by Jack Kilborn
At eight feet away, her mouth went completely dry, making swallowing impossible.
When she was within six feet, her breath was coming out in pants.
Four feet from the tent, her head began to feel strange and hollow.
Two feet away, hyperventilation made her dizzy to the point where she was going to pass out. She paused, trying to suck in air through her nose and slow down her heartbeat.
Just a few more inches, Cindy. You can do it…
Then the cannibal grunted, shifting his body. The knife and fork, resting crisscross on his chest, shifted, sliding off and making a clanging sound that to Cindy felt like a shotgun blast. He was now on his side, facing her.
She froze, staring at his still-closed eyes. His cheeks were wet with blood, and little stringy things were caught in his beard. If he opened his eyes it was over. Sara and Tyrone wouldn’t be able to save her in time. Here was a man who ate what seemed to be his friend. What would he do to someone he considered an enemy?
Cindy glanced right, her shallow breathing causing her vision to blur. The entrance to the tent was tantalizingly close, but she was too scared to move. She thought she’d hit rock bottom when she’d passed out in a disgusting gas station toilet, a needle stuck in her arm, lying in a puddle of someone else’s urine for hours until the owner discovered her and called the police. But this—an arm’s length from a crazy man who wanted to snack on her—this was the all time low.
Quiet as a mouse in slippers, little girl. Move like you live in the woods.
Cindy tore her eyes away from the killer, locking them onto the tent. Moving oh so slowly she forced herself toward it, hand, knee, hand, knee, ignoring the horrible, slippery things she crawled over, and then, all at once, her head and shoulders were inside the tent, relief coursing through her like the meth she was so intent on quitting.
That’s when Cindy heard the snoring.
The other cannibal was in the sleeping bag.
Tom patted his full stomach and yawned. He was dog-ass tired, and had eaten waaaaay too much. All he wanted was to curl up someplace and go to sleep. He was even considering doing so right there, in front of the coals. It was warm, and comfortable, and whosever camp this was hadn’t been around for over an hour. If they did come back and get mad that he ate their food, it was their own frickin’ fault for leaving it here.
Sara and Martin would be frantic, of course, if he stayed out all night. But it was their frickin’ fault for playing that stupid trick and trying to scare him. Screw those two anyway. It wasn’t like anything Tom did mattered at this point. The Center was closing and Tom was going off to some frickin’ boot camp. Let them worry themselves to death.
He yawned again, stretched out his arms, and stood, looking for something that would serve as a pillow. There was some sort of cloth near the coals, and he bent down and picked it up, immediately recognizing it.
Meadow’s shirt.
Huh. Weird. But then, Meadow was probably in on the prank too, pretending to get grabbed in the woods. Maybe he was in the trees right now, waiting to jump out.
Tom turned in a full circle, scanning the treeline. It looked just as dark and quiet as ever.
Then Tom did something he almost never did. He doubted himself.
For just a fraction of a second, he wondered if maybe this wasn’t all some big joke, and that there actually were cannibals in the woods. Hell, that mystery meat he just stuffed himself with could have even been a person.
Tom was all about impulse, forging ahead, not looking back. Doubt and guilt existed only as fleeting thoughts. Without his ADHD medication, Tom couldn’t stand still long enough to spell the word worried, let alone act worried.
So he dismissed the doubt as soon as it came, rolled Meadow’s shirt into a ball, and propped it behind his neck as he stretched out onto the ground, facing a severed human hand.
Tom jerked back into a sitting position, unable to believe what he just saw. He looked again.
A hand. Cooked and fleshy, except for three skeletal fingers that had no meat on them.
Never one to pay attention to his surroundings, Tom twisted around quickly, his eyes scanning the ground for the first time. In short order he found four rib bones, a burned lump that looked like a kidney, and a partially eaten leg that still had the foot attached.
“No way. No frickin’ way.”
He reached out, touched the leg bone.
