Colde & Rainey (A Rainey Bell Thriller)

by R. E. Bradshaw

  He nodded again.

  Rainey’s teeth began to chatter along with his. “W-we’ll make it. I’m not d-dying at the hands of that bitch. H-hold this l-light on my h-hands.”

  “O-o-o-k-k-k-ay.”

  Theodore took the flashlight. He tried to focus it on Rainey’s hands, but it bounced with his shaking body. He was much colder than she was. He was failing faster. Time to move. While Rainey talked she tied one end of a survival cord around an air bag. Theodore’s clothing bag went near the other end, with enough line left to tie it to his wrist. It was hard work, with her hands shaking. She did the same thing with the other cord, tying the supplies and the bag with her clothing around one of her wrist.

  She gave instructions quickly, before the chattering of her jaws made talking too difficult. “H-hold the clothes t-tight to your chest. Let the air b-bag float free. Wedge yourself in here s-so the w-water d-doesn’t knock you around. W-w-when I get the w-window open, f-follow the airbag up, after I sh-shove it out the window. L-let the b-b-bag s-surface f-first and d-d-don’t c-c-come up r-r-r-right under it. If sh-sh-she’s there, hopefully sh-sh-she’ll sh-shoot the b-bags and n-n-not us.”

  Theodore nodded and gripped his clothing bag to his chest. Rainey was shaking uncontrollably now, as the water swirled around her thighs. It was time to go.

  “O-k-kay,” she stuttered. “I’m g-g-going t-t-o b-break a w-window.” The water had reached her waist. The pain was excruciating. “Sh-short b-breaths, n-n-now, un-t-til the l-last b-b-big br-breath b-b-before we g-go. L-let it out on the w-w-way up. D-don’t-t g-go un-t-til I s-say. D-d-don’t g-g-gasp.”

  Theodore put his shaking hand on Rainey’s arm. “D-d-don’t c-c-cut y-y-your-s-s-self.” He didn’t want to pass out now, and Rainey sure didn’t want him to either.

  Rainey nodded. “K-k-keep y-y-your h-head a-b-b-bove the w-water as l-long as y-you c-can. W-w-wait f-for it t-t-to s-s-settle. D-d-don’t p-p-panic. F-f-follow me.”

  He nodded again, or he was shaking so bad now his body was convulsing. Either way, they had to leave now.

  “H-h-hold on.” she stammered.

  Rainey placed her back on the rear door of the van and wedged her feet against the seat in front of her. She aimed the barrel of the rifle at the side window closest to her and jabbed it into the glass. The window shattered instantly. The force of the rushing water threatening to knock Rainey out of her wedged position, but she held fast.

  Once the water slowed, Rainey cleared the glass with the rifle butt. Their noses were just above the water now, the cold sending shock waves through her body. She dropped the rifle, grabbed the cord on Theodore’s wrist, and ran her fingers up to the bag. She dove under, and forced the bag down and out the window. She surfaced, grabbed some air, and then repeated the process with her air bag. Up again for one last breath in the diminishing air pocket, Rainey grabbed Theodore.

  “T-t-take a breath. G-go.” She shoved him at the window.

  For once, he did not hesitate. He dove under and slipped into open water. Rainey was right on his heels. She was too cold to feel any more. Her only concerns now were how far she’d have to swim in the freezing water, and was Ellie still up there? She surfaced quickly, right on the heels of the airbag, but there were no shots. She heard splashing to her right. Theodore was up too, swimming toward shore. They had survived the first part of this frigid nightmare, now to survive the rest.

  Chapter Eight

  6:41 p.m.

  Overcast, 34oF, Windchill 25oF

  Five yards felt like fifty. Her limbs were sluggish and dragging two bags, even with the airbag for added support, made the swim even harder. When Rainey finally reached the ledge and felt bottom underneath her, attempting to stand took several tries. She stumbled forward, finding Theodore on his hands and knees, but still in the water. She couldn’t talk. Her teeth chattered and the shivering made everything twice as difficult. A hand in his armpit to urge him forward was all she could manage.

