He resented her apparent assumption that he was going to subject the children to anything at the excavations that would frighten them. Given their already fragile state of mind, he had no intention of letting them anywhere near the bog bodies.
At the camp he herded the children out of the car and led them toward the main tent. About fifteen feet outside it he stopped them.
“Now listen to me,” he said, looking at them sternly. “I want you both to play right here where I can keep an eye on you.”
Katy looked appalled. “You’re not letting us come in?”
“No,” he said in a tone of voice that stifled further argument.
“Well what are we supposed to do to pass the time?” she asked.
“You might try telling your little brother a story. But whatever you do, I don’t want you to come into the tent, and I don’t want you to wander off. We’re very near the bog here and it would be very dangerous for you to just go strolling around.”
Tuck looked off into the thicket nervously.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Katy said begrudgingly.
“Now, remember, stay where I can keep an eye on both of you.”
David walked off toward the tent. Inside he found everything as they had left it. The first two bodies they had unearthed were now completely preserved and laid out on dry tables with sheets draped over them, but the bodies of the Roman couple were in separate tubs and were still soaking in the first of their chemical baths. David walked over to the woman. For some reason the pressure of the peat above her had been irregular and left her corpse both slightly elongated and slightly concave. It was almost as if a wax model of a human being had been sat upon by a giant while it was still in the formative stages of hardening. Nonetheless, he started to drain off the chemical bath so that he could proceed with his examination.
Outside, the wind began to blow and caused the grass on the hills to rustle and move.
“Dad, the grass is moving!” Tuck called, suddenly panicky.
David looked up from his work. “Tuck, it’s only the wind.” Tuck seemed slightly reassured.
David finished draining the liquid off, and with a towel he began to pat the body dry. For the moment they had left all of the woman’s clothing on, and even the fateful knife clutched firmly in her hands. From the activity of the chemicals in the peat she had also been left absolutely rigid, and she had been preserved lo these nineteen-odd centuries almost exactly as she had fallen just seconds after she had plunged the knife into her abdomen.
David looked at her face and felt a pang as he saw the sadness and desolation there. What had driven her to this act? he wondered. Was it really the witnessing of her husband’s ghoulish murder, or was there some other secret that her ancient brain concealed?
Outside, the wind rustled once again, and Tuck became agitated. “Dad, I’m scared.”
David looked up and saw that his son was looking around, anxiously. “Katy, aren’t you telling him a story?”
“I’m trying to, but he won’t listen,” she whined back.
“Well, try harder.”
He returned his attention to the body. Her flesh, once soft and supple, was now dry and leathery as an old shoe. He scrutinized her posture, the way she held her hands, but still he discerned nothing that piqued his attention. He tried carefully to shift her, to get a better view of the knife she held, when suddenly there was a snap and her hand broke neatly off at the wrist.
For some reason the mishap affected him almost as adversely as if the woman were still living flesh and blood instead of some strange permutation of something once alive, and he was filled with horror and anger over what he had done. He cursed as he looked at the cross section of her severed wrist, as brittle and ragged as an old tree limb. Perhaps it was the pressure he was under, or his exhaustion because of lack of sleep. Perhaps it was his concern and irritation with his wife, his loss of patience with his whiny children, or the total and agonizing frustration he felt over suspecting that he was close to something, but not able to pin down exactly what it was. But as he looked down at the shriveled body, as he pondered what secret the ancient skull contained that still eluded him, he wondered suddenly why he was doing it all. Grenville was right. He did grovel around in the mud and try desperately to wrest secrets out of fragments. Why was he struggling so hard? Why was he pushing his mettle to the very limit when still, no matter what he did, the world just continued to slowly collapse around him? Why didn’t he just give up and go over to Grenville’s side?
For several moments he remained lost in this thought, thinking of the worlds that would be opened up to him if he just accepted Grenville’s offer, when, only half consciously, he noticed something peculiar about the concavity of the woman’s body.
He barely had time to register the thought when outside the wind suddenly surged up powerfully and captured a piece of black vinyl plastic that had gotten wrapped around one of the tent’s supporting ropes, sending it whipping through the air like some strange winged creature.
As fate would have it, it sailed right toward where Tuck and Katy were standing, and when Tuck saw it coming he screamed and suddenly broke into a run.
Horrified, David took off after him. “Tuck!” he cried, but Tuck just continued to run, heading straight toward the thicket that marked the edge of the bog.
Gripped by panic, David pounded after him. “Tuck, no! It’s just the wind!”
But Tuck was apparently so overcome with terror that he was no longer cognizant of his father’s cries. A wave of icy fear engulfed David as he saw Tuck vanish into the thicket.
“Tuck, please stop, Daddy will protect you!” David screamed, but when he reached the edge of the thicket he saw no sign of his son. He stopped, listening carefully, until he once again heard the crash of the underbrush, and then he took off in the direction of the sounds.
