Hearing that sound, any sound, was almost reassuring to him.
I’m not dead yet, he thought. I may be in a steel coffin, but I’m not dead yet.
He heard the wheels of the pick-up grind against the gravel of the motel parking lot, then pull onto the street, and the ride began.
Some of it — the first half hour — was on blacktop. The barrel swayed, on the turns, lifting off its bottom tilting just a bit, but never falling over, thanks to the balance he was providing. He began to feel numb. He began not to breathe so hard. The coldness stopped bothering him. He became almost lulled by the darkness, the blacktop road they were rolling over.
Then they hit gravel again, and it was bumpy, and a chuckhole sent the drum clanging into the side of the pick-up and he cracked the side of his head and the pain sent some tears down his cheeks, but the pain wasn’t so bad, really. It was something to do.
Is this what death is like? he wondered. Is it darkness? Is it lack of sensation? Coldness that stops being cold? Pain that stops hurting? Mary Beth, is this death? Boone — is this a coma?
They were pulling in somewhere, slowing down.
Stopping.
Motor still going.
The door on the rider’s side was opening. Someone was getting out. Footsteps on gravel. A gate opening, metallic sounding. Footsteps on gravel again. Back in the pick-up. Door closing.
The pick-up was moving again. Slowly, now.
Then it stopped.
Both doors opened. Footsteps on hard earth. The tailgate was lowered. He heard one of the men hop up onto the bed of the pick-up.
And tipped the barrel over. The side of his head slammed into the side of the drum, stunning him, and then they were rolling him, the barrel and him, and the metal of the pick-up bed and the metal of the drum clashed, and he held his neck muscles tight to keep his head from getting banged.
They rolled him only to the edge of the pick-up, then set him down on the ground, rather gently actually.
Then they were rolling him again, and he pulled his neck muscles in tight, but Christ, they were rolling him, rolling him, and he was getting dizzy, so dizzy...
Then he felt himself, and the drum around him, go off the edge of something.
It wasn’t a long drop. Maybe six feet. The side of him slammed into the side of the barrel, when it landed, but it didn’t hurt him. He didn’t feel it much. The drum seemed to be sitting at an angle, but he couldn’t be sure.
Then he heard one of the men talking to the other. It was the first time he’d heard them speak, but he couldn’t make out any of what was being said.
One of the men came down in the hole and straightened the barrel, so that it and Crane were sitting upright. Nice of him.
A few minutes passed. Silence. A certain calm settled over him, as he sat in his drum, in his fetal position, waiting. Waiting for them to kill him.
Then he heard it: something dropping on the top of the lid of the barrel, like rain. Then it was heavier, more like hail.
Dirt.
They were burying him.
He tried to scream, but the tape across his mouth wouldn’t let him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He didn’t know how long he’d been buried. The truckers would be gone, by now. He was cold. The stale air seemed to cling to him; so did the darkness. He wondered how long he could last. How long before he would suffocate.
His hands were almost free. He was gradually working one hand down through the knotted loop around his now rope-burned wrists, scraping his knuckles till they bled, which felt good to him, made him feel a little less dead, and then his hands were free and he tore the tape from his lips and began to yell.
Someone would hear him. Someone had to hear.
He yelled until his throat was raw, his voice a hoarse whisper, his ears ringing with the sound he’d made that only he’d heard.
No one would hear him. Who was he kidding? The truckers had obviously dumped him in the country someplace. A landfill, maybe, judging from the sound of the gate that had been opened before the truck drove in to where he’d been dumped. And who would be around at a landfill before dawn, to hear him scream? Nobody. Whoever worked here might come around seven-thirty or eight, but that was hours away; would his air supply last that long? He didn’t suppose this thing was airtight, but then he’d heard them filling the hole around him with dirt, and he knew there was dirt over him: no, he’d suffocate before anybody found him. If they found him. Who was to say he’d ever be found at all? Just something else Kemco had buried and forgotten.
He pushed at the lid above him. It seemed to give, a little. A very little, but it did give.
They had hammered that lid down, but maybe he could push up on it and pop the seal, and then maybe he could work the lid off and push it to one side or pull it partially down in with him, and get at the dirt above him, and dig his way out. There couldn’t be that much dirt over him; he hadn’t dropped that far. A foot or two. He could do it. He could do it.
He pushed with both hands, fingers spread, putting his shoulders into it. And getting nowhere. Again. Harder. Longer.
No.
He sat trying to catch his breath, which wasn’t easy in this recycled air. He felt hot, despite the cold; his muscles started to hurt him again, his back was aching. But that was okay: it was better than numbness, and the numbness especially in his arms, was getting worked out.
He put his hands above him, flat, and tried to get his leg muscles into it, tried to stand up, in effect; he pushed up with his legs and put the back of his shoulders up against the lid and his hands slid away and he shoved upward with his whole body.
He kept trying till his body couldn’t do it anymore.
And when he sat back down, a sob came out of him, which he quickly swallowed. He couldn’t allow himself that: he couldn’t let the situation control him; he had to control the situation. He would rest, and try again.
He did, and failed.
He started to cry.
Then he began pummeling the lid above him with his fists, denting the metal. His knuckles began bleeding again. But he was in so restricted an area, a position, that his fists couldn’t do much damage, either to himself or the lid. The drum he was in ignored his efforts, his tantrum.
He lowered his head. His shoulders slumped. He sobbed. Loud. Then soft. In some small compartment in his mind, the impartial observer in him sat and recorded it all, seeing it as if from outside, as if this were an experiment he were part of, or perhaps himself conducting, thinking: so this is despair. This is how despair feels. It isn’t just a word.
He tried to think of what Mary Beth’s face looked like but he couldn’t bring the image into focus; couldn’t exactly remember. He couldn’t find her voice, either. And Boone. He tried to see Boone in his mind not in a coma but couldn’t. He couldn’t. He tried to remember what it was like not to be in this drum. He felt cold. He hugged his arms to himself. His chin touched his chest.
He slept.
Chapter Twenty-Six
He woke.
He was in a hospitaclass="underline" he could smell it around him. He was in a hospital bed. The sheets felt cool. He felt a little groggy. He ached a little. He looked at his hands: they were bandaged.
“Good morning,” a voice said.
Crane turned his head slowly and looked at the man seated to his right, near his bed: a guy about thirty with thinning brown hair and gray-tinted glasses; he had on a tan sport jacket with a solid blue tie loose at the neck. He’d been reading a newspaper, waiting for Crane to come around, apparently.