  When her last foot left the water, Rainey dropped her hand from Theodore and yanked in the bags she towed with her. She got hers up onto dry land and then pulled Theodore’s bag to his feet. He was not moving. He stood clinching his wet body, shaking so badly his head bobbed up and down. She couldn’t help him until she helped herself. As with emergency oxygen on a plane, the adult should mask up before helping the child. Otherwise, they could both lose consciousness and die. Rainey didn’t want to die.

  She pulled her clothes bag further from the water and tore it open. She dropped her wet panties on the ground, not sure why she had kept them on. With her hands shaking so badly that she could hardly manage the job, Rainey found her mock turtleneck. It was cotton and absorbent. She did a quick drying of the water from her skin. Wet and cold meant hypothermia would set in faster. With the wind chill below freezing, heat was a premium. She dropped the wet shirt and donned the dry sweatshirt, jeans, and coat. Rainey thanked the universe when she discovered her gloves still in the pocket of the coat. They were difficult to put on, cold and stiff, and her hands were still clammy, but she forced them on. She shoved her socks in the pocket where the gloves had been. She’d have time to put them on later.

  Still shivering violently, Rainey had to sit down on the garbage bag to put on her boots, but the dry clothes were helping. The bag kept her from having to sit on the wet ground. The bag was wet, but not covered in wet muck that would cling to her and keep her damp. Dry was the answer to surviving the cold. Boots on, she stood, grabbed the shirt she dried off with, and crossed to Theodore. She moved him away from the shoreline, opened his bag, and then rubbed his skin hard with her shirt, trying to regenerate blood flow to his limbs. He barely registered her presence. One fist was clinched tightly, locked by muscles too cold to function. He appeared to have closed his mind and gone away, leaving behind his body to be handled like a marionette. He never moved when she yanked his wet boxers to the ground. Once mostly dry, Rainey dressed him like a child, and as often was the case with her own brood, she discovered he had lost his socks.

  She was warming now. The activity helped speed her recovery. Her skin tingled with the stinging return of feeling to her extremities. Rainey had reached the point where her body no longer felt the need to hoard blood within its vital organs. She still shivered, but the violent shaking had passed. Her jaw began to relax and the teeth chattering slowed and quieted, though her lips continued to tremble. Little white clouds of steam vibrated out of them, as she breathed through her mouth. Her nose was of no use, swollen, and aching. Theodore had not turned the corner yet, but life was returning to his eyes, as she coaxed his damp foot into the shoe.

  “C-come on,” Rainey said, her power of speech returning. Her stuffed and probably broken nose made her the sound like Lily Tomlin’s character, five and a half year old Edith Ann. “St-Stick your f-foot in. G-Good boy.”

  She had almost forgotten she was talking to a man. Diminutive and helpless, it was easy to forget Theodore was almost thirty years old. Completely dressed now, Rainey made a turban from the damp shirt for Theodore’s head, hoping to help him retain more heat. He was bone thin, with no body fat to speak of, the worst kind of body to have in a hypothermic situation. She turned him toward the lane leading away from the water. She remembered the old cars in the edge of the woods from her trip to the sandpit yesterday, when Bill Wise brought her to see where his father died. Rainey almost met her demise there too, but she had not yet. It was a big yet.

  One hundred yards down the lane and away from the water, those were Rainey’s goals. She didn’t want to give Ellie a second chance to put them back in. She left Theodore for a moment, while she gathered the used trash bags, their underclothes, and recovered the survival line. Rainey flattened the air bags open, rolled everything up together, and tied it all into a bundle with the supply bag. With the bundle in one hand, she tucked the fingers of her other under Theodore’s elbow.

  “L-let’s get out of this w-wind,” she said, prodding her nearly frozen compa
nion forward, as a chilling gust swept over them.

  He did not respond verbally, but she was happy to see he could walk and follow instructions.

  “D-Damn, the fl-flashlight,” Rainey lamented, looking back over her shoulder.

  Theodore did not say a word, but suddenly there was a beam of light extending from his hand. He unclenched his fist revealing the flashlight. He kept it safe since she gave it to him.

  “Th-Theodore, y-you are m-my hero.”

  “It’s Gr-Graham,” he said, his speech returning along with his pride.

