by Jack Kilborn
That made Sara even more disgusted. On top of everything going on, she had to throw herself a pity party.
“We should be there soon,” Martin said, coming up behind her. He spoke deliberately, a measure of pain in his voice. “How many ribbons have you counted?”
“Ten or eleven.”
“If we’re going in the right direction, the campsite should be very close.”
“Or we’re heading toward the lake, and will have to retrace all of our steps. We need to pick up the pace, Martin. If there’s any chance Meadow is—”
Laneesha’s scream cut Sara off. She rushed over to the teen, flashlight bobbling, and aimed the beam at the large hill of rubble the girl was facing.
The hill was well over ten feet high, and stretched on for dozens of yards. It was pale gray, made up of what appeared to be stones and branches.
Laneesha clutched Sara, hard enough to squeeze the breath out of her. It pushed Sara closer to the mound, and in a moment that seemed utterly surreal, Sara realized that those weren’t stones and branches.
They were looking at a gigantic pile of human bones.
When Laneesha was a little girl, she wanted to be a big girl. Or more precisely, an adult. She found children her own age boring, much preferring the company of grown-ups. Dolls and games of tag weren’t nearly as stimulating to her as learning to cook, sew, and knit from her mother, change the oil on the car and spackle drywall like her father, bake like grandma, and repair appliances like Uncle Ralph.
Uncle Ralph wasn’t actually her uncle. He was a friend of Dad’s. He was also the nicest adult Laneesha knew, treating her as an equal even when she was as young as six. He never talked down to her, never reprimanded her, never was anything but 100% cool.
When Laneesha turned sixteen, she realized the next step in adulthood was motherhood. She babysat all the neighborhood kids, and wanted one of her own. So she decided to get pregnant. So she sought out the one person who she knew would make an excellent father, and after riding with him to a house to install a satellite TV system, she seduced Uncle Ralph in the back seat of his repair van.
He resisted, at first. But she was legal, and insistent, and Ralph didn’t have a girlfriend at the time. The affair was short lived—a guilt-ridden Uncle Ralph broke it off after only three trysts. But three was enough. Laneesha, now pregnant, assumed that stand-up Uncle Ralph would do the right thing. She was mature enough to know he wasn’t going to marry her, but expected child support and shared custody.
Instead, her father beat the hell out of Uncle Ralph, ordering him to never see her again, and then insisted she terminate the pregnancy. Laneesha refused, and her father kicked her out. Uncle Ralph also refused to see her again, offering her the money for an abortion and nothing else.
Laneesha had no friends because she’d never bothered to make any. She was forced to live in shelters, and eventually gave birth to her beautiful daughter, Brianna. But welfare checks didn’t stretch very far for a young mother. Without a babysitter she couldn’t get a job, and without a job she couldn’t get a babysitter, so she took to shoplifting to survive.
Chicago had many chain department stores, and Laneesha kept her strategy simple. She’d steal something at one store, then return it at another store for the cash. If they refused to give her cash, as they sometimes did without a receipt, she traded the item for something she needed, or something she could pawn.
It worked for several months. Laneesha began looking for a place of her own, and was planning on getting a job and a nanny once she saved up a thousand dollars. She was only sixty bucks short of her goal when a dumb department store clerk became distracted and left a pair of expensive diamond earrings on the counter unattended. It was only for a few seconds, but Laneesha couldn’t resist the temptation. She grabbed them, shoved them in Brianna’s diaper, and beat a hasty retreat.
But she was caught. Even worse, the store had tapes of her stealing four other items over the course of several months. It had been a trap. They pressed charges for grand theft, social services took Brianna, and Laneesha wound up at the Center.
The Center made her realize two things. First, people her own age weren’t so bad. Meadow, for all his frontin’, was actually a pretty good guy. Not daddy material, but they developed a bond that Laneesha could honestly say was love. Second, Laneesha was more determined than ever to get paroled and get Brianna back. And she was on track to do so. A hearing was coming up, and Sara was going to recommend parole, and once she had a job she was going to begin the steps to reclaim her child. Maybe Meadow would even be in the picture.
