Drawn Into Darkness

by Nancy Springer

  No answer. I sighed, sat up, and began to inch toward shore. To make sure I hadn’t gotten turned around in the darkness, I stuck a foot down into the river. The direction of the current reassured me, and I went on, feeling my way along the tree trunk on all fours until something, I suppose the stub of a branch, poked my collarbone. I tried to circumnavigate the obstacle, slipped, and ended up back in the water. But this time, mothers be praised, it wasn’t wash-me-away water, only a quieter eddy in which I could stand on the bottom. In fact, the water reached not far above my waist.

  But if I thought I was out of trouble, the notion was premature. Blundering toward what I hoped was shore, I collided with tree branches, stumbled, fell, dunked myself in water over my head, fumbled my way upright, sneezed, stumbled only two steps before I dunked myself again, got up, and did it all again, muttering a few new words I had learned from Stoat, before I finally reached dry land.

  Well, not dry land, exactly. It was still raining. But I did find a stretch of something that was not flooding river.

  I sat. I panted. I called for Justin. I intended to sit and call for Justin until daybreak, but my body had other ideas. At some point I toppled sideways and, curled in the wet sand, fell sound asleep.

  • • •

  I awoke to find myself basking in bright sunshine, feeling pleasantly warmed, grateful that the rain had stopped and even more grateful that it was no longer dark. Seldom had I so ardently appreciated simply being able to see.

  The only immediate problem was that I had company. I was not the only life-form basking on that stretch of sand. When I opened my eyes, they stared straight at a brown thing that looked a bit too much like a snake. I had to blink and focus right in front of my nose to see—whoa. It really was the head of a reptile. At first I tried to convince myself it was a lizard or something, not a snake, but I remembered all too clearly reading about the poisonous snakes of Florida, that vipers had eyes like those of a cat, unlike the beady eyes of harmless snakes, and I remembered laughing because who the heck was ever going to get close enough to a snake to check out the pupils of its eyes?

  Well, here I was looking into a snake’s eye, and even though a bony ridge like an eyebrow shadowed it, I could see quite clearly the vertical black slit of its pupil.

  Water moccasin.

  My heartbeat might have sped up somewhat, but I did not bother to panic. After all, things could have been a lot worse. It could have been Stoat.

  I must not move or I might be bitten. Sheer inertia had kept me still when I awoke. The bliss of lying in a position other than spread-eagle had made me so lazy I hadn’t even lifted my head. Now I realized that the only part of me I could safely move was my eyeballs.

  I deployed them as best I could from where I lay sprawled in the sand. Focusing beyond a blur of mud-colored snake, I could see water sparkling, and some turtles basking on a log—doubtless the tree trunk I had grabbed on to last night—and beyond the river a solid wall of forest with mistletoe balls in the oaks and scraggly pines towering above all the other trees. Trying to make out the river’s far bank, I thought I saw a sketchy line of yellow-tan sand between the gleaming brown water and the mostly green jumble of forest. Understandably, I was not certain, but I thought maybe the river level was beginning to go down.

  I took another look at the log, really a long-dead fallen tree with its roots somewhere above my horizontal head. Yes, turtles and all, it seemed to slant a bit higher above the water than it had last night. If I could judge by what I had felt in the dark of the night.

  Okay, so I couldn’t really tell. Why did I care?

  Justin, that was why. Floodwater going down could only be good for him if—if he was still out in this swamp somewhere, if Stoat hadn’t gotten him.

  Was he at least alive? Or had he bumped his head on something and drowned? Or had Stoat killed him?

  Never once did I think in terms of Justin’s recapture, because I felt certain Stoat had wanted to kill him even before Justin had conked him with a baseball bat last night, thereby totally and irrevocably pissing him off.

  God, where was Justin? I needed to get up, call for him, go looking for him, but here I lay helpless because of a damn poisonous snake sleeping in front of my nose. Or at least I supposed it was sleeping. How could I tell? It didn’t have eyelids, but I hadn’t seen any movement in its eye, which seemed unnervingly fixated on me.