  “W-well, all right, Graham Dean Colde. W-We’ll g-get w-warm, w-we’ll g-get help, and then—”

  He finished her thought, “—w-w-we’ll g-g-get ev-v-ven.”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  She put him under her shoulder and kept him close. While her shivering was milder now, Rainey knew his shaking wouldn’t stop until his core body temperature climbed back nearer to normal. Fatigue was a factor in hypothermia. The more the body shivered, the more energy it used. He would die if he reached the point where exhaustion stopped his shivering. Warm and dry was the only way he would survive a night in the woods in icy conditions. The air temperature hovered around freezing, but anything exposed to the wind was glazed with ice. The rain earlier in the day melted most of the snow and now formed frozen over puddles in the road. Everything was wet, soggy, or frozen. Starting a fire was going to take skill.

  “W-We have to b-build a f-fire,” Rainey said. “L-look for p-piles of st-sticks in the edge of the w-woods.” Her speech began to improve, when she focused her energy on calming her jaw muscles. “S-Some of the ones on the b-bottom could be dry. We m-may n-not have the energy t-to l-look later.”

  “W-We c-c-can’t w-walk out of here. It’s f-five m-miles to the n-nearest house, unl-less y-you c-c-count E-Ellie’s,” Graham pointed out.

  “N-not in the d-dark. We’re not w-walking out. I r-remember seeing some old c-cars by the lane, just in the edge of the w-woods. I think we can m-make a shelter there.”

  Rainey took the flashlight from him, because he couldn’t hold it steady, and searched the edges of the woods. Someone had cleared a large fallen limb from the road, where it sat rotting and sheltering its collected debris. It had served to keep some of the pine needles and the much-needed kindling dry. Rainey knelt down and swept the wet debris out of the way with her free hand. She gathered dry needles and twigs, stuffing them in both their pockets. Now they needed something else to burn and the more important element, a spark. Rainey had a few ideas about how to make one. Making one with shaking hands in wet conditions, that was going to be the challenge.

  “I’m g-glad y-your n-nose st-st-stopped b-bl-bleeding,” Graham said, after they’d walked quietly for a few minutes.

  “Me too,” Rainey said, finally able to speak without the stammer. She pulled him closer to her side. “I’m also glad it’s cold as hell, or it would be hurting a lot worse.”

  “El-Ellie is a b-b-bitch,” he stuttered.

  Rainey concurred, “Yes, a raging bitch.”

  “W-will sh-sh-she c-c-come b-b-back?” He asked, looking up at Rainey with terror-filled eyes.

  Rainey smiled down at him. “We’re fine. She hasn’t made it home yet. She said it took an hour to walk here at a leisurely pace. Even jogging, in the dark it will probably take her thirty or forty minutes.”

  She felt him lean into her like her children did when she read them a story. He was warming. His shivers were no longer rattling his bones quite so violently. His muscles released the contraction that held his body rigid for so long. In Graham’s case, this process was fatiguing. Rainey flashed the light into the woods, searching for the old rusting relics that would be their shelter for the night. She kept her voice calm and even, and continued leading the tiring Graham, while she eased his mind.

  “Ellie said she was going to call the police. If she does, they will have her tied up with questions, and with a crazed killer on the loose—that’s you, by the way—they will not leave her alone. If she gets away from them someway, she probably still will not return until morning, which would match her routine and not draw suspicion. She won’t find us. We’ll be warm and dry and well-defended by then if she does.”

  “Y-you’re g-going to k-k-kill her, ar-r-ren’t y-you?” Graham said.

  “We’re going to have to talk about your perception of me, but right now, I think we’re home.”

  Rainey shined the flashlight on the rusted front end of 1940s era farm truck, about ten feet inside the edge of the woods. All the glass was missing, along with the doors. There was no chassis, so the floor of the cab sat flush with the ground. The beak-shaped hood gaped open, like the bill of a rust-colored raptor. Thick vines twisted out of it and tangled in the trees above, ancient bonds rooting the old truck in place. Upon Rainey’s approach, the yawning mouth revealed an empty engine well, half-filled with leaves, broken limbs, and probably a den of some kind. She cast the beam of the flashlight around at the other vehicle carcasses, all in various states of decay. The truck offered the best shelter for two adults.

  Rainey stuck her head under the hood. “Looks like something thought this a good enough spot to den. I guess we need to evict whatever is in here, if it still is,” she said.

