In Shadows

by Chandler McGrew

  Like he was going to save anybody.

  He shoved off anyway, still fighting to keep the flashlight above water. Several times the current bumped him against a tree so hard it knocked the wind out of him. He kicked off from a thick spruce and rolled onto his side, doing the crawl. He was swept between a stand of birch just as he spotted the car ahead and realized it was Mandi’s station wagon. He kicked in that direction, but the current kept dragging him away into the darkness.

  He paddled and kicked as hard as he could, panting like a run-out racehorse by the time his hand slapped the rear window of the car. He scrabbled for purchase on the slippery metal as the current dragged him along the car’s body, finally snatching the door handle and spinning himself up onto the hood. The water pressed hard against the little car, threatening to sink it at any minute, and Jake wondered first how he was going to get Mandi and Pierce out, then what they were all going to do once he had.

  Mandi chanced rolling her window down just a crack. “How did you get here?” she shouted.

  “Took a swim,” said Jake. “I thought you might need me.”

  She tried to smile, but there were tears in her eyes.

  “What do we do?” she shouted.

  “Will Pierce roll down his own window?” said Jake.

  She glanced at the boy and nodded again.

  “Set up a signal,” Jake shouted, standing on tiptoe to secure the flashlight in the lowest branches of one of the trees. “I want you both to roll them down at the same time. As fast as you can. Then you slide out your side and onto the hood. If you feel yourself slipping grab hold of the tree.”

  “I don’t want to leave Pierce inside.”

  “Mandi, you have to trust me,” said Jake, wondering if she would. “While you’re going out your side, I’m going back in the water, and I’m going to grab Pierce and pull him out. Tell him what’s happening.”

  She took Pierce’s hand and signed. It was clear from the rapid hand movements that there was a problem.

  “What’s the matter?” shouted Jake.

  “He doesn’t want me to leave him.”

  “You aren’t leaving him.”

  “I’m explaining that concept to him!”

  Finally Pierce nodded and put his hand on the window button.

  “He knows I’m going to grab him?” said Jake.

  Mandi’s face was white in the flashlight’s glow. “Yes.”

  “All right. On my mark you both let them down. What’s Pierce’s signal?”

  “I’m going to pat him on the arm.”

  “Go.”

  Mandi reached over and tapped Pierce. She waited until his window started down before she pressed her own control. Very quickly, cold gray water started pouring over the top of the glass. By the time the window was all the way down the water rushed in so fast she could barely press herself into the opening. But still she waited, half in, half out, watching Jake across the roof of the car, reaching for Pierce.

  “Mandi!” Jake screamed. “Get out! I’ve got him.”

  Only then did she pull herself out of the car.

  Jake gripped the window frame with one hand, the half-healed bullet wound burning like a brand. With the other he grabbed Pierce and pulled the boy, coughing and gagging, out into the flow.

  Pierce was jerked sideways by the current, and Jake twisted with him, hanging onto the window, swinging the boy toward the closest tree. But he could already feel the rear end of the car dipping from the weight of the water, the front end pulling itself out of the wedging trees. He glanced over in time to see Mandi crawling onto the hood, but the current was breaking his grip. He let go of the car and kicked back, allowing the surge to press him against the fender. He slipped along the car to the tree, and when he had a firm grip around its trunk, he pulled Pierce back to him, showing the boy how to wrap his arms around the spruce and let the flood hold him there.

  “Mandi!” he shouted. “Over here.”

  She slid toward them, but suddenly the car rolled away on the current, and she was carried along with it, then dragged under the dark swirling water. Jake kicked off, diving blindly into the flood. He ran his hands over the car grille as it slipped away from him, until his fingernails snagged cloth, and with a firm grip he fought toward the surface. Mandi popped up, gagging and sputtering beside him.

  “Pierce!” she gasped, as they spun and bounced through the flood.

  “Lock arms!” screamed Jake.