  Probably just my imagination. And I remembered the book said snakes were deaf. What if I ever so slowly inched away—

  No. The book also said that snakes made up for being deaf by sensing vibrations.

  Besides which, I didn’t know what was behind me. With my luck, there could be another snake cuddled up against my rear end.

  Gaah. Creepy thought.

  Well, sooner or later, it or they had to go away, right?

  Right.

  Meanwhile, I tried to pass the time by looking at anything and everything else. The turtles. Stumpy heads and legs striped with yellow.

  Lichens on the log like green-gray rosettes with sprinkles of paprika—spores?

  A turtle plunking into the water, showing its yellow-orange belly shell.

  Beyond, a wading bird landing for a moment on the log—some kind of small heron or bittern with chartreuse legs—quickly gone again, flapping upriver.

  Long wait.

  Wait. I heard something. Not too far away, somebody trying to start a lawn mower. Stupid thing blustered, spit, and died, the way they always did. Again, and again. But finally, protesting, it was coaxed to continue, its loud gasps steadied into a regular chugging, and I heard it heading closer to me.

  Lawn mower?

  Boat motor. Already the boat had appeared, a shining aluminum savior perhaps twelve feet long, a rudimentary rectangle in which sat two burly trucker-hatted men. I did not dare move because of the snake, but surely they would see me.

  “. . . water this high, we should be able to get clear into Chipoluga Swamp, places we couldn’t ordinarily,” one of them was saying to the other.

  “All right!” In the local Southern accent, this sounded like, “Aw, rat!” He went on, “That’ll be a sat to see.”

  See me, I begged mentally, my heart pounding as they scudded past, hurried along by the high-running river. I couldn’t move or yell because of the damn water moccasin, but there I lay like a corpse on the bank; how could they not see me?

  But they didn’t.

  “We got the beer?”

  “Damn straight we got the beer. You think I’d forget the beer?”

  Idiots. Beer-swilling Bubbas. Still talking of beer, they disappeared downriver. The grumble of their motor blended into the distance.

  • • •

  “Meatloaf, please don’t sit on my face.” Still in bed, Amy Bradley shoved the cat off her forehead, only to feel him settling on her pillow as close as possible to her, on top of where her hair lay, with his blunt snout purring whisker-tickly feline secrets into her ear.

  Since she and Chad had started quarreling, Amy had been finding it harder and harder to get herself out of bed and pointed in a direction in the morning. It had been weeks since she had made breakfast for Chad before he left for work, at first because they weren’t speaking, and later because she couldn’t get moving, not even to see the twins off to school. The kids took care of themselves, and every morning before leaving, Kayla climbed the stairs to say bye to her mom. Today, Amy had gathered enough energy to call her daughter over to her bedside, hug her, kiss her, and tell her she loved her. As always, Kayla had “forgotten” to close the bedroom door when she left. And as always, Meatloaf had come in to sprinkle Amy’s bed with the cat litter caught between his paw pads. Meatloaf was never allowed outside the house. The Bradleys were too afraid something might happen to him.

  “Meatloaf,” Amy told the cat breathing in her ear, “I’ve been awake for hours, no thanks to you, so why can’t I seem to get up?”

  The phone rang.

  Amy groaned, shov
ed the cat aside, and achieved rapid verticality. The urgent need to run and answer every single phone call had started the day Justin was abducted, and no amount of passing time could abate it.

  Barefoot and in her nightgown, she sprinted across the upstairs hallway into the room devoted to 1-800-4JUSTIN. They had an ordinary landline in there as well. Amy snatched up the phone and shoved it against her head.

  “Hello,” she mumbled.

  “Amy.”

  She woke up fast, recognizing her husband’s voice. “Honey?”

  “Yes.” Chad sounded devoid of any honey; it had been a long time since he had called her anything sweet. “Amy, this is just to let you know I ditched work today—”

  Amy gasped, “What?” Chad had taken personal days when Justin was abducted, but she had never known him to outright ditch work.

