Trapped

Tyrone put his hands in his pockets, all cool and casual, and walked two steps closer. He was fifteen feet away from Tom. As soon as the boy gave him a chance, he was going to bum rush the fool. No use trying to talk down a head case.

“I give you three tries to nail it.”

“You really don’t think I can hit that log?”

Tyrone took another step. “I’m puttin’ my money on it.”

“Log’s too easy.” Tom grinned, his eyes glinting in the firelight, and then he switched his aim. “How about I try for Cindy instead?”

Georgia walked alongside Lester, through the woods, barely able to see because of the darkness. The tall man had his hand under her armpit, gripping her biceps, and his fingers were so long they completely encircled her arm. It wasn’t a powerful hold, and Georgia probably could have twisted away, but to what end? She had nowhere to run to.

“Where are we going?”

“Lester is taking the girl to his playroom.”

“It sounds fun.” Actually, it didn’t sound fun at all. Georgia felt her whole body shudder, conjuring up images of what horrible things this man had in his playroom.

“It is fun. For Lester.”

“Maybe I’ll have fun too.”

He stopped and looked down at her. The moon peeked through the trees, silhouetting his massive form.

“No, the girl won’t. No one ever does. The girl will beg to die, like all the others.”

Georgia didn’t hesitate. She reached up her free hand and put it behind Lester’s neck—it was like hanging onto a tree—and then she leaned up and kissed him.

She’d never kissed a boy before, let alone a man, let alone a maniac. But she knew everything in life was about control. So far, he’d been calling the shots. But maybe she could confuse him a little bit.

Lester did seem confused, and when her mouth locked on his he pulled slightly back, lifting her up off her feet, her body pressing into his.

Georgia held on for a moment, couldn’t sustain her own weight, then dropped to the ground.

The rejection was almost as painful as the thought of what this psycho was going to do to her. She knew she wasn’t attractive. And even though she was seventeen, a year past the age of consent in Michigan, she often wondered if she’d die a virgin. Georgia preferred to remain asexual, and her fantasies were more about hurting others than getting laid.

But, still, her first kiss, and the creep pulled away.

“Don’t you like me?” she asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

Lester didn’t reply.

“I like you.” Georgia reached for his pants, her hand brushing against him. When she touched his fly she lit up. He was hard.

Were men really that easy to manipulate?

“You do like me. So why can’t you kiss me?”

Lester bent down again. “Lester can kiss. But he might chew on the girl’s lips and bite off the girl’s pretty little tongue.”

“The girl’s name is Georgia,” she said, tilting up her chin and kissing him again before she lost her nerve. At first, his mouth was closed, his lips cool and still. Then he opened his mouth, just a bit, and she probed inside with her tongue.

His teeth were sharp, sharp enough to draw blood if she pressed against them too hard. If he actually tried to bite he could probably tear off her lower jaw.

She forced her tongue in deeper, touching his, poking against it. Lester’s tongue was wet and slimy like raw liver, but not wholly unpleasant. Then his mouth closed a bit, the pointy teeth trapping her, exerting just enough pressure for it to just begin to hurt, for blood just to begin flowing.

Georgia didn’t pull away. Instead, she stuck her hand down the front of Lester’s pants.

Lester’s whole body went rigid, and Georgia thought she’d screwed up, that he was going to munch on her with those terrible teeth, gnaw every bit of flesh off of her face.

And then, unexpectedly, he moaned.

I actually made a man moan.

She felt almost giddy with power, kissing him even deeper, beginning to work her hand in a way she guessed a man would like.

Maybe it didn’t matter, and Lester would still take her back to his playroom and torture her to death. But at that moment, Georgia felt wonderfully normal, like those braindead cheerleaders she used to go to school with, or the old couple who lived in her mom’s apartment building that were always holding hands. She thought about returning to the campsite, and when those losers asked her where she’d been, she could them that she was in the woods, making out.

Georgia gripped him hard as she could, and then his huge hands were around her waist, making her feel dainty, and she might have even moaned a little too, and then she tasted something tangy and realized it was blood and that it was hers.

Sara jumped back so fast she fell onto her ass. The corpse of the man she’d killed flopped over onto its side. Then it was still.

Reflex action, Sara thought. Like a chicken still running around after its head has been cut off.

Sara had a pre-med roomie in college who told her all sorts of stories about dead bodies twitching, opening their eyes, even making sounds.

“I just had like fifteen heart attacks.” Laneesha had both hands clasped to her chest. “He really dead?”

Sara nodded. “Let’s go back, find Martin.”

“How many more of these crazies you think are in the woods?”

“I don’t know. That’s why we need to get back to the camp.”

They moved slowly, the flashlight so pathetically weak now that a match would have been brighter. Sara knew they hadn’t run far from Martin, and she felt they were going in the right direction, but the trees all looked the same and it was so easy to get disoriented. She considered calling out to him, but as badly as she wanted to find her husband she didn’t want to announce their presence to whatever else might be lurking in the woods.

Movement, to their left. Something was rustling a bush.

Sara aimed the beam in that direction, and that’s the moment the Maglight finally went dead.

She held her breath, Laneesha clinging to her arm so hard it hurt, listening to the rustling as it faded out. For a bad moment Sara felt like she was locked in that awful trunk again. The darkness was too big, too heavy, pressing on her from all sides and making it impossible to move.

“Sara?”

Martin.

“Are you and Laneesha okay?”

His voice broke the spell, and Sara tore away from Laneesha and ran to him, throwing her arms around his familiar form, Jack cooing and wiggling between them, the hug feeling so good and right that it made the desperation of their predicament fade just a little bit.

Then the relief was replaced by confusion, and anger. She took Jack and pushed Martin away, keeping him at arm’s length.

“Martin, what the hell is going on?”

Sara felt his shoulders slump. His voice was thick, pained, and he winced when he spoke. “I don’t know.”

“That whole campfire story. That civil war prison. You made that up. Right?”

“No. I mean…it’s just a story. A story that I remember from camp when I was a kid in Boy Scouts. Scared the wits out of me and my little brother. But it’s not true. It can’t be true.”

“What happened back at the campsite? Were you dragged off?”