It wasn’t a plastic prop. It was the real thing. And the blackened, melted shoe still attached had a green Nike swoosh on it, just like Meadow wore.
Tom threw up so hard and fast it felt like his throat was being torn out. That’s when the tall thin man with the camera stepped out of the woods and snapped his picture.
Martin’s lower body slipped off the branch, then his chest followed the lead. He hung in a chin-up position, his feet dangling within reach of the axman sitting beneath him. Martin held this position, his fingers screaming at him, knowing he’d be unable to swing his body back up, and knowing what dropping down meant.
Then Jack began to shift. Martin only had one shoulder strap around him, having moved too quickly to buckle the second strap or the waist belt. Jack moved along Martin’s back, under his armpit, and hung over his belly. He opened his tiny eyes, looked up at Dad, and gurgled happily.
Martin’s arms began to burn, then tremble, then unbend slowly, like the air being let out of a pneumatic jack. Below him, the axman continued to gnaw on that large round object. But it was only a matter of seconds until he looked up. Martin knew his best chance was to move closer to the trunk, find a toe hold. But he wasn’t sure his hands would hold out.
Jack gurgled again, blowing a tiny baby spit bubble that burst against his father’s neck.
Martin reached out an aching hand for a grip near the trunk.
His fingers missed the branch.
Jack’s sling slid right off his shoulder.
Martin frantically reached down, catching the strap, tangling Jack only a foot above the cannibal. The hand still holding the tree felt like it had been set on fire. He let out an involuntary grunt.
The cannibal kept his attention focused on his snack, and didn’t see the baby swinging over his head.
Martin summoned up his last bit of strength, swung Jack’s sling in a wide arc, and the strap hooked onto a broken twig.
Jack apparently enjoyed the quick motion, because he squealed with joy.
The cannibal looked up.
The tug was sudden and violent, ripping Martin’s hands from the bough. He slammed into the ground on his side, the shock of the impact making him bite his already injured tongue. Inches from his nose was a severed, cooked head, much of its face eaten away.
Martin instinctively rolled left, just as the ax struck where he’d been lying. Martin continued the roll until he had room to get his hands and knees up under him. A moment later he was on his feet, dizzy and hurting, but with his fists raised. He looked up, saw Jack hanging precariously from the tree branch. Then he took another quick look at the head.
Meadow.
“That was one of my kids,” Martin said softly. “My kids. You think you can kill one of mine?”
The axman was large, powerful, with thick arms and a neck like a tree stump. But when he swung the ax again, aiming at Martin’s chest, he showed his weakness. The bigger man was slow.
Martin side-stepped the swing and kicked out his foot, connecting between the axman’s legs. The he grabbed the ax handle and twisted it sideways, trying to tug it from its owner’s thick fingers.
Leverage and momentum were on his side. The axman grunted, stumbling forward, and Martin did a quick spin, propelling the weapon around, burying the head into his adversary’s shoulder. The axman howled, dropping to his knees.
“My kids, asshole.”
It took six more whacks before the creature was dead. Martin surveyed the carnage, breathing heavily, and then reached up to pull his son from the tree.
Jack was blowing
more spit bubbles.
“Let’s go get Mommy.”
Martin adjusted Jack so the sling was in front, made sure both straps and the belt were secure, and then went to go find his wife.
General Alton Tope was career Army, and those under his command joked that when he nicked himself shaving he not only bled red, but white and blue as well. For more than thirty years he practiced keeping his face unreadable, his thoughts invisible, but anyone looking at him in his bedroom would have noticed obvious signs of worry creasing his weathered features.
He loosened his tie and undid his top collar button, poured himself the last finger of twenty-one-year-old Dalwhinnie single malt, recapped the bottle and placed it in the empty waste can next to his desk, and took the glass over to the bureau. General Tope set the scotch on top and used both hands to open the cabinet doors, then took a moment to frown at the OSST monitor. He tapped the flatscreen with his left hand and retrieved the liquor with his right, bringing the rocks glass to his mouth and smelling notes of heather and honey amid the ethanol vapors.
