Endurance

Excerpt from TRAPPED by Jack Kilborn

He couldn’t move.

The table he laid on was cold against his naked back. There were no ropes binding his arms, no belts securing his legs. But he was immobile, paralyzed.

Yet he was still able to feel.

Panicked thoughts swirled through his brain. Where am I? Was I in an accident? I can’t open my eyes. Am I blind? Am I dead? I can still think, so I must be alive. But I can’t move. Can’t talk. What’s happening to me?

He concentrated, hard as he could, trying to move his hands and touch his face.

Nothing happened.

Noise, from the right. Footsteps. His body didn’t seem to work, but thankfully, his ears did.

Someone’s in the room.

He felt a hand touch his face, and then saw painful bright light.

A doctor in a green smock stared down at him.

He just pried my eyelids open.

“Good morning. You’re disoriented, I bet. Confused. Probably can’t even remember how you got here.” The doctor’s voice was scratchy, strained, as if he wasn’t accustomed to using it.

Please, tell me what’s going on…

“You can’t move because you’ve been given a paralytic.” He was an older man, bald, his scrubs stained. “Unfortunately, you have to remain conscious for this procedure to work.”

The doctor walked off, out of sight. The man’s eyes remained open, unblinking, gazing into the light overhead. Am I in an operating room? What procedure? Who was that doctor?

It was bright, but it didn’t seem bright enough to be a hospital. The light was yellowish, dingy, coming from a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. And there was a smell. Not an antiseptic, care-facility smell. A smell of rot and decay.

“The drug immobilizes the skeletomuscular system.” The doctor was somewhere near his feet. The man couldn’t move his eyes to see him. “You’re completely helpless. One more dose and you’d stop breathing altogether.”

The doctor rested a hand on the man’s knee, gave it a pat.

“You’ve lost your reflexes, your ability to flinch. But other vital functions remain active.”

A sudden pressure, between his legs. The doctor was squeezing his testicles. The agony bloomed, white hot and inescapable. His vision went blurry. He tried to pull away, tried with all of his might, but he didn’t budge an inch.

“You can still feel pain, as I’m sure you notice. Lacrimation is normal, for now. Your pupils can dilate. And, of course, your pulse and heart rate just shot up considerably. The drug keeps you from moving so I can do the procedure, but it doesn’t shut you down completely.”

The man felt the tears flow down the sides of his head, the throb still lingering after the doctor released his grip.

This wasn’t a hospital. It couldn’t be. A doctor wouldn’t do that to me. What the hell was going on?

Then he heard the most agonizing scream of his life.

It didn’t come from the room, but from someplace else in the building. Nearby, maybe a room or two over. The scream was so shrill it didn’t sound human at first. Then it lost pitch and was replaced by shouting.

“NO! PLEASE NO! STOP IT! JESUS NOOOOOO!”

What are they doing to that poor guy?

And what are they going to do to me?

“That’s one of Lester’s guests,” the doctor said. “Lester has been with him for a few hours now. I’m surprised he still has a voice left. I shudder to think what’s being done to make him cry out like that. Do you recognize who it is?”

And then, all at once, the man knew who was screaming. He remembered how they got there. The strange noises. Being chased. Hunted. Running terrified. And then being caught. Caught by…

“No need to worry.” The doctor leaned over him, smiling. Crumbs wedged in the corners of his thin lips, on his chin, and a small streak of something brown—blood?—smeared across his age-spotted forehead. “You won’t end up like that. You’re being given a gift. An invaluable, extraordinary gift. The world is full of lambs. But very few get to be wolves. Lester’s playmate, sadly for him, is a lamb. But you, you, my lucky fellow—you’re about to become a wolf.”

The doctor raised a gigantic syringe.

“This is going to hurt. Quite a bit, in fact.”

The man couldn’t move, couldn’t turn away, and he was forced to watch and feel as the needle descended and plunged into his unblinking eye.

Sara Randhurst felt her stomach roll starboard as the boat yawed port, and she put both hands on the railing and took a big gulp of fresh, lake air. She wasn’t anywhere near Cindy’s level of discomfort—that poor girl had been heaving non-stop since they left land—but she was a long way from feeling her best.

Strangely enough, Jack seemed to be enjoying it. The three-month-old baby in the sling around Sara’s chest had a grin on his face and was drooling happily. Sara pulled a tissue from the sling’s pocket and wiped off her son’s chin, wondering how anyone, especially someone so small and fragile, could actually like this awful motion. Even though she was feeling ill, she smiled at the sight of him. Just like she did every time.

