“We’ll get to you in a moment, Tyrone. Right now it’s Tom’s time to talk.”
“You think you all badass? Why don’ you come over here, step in this cell wit’ me.”
Martin let go of his ankle, and thank God, because Tom didn’t think he could handle anymore. He pulled his leg back and brought his knees to his chest, curing up fetal on his side, staring as Martin walked over to Tyrone.
“Do you know what you are Tyrone? Sticking your chest out, trying to act tough? You’re a stereotype. Poor African American kid, no father, grows up on the mean streets and joins a gang. Would you like to know why you never hear any stories about gangbangers who grow up to be happy, productive members of society? Because there aren’t any.”
“You wouldn’t last two minutes in my hood.”
“That’s because I wouldn’t ever go to your hood, Tyrone. It’s full of losers. That’s what you are. Born a loser, die a loser. You’re a statistic, Tyrone. And you know what else? You’re not tough at all. When we’re finished with you, you’re going to be crying like a little baby.”
“Hells no.”
“Hells yeah,” Martin mocked.
Martin spread out his hands, as if welcoming a big group of people.
“You still don’t know why I brought you here. Of course, why should you? You’re not the best and brightest of our nation’s youth. You’re not even in the top eighty percent. So I’m going to be a nice guy and tell you what’s going to happen. A man is coming to the island. A very important man, who is going to change the world. But he’s going to need to be convinced. So you’re going to help convince him.”
Martin smiled, and it scared Tom to his core.
“He’s going to tell us what to do to you, and we’re going to do it. Happily, I should add. So you three should actually feel pretty good about yourselves. You’ve defied all expectations, and done something productive with your lives. Something useful. Every ritual needs sacrificial lambs. The bloodier, the better.”
Martin’s eyes drilled into Tom, and the man who counseled him, mentored him, taught him, and pretended to actually give a shit about him, winked.
“Now if you kids will excuse me, I have to go upstairs and torture my wife.”
The bureau was Sara’s height. It was black, which made the dark red sketch on the front hard to see, but as Sara got closer, she could make it out.
A human outline.
In fact, this looked like one of those magician’s cabinets, the kind where a woman went in and then was pierced with swords and cut into thirds.
It also had the same little doors on the front, so the audience could see different parts of the woman’s body, to prove she was still in there.
But Sara didn’t think this was an illusion. And a sickening sinking feeling in her gut told her who was probably inside.
She reached for the top door, the one that would expose the face, but she stopped inches from touching it.
All across the surface of the cabinet were round black knobs. Dozens of them. They were also on the sides, and the back, from top to bottom. Sara touched one, gently.
Someone inside the box screamed, making Sara flinch.
What the hell were these things?
She looked around, stared down at the umbrella stand next to the cabinet.
But it wasn’t filled with umbrellas. It was filled with long things that ended in black knobs.
Suddenly understanding what they were, Sara grabbed the end of a knob in the middle of the cabinet and pulled.
Just like the magician’s trick, Sara removed a six inch metal skewer from the box.
Unlike the magician’s trick, this skewer was slick with blood.
“Oh, Jesus. Laneesha.”
Sara knew Lester was coming. Martin would be back soon, too. She had to get out of there. But she wasn’t going to leave Laneesha here with these monsters.
That posed a problem. There were dozens—perhaps over a hundred—of these skewers sticking in the cabinet. Did Sara even have time to remove all of them? And if she did, would Laneesha bleed to death?
She looked around for an answer, and saw two things on the floor that made her stomach churn. A car battery with jumper cables, and a handheld blowtorch.
She had to get Laneesha out of there.
“Laneesha, honey, it’s Sara. I’m going to help you, okay? I need to get these things out of your face first. Jesus, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…”
Sara lifted her hands, hesitated, reached closer, hesitated, and then pulled the six skewers out of the outline of the head as fast as she could, Laneesha’s cries of pain scarring her soul. The she opened the door to view Laneesha’s face.
“Kill me,” Laneesha croaked.
Sara recoiled in horror. The blood. The damage. The agony the girl must be in.
That’s when Sara sensed someone behind her.
She didn’t hear it. She sensed it. Like feeling a glance from across a room. Since the door Sara came through hadn’t opened, the person must have come from the other door in the room.
Not Lester. Not Martin. This was the one who had done this to Laneesha.
Sara spun around, tugging the utility knife out of her jeans, ready to stab.
It was a man. A fat man, naked except a black rubber apron that stretched from his chest to his thighs. He’d come out of the door—the bathroom door—Sara had been about to open. His hair was gray and shoulder-length. His chubby cheeks glistening with sweat over several days’ worth of stubble. His bare skin was lined with long, parallel scabs, like stripes, some of them still bleeding. In his right hand he was clenching a meat hook.
That should have been shock enough, but Sara stared into the man’s eyes. His smiling, pea green eyes, and she felt if she were being sucked into them, falling down a deep, dark hole.
She saw those eyes a thousand times in her nightmares.
They peered at her whenever the lights went out.
Even with all that had happened on the island, those eyes were still the single most terrifying thing Sara had ever seen.
They belonged to Paulie Gunther Spence, the man who abducted her when she was eleven years old.
Lester’s rage was a diesel engine in his chest, pumping and burning and threatening to blow. The Joe pet was special to Lester. He came to the island with Martin, and Lester had bitten off some of his sensitive parts, but left him mostly untouched. He liked the funny uhhhnnnnnn sound the Joe pet made. But he didn’t care for the begging, or the attempts to get away. So Doctor fixed him for Lester. Fixed his brain so he stopped talking. Fixed his arms and legs so he couldn’t run or fight back.
For six years, Lester had taken good care of the Joe pet. He was Lester’s friend.
But now someone had killed him.
The doctor was in the lab. Martin was out. The stairs were the only way up to Lester’s room, and he didn’t pass anyone while bringing the hay.
That left one person. The only other person on the second floor.
Subject 33.
Lester looked around for a weapon, wrapping his large hand around a filet knife. Razor sharp. Perfect for detail work.
He stormed out his room, heading down the corridor.
When Paulie Gunther Spence was a little boy, he wanted to kill people when he grew up. If his parents had known any abnormal psychology, they would have noted little Paulie wet the bed, started fires, and liked to hurt animals. These behaviors were documented precursors to psychopathy.
But they were too busy physically and sexually abusing Paulie to notice that he might be a little off kilter.
Perhaps they should have paid more attention, because when Paulie turned twelve he turned on the gas stove, blew out the flame, and waited in the back yard while the carbon monoxide filled the house and poisoned them to death.