Harper Connelly [3] An Ice Cold Grave

by Charlaine Harris

  He struck at me, but he had to drive, so the random swings didn’t connect with my legs often. If they did, they didn’t have much force behind them because he was having to strain to reach me.

  The pain in my arm was constant and increasing. In a way it was good, because it kept me awake and angry, and in a way it was bad, because it was draining my energy and my will. I even caught myself wanting to be careful of the healing injury. But there was no point in keeping the arm from breaking if I died soon after, I told myself stoutly, and I kicked with renewed vigor and rage.

  “You crazy bitch!” he screamed. Well, right back at you, buddy. I was so pleased I had my hiking boots on.

  I’d assumed sooner or later we’d be in the center of Doraville, but he swerved to the right, and I knew we’d turned onto one of the back roads that twisted through the county. We were going up into the mountains. That was the worst possible development.

  He leaned way over, till his left hand was barely on the wheel, and he hit me in the face open-handed. I saw gray for a second. He looked very satisfied, when I could focus on his face again. He’d caused pain, and he liked that a lot. Also, I’d quit kicking. He could drive with both hands on the wheel. I debated with myself whether to let him drive safely and not get hit again, or to kick out and get hurt. I rested for a couple of minutes and decided it was time to try again.

  I got his knee this time, and there was the familiar swerve, but this time he looked all around and pulled over again. Okay, this was a step for the worse. He flung open his door and dashed around the SUV while I was struggling to change positions so I’d be facing him. But I couldn’t manage it, and he popped open the passenger door so suddenly that I fell out. He caught me by my hair, pulling the stitches in my scalp. I made a noise that would have been a scream if I could have opened my mouth. He dragged me out by the hair, out onto the narrow shoulder, gray with ice and snow slush. There was a steep slope down to the forest, patched with white. Beyond the forest, I glimpsed water.

  I had to struggle desperately to keep from landing flat on the ground. I got my feet under me somehow, and tried to twist away, and he hit me again, this time with his fist, in the ribs.

  Oh, God, it hurt.

  Once I got my feet braced I rammed against him, trying to knock him down, but I only made him stagger a foot or two, and then he began beating me in earnest. I thought if I fell down he would kill me, but I didn’t think I could stay up for long. I landed a lucky kick to his crotch, but when I brought my foot back down I slipped on the ice by the side of the road, and I toppled over. I rolled through snow and wet grass, down and down to the bottom of the slope.

  He was no more dressed than I for something like this; in fact, he was even less prepared, because I was wearing boots and a heavy coat and scarf, and he was wearing a suit and that was it. His shoes went along with the suit, strictly indoor wear. By the time I got to the tree line at the bottom of the slope, he’d begun floundering down after me.

  Getting up was very hard with my hands taped, but I was able to struggle to my feet, and I took off. It was terrible, making my way through the heavy brush and trees, with the ground slushy. But I had to put as much distance as I could between him and me.

  Would he come down in the trees after me?

  Yes, idiot. Of course he will. I heard his inarticulate scream of rage and then the sounds of him thrashing through the trees.

  At least he was openly nuts now. At least he wasn’t trying to reason. That was the only chance I had, his mental state.

  Not that I was thinking. I was just running.

  Plan, plan, plan, I needed a plan. The weather and terrain were all against me. If I trod in the patches of snow, all he had to do was follow my tracks. And it was very precarious, trying to hurry and also trying to avoid stepping in the snow. At least there were a few other tracks around; people had ridden their four-wheelers through here, and I could see another set of tracks, vague ones, a few yards away. I leaped between the snow patches, hoping that the ground would not show every print I made simply because it was wet. Maybe he wasn’t any more of a woodsman than I was.

  I felt the buzz of bones, very close. Instinctively I began tracking the buzz. The dead could not rise up and protect me, which would only have been right…but could they hide me? I couldn’t have told you exactly what I was thinking, but I was comfortable with the dead.