The monitor flickered on, showing an orbital view of a familiar green planet in perfect high-definition color. He touched the familiar mitten shape of Michigan, and took a sip while waiting for the Orbiting Strand Satellite Telescope to track his command. The whiskey was warm and smooth, and he finished it too quickly.
Self control, Alton. Always. Get a hold of yourself.
He went back to his desk and opened the drawer where he kept his spare bottle. It wasn’t there. His maid knew he was to always have a spare on hand, and the lack of one meant she’d either forgotten to stock it, or taken it for herself.
General Tope shook off his annoyance. It was a forgivable mistake, and he was a forgivable leader. In the morning, he’d write her a brief note as a reminder. He set the empty glass on his desk and returned to OSST.
The image got bigger and bigger, zooming in to Lake Michigan, and ultimately Rock Island, at a viewing distance equivalent to three hundred feet above it. The picture was too dark to make out anything, so he pressed the top corner of the monitor and opened the onscreen operations panel. He switched the view to infrared and had the telescope software calculate a body count.
The number surprised him.
Twenty-seven.
According to the read out, there were twenty-seven people on the island.
But that shouldn’t be. That had to be wrong.
He had the program recalculate.
“Twenty-seven,” he said, reading the reconfigured total.
General Tope’s brow creased even further. Certain key military personnel knew about Rock Island. It had been on their radar for quite some time. He pondered what this new development meant, and realized he should have acted sooner.
“Tomorrow,” General Tope said. “I’ll take care of it all tomorrow.”
Then he picked up the phone, apologized to his secretary for the late hour, but instructed her to find him a bottle of single malt scotch, even if they had to send a platoon to break into the nearest liquor store to do so.
The interior of the tent was warm and sour, smelling of fresh blood and old sweat. Though the light was low, on her left Cindy could make out the shape of a person wrapped in a sleeping bag—the dirty, hairy man she’d seen earlier, the one who tried to grab her and Tyrone. He snored wetly, making the hair on Cindy’s arms stand on edge.
Cindy’s first reaction was to back up, get the hell out of there, and she went so far as to lean toward the exit. But her limbs stayed put. The radio was in that tent, and it was their only chance to get off this island alive. So she ignored all the voices in her brain screaming at her to leave, and instead inched forward.
There were backpacks to her right, their contents strewn about, probably by Tom. Cindy squinched her eyes, not even sure what the radio in question looked like. Before she rushed bravely in, possibly to her own death, she should have at least asked how big it was. In the dimness she could make out some clothing, Jack’s crib, a stack of cans, and something square-shaped. Were radios square? She crawled closer to the square thing, keeping the instinct to flee at bay.
The snoring cannibal kept a steady rhythm, every snort a reminder that death was less than three feet away. As Cindy got closer she saw a familiar red cross on the box.
A first aid kit. Tyrone needs this for his hands.
She picked it up and carefully placed it on the ground behind her, near the entrance. Then she began to paw through the discarded clothing.
After carefully setting aside one of Martin’s shirts, Cindy noticed a tiny red light, no larger than a BB. She reached for it, touching something hard and rectangular. Her fingers brushed over an antenna. It was either a very old model cell phone, or…
A walkie-talkie.
Cindy seized it, snugging it to her chest, and it let go with a loud burst of static hiss when she accidentally pressed a button.
She froze, holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable; the cannibal waking up and reaching for her.
It didn’t happen. There was only stillness, and silence.
Cindy paused, her hands shaking, her kidneys aching. If attacked, she needed to scream to alert Sara and Tyrone. She also needed to find a weapon. The radio had some heft, but she couldn’t risk damage by throwing or swinging it. The first aid kit was in a metal box. Heavier and stronger.
If he wakes up, scream first, then go for the kit.
Still no sound. Cindy hadn’t exhaled yet.