But staring at that huge pile of bones after half an hour of listening to Meadow’s tortured screams made Laneesha doubt she’d ever get off the island alive.
Laneesha clung to Sara, digging her carefully manicured nails into the psychologist’s arm, staring at the most horrifying thing she’d ever seen.
“How…how many you think?” she asked.
“Thousands,” Sara whispered.
Martin took the light from Sara, moved closer to the pile. “These bones are old. Really old.”
“Who are they?” Laneesha asked.
Martin shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Sara began to back up, pulling Laneesha along with her. “Martin, those… wild people. They must have retied the ribbons. To lead us to this place. They’re probably coming right now.”
Martin went rigid, then whispered. “They’re already here.”
Laneesha felt like she stuck her finger in a socket, electricity jolting through her and causing her to run somewhere, anywhere. She broke away from Sara and dashed into the field of bones.
The were no trees here, and the moon was bright, so Laneesha could move much faster than she had in the woods. Part of her brain registered Sara yelling her name, but Laneesha wasn’t going to stop. Not for Sara. Not for anybody. While Laneesha feared those crazy cannibal people, she had more to think about than just her life. If she died, Brianna would be motherless. Laneesha couldn’t let that happen.
She turned a quick corner around the mound, kicking something that she realized was a skull, switching directions again and seeking out the woods. She could hide in the trees, wait until morning. Then she would find the camp, radio that boat guy, and live to see her daughter again. Hopefully, Sara and Martin and the rest of them would make it too. But a part of Laneesha, a large part, also made her understand that if those cannibals were busy eating the others, they would have full bellies and be less inclined to track her down.
It’s all for Brianna, she told herself.
But stupid as it was, she couldn’t find the trees. Earlier, she thought she’d be stuck in the woods forever, never seeing the clear sky again. Now all she saw was sky and bones.
They were everywhere, a giant garbage dump of various-sized mounds, some only as high as her hip, others too tall to see over. There was no real path, no real direction, and Laneesha took another turn and found herself standing on top of an unstable pile. She stopped, turned, and her foot got stuck. Lanessha looked down, saw she was caught in some sort of trap.
No, not a trap. A man’s ribcage.
Another spark of panic made her cry out, kicking the foul thing off her foot, pushing onward through the bone field. There was no ground any more, no dirt. She waded, calf-deep, through bones. When she tried to get on top of them, they wouldn’t support her completely. Laneesha had a ridiculous thought about Chuck E Cheese, that children’s pizza slash arcade with the room filled with thousands of plastic balls. It was impossible to stand up in that room, and almost as difficult standing here.
Laneesha attempted to backtrack, feeling bones snap under her weight—bones, jesus, these were once inside people—and she tripped, falling face first into the pile.
The pain was sharp and made her draw a breath. She turned onto her side, tried to sit up, her hands fluttering around the knife embedded in her shoulder.
But, of course, it wasn’t a knife at all.
> I’ve got someone’s bone sticking in me.
Laneesha felt the blood drain from her head, the whole world start to spin. But she couldn’t pass out, for Brianna’s sake, so she twisted onto all fours and began to crawl, determined to get away, determined to survive.
Then the smell hit her. A musty, rotten stench, moist and cloying. It reminded Laneesha of food gone bad. But this wasn’t food, this was people. Human beings. Laneesha shut her eyes and crunched up her face so her lips blocked her nostrils, and moved even faster while she tried not to puke.
The throb in her shoulder stabbed deeper, hurting ten times worse, and Laneesha cried out. She tried to move, but couldn’t.
The bone had caught on something.
Laneesha didn’t want to touch it, and she tried to ease back, but she felt like she’d been staked to the spot. Eyes still closed, she raised a hesitant hand to her shoulder, felt the object she was stuck to.
The bone had caught on something large and bumpy, shaped sort of like a big pretzel.
