by BJ Bourg
“Are you sure that’s all it is?” I asked. “She looks really sick.”
“The vomiting and diarrhea has caused severe dehydration,” Takecia explained, pulling out the SAT phone again and punching in some numbers. “She needs intravenous fluids and antibiotics ASAP. She might not survive the boat ride.”
Camille stirred in my arms and I winced inwardly. She had heard Takecia and reacted to it.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’ll be fine. We’ll get you all the help you need. You’re a fighter and your job is to keep fighting.”
Takecia put the phone to her ear and waited. After a short pause, she said, “Sue, we found Camille. We need a medic helicopter pronto. We’re in Le Diable Lake.” She paused for a moment. “We’re in the woodlands to the north, but Melvin’s coming with the airboat. He’ll get us out in the open. Just get the chopper here and we’ll clear out an LZ.”
I could hear the roar of the airboat’s jet engine through the trees. They were getting close—or so it sounded.
“Let’s prep her for the move,” I said, easing Camille’s head to the ground. She didn’t respond. Her body was limp. I quickly checked for a pulse with two fingers while I simultaneously put my ear to her mouth.
“Is she breathing?” Takecia asked, seemingly holding her own breath.
I could feel heat on my ear, but I didn’t know if it was from her breath or the fever. And then I felt it. While it was a faint heartbeat, it was a heartbeat nonetheless.
Just in case Camille could still hear me, I said, “She’s fine. She’ll be just fine.”
Right then, the airboat came roaring down the narrow channel. The hull was wider than the canal in some places, but it didn’t impede the vessel. When Melvin reached us, he worked the rudder stick and whipped the boat around, crushing a section of palmetto bushes in the process.
Takecia and I had already gathered Camille up in our arms and were carrying her toward the channel when Melvin stopped the boat. My socks, which had finally dried, got wet again as I splashed through the slop. When Takecia and I reached the boat, we carefully lifted Camille into the waiting arms of Amy and Melvin. Without wasting any time, we gathered up our gear and jumped into the boat.
As the blades from the giant fan pushed the airboat through the swamps, taking us closer and closer to a location where we could meet the rescue helicopter, I sat and stared down at the tarp covering Camille’s chest. It rose and fell ever so slightly with each faint breath she would take. Every time it fell, I held my own breath and said a silent prayer that it would lift again with the next breath.
CHAPTER 17
Grace was still awake when Susan and I got home at nine o’clock that night. My mom had spelled Susan’s mom and was home with Grace when we arrived. Grace ran up to us with her arms wide, intending on wrapping our legs in her warm embrace. But when she reached us, she scrunched up her nose and stopped so suddenly that she fell to her face.
“You stink, Mommy!”
Susan swooped Grace into her arms and said, “And now you stink, Sweetie!”
With Grace screeching gleefully, Susan carried her upstairs.
“I saw you on TV,” my mom said to me as I stood near the door removing my muddy boots. “You were on the noon news. I recorded it on the DVR if you want to see it.”
I groaned. “I don’t.”
“You looked tired. I thought it was just the television, but it wasn’t, was it?” She walked up to me and studied my face. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“We recovered two drowning victims from the swamps and rescued two others,” I said wearily. “I haven’t had time to sleep.”
“The news said y’all recovered three drowning victims,” Mom countered.
“They were wrong.” Achilles, my black German shepherd, sidled up to me and nudged my hand. At a little over a hundred pounds, his head was as high as my waist. I rubbed his ears and walked to the stove, where a pot of chicken and sausage gumbo was calling my name. He followed me. Coco, a saddleback German shepherd I had rescued from a bad situation, tagged along, and both dogs settled in at my feet while I fixed a bowl of food.
“You know,” my mom said, also following me. “The news said something had dragged the tourists into the water and drowned them. They warned people to stay away from the lakes around Mechant Loup. Do you think Godzator is back? Do you think he’s coming back for you? I have nightmares that he comes back and attacks you. In my dreams, I see you fighting him, but I always wake up before it ends. I never know the outcome, and that scares me.”
“I dream I can fly sometimes, but that’s never happened.” I shrugged. “In my view, your dreams are made up of things you see or think during the day. I believe some are completely random, but most are simply a manifestation of your most recent fears or ideas.”
“Well, it still scares me.”
I grabbed a spoon and set my bowl on the table. “Want me to walk you to your car?”
She shook her head and hugged me despite my present condition. “I’ll be fine. You just be sure to get some rest.”
When she was gone, I scooped some rice and gumbo into a second bowl. I then brought both bowls to the coffee table and reached for the remote. I scowled down at Achilles when he dropped to his haunches in front of the second bowl.
“That ain’t for you,” I said.
His opened and shut his mouth and then wriggled excitedly.
“Does your momma stick her nose in your food bowl?” I asked. “No? Then stay out of hers.”
Frowning deeply, Achilles sauntered off and squeezed through the dog door that led to the fenced-in back yard. Coco followed him. I laughed. “I guess he showed me.”
I turned on the television and accessed the list of recordings. When I found the noon news my mom had recorded, I set it to play.
