the darkness whispered to her. Taunted her. Promised her that she would never get out, that she would die here.
Until Sara reached the point where she wanted to die rather than spend one more second in that horrible trunk.
That’s when Timmy came back.
“Sara?” he whispered through the side of the trunk.
“Timmy…” Sara’s voice was hoarse, raw, from the hours of screaming.
“Sara, I didn’t mean to leave you in there. The latch got stuck. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Please let me out, Timmy.”
“Mom and Dad will whup me if they find out I did this.”
The air was so hot and heavy, Sara felt like she was drowning.
“Let me out.”
“If I let you out, you have to promise you won’t tell.”
Sara would have promised him anything. “I promise, Timmy.”
“You have to swear.”
“I swear.”
Then the trunk opened, and Timmy was standing there, pointing that awful hunting knife in Sara’s face. He looked meaner and scarier than anyone Sara had ever seen.
“If you tell anyone, I’ll get you, Sara. I’ll cut you into little tiny pieces and bury you in this trunk. I swear I will.”
And then Timmy pressed the knife right up to the tip of her nose, and Sara passed out from fear.
Aunt Alison did find out, because when Sara fainted Timmy got scared and told her. And, as he’d predicted, Timmy got whupped.
But Sara’s fate was worse. For years she suffered from nightmares and nurtured fears. Fear of enclosed spaces. Fear of knives. Fear of trunks.
But the biggest fear of all was of the dark.
It took Sara ten years of therapy before she could ride in an elevator without having a panic attack, or use a public toilet without leaving the stall door open.
Sara did eventually manage to sleep well, on occasion, but it was always with a nightlight. The thought that the flashlight would go out soon, leaving Sara vulnerable to the smothering darkness, it was too much too—
“help…”
The word jolted Sara, making her spin around and hip-bump Laneesha off her feet. Martin. And he was close.
Her encroaching dread was overtaken by a sense of hope. Martin, for all his faults, helped Sara through many a fearsome night, holding her close and stroking her hair until she could fall asleep. Finding him would give her a much-needed boost of strength.
“Martin!” she called into the dark. “Where are you?”
“ara…”
The voice came from her right, weak but near. Sara grabbed Laneesha’s elbow, helping the girl back to her feet, then tugged her toward the pleas.
“Martin. Keep talking.”
The sliver of light swept across the trees ahead, seeking out a human shape. Sara stormed forward, underbrush digging at her legs, ducking under a low-hanging bough. Jack didn’t seem to like the jostling, and he began to cry softly.
“elp me ara…”
He was so close now Sara felt like she could reach out and touch him. She turned in a complete circle, aiming the beam every which way, but her husband still wasn’t to be found.
“Martin?”
“ara…”
Sara tilted the Maglite, trailing the light up a tree trunk, across the branches, over to…
“Holy shit!” Laneesha’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Sara realized that this wasn’t some campfire prank, some joke gone wrong. They were all in danger. Very real danger. Because someone had hung Martin by his wrists and hoisted him up a tree, where he twisted slowly like a giant, bloody piñata.
PART 2
THE FRYING PAN
Meadow got up on all fours and shook his head. Whatever hit him in the face had hit hard, and his jaw throbbed like he had a toothache. He shifted onto his knees, blinked several times, and tried to brace himself for whatever was coming next.
A twig snapped on Meadow’s left. He turned, fist clenched and raised, and then caught the smell. An awful, rancid smell, like body odor and sweaty feet and rancid food.
Then someone tackled Meadow from behind. Meadow twisted, trying to grab his attacker, but he was forced onto the ground face-first, a knee pinning his back. His arms were stretched out, followed by his legs.
How many of them were there?
Meadow opened his mouth to yell for help, but as soon as he did a foul-smelling hand jammed something between his lips, forcing it inside. Something hard and round, like a golf ball, but rougher. Meadow shook his head and pushed at
the object with his tongue, wincing as the pain hit. Sharp pain, in his cheeks, his lips, the top of his mouth, like he was chewing on a pin cushion.