  Mandi grabbed his free arm just in time for a tall birch to catch them midgrip. They swung around it, bumping into each other on the far side.

  “Pierce is back there!” she shouted.

  “I know that,” he said, staring toward the meager flashlight glow. He could barely make out the boy’s face, fifty feet away through the trees.

  “He can’t hear or see us!”

  Pierce couldn’t come to them, and if Jake managed to make it to him he didn’t know if he’d have the strength to get back to Mandi with the boy.

  “How’s your swimming these days?” he said.

  “I can get to my son.”

  “All right. But when we take off there’s no stopping. No letting up.”

  She nodded. “Just let me catch my breath.”

  When he sensed she was ready he tapped her on the shoulder. “I’ll be right beside you. If you need to rest just let me carry you.”

  “You’ll wear out before we get there.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  She surprised him by kicking out into the flood first, stroking hard, her feet making a propeller splash behind her. But headway came dear against the current. Jake watched her for a moment to gauge her strength. She wouldn’t give up until the flood killed her. But it might well kill her before she reached Pierce.

  He leaped out into the flow, following in her wake.

  HE LAST FEW FEET WERE THE WORST. The trees were closer together, and the water rampaged through them. It was all Jake could do to paddle and kick the final inches to the tree, tugging an exhausted Mandi along beside him. Now she and Pierce clung to the first spruce, and Jake was five feet away, wrapped around the other. With the car and the headlights gone, safety and the flashlight were eight feet above their heads. The water was like ice. Jake’s entire body felt bee-stung. Hypothermia. The next step would be numbness. Then death.

  “We have to climb up in the tree!” he shouted.

  “I don’t think I can make it,” said Mandi.

  “You have to.”

  “What about Pierce?”

  Jake took several deep breaths, struggling to get his stamina back. The space between them wasn’t much of a jump, but at the moment the distance seemed almost insurmountable.

  “I’m coming over!”

  Mandi nodded, crowding behind Pierce, wrapping her arms around him and the tree. Jake kicked off upstream, letting the water carry him back to them. He slid his hand between Pierce and the tree and hung on. He glanced up at the flashlight that was now way out of reach.

  “Can you explain to him what we need to do?” shouted Jake.

  Mandi let go of the tree with one hand and got Pierce to open one palm. She signed rapidly, but Pierce shook his head.

  “What did he say?” said Jake.

  “He said we need to get out of here.”

  Jake frowned, spitting water. “Tell him he has a firm grasp of the obvious.”

  But Pierce continued signing.

  “He said he hears the whispers again,” said Mandi.

  Jake closed his eyes and tried to hear it, but the rushing water and the slapping rain obscured all other sounds. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “He says it’s coming this way.”

  She signed back to Pierce, but before she was finished he began to jerk convulsively in her arms.

  “What the hell?” said Jake.

  “He’s trying to get away!” she said, hugging Pierce against the tree.

  Jake glanced up once more at the flashlight, then searche
d the trees around them for some way out. He tried to spot higher ground through the feeble glow, but everything around them was rushing water. Pierce was about to break away from his mother, and if he did Jake had no idea how he’d get the kid back.

  “All right! Tell him we’ll get out of here.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t ask me how yet! Just tell him!”

  Mandi signed to the boy again, and Pierce quieted, but his face was still a mask of terror.

  “Here!” said Jake, crowding in closer to Mandi and slipping his hand between her and Pierce. “Have him talk to me.”

  Pierce bent his elbow nearly double, but managed to spell into Jake’s hand.

  It’s almost here.

  Jake shook his head. I don’t hear it.

  It’s coming.

  Jake wanted to say, So what? It wasn’t like the whispers were the only thing they had to worry about. But the look on the boy’s face was worth a thousand words, and Jake couldn’t get the image of mangled corpses out of his mind. Suddenly drowning didn’t seem so bad.

  “I’m going to climb up and get the light,” he said.

