by Jack Kilborn
Laneesha whimpered, a single sharp vowel, brief but unmistakably human. And loud enough to be heard by the hunters.
Martin watched as one of the feral people fell out of line, cocking a head in their direction. He took two steps toward them and stopped again, sniffing the air like a dog. This man was fatter than the others, his shoulders broad and powerful looking.
Again Laneesha squirmed, kicking some dead leaves, making a shuffling sound.
Dark as it was, Martin could see the hunter raise his arm. He was holding an ax.
Martin felt the tension in his legs, wondering how he could spring up from a prone position. He adjusted his toes, silently digging them into the ground for traction, forcing his crippled hands to grasp some loose dirt to throw in their attacker’s face.
Then there came a scream.
Not from Martin or the women, and not from any of the hunters. This came from deep in the forest, shrill and agonized, a sharp note that went on and on.
The axman turned toward the scream, then lumbered back into the woods.
Martin let out his breath. “Let’s wait a minute,” he whispered, his tongue and cheeks feeling like he’d just gargled acid, his jaw throbbing. “Make sure they’re gone.”
“Who’s screaming?” Laneesha said.
“I don’t know.”
“Martin.” He felt his wife’s hand grip his shoulder. “That’s one of our kids.”
Martin placed a thumb and forefinger on his eyes, rubbed them gently. “We don’t know that.”
The scream returned, a high-pitched chord that Martin could feel in his molars.
“That’s Meadow,” Laneesha said.
“We don’t know it’s Meadow, Laneesha.”
“Jesus, what are they doin’ to him?”
“Laneesha, you have to stay calm.”
“It’s Meadow. I know his voice. What could make him scream like that?”
Sara clutched Martin’s arm. “We have to help him, Martin.”
“Sara, I counted eight, eight, of those people. And even if it is Meadow, and it might not be, someone is making him scream like that. We have no idea how many of them there are on this island.”
Sara got up onto her knees. “We still have to try.”
Martin put his hand on the small of her back. “We will. I promise. But we need to get back to the campsite first.”
Another scream, weaker this time, ending in a horrible sob.
“We don’t have time,” Sara said, standing up.
Martin debated whether or not to tell her, and decided he had no choice. He painfully got to his feet and caught up with Sara, who was already heading toward the scream.
“Sara, I have something at the campsite we can use.” He paused. “A gun.”
Though he couldn’t see it, he could imagine the shocked look on his wife’s face.
“A gun, Martin? Why the hell do you have a gun?”
“I took it as a precaution. Camping can be dangerous.”
“Do you know how dangerous it is to bring one along, especially with our kids? What if one of them found it?”
“It’s hidden.”
“Jesus, Martin, I didn’t even know you owned a gun.”
There’s a lot you don’t know, Martin thought.
“Look, hon, I understand you’re angry, but this isn’t the time for righteous indignation. If that is Meadow out there, we need to find our camp, get the gun. That’s the only way we’ll have a chance against those people.”
Martin held Sara’s elbow, felt her tense up.
“Look,” he said, keeping the edge out of his voice, “I was a Boy Scout, remember? My brother and I both got our rifle shooting merit badges. I know how to use weapons, safely. And this could be Meadow’s only hope.”
He heard her sigh, and she stopped tugging against him. “How do we find camp?”
“The orange ribbons.”
“I’ve been looking for those for more than an hour.”
“I’m pretty sure I know where one is. Come on.” He walked back toward Laneesha, spoke quietly. “You doing okay?”
“This is one fucked up trip, Martin.”
Martin kept the smile off his face because it would have hurt too much. “That it is. Sara? The flashlight?”
She handed it over. Martin walked past, through a patch of dogwood, and found the large elm tree he remembered tying a ribbon to earlier. Sure enough, the reflective orange strip was wound proudly around the trunk.
“The next one should only be a few yards away,” he said. “Let’s all stick together, and try to stay quiet.”