Sara closed her eyes, bending her knees slightly to absorb some of the pitch and roll. The nausea reminded Sara of her honeymoon. She and Martin had booked a Caribbean cruise, and their first full day as a married couple found both of them vomiting veal picata and wedding cake into the Pacific. Lake Huron was smaller than the ocean, the wave crests not as high and troughs not as low. But they came faster and choppier, which made it almost as bad.

Sara opened her eyes, searching for Martin. The only one on deck was Cindy Welp, still perched over the railing. Sara approached the teen on wobbly footing, then rubbed her back. Cindy’s blonde hair looked perpetually greasy, and her eyes were sunken and her skin colorless; more a trait of her addiction to meth than the seasickness.

“How are you doing?” Sara asked.

Cindy wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Better. I don’t think there’s anything left in me.”

Cindy proved herself a liar a moment later, pulling away and retching once again. Sara gave her one last reassuring pat, then padded her way carefully up to the bow. The charter boat looked deceptively smaller before they’d gotten on. But there was a lot of space onboard; both a foredeck and an aft deck, a raised bow, plus two levels below boasting six rooms. Though they’d been sailing for more than two hours, Sara had only run into four of their eight-person party. Martin wasn’t one of them. It was almost like he was hiding.

Which, she supposed, he had reason to do.

A swell slapped the boat sideways, spritzing Sara with water. It tasted clean, just like the air. A seagull cried out overhead, a wide white M against the shocking blue of sky. She wondered, fleetingly, what if be like to feel so free, so alive like that.

In the distance, a green dot against the expanse of dark water, was Rock Island. Even from this far away, Sara noticed its wedge shape, the north side of it several times the height of the south, dropping off at a sharp cliff.

Sara shivered, protectively cupping her hands around Jack.

There was a soft thump, next to her. Sara jumped at the sound.

Another gull. It had hopped onto the deck, and was staring at her with tiny black eyes. Sara touched her chest, feeling her heart bounce against her fingers.

Just a bird. No need to be so jumpy.

Sara squinted west, toward the sun. It was getting low over the lake, turning the clouds pink and orange, hinting at a spectacular sunset to come. A month ago, when she and Martin had planned this trip, staring at such a sun would have made her feel energized. Watching it now made Sara sad. A final bow before the curtain closed for good.

Sara continued to move forward, her gym shoes slippery, the warm summer breeze already drying the spray on her face. At the prow, Sara saw Tom Gransee, bending down like he was trying to touch the water rushing beneath them.

“Tom! Back in the boat please.”

Tom spun around, saw Sara, and grinned. Then he took three quick steps and skidded across the wet deck like a skateboarder. Tom’s medication didn’t quite control his ADHD, and the teenager was constantly in motion. He even twitched when he slept.

“No running!” Sara called after him, but he was already on the other side of the cabin, heading below.

Sara peeked at the sun once more, retied the flapping floral print shirttails across her flat belly, and headed after Tom.

She stopped at the top of the stairs. The stairwell was tight, and the sunlight didn’t penetrate it.

“Tom?” she called down after him.

He didn’t respond. Sara hesitated, adjusted the knit cap on Jack’s head, then took the first step down.

As she descended the staircase, the mechanical roar of the engine overtook the calm tempo of the waves. The hallway was dark, cramped. Sara didn’t like it, and she picked up her pace, her palms on the walls searching for a light switch and not finding any. Her breath quickened, and her fingers finally grazed some protuberance which she grasped like it was a life preserver. She flipped it up and an overhead light came on.

Sara sighed, then chided herself for feeling so relieved. She tried to remember the Captain’s name.

Captain Prendick. A peculiar name, but a familiar one; Sara recalled it from an old H.G. Wells horror novel.

Prendick was the ninth person on the boat, and Sara hadn’t seen him lately either. Her only meeting with the man was during their brief but intense negotiation when they arrived at the dock. He was grizzled, tanned, and wrinkled, with a personality to match, and he argued with Sara about their destination, insisting on taking them someplace closer than Rock Island. He only relented after they agreed to bring his extra handheld marine radio along, in case of emergencies.

Sara wondered where the captain was now. She assumed he was on the bridge, but didn’t know where to find it. Maybe Martin was with him. Sara wasn’t sure if her desire to speak with Martin was to console him or persuade him. Perhaps both. Or maybe they could simply spend a few moments together without talking. Sara could remember when silence between them was a healthy thing.

A skinny door flew open, and Meadowlark Purcell burst out. Meadow had a pink scar across the bridge of his flattened nose, a disfigurement from when he was blooded in to a Detroit street gang. The boy narrowed his dark brown eyes at Sara, then smiled in recognition.

