“Right.” She could hear Ben’s footsteps in the grass beside her. He was still with her. He was helpless to assist, though.
Once in the parking lot, Brad reached his hand out again. “Give me your keys and get in the passenger’s seat. That’s a girl, nice and slow.”
She handed him her car keys and crept to her car, fumbling to open the passenger’s side door. Every fiber of her being told her not to get into the car with him, but what other choice did she have? He would shoot her. Fuck, he was probably going to shoot her anyway.
He pointed the gun at her. “Seatbelt, Madison. We don’t want what happened to Jan happening to your pretty face.”
She fumbled with the seatbelt, but slowly drew it across her body and latched it. It felt like she was just strapping herself in to die.
He rounded the car and slid into the driver’s seat, adjusting it to better accommodate the length of his legs. The car roared to life as he turned the key into the ignition, and he easily pulled out of the lot and back to the main road. Nobody had seen them. Nobody knew she was with him, trapped in her own car.
She had no idea what roads he was following, but she quickly realized he was taking her deeper into the battlefield. The beam of light from the headlights glanced off monuments as they passed, shadowy stone spectators of her plight. Statues couldn’t help her. Mike couldn’t help her at this point; the battlefield was too big. He was as helpless as Ben was; hell, she didn’t even know where she was. How could Mike possibly find her, even if he knew she was in trouble?
“You know, you brought this on yourself.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him look at her. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
“I was doing my job.”
“Oh, sure, that’s what you were doing. The job I so graciously gave you. You’re a marginal archeologist with marginal technique. Diggers like you are a dime a dozen. You have no experience and yet, you still manage to stumble on the greatest discovery this god damned park has seen in twenty years. Now you’re the belle of the ball! Magnificent Madison, the best god damned thing to happen to archeology. You’re going to single handedly save the field.” He pounded his fist into the steering wheel. “Meanwhile, I play gopher for the park service. I file all the permits and I make sure all the work is done correctly and reported to headquarters two god damned days before they need it, because they expect it to be done two weeks ahead of schedule. They don’t want results. They want it done. And who’s the one who put the test pit in the woods? Madison. Who discovered the remains of a female soldier? Madison. Who is the poster child for archeology? Madison. Every waking breath of my life is devoted to this god damned field and what do I get? Nothing. I get nothing.”
“Please just let me out of the car.” She forced her breath in and out of her lungs evenly, trying to stay calm. Trying to feign confidence.
“I’m not letting you out of the car.”
“If you let me go, we can just forget any of this happened. I’ll just resign from the dig and go home—”
“You’re not going home!” His voice was at a near roar. He lifted the gun from his lap and motioned at her. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth. We’re going to end this now.”
Tears pricked the back of her eyes. She blinked them back, holding her breath in her lungs in an attempt to ground herself. Being afraid wasn’t going to stop him. Trying to appeal to reason wasn’t going to stop him. He seemed to feed off her weakness. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
“It didn’t have to be like this.” He balanced the gun on his lap and slid his hand to her knee. “You should have made it easy like Cianna. She understood what it takes to get ahead. That could have been you; you could have just breezed through this dig. I’d have raved about you to my uncle and got you into grad school. Now you’re forcing me to have to tell him how devastating it is to lose such a bright girl with so much potential.”
She shoved his hand away. “Mike won’t let you get away with this.”
“Mike was your first mistake. In fact, I should have thrown you off the dig once you started fucking him. But, if you think he’s going to show up and save you,” —Brad set the gun on his lap and fished in his jacket pocket, pulling out a cell phone and confirming what she’d already figured out — “you’re wrong.”
“How did you get it away from him?” Panic welled up in her throat. “Did you hurt Mike too?”
“Christ, what do you take me for? You think I’d mess with some battle scarred hot head?” He snorted. “I took it when he so gallantly took you back to the Jeep to get yours. And, once you and I are finished, I’ll leave it with you. That way, the police can give it back to him after they find you.”
The road wound around a sharp curve; as it straightened, the car’s headlights illuminated two figures standing in the middle of the road. Madison’s breath caught in her throat. They were the dead: two soldiers, black empty orbits focused on the approaching car, their uniform jackets flung open as if in leisurely relaxation. She could see them so well, could see each detail of their uniforms and accoutrements.
“What the…” Brad leaned closer to the steering wheel, his brow furrowed. She knew he saw them too, just as she did. They stood still and stared, never moving or flinching, never wavering from their position in the road.
Brad slammed his foot to the brakes. The gun slid from his lap to the floor as the car slowed; it impacted with a dull thud.
It had to be enough.
In one fluid movement, Madison wrenched the seatbelt from around her waist and opened the passenger’s side door, throwing herself out and tumbling to the asphalt below. Pain seared across her lower extremities, across her hip, through her knees. She was falling, rolling, landing. Gravel and shards of branches ripped into her palms as she hoisted herself upward and tested her footing. Shaky but firm. She launched forward and into the consuming blackness of the woods, half expecting him to grab her from behind or her legs to give way beneath her.
