I felt the buzz of bones, very close. Instinctively I began tracking the buzz. The dead could not rise up and protect me, which would only have been right…but could they hide me? I couldn't have told you exactly what I was thinking, but I was comfortable with the dead.
The sky was darkening and visibility was getting worse even as I ran, bashing into trees and staggering to keep to my feet. I headed for the dead man. If no one had found him, maybe no one would find me. The feeling of him was fairly fresh, and I was so tired. But I kept on scampering, fast as a panicked squirrel.
The dead man was in the thicket right before me, an overgrown patch of short tree saplings, vines, and myrtle. The thicket was surrounded by pines, and there were pinecones littering the ground. I crouched to grab up a couple.
The live man trying to kill me was just a few yards behind me, though I couldn't see him. I could hear him, snorting and pushing through the growth. Half-standing, I threw one pinecone, then another. I threw them as hard as I could with my bound hands, and they made just a bit of noise a few yards away, when they hit the soggy ground. I didn't think Barney Simpson was any Daniel Boone. Maybe he would think he was hearing footsteps. There was a rocky outcropping close, and he might think my next steps had been on the rock surface. The dead man was waiting.
I hunkered down and tried to slow down my breathing. I sounded like a faulty bellows. Please, Dead Guy, I begged, please be a hunter.
God heard me. Or fate heard me. Or it was just the way it turned out. Dead Guy had a knife. It was in a sheath on his rotting belt. His camo was in shredded rags, stained with the fluids from his body. Some of his bones had been scattered, and the stomach area had been torn open and devoured by something. But Lyle—that was his name, Lyle Worsham—had a knife in that sheath. The Velcro yielded to my fingers, and then with some difficulty, I worked the knife out. It was rusted and pocked, but it was a knife—not the stout hunting knife I'd expected, though. The shape was strange to me. I awkwardly turned it in my fingers and tried to saw through the duct tape with it.
Before I was through, I was glad I had a coat on. My arms would've been a mess. And my first act was to rip the tape off my mouth. No silencing me.
Of course, then I crouched there without making a single noise. Where was he? Was he going to pounce on me any second? Had he given up to go back to the SUV? Was he even now fleeing the county? I didn't mind staying here until I was sure. I was cold and wet and scared, but I could be patient. I had old Lyle here with me. Had Lyle had a gun? He should have, right?
As it turned out, Lyle had been fishing, not hunting. There was a tackle box sitting on its side in two years' worth of downed leaves, and there was a creel that had once contained his catch. So now I knew why this knife had such a strange shape—it must be a filleting knife. He'd been to the lake to fish. Would the surface of the water have iced over? It had gotten above freezing this afternoon, and it had been sunny for a while. Now that the twilight was drawing in, the water might freeze again. I shivered. My vague idea of cutting across the frozen lake surface was simply stupid. My ignorance of the woods was probably equal to Barney Simpson's. Barney preferred indoor sports, like having sex with bound boys. I wonder what the former Mrs. Simpson had to say about Barney's sexual kinks.
My mind stopped wandering and focused at the faint noises I was hearing. Barney was trying for stealth, but he was a big man and he was wearing the wrong footwear. The snow crunched under his feet and he was breathing heavily. Me and Lyle, we were really quiet.
The next time I got abducted, I was going to have my gloves on, I promised myself. And a hat.
"Get out here, bitch," Barney called.
Mr. Simpson, I'm not satisfied with my treatment by your staff.
"There aren't any houses around here, and no one's going to come help you," he called, and he was closer to where I was crouched.
Could he possibly be lying? Why, yes, I thought he might be. The same way he'd been lying all along.
The glimpses I'd caught while I was running away had included a brief vista across a body of water, and the glimpse of some cabins; distant, but visible. Reachable. I was pretty sure of my location.
I thought I was very close to the southern shore of Pine Landing Lake. I thought if I struck out through the trees, following the lake line northwest, I might find the cabin again. If I could go up and walk on the road I'd be sure, and walking would be easier and faster.
Now he was right outside the thicket. I bit my lip to keep from letting out my shuddering breath. With my right hand, I held the knife at the ready.
Hold it. Hold it. Don't say anything. And then his feet moved away.
The darkness couldn't fall fast enough to suit me.
He was the one who was in a hurry. Not me.
Lyle, you and me, we can wait forever, right?
And then he howled and pounced but he was howling and pouncing on the wrong shadow, and since I'd held still I was okay, I was okay. My arm was truly broken all the way through now, thanks to the beating by the side of the road, and my scalp was really bleeding, and my head was hurting like someone had dragged me out of a car by my hair, but I was okay. In danger of freezing in this position, though. I'd been in one position for too long, and I needed to move, needed to stretch a little, needed to shift my weight. But I was too scared.
He didn't have a gun, apparently. That was good. He could just shoot at bushes until he hit me; no, that would attract too much attention. Even in the rural South, random shooting will attract a certain amount of notice. But he might risk that, to kill me.
"This is ridiculous," he said, so close I almost shrieked. "I mean, after all, you must be nuts to react to a man talking to you that way. Kicking and screaming, fighting and biting. Who could expect anyone in your line of work to be sane, anyway? I was just trying to take you to the hospital when you started having a fit, that's all. Your overreaction caused me to panic. I took the wrong turn. Now here we are out in the middle of nowhere in very cold weather and you won't let me know where you are so I can get you the help you need."
The help I need is for someone to come along and shoot you, I thought. Barney was busy building a story, some kind of story that would enable him to hold on to what he had. He was doomed to fail. But then, he'd lasted this long, and it must be hard for him to believe it was the end.
And to think I'd suspected Doak Garland. Well, I shouldn't relax too soon. There might have been three of them.
And I really was thinking about that, so you know my mind was wandering. It was the cold and fear that were doing me in. I sharpened back up mentally just in time. I'd almost laughed at the picture of the whole town of Doraville being in on the kidnapping and the murdering. Like a Shirley Jackson short story!
And then he caught me.
Fourteen
HIS big hands grabbed my shoulders, and like so many young men had been, I was now in his power. Except I had a knife in my hand. He pulled me up and up, until I was almost off my feet. In the twilight it was hard to make out details but I could see the white of his shirtfront, where his unbuttoned coat flapped open, and I swung my arm as hard as I could. The knife went into his skin easily enough but skidded along a bone, maybe his rib, and he screamed as the blood welled through his shirt.
He dropped me and I ran. He caught up with me after a second, though; he was quicker to recover from the shock than I expected. He tackled me, and I twisted, coming up on my side and swinging the knife back. This time I got him in the shoulder and it went in much farther. He really did scream, and heaved off of me, scrambling to his feet. We were close to the edge of the lake then, and I saw a sign or two—we were in some sort of public fishing area. I backed up closer to the water because he was coming at me and I didn't have a choice.