Blinking against incipient tears, Charlie forced herself to refocus her attention on the road. Although she was driving an as-slow-as-she-dared thirty miles an hour, the forest already loomed in front of them, its gravelike darkness as ominous as an executioner. Would they die in that forest? It seemed likely.
Charlie shuddered. In the footwell, Sadie pressed closer against her legs. The dog rubbed its head against her calf in silent sympathy.
"What the hell is your problem, the both of you?" Jake spoke in the tone of a reasonable man sorely tried. The rope around his neck pinned him back against the headrest, and his voice was raspy. A lightning glance in the rearview mirror showed Charlie that Woz had the ends wrapped around his fist.
Woz snorted. "Come off it, asshole. We know you're a cop."
"What?" Jake gave a derisive laugh that ended in a choked cough as Woz twisted the rope. "You're crazy."
A cop? Charlie felt a wild burbling of hope. He was a cop? Surely that was a good thing—if it was true. But he didn't sound like it was true. That laugh had sounded incredulous. And maybe it wasn't a good thing anyway, under the circumstances. A cop at the mercy of a pair of drug smugglers was kind of like a bird at the mercy of a pair of cats.
And she was with the cop.
Denton's gun nudged her in the back of the neck, and she cringed. "Take a left up here at the fork in the road."
They were in the forest now. Outside, the night was dark as a cave. Mist floated in front of the Jeep. She might, Charlie thought desperately, be able to blink the one remaining headlight if another vehicle came into view. Or honk the horn. Or drive head-on into the other car. The operative principle was, whatever it took. Anything would be better than what she feared would happen to her once the pair in the back ordered her to stop the Jeep.
But there was no other vehicle in sight. And, frightening as it was to face the truth, they were not likely to encounter one. This area had been chosen by Critter Ridders as an ideal place to release their captives for one primary reason: It was remote.
Charlie groaned inwardly. Why, oh, why, when Marisol had asked her to do this tonight, hadn't she decided in favor of pleasing herself instead of her sister and just said no?
Woz was still talking to Jake. "You know what? Blowing your brains out will be my pleasure. I never liked you anyway."
"Yeah, well, you're not going to get a marriage proposal from me any time soon either, but this cop shit is the stupidest thing I ever heard."
"Liar! You're going to tell us everything you know, believe me. Or maybe your friend will. She a cop, too?"
"No!" Charlie squeaked in horrified protest.
"Shut up." Woz growled. Charlie shut up. Protesting her innocence would not save her, she realized with despair. Indeed, it might even hasten her end. If they thought she was a cop, they might try to torture information out of her. Once they knew that there was no reason to keep her alive, however, she was pretty much toast.
"Turn here," Denton ordered.
Trembling so hard that she had to grit her teeth to keep them from chattering, Charlie turned. Gravel crunched as they left the paved road. Denton's gun brushed the back of her neck almost caressingly. Short of a miracle, there was no chance of any kind of encounter that might save them. They were as good as dead. Charlie realized that she was starting to hyperventilate, and deliberately slowed her breathing down. Breathe in, breathe out, in, out...
Sadie was behind her legs now, rubbing against them, offering what comfort she could. If she didn't think of something, fast, poor innocent Sadie would die along with poor innocent her and who-cared-if-he-was-innocent Jake. Charlie thought frantically, but could come up with nothing that might save their lives.
Running the Jeep into a tree would not help. If she did that, and survived, she would almost certainly be shot for her pains.
She was going to be shot anyway. Oh, God, would it hurt? Had it hurt Laura to be shot like that? With a sense of deepening horror, she realized that Jake did not even know that Laura was dead. He'd been out cold when it had happened. She glanced at him, burning with an urgent need to acquaint him with Laura's fate. But she didn't dare so much as open her mouth.
Sadie rubbed against her leg again, twining around her left ankle almost like a cat. Poor, dear Sadie. Beloved Sadie.