Meadows sucked in air and gagged, blood seeping down his chin, comprehending what had been shoved into his mouth while disbelieving it at the same time.
“Meadow?” Tyrone called to him.
Meadow screamed in his throat, screamed for the very first time in his life, as his attackers dragged him off into the woods.
When Tom was a little boy, he wanted to be a race car driver when he grew up. He also wanted to be a pilot, an astronaut, a basketball player, a baseball player, a football player, a sniper, a hockey player, and a boxer, up until he got into a fist fight in fifth grade and another kid showed him how much it hurt to get hit in the face, which made Tom decide boxing wasn’t for him.
At first, his parents indulged his interests. Tom’s mother constantly shuffled him around from one sporting event to another, and his father bought a $300 flight simulator program for the computer that included NASA-approved specs for landing the space shuttle.
Tom quickly grew bored with the sports. He argued with coaches and teammates, and most of the playing time was spent waiting for something to happen. Tom hated waiting. He also hated the flight simulator. It wasn’t fun like his Xbox, It was slow and complicated and boring. Even the crashes were boring, and Tom crashed often.
As for becoming a sniper, the only way to do that was to join the military. The military meant lots of rules and following orders, two things Tom wasn’t good at. He’d have to settle for buying a gun when he got old enough, and maybe using it to go hunting or something, even though he didn’t know any hunters and had never even held a real gun before.
Driving, however, he loved. He could make his own excitement behind the wheel of a car, and Driver’s Ed was the only high school class he ever did well in, the rest resulting in Ds or worse.
But his parents didn’t buy Tom a car. Partly because of his bad grades, but mostly because every time he borrowed the family sedan it was always returned with another scrape, ding, or missing part. Tom continuously lied when asked what happened, blaming it on someone hitting him when he was parked, but when a State Trooper showed up at the house with pictures of Tom fleeing an intersection fender-bender that he’d caused, he was completely forbidden to drive. How was Tom supposed to know that some street lights had automatic cameras in them?
The Gransees didn’t fully realize their son’s obsession with driving, and the lengths he’d go to indulge his obsession. After the courts suspended his license, Tom stole a neighbor’s Corvette and led police on a forty minute chase, reaching speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour, appearing live on Detroit TV and as highlights on CNN.
An expensive lawyer, and a sympathetic judge whose son also had ADHD, allowed Tom to get off easy. Rather than doing hard time in juvee, Tom was sent to the Center.
The Center was okay. Sure, it was boring as hell, and Tom missed his freedom as much as he missed driving, but Sara and Martin were teaching him how to stay on task, how to set and reach goals, and how to make better decisions. Also, for the first time in his life, Tom was actually doing okay on his grades. Tests were still a nightmare, but he was allowed to speak his answers instead of having to write them down, and Sara usually helped him study.
Tom liked Sara. She didn’t yell at him all the time like other adults, and she seemed to understand a lot about him, things even he didn’t understand himself. He even thought she was kinda hot, though she didn’t wear hardly any make-up and mostly dressed like a guy.
Martin was cool too. He was pretty straight-laced around Sara, but one-on-one he was more laid back. Like he knew this was all one big joke.
Too bad it was all coming to an end. Unlike the rest of the Center kids who would go into juvee, Tom’s father had made arrangements to send him to military school. One of those bullshit boot camps that was supposed to scare teenagers into acting responsible. Tom decided he wasn’t going. As soon as they got off the island, he was going to run. Steal a car, drive someplace far away, like California.
That was the plan. But first he had to get off the island.
Tom stared hard at where Meadow disappeared into the woods, willing him to reappear, to say this all was one big frickin’ joke. But deep down Tom knew it wasn’t a joke. He’d heard the struggle behind those dark bushes, and something that sounded a lot like muffled screams.
Tom was scared. Scared even worse than when the police caught him after his big chase, twenty cops all pointing guns at him and shouting orders. Every instinct Tom possessed told him to get the hell out of there, to start running and never stop.
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. Reme
mber 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.