  He went on speaking as if he hadn’t heard her. “—and I’m driving up to Birmingham to see my dad—”

  This was even more unheard of, so unlike Chad that Amy lost her breath and could not speak. She found herself clinging to the cordless phone for imaginary support.

  “—so I don’t know whether I’ll be home tonight,” Chad concluded. “Don’t worry if I’m not.”

  Don’t worry? Amy felt too scared to worry. Panic gave her the strength she needed to say, “Wait! Chad, what’s this about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” She smiled painfully; it was what Justin would have said when he was in trouble at school. She said now, “Don’t ‘nothing’ me, Charles Stuart Bradley, and don’t you dare hang up.”

  “No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.” Chad sounded a little more alive than before.

  “Can you pull over?” She could tell by the whooshing and roaring background sounds of vehicles and semis that he was on the interstate. “So we can talk?”

  “What for, Amy?” His voice had gone dull again. “I really don’t have anything to tell you.”

  “Sure you do. There must be some reason—”

  “I need—I don’t know what I need. I just can’t stand it anymore. Anything.”

  Terror more than courage helped her say it. “Chad, are you leaving me?” It was okay that her voice trembled. Let him hear how she felt.

  Silence, except for the sounds of speed and distance in the phone. The sounds of someone running away.

  “Chad?” Her voice shook even more.

  His words so low she could barely hear them, he said, “I admit the thought has crossed my mind. But, Amy,” he went on more forcefully, “Dad talked me out of it. He said the worst thing he ever did was to leave Mom and me. That’s why I’m going to see him.”

  “Oh,” Amy said, or exhaled, almost in a whisper.

  “Amy?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Okay. Don’t worry. I’ll call you.”

  “Chad, I—”

  “Gotta go.” He disconnected.

  “I really do love you,” said Amy to the lifeless phone.

  TEN

  Lying along the riverbank right beside an unfriendly neighborhood water moccasin, listening to the boat’s motor dwindling way and fighting an impulse to cry, I forced my mind back to a contemplation of the glories of nature.

  I saw another leggy bird beauty, this time white, skimming the opposite shore. Some kind of egret.

  And a black vulture circling over the woods, soaring, its tapering wings forming a slight V. Why did buzzards get no respect when they were beautiful things in flight?

  Long wait.

  Flickers of songbird in the far trees.

  Something moving on the far shore, maybe a deer? No, too golden, bobbing blond head—

  Justin! Walking downstream along the other edge of the river.

  The sight of him alive made me feel almost dizzy with happiness and—and he simply had to see me. I couldn’t let him go past as the boaters had.

  He disappeared from my view behind my snake-in-residence.

  Lying with my right shoulder in the sand and my left one in the air, I took the risk of gingerly raising my left arm skyward and swinging it, waving.

  The snake camped in front of me turned its head and sampled the air with its forked tongue.

  And I saw Justin emerging from behind the visual obstruction, almost past me already, his eyes on his footing, his head not turned in my direction.

  The incident of the two blind Bubbas had made me desperate enough to take risks. One of my few talents is whistling loudly enough to summon a taxi. Pretty sure the snake hadn’t heard—I mean sensed—anything like that before, but with no idea how it would react, I put my tongue to my teeth and shrilled.

  Justin’s head snapped up. So did the snake’s. Justin stood still and looked toward me. As soon as I was sure he had seen me waving, I froze with my hand in the air.

  The snake shot its head up to loom over me like a cobra without the hood. Hissing, it opened its mouth wide, I mean really wide, showing off the startling interior seemingly upholstered in puffy white silk.

  Justin walked into the river, heading toward me.

  All the turtles evacuated the log. I didn’t see them, not with my gaze fixed on the pristine lining of the snake’s mouth, but I heard them plopping into the water. Nothing else made quite the same splash as a big turtle.

  I also heard Justin splashing as he swam across the river. The rhythmic sound changed from splashing to sloshing when he reached shallower water and walked.

  The snake swiveled its rearing head toward Justin.

