by Jack Kilborn
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.
She sat up, squinting as the light hit her eyes.
“You okay?” Laneesha asked. “He clocked you pretty good.”
“Shine it on Martin, Laneesha, and kneel next to him.”
When the beam rested on Martin’s face he was looking Sara’s way.
“orry,” he said around the gag.
Sara blinked a few times. “We need to get that out of your mouth. I know your hands hurt, but I need you to keep them behind your back for me. I have to put the rope on again.”
Martin’s red eyes went wide with panic.
“Not tight,” Sara assured him. “But I don’t want you lashing out and hurting me or Jack or Laneesha. Okay?”
He hesitated, then nodded. Sara located the rope and again tied the slip knot, this time higher up on his arms, near the elbows. Then she ran her palm across Martin’s sweat-soaked hair.
“This is really going to hurt. But I need you to keep still. If you thrash, it could tear your cheeks off. Understand?”
Martin squeezed his eyes shut. “urry…oo it.”
“I…I really don’t want to be here,” Laneesha said.
“I need to you hold the light for me.”
“This is awful. Just awful. What if the people that did this to him come back?”
“You’re jiggling the light. Hold it still.”
“If someone put one of those things in my mouth…shit…I can’t…”
“Goddamnit, Laneesha! Act like an adult and hold the goddamn light steady!”
Sara never yelled, never swore, at the kids. And perhaps this shocked Laneesha so much that she shut up, keeping the light perfectly ce
ntered on Martin’s ruined mouth.
Sara again stuck a finger into the hinge of his lips, peeling back the cheek, trying to free the left side while forcing the nails on the right in deeper.
Martin’s head twitched and he screamed again. Sara felt the wood and nails vibrate from the sound, making her even more determined to free her husband from this horrible thing, pulling back as hard as she could, stretching the skin to an almost ridiculous length, then, with one quick motion, she tugged fast and firm.
The nail gag came out so fast it jabbed Sara’s palm, and Martin twisted violently to the side, pressing his bleeding face into the leaves, his whole body wracking with sobs.
“Honey.” Sara crawled over to him and put a hand on his back. “We’ve got to get going. Laneesha’s right. Whoever did this to you was planning on coming back for you. You need to get up.”
Martin continued to cry. Jack joined him. Sara took Jack back, and tried to comfort both of her men at the same time.
“Sara…” Laneesha was whispering.
“Laneesha, help me with Martin.”
“Sara…”
“I know. The sooner we get him up, the sooner we can get out of here. We’ll find the orange ribbon on the trees, follow it back to camp, then use the radio to—”
“SARA!”
Laneesha’s scream trumped Martin’s in volume, and Sara turned and watched as something filthy and foul-smelling grabbed Laneesha around the waist and dragged her off into the darkness, taking the flashlight with her.
When Georgia was a little girl, she wanted to have a friend. It didn’t matter if it was a boy or a girl. Just someone to play with. To talk to. To understand.
Her parents divorced when she was a baby. Georgia only saw her father on weekends, and on those weekends he ignored her. During the weekdays, Georgia’s mom worked most of the time, leaving Georgia in the care of an assortment of uncaring babysitters.
While the adults in Georgia’s life were indifferent, the children were downright cruel.
Part of it was her looks, she knew. Georgia used to have a lazy eye before she learned a vision exercise on her own in order to correct it. She’d also been overweight since birth. The combination of the two made her a joke among her peers, and a constant target for ridicule and torment.
So, instead of friends, Georgia had pets at both households. Puppies and kittens and fish and birds and hamsters and gerbils and even an iguana.
Had her parents been paying more attention, they might have realized that the continuous deaths and disappearances of the animals they bought her were a warning sign that their daughter was severely disturbed. But they were busy with their own lives, and when one of Georgia’s pets met with a dubious accident, it was easier to buy a new one than question why.
Georgia pretended her pets were people. Usually her parents or schoolmates. In her fantasies, they would do something bad, and Georgia would be forced to punish them. Soon, her own steady stream of pets wasn’t enough to satisfy her urges, so the neighborhood dogs and cats began to disappear.
No one ever suspected anything, until Georgia turned fourteen and began babysitting kids in her mom’s apartment building.
At first, the job thrilled Georgia. These weren’t dumb animals she was dealing with. These were actual human beings, who depended on her. Maybe these children would be the friends she so desperately craved.
But it turned out the kids were needy, a lot of work, and just plain annoying. Georgia was smart enough to not hurt any of them—microwaving a gerbil was one thing, but Georgia knew that hurting a child would bring big trouble. But one of those brats she watched was just so freaking irritating, crying non-stop all the time no matter what Georgia did.
Georgia only stuck the child in the clothes dryer because she needed just a moment of peace. It’s not like she turned the dryer on or anything.
Then Georgia took a little nap because she was really worn out, and the baby’s parents came home earlier than expected. The baby didn’t die, but the lack of oxygen in the dryer did some sort of damage to its stupid little brain and Georgia went to jail.