Something touched Martin’s hand, and he flinched at both the surprise and the jolt of pain. He spun, saw Sara at his side.
Her touch was gentle but firm. Much as it hurt, he grasped her hand back.
Tyrone pushed Cindy behind him, standing between her and the three men. He’d never seen cannibals before, but this trio looked just like he pictured they would. The dirt on their tattered clothing wasn’t dirt at all, but dried blood. Their beards and hair were tangled with burrs and twigs. Each had crazy eyes, like that nutcase Charles Manson Tyrone saw on an old Geraldo rerun. The one in the middle—the one with the knife and fork—was actually drooling.
Tyrone reflexively reached for his hip, but there was no weapon. The only weapon nearby was currently roasting on a burning log in the campfire. On the one hand, Tyrone had no idea what the heat had done to the mechanisms and the bullets. He didn’t want to depend on a pistol and have it jam on him, or worse, blow up in his hand.
On the other hand, he didn’t want to be eaten.
He quickly picked up one of the sticks they’d used for marshmallows and nudged the pistol off the log and through the ash, to cool ground, one eye on the cannibals. They just stood there, staring. Then the one with the cutlery spoke, his wet dry and raspy.
“Give us the girl, we’ll let you go.”
He smiled when he said it, revealing a witch’s mouth of blackened and missing teeth. Tyrone felt Cindy press against him.
“That ain’t gonna happen.”
The drool dribbled down the man’s beard. “Then you both die.”
Tyrone shook his head. “That ain’t happenin’ neither.”
The cutlery man grunted at his two companions, and they each walked off in a different direction. Circling the campfire, moving toward Tyrone and Cindy.
Tyrone dug a hand in his pocket, pulled out the lining, and ripped. It tore away.
“Y’all don’ wanna do this.”
“Yes we do.” The cutlery man reached into his pants and pulled out—
No fucking way, Tyrone thought. It’s a salt shaker.
The two men flanking them came in low and slow, stalking like lions. The cutlery man stood his ground, cutting off that escape route. In just a few moments, Tyrone and Sara would be surrounded in a tightening triangle.
Go time.
Wearing the ripped pocket like a sock puppet, he bent down and grabbed the pistol.
The cloth offered some protection from the heat, but in the time it took Tyrone to raise the gun and seek the trigger, the pain became overpowering and he dropped it between his feet.
None of the cannibals reacted to Tyrone’s attempt, not even pausing in their approach.
“Shit,” Tyrone said. Again he reached for the gun.
It felt like holding a hot coal, and every instinct, every nerve in his body, screamed at him to drop it, to pull away from the pain.
Tyrone grimaced, aimed, fighting to hold on, his finger frantically seeking the trigger, trying to get it inside the trigger guard…
And he dropped it again.
His hand was definitely burned, and he felt that sick dizzy feeling of being badly injured. He chanced a look. The cloth of the pocket had burned away in spots, revealing bloody blisters.
The cannibals now had them surrounded.
Tyrone stared down at the gun, gritting his teeth, his hand twitching. He needed to pick that son of
a bitch up, but his brain and his body were deadlocked. Even as he bent for it a third time, his hand refused to go near it.
So Tyrone grabbed it lefty.
This time his finger got inside the trigger guard on the first try, and the gun was already cocked, making the pull easy. He raised, aimed, and fired in less than two seconds. The weapon kicked in his hand, and he let it go again, it falling to the ground beside him.
His target, the cannibal approaching on their right, jerked his head back. The bullet hit him just above his right eye. He stood there for a moment, then dropped like his strings had been cut, flopping onto his knees, then his side.
Tyrone had both hands to his face, blowing on them, eyeing the next immediate threat while psyching himself up to reach for the gun again.
But there was no next threat. Rather than continue their attack, the cutlery man and his companion slunk over to their fallen comrade.
The knife and fork flashed in the firelight. Tyrone refused to watch, pulling his shirt up over his head, backing up, and wrapping the hot gun in the fabric.