He howled in the car, an unearthly combination of a roar and a scream.
Blind from the inky darkness around her, she half ran, half fell through the thick underbrush. She kept her hands in from of her, a feeble attempt to keep from slamming into a tree. It was impossible to tell where he’d taken her. She could be anywhere on the battlefield. Brad was right. Mike was never going to find her in time. She didn’t know where to run, didn’t know if there was a place to hide.
And Brad was right behind her. He had to be, she sounded like a grizzly bear crashing through the woods. Terror seized up her throat, and tears she’d fought to hold back spilled over her cheeks. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t think. The blackness around her was dizzying, pulsing; she was running to nowhere. She couldn’t stop.
Slow down.
The voice was beside her. It was inside her head at the same time, his heartbeat pounding as if it matched her own. She could feel his hand encircle her wrist, softly at first like the gentle kiss of a breeze, but with a sudden tug.
They’ll delay him as best they can, but you need to slow down. Hide. Here, now, you have to trust me.
She could hear him so clearly, like her desperation somehow amplified his voice. It registered in her mind, the words he’d spoken back at the summer kitchen: our souls are bound.
She slowed to a stop. There was no other choice.
The tip of her shoe hit pavement. Maybe the road circled around back on itself. Maybe if she followed it, she’d be able to figure out where she was. Brad was nearby; he’d stopped moving, but his scream pinpointed him still behind her. Still with the car?
Here. You won’t make it if you run.
She crept forward in the dark, allowing the tug of his hand and voice to lead her through the darkness. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him. It seemed like he was all around her, next to her; she wouldn’t die alone.
Her fingers brushed against cold marble—a monument.
Behind it. Go.
Sh
e wrapped her arms around the monument and slid around to what she hoped was the back. Her shoulder seemed to slam into a brick wall, she stopped. A firm force on her shoulder pushed her down to her knees.
Ahead, she saw a brief flash of light. The unmistakable shriek of her brakes sounded more like the scream of the dead, a warning. He was coming; he’d given up chasing her by foot.
Madison held her breath and pressed her forehead to the cold marble base of the monument. The damp earth beneath her knees soaked through her jeans. She tried to ink into the marble, to form her body to the hard lines of the squat, rectangular shape. One shadow would betray her. One movement, one sound—it would be over.
Something crashed through the woods ahead. The car picked up speed, the taillights quickly disappeared around the bend and the rumble of the old engine faded into silence.
She exhaled slowly, whispering into the night. “Where am I?”
Culp’s Hill.
“How do I get back to town?”
“Ahead, behind him.”
“What if I go the other way?”
Rock Creek. Town is forward, safety is forward…but so is he. His voice sounded like it was drifting away, like it was trapped in a sudden undertow pulling him away from her. Can you hear me? I can’t feel you anymore.
“Please don’t leave me.” Fresh tears pricked the back of her eyes. He couldn’t leave her alone now, but the effort to pull her through the woods must have drained him.
I’m so tired.
“It’s okay.” She braced her body against the monument and hoisted herself to her feet. Culp’s Hill, Mike had driven her through there before. The narrow road through the woods emptied out onto a main throughway beside Cemetery Hill. There were restaurants on the other end of the hill; stores, an Irish pub. She could make it. She just had to be careful and she’d make it. She’d track down Mike or Liam or Drew. Someone would take her to the police or them, and it would all be over.
She crept onto the road, her knees wobbling beneath her. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark to an extent, but the thick tree cover kept the light of the moon from filtering to the road below. Voices called out around her, some directly addressing her, but most stuck in the endless repetition of the last moments of their lives. Ben’s voice was lost among the roar of the others. They drowned him out completely.
“Just stay calm.” She spoke out loud, as if somehow hearing her own voice would ground her in the present. The taillights seemed to be long gone. Maybe he was up to the main road by now, maybe he’d just given up.
She rubbed her hands up and down her forearms. The nearby presence of the dead made the air feel like a freezer. She felt unseen figures pass by her, could feel their fingers brush against her flesh. They knew she felt them. They were tired of being unheard.
The road seemed to curve in front of her. In the distance, she saw the faint glow of an interior dome light. Maybe a tourist? Maybe someone searching out the presence of the long dead?
Realization smacked her like a punch to the face: the lit dome light, a car door propped open. It was her car.
He’d stopped.
She froze, her feet planted into the pavement beneath her. Squeezing her eyes closed, she forced herself to concentrate on the present, to weed through the shriek of voices around her. The woods seemed silent.
She took a step forward in the dark. She strained her ears to listen for him, for any sound to reveal where he was in the woods. Was he hiding in the car? Was he betting she’d approach it in a desperate search for the keys? Maybe she should just track back and follow the road deeper into the heart of the park. He wasn’t expecting that. He might still press closer to town, knowing full well that was the direction she had to go.
Another step.
She could see the console and, beside it, illuminated by the dome light, her keys were in the ignition.
Another step.