“Hey, Sara. I was you, I wouldn’t go in there for a while.” He fanned his palm in front of his nose.

“I’m looking for Martin. Seen him?”

Meadow shook his head. “I be hangin’ with Laneesha and Tyrone, playin’ cards. We gonna be there soon?”

“Captain said two hours, and we’re getting near that point.”

“True dat?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

Meadow wandered off. Sara closed the bathroom door, made her way up another cramped flight of stairs, and found the bridge. Captain Prendick was at the wheel, his potbelly pressed against it, one hand scratching the stubble on his chin. He noticed Sara and gave her a brief nod.

“Have you seen Martin?” Sara asked.

Prendick motioned with his chin. Sara followed the gesture and saw her husband folded up in a chair, legs crossed out in front of him and his eyes closed, chin touching his chest. Sara momentarily forgot everything she wanted to tell him, everything she wanted to say.

“Martin…”

“I’m not up for talking right now, Sara.”

He kept his eyes closed. Jack, hearing his father’s voice, wiggled and cooed.

Sara glanced at Prendick.

“I’m running to the head,” the captain said to Sara as he flipped a switch on the panel, next to a picture of him and an elderly woman. “We’re on autopilot.”

Captain Prendick slid past her, his expression dour. Sara moved closer to Martin, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t,” he said.

“Martin, maybe if we talked about—”

Her husband’s eyelids flipped open. They looked unbelievably sad.

“I love you, Sara.”

Sara felt her chest get heavy. “Martin…”

“Do you know I love you? That I love you and Jack?”

She nodded, unable to answer because of the lump in her throat.

“Then we don’t have anything to talk about.”

Martin held her gaze until his eyes became glassy, and then he closed them again.

Sara wanted to touch his cheek, cup his chin and tell him it was all going to be okay even though it wasn’t. Then she left the bridge and made her way back into the bowels of the boat. She opened the first door she came to. In the darkness she made out the shape of a chubby girl asleep on a narrow bed. Georgia. Sara tried the next door. Another cabin, this one empty. After a brief hesitation, Sara went into the room, pulled the folding bed away from the wall, and sat down, making sure she left the door open.

The waves weren’t as pronounced down here, and the rocking motion was gentler. Sara again thought of her honeymoon with Martin. How, once they got their sea legs, they spent all of their time on the ship, in their tiny little cabin, skipping exotic ports to instead order room service and make love. After a rough beginning, it turned out to be a perfect trip.

Sara checked the door again, rubbed Jack’s back, and closed her eyes, wishing it could be like that again.

It was a night exactly like tonight, a few years ago,” Martin said. “Late summer. Full moon. Just before midnight. The woods were quiet. Quiet, but not completely silent. It’s never completely silent in the woods. It seems like it is, because we’re all used to the city. But there are always night sounds. Sounds that only exist when the sun goes down and the dark takes over. Everyone shut your eyes and listen for a moment.”

Sara indulged her husband, letting her eyelids close. Gone were the noises so common in Detroit; cars honking, police sirens, arguing drunks and cheering Tigers fans and bursts of live music when bar doors swung open. Instead, here on the island, there were crickets. A breeze whistling through the pines. An owl. The gentle snaps and crackles of the campfire they sat around. Jack’s breath on her neck, slow and steady from sleep.

After a few seconds someone belched.

“My bad,” Tyrone said, raising his hand.

This prompted laughter from almost everyone, Sara included. Martin kept his expression solemn, not breaking character. Seeing Martin like that made Sara remember why she fell in love with him. Her husband had always been passionate about life, and gave everything his all, whether it was painting the garage, starting a business, or telling silly campfire stories to scare their kids.

Her smile faded. They won’t be their kids for very much longer.

“It happened on an island,” Martin continued. “Just like this one. In fact, now that I think about it, this might actually be the island where it all happened.”

Tyrone snorted. “This better not be the same island, dog, or my black ass is jumping in that mofo lake ‘n swimming back to civilization.”

More laughter, but this time it was clipped. Uneasy. These teenagers had never been this far from an urban environment, and weren’t sure how to act.

Sara shivered, tucking the blanket in around her baby. All the things she wanted to say to Martin earlier were still bottled up inside because she hadn’t had the chance. Since the boat dropped them off, it had been all about hiking and setting up camp and eating dinner, and Sara hadn’t been able to catch him alone. He’d been intentionally avoiding her, staying busy, keeping that smile on his face like it had been sculpted there.