He heard Cindy gag. “Oh…my god…”
“Don’ look at them.”
“They’re eating him.”
Tyrone kept his eyes averted. “We gotta get outta here. When I say run, we run.”
“He’s still wiggling. Tyrone, he’s not even dead yet.”
Tyrone stared into the woods. They were dark. Too dark. Without light they’d be walking around in circles. He needed a torch.
“Gimme your shirt,” Tyrone said. He turned and stared at Cindy. She was watching the cannibals, her face a mask of horror and revulsion. He gently touched her chin, turning her face toward his.
“Cindy. I need your shirt.”
She nodded, lifting it up over her head. In just her bra she looked smaller and younger, and she automatically folded her arms, either out of cold or shame.
Tyrone located the half-full bag of marshmallows near the fire. He had no idea if this idea would work, but he knew from recent experience these things burned nice and slow. He wrapped Cindy’s shirt around the bag, then tied that to the end of a two foot branch from their firewood pile.
When he placed the branch in the flames to ignite it, he chanced another look at the cannibals, just to make sure they weren’t planning another attack.
The cutlery man’s mouth was full, his cheeks distended. Blood dribbled down his face, mingling with the drool. He noticed Tyrone gaze, and while watching him, shook some salt onto something red and shiny he held in his hand.
Tyrone felt the bile churn in his stomach. He picked up the torch, tucked the shirt and gun under his armpit, and told Cindy it was time to go.
Twenty yards into the forest, Tyrone dropped the gun, dropped the torch, and fell to his knees and vomited.
Cindy knelt next to Tyrone, patting his back, comforting him until he was ready to go on.
When Lester Paks was a little boy, he was diagnosed with Stereotypic Movement Disorder. Rather than the more common repetitive behaviors associated with SMD, such as hand waving, rocking, or fiddling with fingers, Lester’s affliction was more severe.
He could not stop biting himself.
While SMD was often associated with mental retardation, Lester had a higher than average IQ. But something in his brain compelled him to stick his fingers, hands, arms, and even feet, into his mouth and gnaw.
Medications and behavior modification therapy had little effect. In the first grade, his disorder escalated sharply. Instead of limiting his bites to himself, he began biting other things. Furniture. Appliances. Pets.
It culminated when he locked his jaws onto a classmate named Jesse Sloan, and it took six people to pull him off.
Lester went into an institution after that. They kept him drugged up, and when that didn’t stop the biting, they removed his baby teeth.
When his adult teeth grew in, he was given an orthodontic device that prevented him from opening his mouth more than a centimeter. After more drugs, and therapy, and nine years in the institution, he was finally able to get his disorder under enough control to be released. Puberty had arrived, and blessed Lester with a large stature. At age fifteen, he stood a foot taller than most adults.
Lester celebrated his release by running away from home, removing the orthodontic block with a hammer and pliers, and abducting a forty-year-old woman at a gas station. During his two days with her, he learned about the joys of sex, of causing fear and pain, and of biting without any restraint at all. Her cause of death was listed as exsanguination—blood loss resulting from over three hundred of his special little kisses.
Lester was caught, tried as an adult, and had an incredible break. A brilliant doctor testified in his defense, and got him free. Later, the doctor was able to cure him of his SMD. Lester still had the compulsion to bite, but he no longer desired to bite himself. This meant he could finally live out a lifelong dream without fear of self-mutilation.
It took countless sessions, sitting in front of a mirror with a power drill and a nail file. But when he was finished, twelve of Lester’s front teeth had been sharpened into points that rivaled any predator in the animal kingdom.
The biting became much more fulfilling after that.
Lester’s mouth locked onto the girl, and he applied pressure. Not much. Just enough to draw some blood. Lester had never had sex without blood.
He’d also never had sex that was consensual. This Georgia girl was the first person to ever come on to him. And though, like the others, she seemed afraid, she also seemed very willing.