  The sky was darkening and visibility was getting worse even as I ran, bashing into trees and staggering to keep to my feet. I headed for the dead man. If no one had found him, maybe no one would find me. The feeling of him was fairly fresh, and I was so tired. But I kept on scampering, fast as a panicked squirrel.

  The dead man was in the thicket right before me, an overgrown patch of short tree saplings, vines, and myrtle. The thicket was surrounded by pines, and there were pinecones littering the ground. I crouched to grab up a couple.

  The live man trying to kill me was just a few yards behind me, though I couldn’t see him. I could hear him, snorting and pushing through the growth. Half-standing, I threw one pinecone, then another. I threw them as hard as I could with my bound hands, and they made just a bit of noise a few yards away, when they hit the soggy ground. I didn’t think Barney Simpson was any Daniel Boone. Maybe he would think he was hearing footsteps. There was a rocky outcropping close, and he might think my next steps had been on the rock surface. The dead man was waiting.

  I hunkered down and tried to slow down my breathing. I sounded like a faulty bellows. Please, Dead Guy, I begged, please be a hunter.

  God heard me. Or fate heard me. Or it was just the way it turned out. Dead Guy had a knife. It was in a sheath on his rotting belt. His camo was in shredded rags, stained with the fluids from his body. Some of his bones had been scattered, and the stomach area had been torn open and devoured by something. But Lyle—that was his name, Lyle Worsham—had a knife in that sheath. The Velcro yielded to my fingers, and then with some difficulty, I worked the knife out. It was rusted and pocked, but it was a knife—not the stout hunting knife I’d expected, though. The shape was strange to me. I awkwardly turned it in my fingers and tried to saw through the duct tape with it.

  Before I was through, I was glad I had a coat on. My arms would’ve been a mess. And my first act was to rip the tape off my mouth. No silencing me.

  Of course, then I crouched there without making a single noise. Where was he? Was he going to pounce on me any second? Had he given up to go back to the SUV? Was he even now fleeing the county? I didn’t mind staying here until I was sure. I was cold and wet and scared, but I could be patient. I had old Lyle here with me. Had Lyle had a gun? He should have, right?

  As it turned out, Lyle had been fishing, not hunting. There was a tackle box sitting on its side in two years’ worth of downed leaves, and there was a creel that had once contained his catch. So now I knew why this knife had such a strange shape—it must be a filleting knife. He’d been to the lake to fish. Would the surface of the water have iced over? It had gotten above freezing this afternoon, and it had been sunny for a while. Now that the twilight was drawing in, the water might freeze again. I shivered. My vague idea of cutting across the frozen lake surface was simply stupid. My ignorance of the woods was probably equal to Barney Simpson’s. Barney preferred indoor sports, like having sex with bound boys. I wonder what the former Mrs. Simpson had to say about Barney’s sexual kinks.

  My mind stopped wandering and focused at the faint noises I was hearing. Barney was trying for stealth, but he was a big man and he was wearing the wrong footwear. The snow crunched under his feet and he was breathing heavily. Me and Lyle, we were really quiet.

  The next time I got abducted, I was going to have my gloves on, I promised myself. And a hat.

  “Get out here, bitch,” Barney called.

  Mr. Simpson, I’m not satisfied with my treatment by your staff.

  “There aren’t any houses around here, and no one’s going to come help you,” he called, and he was c
loser to where I was crouched.

  Could he possibly be lying? Why, yes, I thought he might be. The same way he’d been lying all along.

  The glimpses I’d caught while I was running away had included a brief vista across a body of water, and the glimpse of some cabins; distant, but visible. Reachable. I was pretty sure of my location.

  I thought I was very close to the southern shore of Pine Landing Lake. I thought if I struck out through the trees, following the lake line northwest, I might find the cabin again. If I could go up and walk on the road I’d be sure, and walking would be easier and faster.

  Now he was right outside the thicket. I bit my lip to keep from letting out my shuddering breath. With my right hand, I held the knife at the ready.

  Hold it. Hold it. Don’t say anything. And then his feet moved away.