If she had to defend herself, she needed her hands free. Carefully feeling around the walkie-talkie, she discovered what she sought; a belt clip. Ever so slowly she hooked it onto the top of her pants.
Silence continued to pervade the tent. The cannibal wasn’t moving at all.
Cindy let her air out slowly, through her teeth, in an extended, soft hiss. She wanted to take another breath—her heart was thumping like mad—but she was too frightened.
Just get out of there. Get the hell out.
She began to back up, nice and easy, the quiet pressing down on her like a weight, when the obvious hit her.
Why isn’t he snoring anymore? Could he be awake?
That’s when the cannibal sprung up, winding his filthy arm around Cindy’s mouth before she had a chance to scream.
Sara felt ready to explode. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since Cindy crawled into the tent, but each second seemed like a little stretch of eternity in hell. Not being able to see her, not knowing what was happening to one of her kids, made Sara’s imagination run riot with atrocities.
She forced herself to count the seconds. A minute was more than enough time for Cindy to find the radio. After a minute, Sara was determined to go in after her.
Sara began a slow count to sixty.
“How long Cindy been in there?” Tyrone nudged her.
“Not long,” she whispered back.
The numbers ticked through Sara’s mind, and she pictured them as she thought of them, each one big and red and sounding like a gong.
By the time she reached number twenty, it felt like a year had passed.
“I’m going after her.”
Sara held Tyrone back. “Give her a minute.”
“Been more than a minute.”
The number thirty shone like a spotlight in Sara’s head. “He’s still asleep. She’s okay.”
“There were two of those cannibals,” Tyrone said.
Number thirty-four hung in the air, then disintegrated. “Two?”
“I just had a bad thought. Maybe the other guy is in the tent.”
“Oh… shit.”
Sara abandoned the count, springing up from the crouching position, making her way through the thicket to the campsite.
It’s murder, Sara. You can’t murder another human being. Not while he’s asleep.
She crept over to him, crossing the damp ground where blood had mixed with the dirt, making mud. Bits of sinew clung to her hiking boots, and organ meat squished beneath her feet
. On the ground, next to him, were some filthy eating utensils, dried bits of gore stuck to them.
This is cold-blooded. It’s not even self-defense.
Sara stood next to the sleeping cannibal, raising up her foot, ready to stomp down on his neck.
He’s asleep for chrissakes. You’re killing a defenseless, sleeping man.
The cannibal opened his eyes.
He’s not asleep anymore.
Sara brought her heel down as hard as she could. She put her weight into it, twisting her hips, trying to separate his head from his body.
But he moved at the last moment, and her foot hit his shoulder.
Then Sara was stumbling backward, thrown off balance, and the cannibal was on his feet and eyeing her malevolently, crouching in an attack position. He’d picked up his cutlery, the blood-stained fork in his right hand, a rusty steak knife in his left. Sara found her center, spread her feet, and waited for the charge.
Behind her, in the tent, Cindy screamed.
That distracted Sara long enough for the cannibal to slip inside Sara’s defenses, feinting with his left, jabbing the right at Sara’s thigh.
The fork penetrated her jeans, her skin, her muscle, and stuck firmly in the bone.
Sara spun, whipping her elbow around, hitting her attacker squarely in the nose. The cannibal staggered back, arms pinwheeling, and then tripped and fell onto his ass, right in the middle of the campfire.
He laid there for a second, then began to flap his limbs, almost like he was making a snow angel in the burning ashes. He cried out—trying to turn over—his legs getting tangled in some of the firewood—getting to his feet—slipping and falling face-first—getting to his feet again with his hair and beard on fire—and finally running into the woods, screaming like a police siren as he retreated into the night.
That’s when the pain hit. Sara doubled over, her hands fluttering around the utensil sticking out of her leg, afraid to touch it. This was worse than a charley horse, reducing Sara’s world to nothing but an agonizing throb. She whimpered, saw Tyrone in her peripheral vision. He was streaking out of the woods and heading for the tent.