"Is Jerry Colina working with you? He is, isn't he? I always hated the bastard." There was a certain grim pleasure in Woz's voice, Charlie realized, that told her that he was enjoying the situation. Out of the corner of her eye, Charlie saw him grind the mouth of the pistol into Jake's neck. She could see the gleam of Jake's teeth as he grimaced. She could see something else, too, she realized: the gleam of Sadie's eyes.
Sadie was huddled in the footwell on Jake's side.
Charlie froze. If Sadie was on Jake's side, what was rubbing against her leg?
She glanced down. Something black was twining around the paleness of her jean-clad calf. Something twisty and ropelike and alive. A triangular head was slithering up the pale blue column of her leg toward her knee.
Charlie screamed No, she shrieked. The sound was earsplitting, window-shattering, heart-attack inducing. No horror film in history had ever recorded a more bloodcurdling screech. Completely forgetting that she was at the wheel of a vehicle traveling at thirty miles an hour over a narrow bumpy track, completely forgetting that there was a gun pointed at her and two armed murderers in the back and a strange man cuffed to her wrist, she shot out of that seat like a ball out of a cannon, flinging herself over the console and onto Jake in an insane effort to dive through his closed window, screaming all the while.
"What the hell!" Jake grabbed her.
"Shut the bitch up! Shoot her!" Denton lunged between the seats. Without even meaning to do it, Charlie kicked him in the face. He fell back.
"Snake! Snake, snake, snake, snake, snake!" The snake swarmed toward her crotch, then undulated past her pelvis, moving up her body like it had somewhere to go. Charlie screamed like a steam whistle, kicked like a demented mule, then grabbed the writhing, leathery thing and flung it as hard as she could. Two plus yards of twisting, ropelike reptile flew into the air, smacked against the roof, and disappeared into the backseat.
"Snake!" Woz screamed as horribly as she had done seconds earlier, and kept on screaming to the sound of beating fists and stomping feet.
"Shit! Snake!" Denton was screaming, too, as they both engaged in panic-stricken battle with the snake. A hideous smell suddenly exploded in the air.
The Jeep smacked into a tree. Charlie, still screaming for all she was worth, was thrown forward, hit the side of her head on the dash, and was still seeing stars as she found herself hauled bodily across the seat and out into the cold night air.
"Run, damn it!" Jake yelled as he dragged her upright. Head spinning, gasping now rather than screaming, Charlie needed no further urging. With visions of that hideous black snake slithering after her to spur her on, she ran like the hounds of hell were on her heels. Jake pounded beside her, his hand tight around hers.
Behind them, she could hear the sound of the Jeep's doors opening and Woz and Denton spilling out.
"There's a fucking skunk in there!" Woz shouted, coughing and cursing at the same time.
"And a snake! God, I hate snakes!"
"You fucking pussy, Denton! I hate snakes!" Woz mimicked Denton's voice, all the while coughing his lungs out.
"I'm going to puke! That smell...." There was a gagging sound.
"What are you, some sort of pansy-ass? Come on, we can't let them get away."
"Jesus, I'm gonna be sick."
The voices faded as Charlie found herself sliding on her backside down a steep, vine-covered embankment. Jake was slightly in front of her, sliding, too, his hand clamped around hers, his weight pulling her down.
"Sadie," Charlie gasped.
"We've got more to worry about than a damned dog," Jake said as they reached the bottom. He dragged her to her feet. "They've got guns, remember. Be as qu
iet as you can."
"But they'll kill her."
"Why would they? She's a fucking dog. It's us they want to kill."
With this grim reminder, Charlie found herself running again, dragged along in Jake's wake. The woods were so dark Charlie could barely make out the outlines of trees as they flashed by. The ground underneath was slippery with fallen leaves. The smell of damp was everywhere, and here and there small points of light glowed through the darkness.
Eyes, Charlie thought with a shiver, trying not to think about the kinds of nocturnal creatures they might belong to. The next thought that popped into her head brought feint comfort: nothing, nothing, could be as bad as that snake.
