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.
“Lester is home.”
Georgia was so into star-gazing she hadn’t noticed they’d arrived at a building. The façade was gray stone, old-looking, sort of like a medieval castle. Lester released Georgia’s hand to pull a key out of his pocket and fuss with a very big and heavy iron door. After unlocking it he needed to tug hard to get the rusty thing open. It squealed like a tortured pig.
“It’s strong,” Lester grunted, “so the ferals can’t get in.”
“Ferals?”
“On the island. They run free and eat people. People like Georgia girl.”
Georgia peered into the unlit room and hesitated. She had the same feeling she did when her parents took her to that haunted house on Halloween, on one of their rare family outings. Georgia knew there scary things inside, and while she liked scaring others she didn’t like being on the receiving end.
But that was the old Georgia. The new Georgia feared nothing. Without waiting for Lester, she marched inside, a hand stretch out in front of her so she didn’t bump into anything in the dark.
The room was cold, damp, and smelled like mildew. Georgia sensed it was large. The floor beneath her was hard, possibly cement. She took a few more tentative steps and then touched something cold. Feeling around, she realized it was a rusty iron bar.
The lights came on, accompanied by a buzzy, electric sound. Even though there were only bare 60 watt bulbs hanging from the ceiling every ten feet, Georgia still squinted against the sudden brightness. It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then she realized what sort of building this was.
A prison. The iron bar she grasped was part of a cell, one of hundreds, stretching out in all directions in a wide open space almost a big as a football field. Except, upon closer examination, she wondered if it was perhaps a kennel instead. Or some sort of barn for livestock. The cells were so small that there wasn’t enough space for even a child to lie down.
“Each cell held four Confederate prisoners,” Lester said. “They shared half a loaf of bread and a single bucket of water each day. The bucket was also their toilet. Many died from scurvy, dysentery, and smallpox. But starvation took the majority. Others murdered to get more of the bread. The dead were stacked in piles and left to rot. Thousands of them. It drove many of the prisoners mad. All that fresh meat, spoiling, just out of reach. They broke out of here just to get to the meat.”
It sounded like Lester was reciting something he memorized.
“This is Plincer’s prison?” Georgia asked.
“Rock Island Prison. Warden Plincer was the Doctor’s great great grandfather.”
Georgia couldn’t believe that Martin’s stupid story was actually true. “So those…ferals…those are civil war cannibals?”
Lester smiled at her, his teeth making him look like a shark. Seeing him in the light brought color to his face. His complexion was pale, teeth yellowish, the whites of his eyes bright pink. “Don’t be silly, Georgia girl. Those Confederate soldiers died a hundred years ago.”
“Their descendants?”
“No descendants. They were men. It takes a man and a woman to have descendants.” He took her hand. “Georgia girl knows that.”
Lester led her through the ranks and files of cages, the footsteps echoing off the iron and stone, making the space seem even emptier. Georgia tried to picture it filled to capacity with starving, desperate men, men who killed each other for a crust of bread or to feast on their flesh.
The image turned her on.
“How did you get here?” Georgia asked. “On this island?”
“Doctor brought Lester here.”
“Why?”
Lester stopped, then looked down at her. “Doctor is Lester’s friend.”
“And Georgia girl is Lester’s girlfriend,” she said, giving his hand an extra squeeze.
They walked out of the cell room, up a barely lit stone staircase. Unlike the first floor, which was all open space except for the bars, there were walls up here. Lester took her down a hallway, passing several closed doors.
“This is where the prisoners were punished. Beaten. Whipped. Branded. This is where Lester’s playroom is.” They stopped before an ancient wooden door. “Is Georgia girl ready to meet Lester’s pet?”
Georgia nodded. He opened the door and they went inside.
The smell hit her first. Like a public bathroom, but worse. On one side of the small room was a long metal table. There were shackles at the head and foot. Next to the table, a workbench, on top of which were various tools and devices, many of them rusty from blood. Near a small dresser, on the far wall, was a box spring with a stained mattress on top. On the other side of the room was a wooden crate, the top off.
“The pet is in the box,” Lester said.
Georgia couldn’t see what was in the crate from where she stood, and she got that same haunted house vibe. On one hand, it might be something harmless in there, like a dog or cat, or maybe some animal indigenous to the island, like a raccoon. On the other hand, Lester was a psychopath, and she could be about to nuzzle a rotting corpse.
Either way, Lester was watching her, judging her. She had to make a good impression.
Besides, what’s the worst thing that could be in there?
She chewed on her lower lip and approached the crate cautiously, the foul smell getting stronger. At first, all she noticed were clumps of hay. And then she saw it.