Someone’s pelvis.
Laneesha pushed, but the pelvis held firm. Then she tried to pull the bone from her shoulder and almost passed out. While the bone was no bigger than hot dog, it was old and brittle. When Laneesha tried to remove it, the bone splintered, digging in like a fishhook barb,
Laneesha had to take a breath, becoming dangerously light-headed, her gorge rising fast. She cradled the pelvis in her hand and tried to lift. It was attached to something. Not having any choice, she looked down.
Legs. Bits of sinew still connected the pelvis to two decimated leg bones.
Laneesha jerked up, and the hip joints pulled free of their sockets with a cracking sound. Then she crawled, one hand pressing the pelvis to her chest, through the bones until she could stand up again.
Only a few yards away, silhouetted by the moonlight, a man rushed at her.
Laneesha got to her feet, stumbling away from the man, ignoring the pain and dashing through two large mounds of bones. The trees had to be close. The bone piles seemed to end just ahead. If she could just make it, just get away long enough to—
She stopped abruptly. The bone field did end, but instead of the forest Laneesha found herself facing a large stone building. It looked like a fortress, two stories high, stretching out a hundred feet in each direction.
Laneesha heard a creaking sound, looked up, saw an arch above her. Hanging on chains was an ancient wooden sign.
Rock Island Prison.
Then something hit her on the head and everything went black.
Cindy felt her heart sink when the screaming stopped. It was awful to hear, the most awful thing she’d ever heard. When it ended she had a very real feeling that Meadow—and it sure sounded like Meadow—was dead.
Still, she and Tyrone headed in the direction the cries had been coming from. Cindy didn’t like Meadow. But if there was a chance to help him, she would take that chance. One thing the Center had taught her was the value of life. Every life.
She held the torch, grateful for both the light and the warmth it emitted. In only her bra, the night air gave her goosebumps. Tyrone walked at her side. He held the gun, now cool enough to touch, in his left hand. His right hand was wrapped in his T-shirt. After fleeing the campsite, she’d insisted on examining his injuries. His left only had a few small blisters. His right looked like raw hamburger.
Still, Tyrone didn’t complain. He marched onward, just as determined to save Meadow as she was.
Neither of them talked about what they’d seen at the camp. But Cindy couldn’t help but think the same thing had happened to Meadow. She shivered. In the past, she’d thought a lot about death, and always expected it would be with a needle in her arm. But death by cannibals? Who could have ever conceived of such a thing?
And yet, it might actually happen to her. But instead of fleeing from it, she was actually heading toward it.
“Smell that?” Tyrone asked.
Cindy stopped, sniffed the air.
Her mouth watered.
Barbecue. Smoke and meat, reminding her of the venison steaks her dad would cook over an open fire.
Then Cindy’s brain caught up with her salivary glands, and she realized what she was probably smelling.
“Tyrone…could that be…?”
She saw him stiffen. “I’m gonna kill ‘em. I’m gonna kill every one of those fuckers.”
Tyrone stormed forward, rushing through the woods, Cindy unable to keep up. Running with a torch wasn’t easy, It threw sparks, and if she moved too quickly the wind shrank the flame, threatening to snuff it out. Cindy feared Tyrone would get too far ahead and she’d lose him, feared not only for herself, but for him as well. They counted six bullets still in the gun, but that may not be enough, and he was already injured and—
Cindy stopped abruptly before she tripped over Tyrone, who was on all fours, wheezing like he’d been punched in the gut. Beyond him she saw a faint light, coming through a gap in the trees. The roasted meat smell was overwhelming. Awful as it was, Cindy’s stomach rumbled, and she cursed herself for missing dinner.
“Don’ look,” Tyrone said.
At first, Cindy thought he meant don’t look at me. She turned away, and Tyrone caught her ankle, even though squeezing it must have caused him pain.
Tyrone meant don’t look at where the smell was coming from.
She was fine with that. Cindy already had enough images seared onto her brain for a lifetime of nightmares, and had no desire to ad to them.