Because of that, Lester had no immediate desire to chew her into little pieces. The idea of an active participant was so exciting that he was able to keep the biting urge in check.
Except for that one little nip. A bit of blood to help with the lubrication.
When he mounted her, she made sounds like they did in the movies. Instead of the begging, crying, and screaming he was used to, she moaned and squealed and sounded so sexy that he quickly reached climax. Afterward she held him, kissing his neck, and in a highly erotic turn of events she even gave him a small bite.
Yes indeed, this Georgia girl was something special.
“Lester is taking Georgia girl home.”
Her eyes got big, and she sucked on her lower lip. “To your playroom?”
“Yes. But Lester won’t hurt Georgia girl. He likes her. He wants to show her something.”
Her hands moved down, grabbing him. “Lester already showed Georgia girl something. And she really liked it.”
Lester blushed, and then felt the stirrings of a second arousal. But this wasn’t a good place for sex. The feral people were around. They feared Lester, but there were too many, so he had to stay on guard.
He climbed off of Georgia girl and pulled up his overalls. “Lester wants to show Georgia girl the pet. Lester thinks Georgia girl will like it.”
The girl tugged up her pants and stood, and for a brief moment she looked scared and Lester thought she was going to run. That would be bad. Lester would have to chase her, and then he’d take her to the playroom and tie her up and hurt her very badly.
But she didn’t run. Georgia girl reached out and took his arm, resting her cheek against his elbow.
Yes, she would like meeting the pet. And afterward, Lester would introduce her to Doctor. But Doctor wouldn’t give this one to Subject 33. Not this one.
This one, Lester was going to keep.
Sara found the next ribbon in the direction Martin said it would be. After hours of fruitlessly searching for the damn things, her relief was palpable. But so was her fear. Every moment they remained undiscovered seemed like borrowed time.
The trio moved slowly, stopping often to listen if they were being followed.
All they heard was screaming. Meadow’s screaming.
Sara walked with her shoulders rigid, her fists clenched.
Please, stop screaming.
Every wail was worse than a slap. As a psychologist,
she knew about the mental processes involved in certain instances of child abuse—research she boned up on to better understand Georgia, who put a child in a clothes dryer. The trigger of Shaken Baby Syndrome was usually a frustrated caregiver who couldn’t take the crying, and began to resent the very life they were supposed to protect.
For God’s sake, just stop.
While Sara’s tendencies forced her to help those in need, she finally understood what prompted those otherwise responsible adults to act so abusively.
After listening to the screams for more than ten minutes, Sara began to lose control. She recognized it happening, knew the reason why, and still couldn’t stop it. Rage coursed through her, and it wasn’t directed at whoever was hurting Meadow.
It was directed at Meadow.
Just shut up, please just shut up. Why won’t you fucking shut…
And then the screaming stopped. Sara stood still, listening.
Crickets and nothing else.
It also came with a real measure of relief. But at the same time, Sara feared it meant Meadow’s death. The fear trumped the relief, the weight of the realization threatening to sink Sara into the ground. Having one of her kids run away was bad enough. But Meadow actually dying? Dying when it was her job to protect him?
Oh no. Oh no no no.
Sara fell apart.
Laneesha sidled up to her. She’d been walking with her fingers in her ears, and in the moonlight her face glistened like a wet plum. Sara hugged the teen, who hugged back, and they spent a moment sobbing.
Martin touched Sara’s hair.
“We have to keep going, hon.”
Sara nodded, wiped a fist across her face, rubbing away tears, and began searching for the next ribbon. As she walked, she raged against the conflict going on inside of her. One part, grateful the screaming had ended. The other, angry at herself for being grateful. Add this shame to the horror of murdering a man, and Sara questioned her capabilities to counsel children, or anyone else for that matter. Her job description required empathy, along with the ability to dispassionately disconnect. Sara seemed unable to do either.
That made Sara even more disgusted. On top of everything going on, she had to throw herself a pity party.