In truth, she felt zero remorse. But she played it up big for the shrinks and the lawyers and the judge, crying like a drama queen and begging for forgiveness. The ploy worked. Instead of jail, she was sent to the Center.
Georgia fully expected to be let out early for good behavior. She figured she could con Sara and Martin the same way she conned everyone else, and they’d sign off on her mental well-being, and she’d be able to return to her so-called life.
But every time there was a court hearing, Sara said Georgia wasn’t ready to be released yet. Georgia had no idea how the bitch knew, but Sara knew, and it pissed Georgia off to the nth degree. So for the last two years, Georgia had been a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Do-Gooder, enduring countless bullshit therapy sessions, sticking to her story of mistake and regret even though it apparently wasn’t working.
Often, Georgia thought of running away. It was difficult, but not impossible. Since it opened, nine girls and two boys had run away from the Center, and ten of them were never ever caught. Georgia figured she was smart enough to get away with it. Certainly smarter than some of the rejects who succeeded. But if she did get caught, that would work against her at her next court hearing, blowing two years of acting and effort. Georgia had been tried as an adult, sentenced to seven years, and she didn’t want to be sent to an adult detention center when she turned eighteen. The smarter plan was to wait it out.
It finally looked like the plan would work. The stupid Center was closing, and Georgia would be sent to juvee. She could snow those dumb, overworked shrinks at juvee, no problem. Then she’d get released, and be sent back home.
She had business at home. Business she’d been planning for a while. The parents of that little retarded brat had taken away two years of Georgia’s life, and they needed to be taught a lesson. Them and their brain dead kid.
Georgia read a lot. She knew what she was. The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual called it antisocial personality disorder.
Georgia was a sociopath, and sociopaths couldn’t be cured. And why should they be?
Being one was so much fun.
Georgia ducked under a branch, pine needles tangling in her hair, and smirked once again at how she’d scared the shit out of that loser, Cindy. She wished it wasn’t so dark so she could have seen her expression better.
Frightening others was a pleasant sadistic thrill. Scaring the little brats she used to babysit was especially rewarding. It was easy, and satisfying, to reduce a five-year-old to hysterics. But since being trapped at the Center, playing the role of Good Georgia to the hilt, she hadn’t had any opportunities to let loose.
Tonight, she would do more than just let loose.
Georgia had been planning this for weeks, and had secretly smuggled all the supplies needed to do the deed. In her front pocket was an envelope containing five ounces of powder, a combination of four different materials. Powdered sugar, that she snagged while helping Sara make some insipid cookies. Iron oxide, in the form of rust particles, that Georgia meticulously scraped off a pipe behind the toilet at the Center. Saltpeter, which Martin had poured on an old tree stump out back to dissolve it. And non-dairy creamer.
The creamer by itself was flammable, as were most powders because of their high surface ratio. The other three ingredients combined to make a primitive form of black powder, a propellant used in bullets and fireworks. Georgia wished she could check the recipe on the Internet, but Center residents weren’t allowed unsupervised access, so she had to make do from the descriptions in old Civil War history books. She also wished she could test it first, but that hadn’t been possible due to the Center’s anal retentive lockdown on matches. It should work, though.
The plan was to wait for everyone to go to sleep, then sneak next to Sara’s tent, lift up the side, pour the powder in her hair, and set that bitch on fire. Georgia didn’t have matches,
but the campfire was the perfect substitute. Maybe Sara would live. Maybe not. While killing her would be cool, leaving her horribly crippled and disfigured had its appeal. And with five other dysfunctional kids there, it couldn’t be conclusively blamed on Georgia.
Now all she had to do was get back to camp and wait for Sara to return and fall asleep. But that was becoming problematic.
Georgia had ducked into the woods to freak out Cindy, and had only gone maybe a dozen steps, but that was enough for her to be having some trouble finding her way back.
She thought about calling out to the others, but that wasn’t a real option. Georgia hated all of them. Hated them passionately. She preferred to stay lost than ask for help from those idiots.
So she began to wander around, which wasn’t working out too well. The darkness, coupled with too many damn trees that all looked alike, led Georgia on a meandering half-hour hike all the way to shore. When she saw Lake Huron, spreading out into infinity like a pool of black blood, she knew her only way back was to circle the shoreline and find the orange ribbons they’d dutifully tied to the trees. That would lead her to camp. Unfortunately, the island was a few miles in circumference, which meant a long, boring hike.
Georgia stared up at the stars and the bright orange moon, and tried to decide whether to go left or right. She chose left, walking along the sandy beach, holding her arms tight across her chest as the cool waterfront breeze raised chills.
After a hundred yards or so, Georgia realized she was being followed. She sensed it at first, then spun around in time to see a figure scuttle off the sand and into the tree line, less than a stone’s throw away.
She felt the tiny hairs on her arms stand at attention, then quickly shook off the fear. It was probably one of those jerks back at camp, playing games. Georgia didn’t believe any of Martin’s silly campfire stories. Besides, if there was anything to be afraid of in the dark, it was Georgia. She was the one with the propellant in her pocket. She was the one with murder on her mind. Everyone else better stay the hell out of—