Trisha stood where she was for a moment with her head down and her hair hanging, then turned around and labored uphill to her little camp of the night before. She had to stop twice on the way and give her pounding heart a chance to slow down; she was appalled by how little strength she had left.
She filled her water-bottle, stuffed it and the shredded remains of her poncho into her pack, gave a tearful sigh at the pack's weight when she lifted it (the damned thing was all but empty, for goodness' sake), and then set off again. She walked slowly, almost plodding now, and although the going was downhill she still had to stop and rest every fif-teen minutes or so. Her head throbbed. All the world's col-ors looked too bright, and when a bluejay called from a branch overhead, the sound seemed to punch into her ears like needles. She pretended Tom Gordon was with her, keeping her company, and then after awhile she didn't have to pretend anymore. He walked along beside her, and although she knew he was a hallucination, he looked as real by daylight as he had by moonlight.
Around noon, Trisha stumbled over a rock and sprawled full-length in a brambly snarl of bushes. She lay there with the breath knocked out of her and her heart hammering so hard it made white lights in front of her eyes. The first time she attempted to drag herself back to open ground she couldn't do it. She waited, rested, tried for stillness with her eyes half-closed, and then went for it again. This time she pulled herself free, but when she tried to get up, her legs wouldn't support her. No wonder, either, not really. Over the last forty-eight hours she'd had nothing to eat but a hardboiled egg, a tuna sandwich, two Twinkies, and a few fiddleheads. She'd also had diarrhea and vomiting.
"I'm going to die, Tom, aren't I?" she asked. Her voice was calm, lucid.
There was no answer. Trisha raised her head and looked around. Number 36 was gone. Trisha dragged herself over to the stream and had a drink. The water didn't seem to be bothering her stomach and bowels anymore. She didn't know if that meant she was getting used to it or just that her body had given up trying to rid itself of the bad stuff, the impurities.
Trisha sat up, wiped her dripping mouth, and looked northwest, along the course of the stream. The terrain up ahead was moderating, and the old forest seemed to be changing once again, the firs giving way to smaller, younger trees - your basic forest clenches and tangles, in other words, with plenty of underbrush clogging up any easy way through. She didn't know how long she could continue in that direction. And if she tried to walk in the stream, she guessed that the current would bowl her over. There were no helicopters, no barking dogs. She had an idea she could hear those sounds if she wanted to, just as she could see Tom Gordon if she wanted to, so it was best not to think in that direction. If any sounds surprised her, they might be real.
Trisha didn't think any sounds would surprise her.
"I'm going to die in the woods." Not a question this time.
Her face twisted into an expression of sorrow, but there were no tears. She held out her hands and looked at them.
They were trembling. At last she got to her feet and began to walk again. As she made her way slowly downhill, clutching at tree-trunks and branches to keep from falling over, two detectives from the attorney general's office were questioning her mother and brother. Later that afternoon a psychiatrist who worked with the state police would try to hypnotize them, and with Pete he would succeed. The focus of their questions had to do with pulling into the parking lot on Sat-urday morning and getting ready to hike. Had they seen a blue van? Had they seen a man with blond hair and eye-glasses?
"Dear Christ," Quilla said, finally giving in to the tears she had until now largely held off. "Dear Christ, you think my baby was kidnapped, don't you? Snatched from behind us while we were arguing." At that, Pete also began to cry.
In TR-90, TR-100, and TR-110, the search for Trisha went on, but the perimeter had been tightened, the men and women in the woods instructed to concentrate more fully on the area near where the girl had last been seen. The searchers were now looking more for the girl's effects than for the girl herself: her pack, her poncho, articles of her clothing. Not her panties, though; the A. G. 's men and the state police detectives were pretty sure no one would find those. Guys like Mazzerole usually kept their victims' undergarments, holding onto them long after the bodies had been tossed in ditches or stuffed into culverts.