“God, it feels good to be clean,” Susan said as she descended the stairs, Grace in tow.
“Mommy smells good now, Daddy!” Grace announced when they reached the living room and surrounded me on the sofa, Susan to my left and Grace to my right. When Grace leaned against me, her little nose scrunched up and her face soured. She slowly slid away from me.
“What’s the matter, Gracie?” I asked, laughing. “Where’re you going?”
“You stink, Daddy.”
“What?” I feigned surprise as I pulled at the front of my dirty shirt and dipped my head. The mixture of dried sweat and swamp water rose to greet my nostrils. It smelled awful. The fabric was stiff from the abuse of today’s labor, but I didn’t really mind. Our efforts had paid off—we’d rescued Camille and she was now resting in Chateau General Hospital being treated for a bacterial infection and severe dehydration.
Much to our relief, the doctors had said she would make a full recovery. It had been the best news I’d heard since we found her. When we had helped load her into the helicopter on Le Diable Lake, I wasn’t sure she would survive the flight to the hospital. However, the air medics had done a phenomenal job and she looked like a totally different person three hours later when we made it to the hospital. She had still been too weak to answer questions, but her color had returned and her breathing was stronger.
“You’re on TV, Daddy!” Grace hollered from beside me. “Look!”
I retrieved my bowl of food and began eating while I watched. It was the noon broadcast, but they showed scenes from the previous night and earlier in the morning. In this particular scene, the ambulance was backed up to the boat launch and Amy and I were returning with Nelly Martinez. When Roger Rainey began shouting for his daughter, the camera swung toward the crowd and began following his advance toward the ambulance. They captured him rushing past me. The cameraman paused on my dejected figure for a brief moment before continuing to pursue Roger.
“Damn, your mom was right.” Susan’s spoon was suspended inches from her mouth as she gawked at the television screen. “You do look tired.”
I only grunted and watched the screen, unable to hear the reporter b
ecause Grace was jumping up and down on the sofa beside me. Her red curls bounced as she jumped, and she began singing a song she had made up about me being on the news.
“Daddy’s in the TV, Daddy’s in the TV,” she sang gleefully, making sure to keep her distance from me. “My daddy’s in the TV!”
I smiled and reached for her, but she screamed and scrambled to the far edge of the sofa and rolled to the floor. Still screaming, she half ran and half crawled across the living room floor and then up the stairs. I figured she wanted me to chase her, so I picked up my bowl and headed upstairs. Susan turned off the television and followed suit.
I wanted a shower and about ten hours of sleep. I would get the former, but only about half of the latter. First thing in the morning, I wanted to interview Camille Rainey. I needed to find out how she had ended up so far from where she’d gone missing. When we had driven to the hospital earlier to check on her, Amy had floated the idea that Camille had been abducted by aliens. I had laughed, but quickly realized she wasn’t joking.
“Did you see the videos that were declassified by the Navy?” she had asked in a low whisper.
I had shaken my head. “I don’t have time to watch television.”
“It shows Navy pilots encountering UFOs in the skies along the East Coast. They’re even starting a real-life X-Files division to investigate UFOs.” She had pointed excitedly to the closed door of Camille’s hospital room. “What if she was abducted?”
I must’ve been staring at her like she was crazy, because she had leaned closer and said, “I’m not crazy!”
“I never said you were, but it does sound pretty far-fetched, don’t you think?”
She had crossed her arms and said, “Tell that to the Pentagon. For decades they sounded like some of the biologists who used to work for the state, but now they have to admit they were wrong.”
I had scrunched up my face. “What do biologists who used to work for the state have to do with the Pentagon?”
“Some of them had claimed for years that the game cameras showing cougars in Louisiana were frauds. They would state with certainty that there were no large cats in Louisiana, but when one was shot up north, they were forced to admit some of the animals might have wandered into the state from Texas or Arkansas.” She had shaken her head warningly. “Don’t rule out the possibility that she was abducted. I don’t want you getting egg on your face.”
Too tired and hungry to debate the issue, I had only smiled and said, “I’ll bet you $100 she wasn’t abducted.”
CHAPTER 18
“I was abducted,” Camille said the next morning when I asked her what had happened to her.
I didn’t take my eyes off of Camille, who lay in a hospital bed attached to an IV and heart monitors, but I could see Amy in my periphery. She crossed her arms and shot me a “you owe me $100” look.
I paused for a second, considering Camille’s current appearance versus how she had appeared when I’d first seen her this morning. Roger and Odelia had been in the hospital room when Amy and I had arrived at about seven-thirty. They’d immediately gotten up to leave the room to give us some privacy, but Roger had stopped in the doorway and wrapped me in his large arms, thanking me profusely. I didn’t like being hugged or thanked, but I endured it for a moment. When it had lasted too long, I gently pulled his arms away and told him we had simply done our job.
“No, you and your officers went beyond your call of duty.” There had been moisture in his eyes when he addressed me. “Every department has to send their people home to sleep, but you guys stayed on the water for more than two days. You didn’t quit until you found my baby. For that, I will forever be in your debt.”