He caught a glimpse of Tuck only once more, just a flash of the color of his jacket in the far distance, before he heard the splash.
“Tuck!” he screamed with such agony that it felt as if his vocal cords would rip from his throat. “Tuck, please!” He crashed frenziedly through the brambles, caring not at all that the thorns were ripping his skin, his clothes.
At last he reached the spot where he had last seen his son, but Tuck was nowhere to be found. As David looked frantically around only silence met his ears, silence and the ominous rocking of a tangle of lilies in one of the bog pools where only moments before something had apparently crashed through the floating mat of peat.
Without regard to his own safety, David dove madly in. Once submerged he struggled to open his eyes, but the icy water had become so clouded with peat from his thrashing around that he could see nothing. He quickly discerned that the bog pool appeared to be quite large, for as he swam farther downward he found no sign of bottom. He also, in his mad flailings, found no trace of Tuck.
Finally, his lungs on the verge of bursting, he started back up for air. When he reached the surface he came up under a matted tangle of vines and rotted debris and with superhuman strength he tore through them, gasping frantically when he once again saw daylight. In the distance he also heard Katy calling for him.
“Dad! Dad, where are you?”
“Katy!” he bellowed. “Don’t come in! Run home and call for an ambulance!”
“Why?”
“Just do it!” he shrieked, angered that he was wasting precious time. He looked at his watch and realized that Tuck had now been under for almost a minute.
Taking several large gulps of air, he dove back down into the pitchy water. This time, more prepared for the descent, he reached bottom, or as he had expected, false bottom, and his hands plunged deep into the thick black ooze. He prayed that Tuck had not managed to submerge himself in this for if he had, David knew that he would never find him. Feeling his way carefully along the slimy bottom he penetrated another fifteen feet or so into the darkness. It was difficult going, for the bottom of the
bog pool was littered with debris, old tree stumps and fallen branches, and David was forced to meticulously grope around them to make sure that Tuck had not gotten wedged underneath any of them. The water at the bottom of the pond was also icy cold and his fingers grew numb as he continued. Time and again he surfaced, ripping his way through the floating tangle of the lilies and gasping for air, only to dive down again to continue in his search. Finally, numbed from cold and exhaustion and in danger of drowning himself, he was forced to temporarily latch onto a floating log. He looked at his watch. To his great despair he saw that if Tuck was in the pond he had now been underwater for almost twenty minutes. David realized torturedly that already his hope of ever recovering his son alive was slim, but he realized that it was nonexistent if he did not continue. Filling his lungs he once again dove down into the murk.
It was a little while later, as he was fumbling wildly through the ooze of the false bottom, that his hand collided with the rubber sole of a child’s shoe. Reaching out eagerly, he felt the solidity of a leg and he realized that he had found him. Calling upon his last flicker of strength, he carried the body to the surface. This time, with only one hand free, it was even more difficult for him to tear through to the open air, but finally he broke through and managed to reach the shore. Tears flooding his eyes, he laid Tuck’s limp little form on a bed of ferns. Feeling for a pulse, he found none.
David’s first urge was to wail, to let out all his grief and pain in one terrible cry of misery, but something inside him would not allow him to give up, to accept that Tuck was dead. Frenziedly, he collapsed beside his son and started to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. After a minute or two of this, a slight stream of water came pouring out of Tuck’s mouth, but it was not accompanied by any sound or movement to indicate that it was more than a phenomenon of physics, just an emptying of water from a dead body. David felt once again for a pulse, but still found none. Placing one hand on Tuck’s diminutive chest, he pounded firmly on it with the other, and then again. He continued with his attempts at revival, alternately breathing into Tuck’s mouth and then pounding on his chest, until suddenly a great flood of water poured forth out of him. David tilted Tuck slightly to one side, slapping him on the back to assist in the purge. And then he watched.
For several seconds Tuck remained motionless, the water continuing to stream from his mouth, and then suddenly he seemed to move. David ripped open his little shirt and placed his ear against his chest. To his uncontrolled elation he heard a faint beat. On Tuck’s left hand a finger twitched, as weakly his body forced a cough and another flood of water came issuing out of his lungs. His heartbeat remained feeble and erratic and his eyes closed, as he desperately struggled to hold on to life.
David looked at his watch and realized to his horror that as near as he could determine Tuck had been underwater for almost thirty-five minutes. Now that his frenzied state of mind had diminished slightly, he wondered how it was that Tuck had survived at all, but his puzzlement quickly faded as he clung only to the hope that the ambulance would arrive in time. As he continued to rock his son gently in his arms he remembered also Winnifred Blundell’s warning that sooner or later the bog always took, and he prayed that this time at least she had been wrong.
It was nearly dark before the ambulance finally arrived, accompanied by the police from Leeming as well as Grenville’s Rolls. It did not surprise him that Grenville was here. He knew that after Melanie had called for the ambulance she would have worried about what Grenville would do when he found out, and she would have called him to apprise him of what was going on. The cars pulled to a stop and the ambulance attendants jumped out and rushed over. Within moments they had placed Tuck’s still-unconscious form on a stretcher and had clamped an oxygen mask over his face.