  The darkness couldn’t fall fast enough to suit me.

  He was the one who was in a hurry. Not me.

  Lyle, you and me, we can wait forever, right?

  And then he howled and pounced but he was howling and pouncing on the wrong shadow, and since I’d held still I was okay, I was okay. My arm was truly broken all the way through now, thanks to the beating by the side of the road, and my scalp was really bleeding, and my head was hurting like someone had dragged me out of a car by my hair, but I was okay. In danger of freezing in this position, though. I’d been in one position for too long, and I needed to move, needed to stretch a little, needed to shift my weight. But I was too scared.

  He didn’t have a gun, apparently. That was good. He could just shoot at bushes until he hit me; no, that would attract too much attention. Even in the rural South, random shooting will attract a certain amount of notice. But he might risk that, to kill me.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said, so close I almost shrieked. “I mean, after all, you must be nuts to react to a man talking to you that way. Kicking and screaming, fighting and biting. Who could expect anyone in your line of work to be sane, anyway? I was just trying to take you to the hospital when you started having a fit, that’s all. Your overreaction caused me to panic. I took the wrong turn. Now here we are out in the middle of nowhere in very cold weather and you won’t let me know where you are so I can get you the help you need.”

  The help I need is for someone to come along and shoot you, I thought. Barney was busy building a story, some kind of story that would enable him to hold on to what he had. He was doomed to fail. But then, he’d lasted this long, and it must be hard for him to believe it was the end.

  And to think I’d suspected Doak Garland. Well, I shouldn’t relax too soon. There might have been three of them.

  And I really was thinking about that, so you know my mind was wandering. It was the cold and fear that were doing me in. I sharpened back up mentally just in time. I’d almost laughed at the picture of the whole town of Doraville being in on the kidnapping and the murdering. Like a Shirley Jackson short story!

  And then he caught me.

  Fourteen

  HIS big hands grabbed my shoulders, and like so many young men had been, I was now in his power. Except I had a knife in my hand. He pulled me up and up, until I was almost off my feet. In the twilight it was hard to make out details but I could see the white of his shirtfront, where his unbuttoned coat flapped open, and I swung my arm as hard as I could. The knife went into his skin easily enough but skidded along a bone, maybe his rib, and he screamed as the blood welled through his shirt.

  He dropped me and I ran. He caught up with me after a second, though; he was quicker to recover from the shock than I expected. He tackled me, and I twisted, coming up on my side and swinging the knife back. This time I got him in the shoulder and it went in much farther. He really did scream, and heaved off of me, scrambling to his feet. We were close to the edge of the lake then, and I saw a sign or two—we were in some sort of public fishing area. I backed up closer to the water because he was coming at me and I didn’t have a choice.

  He’d done all the talking up till now. “Come get me, you bastard,” I said. “Come get me, rapist.”

  “They loved it,” he said, amazingly. “They loved it.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Who doesn’t like being chained and burned and sliced before sex?”

  “No,” he said, panting, “not the boys. Tom. Tom and Chuck.”

  “Okay, you make me sick,” I said. “You going to stand there and make me sick some more, asshole?”

  And he charged. He can’t have been stupid, because he had a good job and he did it well enough to keep it, but he was stupid that night because of the strain and the pain and the freezing temperature, and he did lunge right at me. I leaped to one side and as he shot by I shoved him as hard as I could using both hands, even with the broken arm screaming at me. He landed right at the lake’s edge, so I hadn’t been close enough, damn it. I’d wanted him to go into the chilly water. But he wasn’t getting up, and I took off. All those years of running finally gave me a reward for good behavior.

  I was in the trees and working my way around the lake toward the inhabited cabin, the one with lights, which—I was almost certain—was the Hamiltons’.