The light only stayed on for twenty minutes, then the factory setting kicked in and shut if off to prevent the battery from draining. She could wait twenty minutes. If he was hiding in the woods by the car, she might be able to slide in and floor it before he grabbed her or, worse yet, fired on her.
“Madison! You mother fucking bitch! Get out here!” His voice echoed off the trees and rocks, the frustration and anger oozing from each word. It sounded like he was behind her. Surely she had to be right, the sound had to be from behind; he’d looped around.
She leapt forward, digging her feet into the pavement and pushing off with explosive force. The car was close. It was so close, the door was right there—
Her feet left the pavement; she was again running in the dirt. She could still make it. She had to make it.
The tip of her shoe hit a rock and she stumbled, pitching forward, falling in the dark. She felt herself falling forward and braced her hands in front of her, a desperate attempt to catch herself. Her hands slammed into a hard, rocky surface and seemed to catapult her forward. A sickening crunch echoed in her ears as her head impacted with the hard surface of a rock or monument. In her last moment of consciousness, pain seared from her temple and radiate through her skull, the dull roar of the dead dissipating around her as if she was being pulled under water.
She blacked out.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Her eyes fluttered open. Her heart was pounding. Each thud seemed to rocket off of her brain like someone was physically hitting her. It felt like the skin on her head was vibrating from the pain.
She touched her fingertips to her forehead and flinched. There was a gouge in her forehead, reaching back into her hairline, and it was wet—no doubt from blood. It trickled down her face. She fitfully wiped it away from her eye.
The woods around her were silent.
She crawled into a sitting position, bracing her hands against the monument she’d hit her head against to help her stand. Her body swayed like she was standing on a child’s teeter totter and she nearly fell again. She didn’t trust herself to move with any coordination. She could barely stand.
Go.
He was beside her again, pulling her forward, prompting her to move even though she was sure she couldn’t. She stumbled forward, fumbling for the trees around her to steady her as she crept through the dark.
“Madison!”
He seemed like he was still behind her, like he’d run in the opposite direction she had. She staggered onward, stumbling and tripping over rocks. It felt like her legs couldn’t coordinate their movements, her head was buzzing with pain.
The trees suddenly gave way and she broke out into an open field. The glow of Gettysburg was in the distance; she could see the lights of traffic on the road ahead. The Turnpike Restaurant was down the road. She could see the glow of the white and green sign from where she stood.
She stumbled again, forcing herself into a run. Each step radiated through her head. Her vision was peppered with the bright bursts of light. She had to keep going, she couldn’t stop.
Behind you, he’s behind you.
“Madison! Fucking stop! You’re only making it worse!”
She sprang forward, her legs wobbling and threatening to give out beneath her. Blood flowed freely into her eye and she was half blinded, running on instinct alone. Each step was sheer agony. All she wanted to do was sink to the ground and give up. She was dead already, so what was the point? There was no way she’d make it.
She was vaguely aware she’d run across the road, but was too afraid to stop running. Stopping gave him a change to catch up. Stopping was giving up.
Ben was pushing her forward.
She scrambled up the slight incline of the hill, frantically trying to determine which way to run. Her ankle twisted and gave way beneath her and she pitched forward, collapsing on the ground in a heap. Her vision clouded and she felt her consciousness waiver. It would be so easy just to roll over and sleep. Her eyelids were heavy. She teetered on the edge of reality.
Someone stopped in the grass beside her. Her head pounded,
but she rolled to her side. Maybe it was Brad. Maybe it could all just be over now.
It was Ben. She could see him clearly again, as she had the night in the summer kitchen. “Where am I?”
It occurred to her how handsome he was, but how his face was clouded in sadness.
This is where I died.
Panic welled up in her chest; she could feel dread seep into her bones like blood into a rag. She rolled to her side and forced herself into a standing position. Her ankles trembled as she stumbled forward, swaying against the darkness that blurred the edges of her vision. He was still next to her, still so real and whole.
Stay with me.
“I can’t.” Blood trickled into her eyes from the gash on her head, making it even harder to scramble across the field. The terrain in front of her seemed to dance and sway. Nausea washed over her and she dropped to one knee. “I can’t let him do this to me.”
Let me save you.
The sleepy feeling was winning, the darkness was pulling her in. She struggled to her feet and lurched forward. Brad could be anywhere on the road or in the field behind her. She had to get help. “Dying won’t save me.”
Our souls are bound. You can be with me now.
“I want to be with Mike.” Her head swam, her eyes threatened to roll back in her head. The Turnpike seemed farther away than it had before. There was no way she could make it; maybe Ben was right. Maybe it was easier that way, just to slow down and let peace settle over her. Rest, just rest. Just a short rest and everything would be fine.
He’s coming.
Madison dug her fists into her eyes and wiped the blood out of her face. Her hand brushed against the swollen cut on her temple and she gasped, the pain searing through her head and down into her feet. Her skull pounded, but the wash of pain grounded her. “If he gets me, he’ll kill me. You know that. Just like before, just like how she was killed.”
With Me Now Page 28