Something was behind them, giving chase. Charlie could sense it more than feel it, sense rather than hear the pant of their pursuer's breathing, sense rather than feel the weight of their pursuer's gaze.
It could not be Woz and Denton. They could not have found them so easily in the dark. And they would make more noise, with heavy thundering footsteps and the crashing of their bodies through the undergrowth.
To say nothing of the firing of their guns.
"Jake! Jake!" She tugged on his hand to warn him. Head lowered, he was burning up the ground in front of her, leading the way, either knowing where he was going or giving a good imitation of it.
"What?" It was a growl thrown over his shoulder. His pace never slackened.
"There's something behind us."
He glanced over his shoulder again, and his hand tightened on hers, but before he could respond in any other way a bullet smacked into a tree not two feet from Charlie's head.
"Shit!" Jake altered course, propelling her in a right angle to the shot as another one was squeezed off. This one went thankfully wide, whistling harmlessly through the trees in the same direction as the first.
"Over there!" The voice was Denton's, and it was still some distance behind them. Whatever she had sensed chasing them had been far closer. The crack of a shot and the whoosh of a bullet passing terrifyingly near Charlie's ear put all thoughts of a second pursuing party out of her mind. The first was bad—and close— enough.
"Keep your head down, and move your ass." It was a roar. Jake raced through the trees, leaping over the underbrush and fallen logs that were suddenly underfoot, practically pulling her arm from its socket as he towed her behind him. Bent over like an old woman with a dowager's hump, feet barely touching the ground as she ran and jumped and stumbled and was dragged until she was on her feet and running again, Charlie gasped for air and prayed harder than she had ever prayed in her life. Bullets spat through the air around them, tearing through the leaves, smacking into trunks.
"Get 'em, get 'em, get 'em, get 'em!" Woz howled. Charlie barely heard him over the odd roaring in her ears.
Ahead of her, Jake suddenly stopped, and jerked her up beside him. His hand gripped hers tighter than ever even as her free arm windmilled for balance. Looking ahead, Charlie saw to her horror that they teetered on the brink of a cliff. Some twenty feet below, pushing deep into undercut banks, was a shining black ribbon of rushing water: the Cumberland, Charlie guessed.
No wonder she'd heard a roaring in her ears.
In that instant she realized what he meant to do. Charlie tried to back up, shaking her head in protest
"I can't—" she began, even as he growled, "Jump!"
She had no choice. He leaped with a death grip on her hand, and, willy-nilly, she went with him as bullets peppered the place where, seconds before, they had stood. Charlie fell like a stone, plummeting through the darkness, limbs flailing as she completed what she had been going to say in a hapless wail.
"—swim!"
6
CHARLIE BELLY FLOPPED with a tremendous splash. Cold dark water closed around her, blinding her, choking her, shooting up her nose, filling her mouth. The shock of submersion galvanized her. Shutting her mouth with a snap, Charlie fought for all she was worth, kicking and thrashing against the life-stealing depths. Still she tumbled like a sock in a washing machine, helpless in this element that had terrified her from the moment she'd fallen into a neighbor's swimming pool as a five-year-old and nearly drowned. That time, just as she'd given up hope, she'd seen an angel, a lovely winged angel dressed all in white, and heard a heavenly chorus sing.
This time there was a big black shape rising like a giant bat beside her and a sudden vicious yank on her arm. She felt as if it was being wrenched from its socket as she was hauled ruthlessly upward. Seconds later her head broke the surface, and she gasped for air.
"Help!" she croaked, or tried to croak, but icy water spewed from her mouth like flow from a fountain as she struggled madly to keep her head up. Her own saturated hair blinded her and she still had trouble breathing because of all the water she was coughing up. Then she was once again sinking, slipping back down into the liquid abyss that terrified her more than anything in life. Despite her frantic efforts her head went under. She fought the amorphous enemy like a wild thing, kicking and clawing to no avail, only to find herself dragged to the surface again through no effort of her own.
