In. Out.
More synapses.
The attack. The faceless form.
Simon Midkiff? Frank Battle? Could my captor be the moron magistrate?
I twisted my wrists, trying to loosen the tape. More nausea.
Clamping my teeth, I rolled onto my side. If I did vomit, I didn't want to aspirate the contents.
The movement made my stomach heave. I filled my lungs and the contractions receded.
I lay rigid, listening. I had no idea how long I'd been unconscious, or how I'd arrived at my present location. Was I still in the woods at High Ridge House? Had I been taken elsewhere? Was my attacker just feet away?
My heart rate slowed by a nanosecond, and cogent thought began to creep back.
It was then the thing crawled across my cheek. I heard dry insect sounds, felt movement in my hair, then the tickle of antennae on my skin.
A scream formed in my throat. I rolled back and forth, batting at my face, my hair. Blinding pain seared my brain, and my innards jammed up against the back of my throat.
Quiet! One functioning brain cell commanded.
Cockroaches! The others shrieked.
I tugged at my jacket, tried to pull it up over my head. It wouldn't go.
Lie still!
My heart hammered the order against my ribs.
Be still. Be still. Be still.
Slowly, I calmed, and reason returned.
Get out.
Run.
But not into another trap.
Think.
Listen.
Bare branches hissing in the wind. A chirp. Leaves skittering across the ground.
Forest sounds.
I peeled back a layer of sound.
Water swirling around rocks.
River sounds.
Another layer.
Far away and barely there, a loonlike wail followed by a strange giggle.
Gooseflesh spread across my arms and up my throat.
I knew where I was.
I STRAINED, BARELY BREATHING. HAD I REALLY HEARD WHAT I thought I had? Minutes crept by. Doubt crept in. Then it sounded again, faint and surreal.
An undulating moan, a high-pitched laugh.
The electric skeleton!
I was not far from the Riverbank Inn. Where Primrose had stayed. Where she had never been seen again.
I pictured Primrose's bloated face, saw the gouges left by underwater feeders.
I lay bound, gagged, and blindfolded in a sack beside the Tuckasegee River!
I had to break free!
My skull pounded from its encounter with the rock. The rag cut off my air, and tasted of garbage and filth. The duct tape burned my cheeks and lips, and fired splinters of light up my optic nerve.
And I could hear the swish of roaches on my nylon jacket, feel their movement in my hair and on my jeans.
My thoughts flew in a thousand directions.
Again, I listened. Hearing no indicators of a human presence, I began manipulating my bindings, breathing steadily through my nose.
My stomach swirled, my mouth grew dry.
Millennia passed. The tape loosened a millimeter.
Tears of frustration welled behind my mashed lids.
No weeping!
I kept at my ankles and wrists, yanking, twisting, tugging, stopping periodically to monitor for sound outside my bag.
Roaches scuttled across my face, their feet feathery on my skin.
Go away! I screamed in my mind. Get the fuck off!
I struggled on. Sweat dampened my hair.
My mind soared like a nocturnal bird, and I looked down on myself, a helpless larva on the forest floor. I pictured the blackness around me and wished for the safety of a familiar night haven.
A twenty-four-hour coffee shop. A tollbooth. A precinct house. A nurses' station in a sleeping ward. An ER.
Then I remembered.
The scalpel!
Could I reach it?
I drew my knees to my chest, scrunching the hem of my jacket as far up as possible. Then I jerked my elbows across the nylon, raising my hips each time. Blindly I inched the pocket forward, gauging its progress by touch.
Reading my clothing like a Braille map, I located the nylon loop attached to the pull tab and grasped it between the fingertips of both hands.
I held my breath, applied downward pressure.
My fingers slid down the nylon and off the end.
Damn!
I tried again, with the same result.
Over and over I repeated the maneuver, fishing, squeezing, pulling, until my hand cramped and I wanted to scream.
New plan.
Pressing the zipper tab to my thigh with the back of my left hand, I bent my right wrist and tried to hook a finger through the loop. The angle was too shallow.
I bent my hand farther. No go.
Using the fingers of my left hand, I placed pressure on my right, increasing the backward angle. Pain screamed up the tendons of my forearm.
As I thought my bones would snap, my index finger found the loop and slipped through. I tugged gently. The tab gave, and my bound wrists followed it down. With the zipper open, it was easy to slide the fingers of one hand into the pocket and withdraw the scalpel.
Carefully cradling my prize, I rolled onto my back and wedged the instrument against my stomach. Then I peeled off the napkin by rolling the scalpel between my hands. Rotating the blade toward my body, I began sawing the tape that bound my wrists. The scalpel was razor sharp.
Easy. Careful. Don't carve your wrist.
In less than a minute my hands were free. I reached up and tore the bindings from my lips. Flames raced across my face.
Don't scream!
I yanked the rag from my mouth, alternately gulped air and spat. Gagging on my own foul saliva, I sliced through the blindfold circling my head and ripped it from my eyes.
Another burst of fire as skin and some eyebrows went with the tape. With shaking hands, I reached down and freed my ankles.
I was slashing at the bag when a sound paralyzed my arm.
The chunk of a car door!
How far away? What to do? Play dead?
My arm flew, a piston driven by a will of its own.
Feet rustled through leaves. My mind calibrated.
Fifty yards.
I jabbed at the canvas. Up, down. Up, down.
The rustling grew louder.
Thirty yards.
I thrust my boots into the opening, thrashed out with all my strength. The tearing sounded like a shriek in the stillness.
The rustling paused, resumed, faster, more reckless.
Twenty yards.
Fifteen.
“Hold it right there.”
I pictured the gun, felt bullets slam into my flesh. It didn't matter. I'd either be dead now or dead later. Better to make a fight of it while there was still the chance to resist.
“Don't move.”
I flipped around, grabbed the edges I'd torn, and pulled with both hands. Then I lunged headfirst through the opening, tumbled facedown, rolled onto my feet, and stood on rubber legs, trying to focus.
“Madam, you are dead.”
I bolted away from the sound of the voice.
Keeping the gurgling of the river to my left, I ran through darkness dense as an endless tunnel, one arm in front of my face. Obstacles leaped at me without warning, forcing my feet on a zigzag path.
Again and again I stumbled on some form of planetary rubble. A rock older than life itself. A fallen trunk. A dead branch. I kept my balance. Burning fear gave rise to strength and speed.
The things of the night seemed to go silent. I heard no buzzing, no chirping, no padding of feet, just my own rasping breath. Behind me, footfalls, thrashing like some giant woodland beast.
Sweat soaked my clothing. Blood pounded in my ears.
My pursuer stayed with me, neither closing in nor falling back. Was he working a home court advantage? Was he the cat, I his mouse? Was he biding his time, confident the prey would be his?
My lungs burned, unable to take in enough air. A stabbing pain ripped my left side. Still, the blind urge to run.