  Leaving Graham standing beside the truck, Rainey found a long solid stick and poked around in the pile of debris inside the engine well. Nothing stirred.

  “Okay, I think we’re the only ones at the Inn. Hang on a sec and let me take some of this wet stuff off the top of the pile,” she said.

  Rainey told Graham everything to keep him involved and his mind active. She climbed over the front grill and dropped onto the leaves. It took a few minutes of house cleaning, moving out the soggy top layer of debris, clearing the limbs and sticks, to make the space ready for them. Rainey pushed the pile of remaining leaves and pine needles toward the front of the truck, exposing the hole where the transmission would have been. It formed a perfect little oven under the cab. She kicked at the old rusty metal, opening a hole near the top.

  “Look, we have a stove and it comes with a chimney. That will let the smoke go up, but the fire will heat up the metal. A small fire will work very well in here.”

  She hopped over the grill, recovered the supply bag, and tossed it into their new home. Once she had helped Graham over the grill, Rainey followed him in. Squatting to tear open the plastic holding all they had to survive, she first retrieved the box of trash bags. Pulling one out, she laid it on top of the pile of debris. Out of the wind now, Rainey could feel the difference in the temperature. She wasn’t warm yet, but with the shelter, even without a fire, she knew they could survive.

  “Okay, sit down here out of the wind. It’s going to be tight in here when I join you, but that will help us stay warm. How are you doing? Getting any warmer?”

  Graham lowered himself down to sit where she instructed. “I-I th-think s-s-s-o.”

  Rainey dug in the bag again, coming out with a baby diaper, a juice box, and one of Mack’s shirts. She knew it was Mack’s because his were bigger than Timothy or Weather’s. Rainey’s mind drifted to home and family. By now, Katie would be frantic. She would have called everyone she knew, including FBI Supervisory Special Agent Danny McNally. Rainey couldn’t spend time imagining how they would find her. She simply had to believe they would. She dug in the bag again and found a pack of peanut butter crackers and another baby shirt, this one pink.

  “Here, eat these and drink the juice. Your body needs calories to create heat.” She reached up and took the damp temporary hat from Graham’s head and replaced it with an open diaper, which she held in place by slipping Mack’s shirt over it. “Okay, we’ll get that head warm so you can help me. I’d like to put that genius brain of yours to work.”

  Graham fumbled with the cracker package. His energy level was nearly depleted. Rainey slipped the pink shirt over her head, foregoing the diaper until she became more desperate. The shirt served its purpose, cove
ring her freezing ears. The lavender hippopotamus on the front probably went well with the forming blackened-eyes she was sure to have, and the nose she knew must be all shades of deep blues and purples. As she warmed, a distant throb was coming more clearly into focus. Graham continued fumbling with the plastic covering the crackers. Rainey took it from him, opened it, and handed it back. She poked the straw through the juice box for him and placed it in his hand.

  “You’re going to feel better in a minute, Graham. I know you’re tired and cold. Chew slowly and eat at least two crackers before you stop.”

  Rainey removed the dry kindling from of her pockets and placed it in the proposed stove area, before pulling the socks out.

  I would give you my gloves, but these socks will be warmer than leather.”

  She removed the juice box, covered his pale frozen hand with a sock, and then replaced the juice box, folding his fingers around it for him. He chewed slowly with deliberate jaw motions, crunching tiny pieces one at a time. She removed the cracker from the fingertips of the still uncovered hand. He chewed and stared at his hand as if it were no longer attached to him. On went the sock and the cracker was returned.

  “Sorry these have been worn, but I guess you don’t care at this point, huh? How’s that?” She asked, checking his eyes for signs he was still with her.

  Graham nodded, with cracker crumbs on his trembling lips.

  “I’m going to put this other pair on your feet. You just eat.” She kept the banter up, hoping to keep Graham’s mind active, while she pulled his shoes off and put on the socks. He had yet to turn the corner and it was beginning to worry her more by the minute. If his body went into shock, he would need immediate medical care. “I read once that besides your head, more heat escapes from your ankles than any other part of the body. I wonder if it’s true. We’ll cover yours up anyway, just to be sure.”