  I heard him say, “Whoa. Lee Anna, lie still.”

  I wanted to tell him no duh, but that would have involved moving my mouth. With my hand still straight up in the air I felt like some sort of ridiculous modern sculpture.

  I heard the snap of a branch breaking and wondered whether Justin had stepped on it or what. I heard his footsteps padding along the sand toward me.

  The snake struck.

  Faster than my eyes could follow.

  I almost screamed. At first I thought it was biting Justin.

  Launching almost its whole long burly body, it struck again. And again. And again. A little farther from me each time.

  Forgetting all about the imaginary snake lying on the other side of me, I rolled away, sat up, and saw Justin holding the cottonmouth at bay with a long, dead stick. As I struggled to stand up, the snake struck the tip of the stick again and broke off a considerable piece of it, which fell into the edge of the river and floated.

  Justin froze.

  I did the same, in a most undignified pose, with my butt in the air and my hands on the ground.

  The snake eyed the only moving thing, which was the stick in the water. Then with simple dignity it slithered into the river and swam away, its head gracefully raised as if it were an ugly brown swan.

  I breathed out, staggered to my feet, and cried “Justin!” as he headed toward me to help me. Without permission I hugged him rather hard.

  “Please get off,” he begged, although he did hug me back. A little.

  I backed off.

  “God,” he complained, “that was like being attacked by a giant dish sponge.”

  Finding myself shaky in the knees, I plopped my butt on the sand again and said, “Wow. That snake. Thank you for—”

  “Forget it.” Blushing, he looked upriver, not at me. “We don’t have time. Uncle Steve has to be hunting for us.”

  “I told you, he is so not your uncle.”

  “What do you want me to call him?”

  “Stoat the Goat.”

  He looked at me and cracked up. He actually fell down on the sand beside me, laughing. At first I was pleased, but then I realized he sounded a bit hysterical. I laid a hand on his forehead until he calmed down some, then demanded, “Justin. What happened?”

  “Huh?” he mumbled, still giggling.

  “What happened after we got separated last night?”

  “Oh. That. He knew we went down the river.” No more giggles, and no eye contact either. “
He came after us with the flashlight.”

  I felt cold little lizard feet run down my spine at the thought of Stoat searching for us to kill us. As smoothly as I could, I said, “Since you’re here, I take it he didn’t find you?”

  “He almost did find me. He waded right past me, but he didn’t see me. I’d come up for air in the middle of a mess of brush and stuff the flood had piled up against something, and I guess it hid me pretty good. It was just dumb luck I happened to come up there.”

  “Dumb luck is as good as any other kind.”

  He tilted his head back in the sand to look at me upside down. “What the heck does that mean?”

  “It means I read Nietzsche in college. In other words, it means nothing. How long did Stoat keep hunting?”

  “Too damn long. After he gave up on the river, he went into the woods. From where I was, I could see the reflection of his flashlight in the water. Even when I couldn’t see it anymore, I didn’t dare come out.”

  “You mean you were still in the river?”

  “Of course I was. All night. I finally heard the van drive away around dawn.”

  “Then he’s not here now.” Ridiculous, the tsunami of relief this assumption provided me, considering that I remained stranded in the wilderness.

  “He probably just went home to eat something and grab another gun. He’ll be back. Heck, he could already be back. When I heard that boat, I thought it was him, so I hid.”

  “It wasn’t him. It was two men, but they went right past and didn’t see me.”

  No comment. It occurred to me that Justin must have peeked at the boat himself, or he wouldn’t know it wasn’t Stoat and he’d still be hiding.

  “Why didn’t you yell?” I asked. “Flag them down?” I would have if I hadn’t been situated too close to a snake.

  Justin shrugged. Damn. In some ways he was so much a typical teenager.

  “Well,” I said, swallowing my irritation, “if they launched from that same boat ramp, their car will be there.”

  “Truck,” Justin said. “You don’t haul a boat with a car.”

  Teenager.

  “Whatever.” Acting far more brisk than I felt, I got on my feet. “Let’s go have a look.”