In the pitch-blackness, the gag absorbed moisture in Cavanaugh's mouth. It made his throat dry. It made the fetid air he breathed tickle his bronchial passages. He feared he would cough. He feared he would choke.
"When you think about it, we've never been closer than we are right now," Carl said. "It's not a bad way to die. Pressed against the person we love."
Fighting not to panic, Cavanaugh held his breath in the hopes of stifling his impulse to gag. He failed. His stomach heaved. Bile soared up his throat.
Chapter 39.
Where? Jamie mentally yelled, not daring to speak and make herself a target. Where are they?
Rutherford moved next to her, aiming to the right while she aimed to the left. They continued slowly, warily, into the fog. As much as she could estimate in the darkness, the screams had come from straight ahead. With her attention focused there, the ground beneath her suddenly collapsed. She fell, sliding downward, tumbling into water. Rutherford splashed next to her, sprawling, the creek flowing over them.
They scrambled upright, but any element of surprise was now lost, and Jamie's stomach seemed filled with sharp heavy stones as she peered over the top of the opposite bank. More darkness and fog awaited them. She aimed to the left, listening intensely for any indication of where Cavanaugh might be. But what caught her attention wasn't a sound.
It was a glow so faint that it might have been marsh light. Climbing from the creek, aiming, she crept toward the pale illumination, Rutherford moving next to her.
They reached trees. The glow was stronger. On the ground. Among bushes. A flashlight. When Jamie picked it up, she did what Cavanaugh had taught her to do, keeping it away from her center of mass so that a bullet aimed toward the light wouldn't hit her chest.
She scanned the trees and bushes. Rutherford pointed, crimson attracting her attention: blood on a stake tied to a branch. Her mouth sour, she aimed the flashlight toward the ground, seeing more blood. Following it, they left the trees. The blood went in two directions. Some of it formed a trail on the left, where the flashlight revealed a dead Labrador retriever, a knife sticking into it.
"What the hell happened here?" Jamie murmured.
"Hell," Rutherford said. "Exactly."
The blood trail on the right led to a picnic table, and here Jamie found an astonishing amount of blood, a spray of it everywhere. The sharp stones in her stomach now felt like cold barbed wire twisting inside her. Rutherford pointed again. The blood led toward the creek. They peered down at the water, where the blood was no longer in sight.
Chapter 40.
"Take it easy," Carl whispered, pulling the rag from Cavanaugh's mouth as bile rushed into his mouth. "We don't want you to choke to death. Especially when you've got the alternative of the dreaminess of bleeding to death."
Cavanaugh spit acid and gasped for air. He understood. Carl had spoken about the plastic sheet above the roof, the barrier that kept water out. But the floor was now wet, the fluid rising, and the only explanation for that was blood--from Cavanaugh's wounded side, punctured chest, and sliced back as well as from Carl's stabbed thigh and bleeding eye socket.
"Aren't we a pair?" Carl said. "Just like being in a womb. From the cradle to the grave. Drifting away. On the path to dreamland. What's the best time we ever had together. No. Don't answer that. Instead of whispering, you might scream. I'm afraid I need to gag you again."
Carl crammed the rag into Cavanaugh's mouth, then nestled against him. "Blood sure smells like copper."
But Cavanaugh couldn't smell anything. Indeed, he had trouble feeling the wet, slippery wood beneath him. His mind again swirled.
"The best time we ever had was when we went camping in Colorado and . . ."
Chapter 41.
Screaming inwardly, Jamie shifted along the creek, scanning each side of it while Rutherford aimed toward the top of the bank in case a dark figure attacked them. Where? she kept demanding. Where's the blood? She almost did scream when it occurred to her that they might be heading in the wrong direction. Rather than searching deeper into the park, perhaps they should have gone in the opposite direction. Her trembling hand made the flashlight waver, its beam flicking this way and that. Time seemed suspended, yet she felt that ten minutes went by in an instant. The blood! Where's the damned . . .
There! She saw it, the crimson rising from the creek, blending with deep footprints that struggled up the bank on the right. She and Rutherford hurried to the top, and now Jamie felt the barbed wire in her stomach become molten. It expanded, threatening to burn through her belly. The blood formed a pool in the grass in front of her.
But it didn't go farther.
Chapter 42.
"Looks like I'll win my bet," Carl whispered. "If they were going to find us, they'd have done it by now. I cut a piece from my jacket and tied it around my leg so I wouldn't drip blood on the ground. I came back here and got one of the plastic sheets I stole from a construction site. I wrapped it around you so you wouldn't drip blood when I carried you here. As far as whoever's out there is concerned, we vanished. Ain't that great? Our last game of hide and seek."
Cavanaugh managed to nod. His consciousness wavering, he thought about all the things he regretted--not kissing Jamie more often, not telling her often enough how much he loved her. He regretted the beatings Carl had received from his father. He regretted not having spent more time with Carl in the weeks before his father's disgrace forced Carl's family to move to Nashville. He regretted having treated Carl's letters and phone calls as a nuisance. He regretted not having kept in touch with Carl after Global Protective Services fired him.
What do you say we go out for a drink, Carl? How about a movie and a burger afterward? How about visiting my ranch in Wyoming? You'll love my home. Sunset over the Tetons. A friendship . All this happened, so many people died, because of a friendship that went bad .
His suffocated mind couldn't find the words. Who's the self-centered asshole, Carl? You think I let you down? Pal, you let me down.
He knew he ought to feel angry. Furious. And he was . If he had the strength, he'd find a way to grab Carl's head and pound it until . . .