"Hold still!" It was a roar. It had to be a roar, for her to hear it over the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears and the deep gurgle of the water as it rushed past. Charlie realized that Jake was there, right beside her, holding her hand in a steely grip as both of them were swept ruthlessly downstream by the strength of the current. She surged desperately toward him, free arm windmilling, kicking with all the strength left in her legs. They felt heavy, so very heavy, as if lead weights were attached to her feet, pulling her down. Nevertheless, she managed to reach him with that panic-stricken lunge, and locked onto him as the only solid thing in a terrifyingly unsolid world, wrapping her free arm around his neck, trying to climb on top of him in a blind panic that left no room for rational thought.
"God damn it," he began, trying to pry her off him, but whatever came after that she didn't hear. She sank like an anvil. Rather, they sank like an anvil, because the death grip she had on him wasn't being shaken off this side of the grave. She clung to his neck like a giant squid to a battleship, and for all his superior strength he couldn't budge her.
Within a minute or so he managed to break the surface again anyway, dragging her up with him. With her mouth and nose above water, she gulped in air. They were cheek to cheek, she discovered, and his was wet and cold and rough as sandpaper.
"Let go of my neck." He was somehow keeping them both afloat despite having her battened onto him like a barnacle and only one free hand to work with. Wrapping her legs around his waist for good measure, she choked and gasped and sucked in lifesaving air as they were swept downstream. "Damn it, you're going to drown us both."
"You're the idiot who jumped in the river." Her hold on him tightened as, using him for a ladder, she tried to climb a little higher out of the maelstrom. Her efforts plunged his head under. She went down, too, despite her best efforts to save herself, and tumbled head over heels as the current spun her around like a child with a ball. Having managed in the course of the past hour to survive two car crashes and the same number of armed killers and a hideously close encounter with a snake, she realized with the kind of mental clarity reserved for only the most extreme situations that she was now face-to-face with a death that was the stuff of her worst nightmares: She was going to drown.
She would never, ever, ever wish for excitement again, she thought despairingly, and managed by dint of pressing down on the closest submerged object—boulder-hard and covered with human hair, she suspected it might be the top of Jake's head—to win through to the surface, and draw air into her tortured lungs.
The surface exploded right in front of her, and Jake's seal-sleek head shot into view. Coughing, sputtering, he caught both her wrists in a crushing grip as he took a few gasping breaths. Without the boost of his body beneath hers to keep her up, she felt herself being sucked down again, and made a despairing sound just before her head submerged.
As s
he went under, his grip shifted. Somehow she was spun around, then hauled upward. When her head broke through again, and she coughed and gasped and sucked in air, she found that he was behind her, wrapping their shackled arms around her waist, supporting her with his body.
"All you have to do is be still!" he yelled in her ear. "Do you hear me? Quit fighting and be still. I can swim well enough for the both of us if you'll quit trying to drown me."
"Oh, God." Charlie had no strength left to fight anyway. The lead weights dragging her down seemed suddenly less oppressive, and she realized that one of her boots had fallen off. Enlightenment dawned, and she kicked off the other one. Never mind that they were her best boots, made of ostrich skin and costing over five hundred dollars; if she had to lose them to live, lose them she would. Even without them she wouldn't call herself buoyant—she was about as buoyant as a slab of marble—but her body definitely felt lighter. Bye-bye, boots.
"Just relax. Lie back against me and relax. I won't let you go, I promise. Hell, I can't, remember?" His voice was soothing now—well, as soothing as it was possible for a near-shout to be. With his arm around her waist and his back against hers, Charlie found to her surprise that she was not sinking. The water stayed at chin level, and she could breathe. She could feel his legs moving beneath hers, and his free arm seemed to be moving, too. He was swimming and keeping her afloat.
Manna From Heaven Page 4