  I thought I heard him a million times. I hid for ten minutes, not moving, at least once; and maybe more than that. I was in too much pain to make sense, too cold to reason. I still had the knife, and though I thought of dropping it, I was scared to be without it in case he caught up with me. When I remembered how it had felt when the knife went into him, I had to stop and throw up. This was a queasy case. I didn’t remember ever getting the heaves over any case before. Probably, I thought, I could excuse myself for it over the knifing. But I’d gotten sick outside the barn, too. Maybe it was the torturing, not the knifing?

  I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly, but knowing that didn’t seem to help. I actually shook my head, maybe in the hope that my brains would resettle in a more sensible configuration, but I was really sorry I did that after I got sick yet again. Something was wrong with me, something bad. I needed to go to the hospital! I giggled.

  It sure must have been Tom that hit me with that shovel, I thought. If it had been Barney, he would’ve killed me.

  I’d forgotten to move for a couple of minutes. I’d just been standing in the dark woods with my mind far, far away. I listened hard, but I couldn’t hear anything. That didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. I didn’t trust my senses anymore. But I made myself move, because I couldn’t stay out in the cold. I had to reach shelter.

  That was the hardest struggle of my life. But I could see the lights and they were getting closer. I was farther from the road, far enough that I could only see lights passing occasionally. And who could tell whose lights they were, anyway?

  I finally approached the first cabin. The woods ended, not abruptly, but with a gradual shift from heavy brush and trees, to trees with no brush, to scattered trees, to lawn and cabin. I didn’t know anything: where Barney was, if I was for sure at Pine Landing Lake, if Tolliver was even looking for me. How could he not be? But what if he thought I’d gone off voluntarily? We’d been a little irritated with each other. No, that would never happen. He’d never believe I’d leave him.

  I was stalling because I was scared to step out into the open. I listened with all my ears and looked with all my eyes. My heart was thudding and my head began pounding in time with it. I was having to fight a terrible desire to lie down on the cold ground and rest there, just for a minute. I took a few deep breaths and braced myself. I stepped out into the darkening evening. The moon would be out and there would be a lot of visibility, but now it was still twilight, the deepest, darkest part.

  One step out into the open. Another.

  Nothing happened.

  I began to move faster, crossing this lawn and going into the next. Saying “lawn” may give an impression of unbroken sweeps of trimmed grass, but that wasn’t exactly accurate. These were summer cabins, or glorified fishing camps, and lawn care was not a big item in the time budget of people who spent wee
kends at the lake. The lots were not that large, and sometimes there was no division at all between one property and another. Sometimes there was a line of ragged bushes, probably something that flowered in the spring. The ground was often weedy, uneven, and always, it was wet. There were things strewn around: buckets, childrens’ toys, boats covered in tarps, even a swing set. One careless cabin owner had left out his deck chairs. I know because I fell over one.

  I’d never felt so alone in my life.

  I got this feeling that this episode would never end. Forever, for always, I’d be stumbling in the dark through rough territory, with death waiting for me somewhere along the line.

  I was actually surprised to find that I had reached the Cotton cabin, where we’d stayed. For the first time I was sure I was at Pine Landing Lake, and the next cabin, the one with lights, was the Hamiltons’ place.

  But I’d have to step into the bright light to knock on the Hamiltons’ door. I might endanger them. Though it seemed to me that Barney Simpson must be heading toward Mexico or Canada in his SUV by now, I couldn’t be certain.

  I planned it in advance, real carefully. I would run from the shadows of the Cotton cabin, up the slight slope to the Hamiltons’ driveway, up the steps to their little deck, across it to the door, bam bam bam. Ted would open the door, because it was night. He would let me in. He might not really want to, because I was such a mess and I was bringing trouble with me, but I thought he would.

  I gathered myself. Just as I was about to take the step out of the shadows, a large dark shape passed between me and the cottage. It seemed more bear than human, but after a second I was sure I was seeing Barney Simpson—not the kindly hospital administrator, but the beast that had lived within him. He hardly walked like a man. His shoulders were slumped and his left leg was dragging. I was sorry I hadn’t hurt him enough to stop him. I thought he was more dangerous now that he’d been wounded.