“Leave her as she is.” The cold voice again. “An old carpet we’re dumping. You never know who may see you, even down here. Who might remember seeing a face.”
I kept myself as limp as possible. I didn’t need another blow to the skull. I was pulled roughly from the car, banging my poor head, my aching arms, my sore back, on the door, clenching my numb fingers to keep from crying out. Someone slung me over his back like an old roll of carpet, as though a hundred and forty pounds was nothing to him, as though I was nothing more than a light and careless load. I could hear twigs snapping underfoot, the swishing of the dead grasses. What I hadn’t noticed on my previous trip here was the smell. The rank stench of putrifying grasses, mixed with the chemicals that drained into the marsh. I tried not to choke, tried not to think of the fish with their rotting fins, tried to suppress the well of nausea that grew with the pounding in my head as it bounced against my bearer’s back.
“Okay, Troy. X marks the spot.”
Troy grunted, slid me from his shoulder, and dropped me. “Far enough in?”
“She isn’t going anyplace. Let’s split.”
The rank grasses and soft mud broke my fall. I lay against the chill earth. The cool mud soaking through the blanket brought a moment’s relief to my sick head, but as I lay there my body’s weight caused water to ooze up through the mud. I felt the dampness in my ears and panicked, thrashing uselessly. Alone in this dark cocoon, I was going to drown, black swamp water in my lungs, my heart, my brain. The blood roared in my head and I cried tears of utter helplessness.
24
In Grimpen Mire
I had passed out again. When I slowly came to I was wet all through. Water had oozed into my hair and was tickling my ears. My shoulders felt as though someone had stuck iron bars into them to separate them from my breastbone. Somehow, though, the sleep and the cold muddy water had healed my head a little. I didn’t want to think—it was too scary. But minute by minute I could still make it if I used a little sense.
I rolled to one side, the blanket heavy with mud. Using every ounce of strength, I pushed myself to a sitting position. My ankles were bound together and my hands were tied behind me at the wrist—there was no way I could work them to the front of my body. But by pushing them down at my tailbone I could brace myself enough to inch forward with my legs.
I had to assume they’d taken me down the same track where they’d dumped Nancy—it was the farthest from the road, anyway. After some time of trial and error, which left me gasping for breath inside my muddy cocoon, I reckoned that the water lay to my right. I carefully made a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn so that my inching motion would take me back toward the road. I tried not to think of the distance, tried not to compute my probable speed. Forced thoughts of food, baths, bed, away and imagined myself on a sunny beach. Maybe Hawaii. Maybe Magnum would appear suddenly and cut me out of my prison.
My legs and arms were shaking. Too much exertion, too little glucose. I had to stop every few pushes and rest. The second time I stopped I fell asleep again, waking only as I fell over into the grasses. After that I forced myself to a counting pattern. Five shoves, count fifteen, five shoves, count fifteen, five shoves, count fifteen. Legs wobbling, brain turning, fifteen. My fifteenth birthday. Gabriella had died two days before. The last breath in Tony’s arms while I was at the beach. Maybe there really was a heaven, Gabriella with her pure voice in the angelic choir waiting for me with wings outstretched, her arms opened in boundless love, waiting for my contralto to blend with her soprano.
A dog’s bark brought me back to myself The red-eyed hound. This time I couldn’t help it: I was sick, a little trickle of bile down my front. I could hear the dog coming closer, breath heaving, short, sharp barks, then a nose pushing into the side of the blanket, knocking me over. I lay on my side in a helpless tangle of mud and blanket, kicking uselessly in the air, and felt paws press heavily into my arm.
I kicked helplessly at the blanket, trying to force the hound away. Little tears of fear slid into my nose. All the while on the other side fangs pulled at my head, my arms. When it had bit through the blanket, how would I protect my throat? My arms were behind me. It wasn’t minding my feeble thrashing.
Panic roared in my ears, turned my useless legs to water. Over the roaring I heard a voice. With the tiny energy left in me, I tried to cry out,
“You got her? You found her? Is that you, doll? Are you in there? Can you hear me?”