“You must be the doctor,” Georgia said, finding her voice. “Lester’s friend.”
“Indeed, indeed I am. Doctor Plincer. You like playing with Lester’s pet, I see.”
“He’s funny,” Georgia said.
“Funny? Hmm. Yes, I suppose he is. No real brain activity anymore. Delta waves. More like delta bumps. Full frontal lobotomy. But he is kind of funny. Especially when you stick him with the nail. Yes?”
Georgia wondered if this was some sort of test. She responded by giving Lester’s pet a few more pokes.
The doctor stroked his dirty chin. “Interesting. Very interesting. Sadistic personality. No remorse. Obvious sociopathic tendencies. And I don’t see a single bite mark on you. For one of Lester’s girlfriends, that’s remarkable. Did he happen to tell you what kind of doctor I am?”
Georgia shook her head. She couldn’t tell if she passed this old coot’s stupid test or not.
“I’m a brain specialist. Perhaps the foremost in the world. And I think, I think that you would be perfect for my experiments.”
“Lester is keeping Georgia girl.” Lester draped his long arms over her.
Doctor Plincer nodded. “But of course, Lester, of course. But perhaps your little girlfriend could be,” he smacked his lips, “enhanced. By the procedure.”
Georgia didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Lester doesn’t want Georgia girl to be like the ferals,” Lester said. “Lester and Georgia girl are going to make babies.”
“This one won’t go feral, Lester. This one has all the traits I’m looking for. Plus she’s young. Strong.”
From somewhere else in the prison, Georgia heard screaming. A girl. It sounded like Laneesha.
“Lester won’t let Doctor take Georgia girl.”
“You hear that, Frankenstein?” Georgia said. “Back the fuck off.”
The doctor nodded again. “I see. I see. But I think, Lester my boy, that this is the best for all concerned. For me, for you, and for her. So I’m going to ask you, very nicely, to bring her to my lab. I promise no harm will come to her.”
Lester’s protective hug turned into a grab, seizing Georgia in his gigantic hands.
“Lester!” she cried, squirming to get away. She might as well have been bound with steel cable.
Doctor Plincer came closer, smiling. He was bent over with age, and Georgia could see straight down his collar. He wore no shirt beneath his lab coat, and his hairless pink chest was covered with shiny, puckered scars.
“Don’t you worry, my dear. I’m going to take very good care of you. You may even thank me for this later. Thank me, or, God forbid, try to eat me.”
Martin closed his eyes. The throb in his jaw was finally going away. He wondered how this had all gone so horribly wrong, and questioned his decision to bring everyone to this island.
He dismissed the thought quickly; regretting the past was a fool’s game. The thing to do now was think ahead. But was that even possible? What could he do to save Sara, the one-time love of his life, from the horrors in the woods?
The key to saving her was predicting her next move. What would she do next? Where would she go?
Martin rubbed his eyes, and an idea came to him.
He began to plan.
Moments after Cindy dropped the gun, Tyrone was dragging her away from the scene. It was stupid to give her the weapon. No one could have been able to look at that horrible feast and still been able to act. Tyrone would never be able to forget that image, even if he scrubbed his mind with steel wool.
He winced at the pain—he’d stuck his burned right hand under Cindy’s armpit to pull her, while his less-injured left held the torch. The extra illumination allowed them to move fast, sidestepping obstacles, watching their footing. Unfortunately, it was also like a beacon to those cannibals. From the sounds of it, they had no problems moving quickly in the dark. Tyrone guessed they were less than twenty yards behind them.
Seeing he had no choice, Tyrone ditched the torch, tossing it into a clump of bushes then tugging Cindy to the immediate left, breaking their current trajectory. Without the light it was like swimming in ink. Tyrone was forced to slow down to a quick walk, moving with one hand in front of him so he didn’t knock himself out on a tree. Gradually his night vision adjusted, and the trees thinned a bit to let occasional moonlight in, and the pair moved at a jog, Cindy in step beside Tyrone.
The figure stood in front of them, so still it almost looked like a tree. But the outline was definitely human, and there was only one, and rather than change directions yet again Tyrone lowered his head and charged.
His aim was good, and he prepared for impact, bunching up his neck and shoulder in a driving tackle.
But then, as if by magic, he was ass over head, flipping through the air, landing on his back so hard it knocked the wind out of him.
Tyrone had heard the term before, and knew what it meant, but he’d never had the wind knocked out of him before. It felt like a car was parked on his chest, and he couldn’t draw a breath, couldn’t make a sound.
This brought instant panic, and he began to flail around. Not at the figure. Just random, spastic movements, as if that could somehow fill him the with oxygen he so desperately craved. Little sparkly motes began to float through his vision. He felt close to passing out.
Then something dropped on his stomach. A person. Miraculously, the pressure forced his diaphragm to work again, and Tyrone wheezed in air like a vacuum. He tried to raise his arms, to defend himself against whomever had thrown him, and then he heard Cindy yell, “Sara!”
“Tyrone?”
It was Sara sitting on him. She was the one who flipped him. Maybe there was more to that judo shit than Tyrone had thought.
“You beat on all yo kids like this, Sara?” he whispered.
She immediately got off him, and Tyrone felt her hand grab his, pulling to help him up. He flinched away, her touch on his raw palm making him swear.
“Are you okay, Tyrone?” Sara asked. She sounded pretty frazzled.
“Hands are messed up, ‘n my pride just took a beatin’, but I’m okay.”
Sara tried again to help him stand, this time lifting by the elbow. When he was vertical, he had to endure a hug. Then Cindy came by and also hugged him, which Tyrone found much easier to endure.
“Girl, I know this ain’t the time, but, damn, if you don’t look good in nothin’ but that bra.”
“Thanks,” Cindy said. “Look, Tyrone, about—”
“Not your fault.” He rubbed his fingertips along the small of her back. “I couldn’t do it neither. That’s why I gave you the gun.”
“You found the gun?” Sara asked.
“I dropped it.”
Tyrone pulled Cindy closer, “It’s not her fault.”
“Where are the others? Are they okay?”
Tyrone and Cindy spent the next few minutes filling Sara in on everything that had happened. Sara, in turn, told them about all she’d been through.
“Mountains of bones?” Tyrone still had his left hand on Cindy’s back. It hurt, but he could deal with it. “How many damn cannibals are the on this island?”
“These bones were old. Real old. I think Martin may have been right about there being a civil war prison here. There were thousands of soldiers missing after the war, soldiers that have never been accounted for. Thirteen thousand men died at the Confederate prison, Andersonville. Six thousand at its Union counterpart, Camp Douglas. It’s possible the Union army also had another, secret prison. A place they’d kept hidden, off the record books, in case the South won the war.”
Tyrone didn’t get it. “Those cannibals move damn fast for bein’ over a hundred years old.”