“Was it really this island?” Laneesha asked. Her voice was condescending, almost defiant. But there was a bit of edge to it, a tiny hint of fear.

“No, it wasn’t,” Sara said. “Martin, tell her it wasn’t.”

Martin didn’t say anything, but he did give Laneesha a sly wink.

“So where was it?” Georgia asked, though her face showed zero curiosity.

“It wasn’t anywhere, Georgia.” Sara slapped at a mosquito that had been biting her neck, then wiped the tiny splot of blood onto her jeans. “This is a campfire story. It’s made up, to try to scare you.”

“It’s fake?” Georgia sneered. “Pretend?”

Sara nodded. “Yes, it’s pretend. Right, Martin?”

Martin shrugged, still not looking at Sara.

“So what pretend-happened?” Laneesha asked.

“There were eight people.” Martin was sitting on an old log, higher up than everyone else. “Camping just like we are. On a night like tonight. On what might be this very island. They vanished, these eight, never to be seen again. But some folks who live around here claim to know what happened. Some say those unfortunate eight people were subjected to things worse than death.”

Meadow folded his arms. “Ain’t nothin’ worse than death.”

Martin stared hard at the teenager. “There are plenty of things worse.”

No one spoke for a moment. Sara felt a chill. Maybe it was the cool night breeze, whistling through the woods. Or maybe it was Martin’s story, which she had to admit was getting sort of creepy. But Sara knew the chill actually went deeper. As normal as everyone seemed right now, it was only an illusion. Their little family was breaking apart.

But she didn’t want to think about that. Now, she wanted to enjoy this final camping trip, to make some good memories.

Sara scooted a tiny bit closer to the campfire and put her arms around Jack. The night sky was clear, the stars bright against the blackness of space, the hunter’s moon huge and tinged red. Beyond the smoke Sara could smell the pine trees from the surrounding woods, and the big water of Huron, a few hundred yards to the west. As goodbyes went, this was a lovely setting for one.

She let her eyes wander over the group. Tyrone Morrow, seventeen, abandoned by a mother who could no longer control him, running with one of Motor City’s worst street gangs for more than two years. Dressed in a hoodie and jeans so baggy they’d fall around his ankles without the belt.

Meadow was on Tyrone’s right. He was from a rival Detroit club. That they were sitting next to each other was a commitment from each on how much they wanted out of the gangsta life.

On Meadow’s side, holding his hand, Laneesha Simms. Her hair was cropped almost as short as the boys’, but her make-up and curves didn’t allow anyone to mistake her for a man.

Georgia Dailey sat beside Laneesha. Sixteen, white, brunette, pudgy. She held a long stick and was poking at something on the ground; a dead frog, belly-up with its legs jutting out. Sara thought about saying something, decided to let it go.

Behind Georgia, Tom Gransee predictably paced around the fire, tugging at his wifebeater T like it was an extra skin he wanted to shed.

These were kids society had given up on, sentenced into their care by the courts. But Martin—and by extension, Sara—hadn’t given up on them. That was why they created the Second Chance Center.

Sara finally rested her gaze on Martin. The fire flickered across his handsome features, glinted in his blue eyes. He had aged remarkably well, looking closer to twenty than thirty, as athletic as the day she met him in that graduate psych class. She looked down at her son in the baby sling—a miniature version of Martin—and absently rubbed his back.

“On this dark night six years ago,” Martin continued, “this group of eight people took a boat onto Lake Huron. The SS Minnow.”

Sara smiled, knowing she was the only one old enough to have caught the Gilligan’s Island reference, the boat the castaways had taken on their three hour tour.

“They had some beer with them,” Martin said. “Some pot…”

“Hells yeah.” Tyrone and Meadow bumped fists.

“…and were set to have a big party. But one of the women—there were four men and four women, just like us—got seasick on the lake.”

“I hear that.” In her oversized jersey and sweatpants, Cindy looked tiny, shapeless. But Sara noted she’d gotten a little bit of her color back.

“So they decided,” Martin raised his voice, “to beach the boat on a nearby island, continue the party there. But they didn’t know the island’s history.”

Tom had stopped his pacing and was standing still, rare for him. “What history, Martin?”

Martin smiled. An evil smile, his chin down and his eyes hooded, the shadows drawing out his features and making him look like an angry wolf.

“In 1862, done in secret, Rock Island Prison was built here to house captured Confederate soldiers. Like many civil war prisons, the conditions were horrible. But this one was worse than most. It was run by a war profiteer named Mordecai Plincer. He stole the money that was supposed to be used to feed the prisoners, and ordered his guards to beat them so they wouldn’t stage an uprising while they starved to death. He didn’t issue blankets, even during the winter months, giving them nothing more to wear than burlap sacks with arm and leg holes cut out, even when temperatures dropped to below freezing.”