I had nodded politely and entered the room with Amy. The color had returned to Camille’s face and she had regained a lot of her strength. She was smiling and seemed happy to see us. Now, though, her face was pale and there were worry lines etched into the corners of her eyes. Just talking about her ordeal terrified her.
“So, you were abducted from the water?” I asked slowly, trying not to reveal my skepticism.
“No, I was abducted through the water.” She shifted in her bed and winced when she moved her left arm, in which the IV had been inserted.
Questions raced through my mind, but I wanted to start from the beginning and proceed in chronological order.
“Let’s begin with how you got into the water if you don’t mind,” I said. “If you could, start with your activities and interactions right before entering the lake. I’d like to know who you were talking to, what y’all were saying, was anyone upset—things like that.”
“My boyfriend, Otis Williams, was flirting with Chrissy Graves and it kind of upset me,” she said. “He wasn’t paying any attention to me and it really hurt my feelings and it made me mad. I’m not going to lie—I did have quite a bit to drink, so I wasn’t making the best decisions. I’m not making excuses, but I wouldn’t have done what I did otherwise.”
I nodded and waited for her to continue.
“I decided to make Otis jealous, so I took off my bikini top and jumped in the water. I swam away from the shore for a ways and was hoping he would come after me.” She frowned. “I knew there were alligators in the water and I knew it wasn’t safe. I shouldn’t have done it, but I just didn’t care about anything at the moment.”
“This isn’t your fault,” I said. “Don’t blame yourself for anything. People swim in the lake every day and they’re never attacked by alligators. In fact, alligators are more afraid of you than you are of them.”
She nodded. “After I got away from the land, I turned around and started treading water. When I saw how far I had gone, I started getting scared. I was about to swim back to shore, but then I saw three guys from school heading for me. I don’t know them, but I do know they play football. I think they’re going to college to play ball, too. Anyway, I didn’t like the way they were looking at me and I knew I’d made a horrible mistake. I started drifting farther away from the land. I was trying to think about how I could get around them and get back to shore with them touching me.”
Camille paused and smiled a little before continuing with her story.
“That’s when I saw Otis get on the jet ski. He was fixated on those three football players and I knew he was coming to rescue me.” She stopped talking and began shuddering beneath her blanket. “Before he could get to me, I felt something clamp around my left leg. As soon as I felt it, I instinctively took a deep breath to yell, but I didn’t have a chance. Whatever it was, it pulled me underwater and started dragging me away.”
I could feel my brow furrowing. An underwater abduction was a new one for me. From what I knew of aliens, they came in from outer space, not from under the surface of our waterways.
“So, you were abducted through the water?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And it was pulling you away from your group of friends?”
“I couldn’t tell what direction we were going, but it seemed like it was away from the party.” She nodded. “It was definitely away from the party. When I first went under, I remember hearing the music vibrating under the water, but then it got lighter and lighter until I couldn’t hear it anymore.”
“This thing that clamped around your foot,” I began, “what did it feel like?”
“I don’t know how to describe it. It felt weird. At first, I thought it was an alligator. I had read about alligators before we came here and I read that you should play dead if you’re attacked, so that’s what I did. I just went limp and allowed myself to be dragged across the water.”
“Did you feel pain when it clamped onto your leg?”
“I didn’t and that’s what confused me, but then I remembered reading that your body goes into shock when you first get injured and you don’t feel the pain right away. I thought that’s what was happening. I figured I’d feel the pain later.”
I glanced at Amy with an “I don’t owe you $100” expression and turned ba
ck to Camille.
“How fast do you think you were being dragged through the water?”
“Fast, but not that fast,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s not like I was being dragged by a boat. It felt much slower than that.”
“And you just remained limp?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. I didn’t move. I tried real hard to hold my breath. I opened my eyes at one point to see, but the water was black. It was really scary.” She shuddered violently. “I thought it was over. I really thought I’d run out of lives.”
CHAPTER 19
As I sat there watching Camille talk, I couldn’t help but remember the stories her dad had told me about the adversities in her young life. She was definitely a tough lady and a ferocious fighter.
“This thing that was dragging you through the water,” I said, “did it let you go at some point?”
She nodded. “I could hardly hold my breath anymore. I was straining not to breathe. I knew if I took a breath, it would all be over—I would drown. When it had first grabbed me, I just stopped moving and went limp. I let it drag me through the water. After a long moment, and when I felt like I was about to explode, the thing let go of me. At that point, I still thought it was an alligator and I thought it would start eating me. I was terrified. I remained deathly still, praying it would lose interest in me and leave me alone. The thing poked at me—”
“Poked at you?” I asked, interrupting her. “How?”
She reached over and poked at my chest. “Like that. It felt like it was checking to see if I would move or respond to the poke. But I didn’t. I just stayed floating in the water, not moving a muscle. After the poking stopped, I felt it bump against me—like, against my legs. It actually scraped me.” She lifted her hospital gown and pointed to her leg, where a small scrape was visible. “I thought it was the claw from an alligator or something. Afterward, I could feel myself rocking in the water, like the thing had made some waves.”
