Until Sara reached the point where she wanted to die rather than spend one more second in that horrible trunk.
That’s when Timmy came back.
“Sara?” he whispered through the side of the trunk.
“Timmy…” Sara’s voice was hoarse, raw, from the hours of screaming.
“Sara, I didn’t mean to leave you in there. The latch got stuck. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Please let me out, Timmy.”
“Mom and Dad will whup me if they find out I did this.”
The air was so hot and heavy, Sara felt like she was drowning.
“Let me out.”
“If I let you out, you have to promise you won’t tell.”
Sara would have promised him anything. “I promise, Timmy.”
“You have to swear.”
“I swear.”
Then the trunk opened, and Timmy was standing there, pointing that awful hunting knife in Sara’s face. He looked meaner and scarier than anyone Sara had ever seen.
“If you tell anyone, I’ll get you, Sara. I’ll cut you into little tiny pieces and bury you in this trunk. I swear I will.”
And then Timmy pressed the knife right up to the tip of her nose, and Sara passed out from fear.
Aunt Alison did find out, because when Sara fainted Timmy got scared and told her. And, as he’d predicted, Timmy got whupped.
But Sara’s fate was worse. For years she suffered from nightmares and nurtured fears. Fear of enclosed spaces. Fear of knives. Fear of trunks.
But the biggest fear of all was of the dark.
It took Sara ten years of therapy before she could ride in an elevator without having a panic attack, or use a public toilet without leaving the stall door open.
Sara did eventually manage to sleep well, on occasion, but it was always with a nightlight. The thought that the flashlight would go out soon, leaving Sara vulnerable to the smothering darkness, it was too much too—
“help…”
The word jolted Sara, making her spin around and hip-bump Laneesha off her feet. Martin. And he was close.
Her encroaching dread was overtaken by a sense of hope. Martin, for all his faults, helped Sara through many a fearsome night, holding her close and stroking her hair until she could fall asleep. Finding him would give her a much-needed boost of strength.
“Martin!” she called into the dark. “Where are you?”
“ara…”
The voice came from her right, weak but near. Sara grabbed Laneesha’s elbow, helping the girl back to her feet, then tugged her toward the pleas.
“Martin. Keep talking.”
The sliver of light swept across the trees ahead, seeking out a human shape. Sara stormed forward, underbrush digging at her legs, ducking under a low-hanging bough. Jack didn’t seem to like the jostling, and he began to cry softly.
“elp me ara…”
He was so close now Sara felt like she could reach out and touch him. She turned in a complete circle, aiming the beam every which way, but her husband still wasn’t to be found.
“Martin?”
“ara…”
Sara tilted the Maglite, trailing the light up a tree trunk, across the branches, over to…
“Holy shit!” Laneesha’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Sara realized that this wasn’t some campfire prank, some joke gone wrong. They were all in danger. Very real danger. Because someone had hung Martin by his wrists and hoisted him up a tree, where he twisted slowly like a giant, bloody piñata.
PART 2
THE FRYING PAN
Meadow got up on all fours and shook his head. Whatever hit him in the face had hit hard, and his jaw throbbed like he had a toothache. He shifted onto his knees, blinked several times, and tried to brace himself for whatever was coming next.
A twig snapped on Meadow’s left. He turned, fist clenched and raised, and then caught the smell. An awful, rancid smell, like body odor and sweaty feet and rancid food.
Then someone tackled Meadow from behind. Meadow twisted, trying to grab his attacker, but he was forced onto the ground face-first, a knee pinning his back. His arms were stretched out, followed by his legs.
How many of them were there?
Meadow opened his mouth to yell for help, but as soon as he did a foul-smelling hand jammed something between his lips, forcing it inside. Something hard and round, like a golf ball, but rougher. Meadow shook his head and pushed at the object with his tongue, wincing as the pain hit. Sharp pain, in his cheeks, his lips, the top of his mouth, like he was chewing on a pin cushion.
Meadows sucked in air and gagged, blood seeping down his chin, comprehending what had been shoved into his mouth while disbelieving it at the same time.
“Meadow?” Tyrone called to him.
Meadow screamed in his throat, screamed for the very first time in his life, as his attackers dragged him off into the woods.
When Tom was a little boy, he wanted to be a race car driver when he grew up. He also wanted to be a pilot, an astronaut, a basketball player, a baseball player, a football player, a sniper, a hockey player, and a boxer, up until he got into a fist fight in fifth grade and another kid showed him how much it hurt to get hit in the face, which made Tom decide boxing wasn’t for him.
At first, his parents indulged his interests. Tom’s mother constantly shuffled him around from one sporting event to another, and his father bought a $300 flight simulator program for the computer that included NASA-approved specs for landing the space shuttle.
Tom quickly grew bored with the sports. He argued with coaches and teammates, and most of the playing time was spent waiting for something to happen. Tom hated waiting. He also hated the flight simulator. It wasn’t fun like his Xbox, It was slow and complicated and boring. Even the crashes were boring, and Tom crashed often.
As for becoming a sniper, the only way to do that was to join the military. The military meant lots of rules and following orders, two things Tom wasn’t good at. He’d have to settle for buying a gun when he got old enough, and maybe using it to go hunting or something, even though he didn’t know any hunters and had never even held a real gun before.
Driving, however, he loved. He could make his own excitement behind the wheel of a car, and Driver’s Ed was the only high school class he ever did well in, the rest resulting in Ds or worse.
But his parents didn’t buy Tom a car. Partly because of his bad grades, but mostly because every time he borrowed the family sedan it was always returned with another scrape, ding, or missing part. Tom continuously lied when asked what happened, blaming it on someone hitting him when he was parked, but when a State Trooper showed up at the house with pictures of Tom fleeing an intersection fender-bender that he’d caused, he was completely forbidden to drive. How was Tom supposed to know that some street lights had automatic cameras in them?
The Gransees didn’t fully realize their son’s obsession with driving, and the lengths he’d go to indulge his obsession. After the courts suspended his license, Tom stole a neighbor’s Corvette and led police on a forty minute chase, reaching speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour, appearing live on Detroit TV and as highlights on CNN.