  Mandi peered up the slippery tree trunk but said nothing as Jake worked his way around to find a better climbing position. Pierce felt the movement and tried to get Mandi to give him her hand, but she put herself nose to nose with him and shook her head emphatically.

  Jake lunged upward, locking his arms and legs around the tree like a boa constrictor, but even as he did gravity pulled him downward. He bumped Mandi’s shoulder with the sole of one shoe.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m all right,” said Mandi, twisting her head to see up through the rain.

  “There’s nothing to get a grip on.”

  He dug his nails into the bark, vising his knees into the trunk, but the damned tree was slippery as an eel. He tried another leap upward, but he plunged backward into the stream just in time to see the flashlight dropping into the raging flood. He slapped his way to the surface, wrapping his arms around Mandi and Pierce as the flashlight doused itself somewhere in the depths.

  Now they were all blind.

  “Great,” he muttered.

  Pierce began to shake again, trying to break free of Mandi’s grasp. Jake squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, but it didn’t seem to help.

  “I can’t hold him much longer,” Mandi gasped.

  “We’ll have to keep Pierce between us,” said Jake. “Whatever you do don’t let go of him, and I won’t, either. We can stop at trees for a breather.”

  “All right!”

  He eased around, pressed into her by the force of the water. When he reached the far side of the tree he found Pierce’s hand and spelled.

  We’re going to swim. Just float on your back. Don’t let go of our hands.

  Pierce squeezed his hand tightly.

  “Float with your feet in front of you for protection,” Jake shouted at Mandi. “And keep your knees bent! Are you ready?”

  “I guess so,” she answered uncertainly.

  “Okay, then,” said Jake. He took Pierce’s right hand in his left. As they splashed out into the current, Jake thought he, too, heard the whispering sound.

  EEPING THREE PEOPLE TOGETHER and alive in the swirling black madness of the flood was insanity. Jake’s knees ached, and his shoulders were raw from being rubbed against rough bark and broken branches. His mouth was full of foul-tasting, gritty runoff. And each time they were driven into a tree he nearly lost his grip on Pierce. Worst of all, he could hear the whispering clearly now.

  It stalked and circled them through the flood like a shark. Pierce struggled frantically between them, and Jake could hear Mandi panting and sputtering on the other side of the boy. When Jake bumped into yet another tree he locked his arm around it, drawing Mandi and Pierce in, even though Pierce continued to kick and splash.

  “I’ve got to rest,” Jake shouted at Mandi. “Tell him to give me just a moment.”

  “He’s terrified,” she said.

  Like I’m not, thought Jake.

  Only the occasional lightning bolt revealed any of their surroundings. The entire valley seemed to be under water. They weren’t swimming through tree trunks any longer. They were being propelled through the upper branches. And the sound kept getting closer. To Jake it felt as though the thing was breathing right down the back of his neck.

  “Come on,” he said, kicking off again just as another lightning bolt flashed.

  But the struggle through the current was wearing him to the breaking point. He gave one last hard kick—fearing that his decision had cost them all their lives—and was surprised when his feet touched solid ground.

  “Hey!” he said, jerking Pierce to his feet. The water was barely up to Jake’s waist. “Keep moving upslope.”

  They struggled into ever shallower water until they finally huddled, shivering, beneath the spreading branches of a fir, at last out of the flood.

  “Do you have any idea where we are?” shouted Mandi.

  “No.”

  “We can’t stay here.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Well, which way should we go?”

  “I can’t tell where the damned noise is coming from,” said Jake. “One minute it’s over here. Then it’s over there.”

  Pierce slapped at Jake’s chest, then found his hand again.

  It’s coming, Pierce spelled.

  Jake spelled back, trying to explain to Pierce how dangerous it was to continue stumbling around in the dark, but Pierce took Jake’s hand and pointed behind him.

  You know where it is? spelled Jake.

  Pierce placed Jake’s hand on his head and nodded vigorously.