“How many are there?” she asked, crouching next to Tyrone.
“I dunno. Five or six. I’m gonna take ‘em down, soon as I catch my breath.”
Cindy didn’t bother to argue. Every human life was indeed sacred, but when someone was trying to eat you, the best defense was a good offense.
“Can you shoot lefty?”
“Did okay back at camp.”
“My dad taught me about guns. Used to take me hunting.”
“You ain’t doin’ it, Cindy.”
“I’m not afraid.”
And, oddly, she wasn’t. Not of shooting someone. She was more afraid of what they’d do if they caught her and Tyrone.
“You don’ want this on your head, girl. Trust me.”
“Let me see you hold the gun.”
“I ain’t playin’”
“Neither am I. Hold it.”
Tyrone picked the gun up off the ground, held it in his left hand. He winced, unable to keep it steady.
“Give me the gun, Tyrone.”
“No way.”
“Your hands are ruined, and you won’t be able to aim. Not at six people. After the first shot, they’ll scatter, be moving targets. One of them might even run at us. So either give me the gun, or we get the hell out of there.”
Tyrone narrowed his eyes. “You can really shoot?”
“I could hit a rabbit at a hundred yards.”
She didn’t tell him that she’d never actually hit a rabbit, only rabbit-sized targets, and that was with a rifle, not a pistol. Cindy didn’t like hunting. While she had no problem eating meat, doing the killing herself was a little too personal, and after several attempts her father stopped taking her on his hunting trips because she would never pull the trigger when the moment of truth arrived.
Thinking of that, she questioned her own commitment here. How could she shoot a person when she couldn’t shoot a deer?
But it was too late. Tyrone was nodding, passing the gun to her, butt-first. She took it, handing him the torch.
“We gotta do this. For Meadow. For ourselves. But Cindy…”
Tyrone paused. She waited.
“…try not to look at what’s on the fire.”
Cindy nodded. The gun felt warm in her hand, and she automatically checked the clip, the safety, the round in the chamber, just like her father taught her.
Don’t think about it. Just do it.
She crouched, creeping toward a nearby bush. The pistol seemed to get heavier with
each step. When she reached the thicket she planted her feet a shoulder’s width apart, gripped the gun in two hands, and sited down the length of the barrel.
It was an image straight out of hell.
A gridiron.
Meadow.
Fire.
A circle of cannibals.
Eating.
Cindy froze. The smell of roasted pork didn’t jibe with the parts they were putting in their mouths. Her finger was on the trigger, but she couldn’t shoot. She couldn’t so much as breathe.
The largest of the tribe—a wide, hairy man with an ax propped against his leg—was chewing on…
Jesus, that’s Meadow’s—
The man looked up, his eyes meeting Cindy’s. He bellowed like a bull, raising the ax.
The other cannibals turned to look.
Cindy felt fear so visceral it felt like a punch. She staggered back, unable to support her own weight, screaming as loud as she could, the gun dropping from her hand and disappearing into the underbrush.
Georgia felt alive. Really alive. The confluence of emotions bursting within her—fear, excitement, disbelief, awe—made her hyper-aware. She could feel every molecule of cool night air against her bare skin. The moon looked enormous, hanging in a star-filled sky that seemed to stretch on forever. Lester’s hand in hers was warm, reassuring, and dangerous all at the same time as he led her through the woods.
I just had sex.
She was deliciously sore. But this was about more than just getting laid, more than a notch on the life-experience belt. Georgia felt like a completely new person. Like something dormant inside her had opened its eyes.
Georgia felt powerful.
Power was something she’d always aspired to. She had mastered its younger sibling, control. Georgia’s whole life had been about control. Controlling her emotions, manipulating others, keeping secrets.
But power felt better than control. A million times better. While control was about maintaining order, power was about being invincible. Even clutching the hand of a serial killer, Georgia felt like the dominant one. She had called the shots. She had taken what she wanted. She had not only survived, but conquered.