Sara wasn’t a history buff, but she was pretty sure there was never a civil war prison on an island in Lake Huron. She wondered if Martin is using Camp Douglas as the source of this tall tale. It was located in Chicago near Lake Michigan and considered the northern counterpart to the horrors committed at the Confederate prison, Andersonville.

Yes, Martin has to be making this up. Though that name, Plincer, does sound familiar.

Martin tossed one of the branches they’d gathered earlier onto the fire. It made a whump sound, throwing sparks and cinders.

“But those starving, tortured prisoners staged a rebellion anyway, killing all of the guards, driving Plincer from the island. The Union, desperate to cover up their mistake, stopped sending supplies. But the strongest and craziest of the prisoners survived. Even though the food ran out.”

“How?” Tom asked. “You said there are no animals on this island.”

Martin smiled, wickedly. “They survived… by eating each other.”

“Oh, snap.” Tyrone shook his head. “That shit is sick.”

Sara raised an eyebrow at her husband. “Cannibalism, Martin?”

Martin looked at her, for the first time in hours. She searched for some softness, some love, but he was all wrapped up in his menace act.

“Some were cooked. Some were eaten raw. And during the summer months, when meat would spoil, some were kept alive so they could be eaten one piece at a time.”

Sara did a quick group check, wondering if this story was getting too intense. Everyone appeared deadly serious, their eyes laser-focused on Martin. No one seemed upset. A little scared, maybe, but these were tough kids. She decided to let Martin keep going.

Martin stood up, spreading out his hands. “Over the last five decades, more than a hundred people have vanished on this part of Lake Huron. Including those eight men and women. What happened to them was truly horrible.”

The crickets picked that eerie moment to stop chirping. Sara noticed a brief flash in her peripheral vision. Lightening? No, the weather was fine. Besides, this seemed to have come from the woods. She scanned the woods, waiting for it to happen again. They stayed dark.

Cindy eventually broke the silence. “What happened to them?”

“It’s said that these war prisoners became more animal than human, feeding on each other and on those men unlucky enough to visit. Unfortunately for this group of eight partiers, they were all doomed the minute they set foot onto Plincer’s Island. When their partying died down, and everyone was drunk and stoned and passing out, the prisoners built a gridiron.”

The word gridiron hung in the air like a crooked painting, blending into the forest sounds.

Tyrone whispered, “They built a football field?”

Martin shook his head. “The term gridiron is used for football these days, but it’s a much older word. It was a form of execution in ancient Rome. Coals are spread over the ground, stoked until they’re red hot. Then the victim is put in a special iron cage, sort of like a grill, and placed on top of the coals, roasting him alive. Unlike being burned at the stake, which is over in a few minutes, it takes hours to die on the gridiron. They say the liquid in your eyes gets so hot, it boils.”

Sara stood up. Martin should have known not to go there with the gore. “I think that’s enough, Martin. You’ve succeeded in freaking everyone out.” She forced joviality. “Now who wants to roast some marshmallows?”

“I want to hear what happened to those people,” Tom said.

“And I want to be able to sleep tonight,” Sara replied.

Sara’s eyes met Martin’s. She saw intensity there, but also resignation, and something else. Something soft and happy. Eventually his lips curled into a grin.

“But we haven’t gotten to the part where I pretend to be dragged off into the woods, kicking and screaming. That’s the best part.”

Sara placed her hands on her hips, feeling herself smile. “I’m sure we would have all been terrified.”

Martin sat back down. “You’re the boss. And if the boss wants to do marshmallows, who am I to argue?”

“I thought you’re the one who created the Center,” Laneesha asked.

Martin glanced at Sara. There was kindness in his eyes, and maybe some resignation, too.

“Sara and I created it together. We wanted to make a difference. The system takes kids who are basically good but made a few mistakes, sticks them into juvee hall, and they come out full blown crooks. The Center is aimed at giving these kids positive direction and helping them to change.” Martin smiled sadly. “Well, that was its purpose.”

“It’s bullshit the man cut your program, Martin.” Meadow tossed a stick onto the fire.

“It sucks,” Cindy added.

There were nods of agreement. Martin shrugged. “Things like this happen all the time. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you kids. Sara, Jack, and I are a small family, but you guys are like our—”

Martin screamed in mid-sentence, then fell backward off the log, rolling into the bushes and the darkness.