  “He says he can tell where the sound is coming from,” said Jake.

  “Maybe we should just go where Pierce doesn’t hear it,” said Mandi.

  Jake didn’t have any better ideas, and the noise was growing again, turning dirgelike and even more threatening than before.

  Jake placed Pierce’s hand on his head and nodded back.

  “What if we’re moving away from the road, though?” said Mandi, as Pierce dragged them along.

  “Right now I’m more interested in moving away from whatever that is,” shouted Jake.

  They clung to each other, crashing through underbrush, trudging in and out of shallow water, the rain dripping in sheets from the thick canopy overhead. Jake fought his growing panic, knowing that Pierce and Mandi were only controlling theirs because of him.

  They wandered for what seemed miles before Jake jerked Pierce and Mandi to a halt. Pierce tugged at his arm, and Jake could feel fear raging through the boy.

  “Tell him I need to think!” shouted Jake.

  She moved close to Jake, wedging Pierce between them. Pierce tugged at their hands, slipping one of his under Mandi’s and signing furiously.

  “He says he knows the way!” Mandi shouted.

  “Mandi, that’s crazy.”

  “Maybe it isn’t. He said being lost is like being broken.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Pierce is good at fixing things.”

  “We could drown out here, Mandi. If Pierce is in the lead and gets caught in a current he might be pulled away, and we wouldn’t see him.”

  “I know that. But we’re running out of time. We have to trust him. He says that thing is coming, right now.”

  At that instant another bolt of lightning struck somewhere up the mountain, and Jake thought he caught a glimpse of a giant shadow moving at the farthest range of his vision.

  “Go on, then,” he said, nudging Pierce. Pierce squeezed his hand and pulled them up a muddy slope that seemed intent on impeding their progress. The sound was louder now, nearly drowning out the rain.

  ANDLELIGHT FROM A WINDOW drew Virgil’s attention to Mandi’s house, and a tremor of fear raced through him. He shielded the flashlight with a capped hand and stared through the window at the Latino man sitting in the recliner, c
lothed only in a towel. The toned arms and tight abs spoke of long hours in a workout room, but the Ranger tattoo and the pistol resting on the table beside him warned Virgil that this was no simple street tough.

  The smart thing would be to hike up the road to Pam’s house and get Jake and Cramer, then come back here and corral this guy and his partner, who was presumably also in the house. But he was afraid that the road between Mandi’s and Pam’s might be flooded, too, and getting there and back was problematic. At least Mandi’s car was gone. That was good news.

  Sometimes you couldn’t do the smart thing. Sometimes you had to go with your gut. And at least he had the element of surprise going for him.

  Climbing silently up onto the stoop, a patch of mud just in front of the threshold caught his eye, and he leaned over to get a better look.

  “Shit,” he whispered, staring at the neat footprint in the wet brown clay. A perfect star was centered on the sole. At least one of the guys inside Mandi’s house had been at Albert’s the day of the killing. Why? Had Albert died because he wouldn’t give out information on Jake?

  Virgil flicked the flashlight off and rested it in a corner of the wall. Then he checked to make sure there was a shell in the chamber and the safety was off on the shotgun. But his quivering hand reminded him of his age again and that at least one of the guys inside was mid-thirties, athletic, and trained to kill. God only knew who the other guy was or what kind of training he had. Or where he was. His resolve quavering, Virgil did what came naturally.

  He acted.

  Gripping the shotgun tightly in one hand, he quietly turned the knob, slamming the door open as he burst into the hallway, pointing the shotgun at the big bastard who was already reaching for his pistol.

  “Shove it away!” he shouted, watching the hallway from the corner of his eye.

  The guy did as he was told, the pistol clattering to the floor, but not far enough away for Virgil’s peace of mind. The bathroom door opened just a crack, and Virgil shouted instinctively.

  “Come out with your hands up, or I put a shell right through that door!”