Melanie also ran over, beginning to scream when she saw Tuck, and one of the policemen quickly took her by the shoulders and held her back.
Grenville got out of his Rolls and watched the proceedings sternly.
As the ambulance attendants loaded Tuck’s stretcher into the back of the ambulance, David tried to comfort Melanie and Katy also ran over crying. It was only after both the police and the ambulance attendants were out of hearing range that Grenville strode angrily over.
“What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing having these people come here?” he demanded.
David looked at him wrathfully. He knew that Grenville was going to be livid over his actions, but he no longer cared. “It’s my son in there,” he said. “He’s nearly drowned. I had to call them.”
Grenville was still fuming. “And what do you intend to do now?” he asked.
“We intend to go to the hospital and see that he’s okay,” David shot back.
“I won’t allow it!” Grenville snapped.
“And what are you going to do to stop us?”
Grenville glared in the direction of the police, apparently weighing his options.
“If you kill them, not only will Tuck probably die and you won’t have him, but you’ll bring in an investigation that even you might have some trouble handling.”
“Very well,” he growled. “You’ve got me on this one. You and your wife may accompany your son to the hospital, but your daughter stays here.”
Before David or Melanie could do a thing he pulled Katy away from them. Katy’s eyes widened with terror and she was about to cry out when Grenville quickly passed his hand over her face and she fell into a bewitched sleep.
“She’ll be at Wythen Hall until you return,” he said. “And may I suggest for her sake that you keep me fully informed of what is going on, and you return forthwith.” He gestured for his chauffeur to come over to take Kathy’s limp body and place it in the Rolls.
David stepped forward to stop him, but Grenville intervened, venom flooding his expression. “I warn you, Professor Macauley, do not push me any further, or I will kill all of these people, including your son, right here and now.”
Convinced that Grenville was now telling the truth, David stepped back.
“No!” Melanie exclaimed as she watched Katy being taken away, but one of the policemen was approaching them and David motioned for her to be silent.
The ambulance started its motor.
“We’re ready to leave,” the policeman informed them. “Would you and your wife like a ride to the hospital?”
“Thank you,” David returned, “but I have my car here. We’ll drive ourselves.”
“Very well,” the policeman said, nodding. “If you don’t mind we’ll follow along also. We have a few questions we’re going to have to ask you. Just formalities, you understand.”
David nodded.
Before they left David ran up to the ambulance one last time and looked in at his son. “Any prognosis?” he asked the attendant who was still involved in administering oxygen to Tuck.
The attendant looked up. “How long did you say he was underwater?”
“Thirty-five minutes,” David returned.
A shadow seemed to fall over the attendant’s face. “Of course, we’ll have to run some tests, but it’s a miracle that you were able to revive him at all.” He looked with concern at his partner. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up about him ever regaining consciousness. Brain death generally occurs after five to ten minutes without oxygen. Even if we do manage to keep your son alive, it’s doubtful that he’ll ever come out of his coma.”
The words cut through David like a sword. Numbed with shock, he assisted Melanie into the Volvo.
“What did he say?” she asked. But for the moment David could not reply. Both the ambulance and the police started their engines and David followed suit. As he turned the key in the ignition he looked at Grenville one last time.
“What did he say?” Melanie repeated, but still to no avail.
David’s thoughts were a thousand miles away, and as he pulled up onto the lane he registered only the bottomless pain inside him and the glower o
n Grenville’s face, illumed by the flashing red light of the ambulance as it receded into the distance.
ELEVEN
At the hospital they waited for almost three hours before the physician attending Tuck, a Dr. Grosley, finally came out to talk to them.
Dr. Grosley was a tall man with a bald head. David searched his face for some hint of the news he was bearing. “How is he?” David asked “Is there any hope?” The doctor’s expression remained grim. “Please sit down,” he said, as he took a seat beside them. Before continuing he took off his glasses and wiped their lenses clean with a handkerchief. Then he replaced them and looked at David and Melanie somberly.
He cleared his throat. “As you know, something of a minor miracle has occurred in your being able to revive your son at all after he was submerged for so long underwater.” He looked at David. “I must commend you for your efforts. As I understand it, they were quite extraordinary.”
David nodded perfunctorily.
Dr. Grosley paused again, as if he didn’t quite know what to say next. “I also understand that the lake your son drowned in was a bog lake and that the water was quite cold. Is that correct?”
Again David nodded. “Yes, that’s correct. But why are you asking this? Is it important?”
Dr. Grosley pursed his brow. “In this case I’m beginning to believe that it was quite important. In fact, for your son, the difference between life and death. I don’t know if you have noticed, but in the news in the past several years there have been a number of accounts of this sort of thing. Last year a young boy fell through the ice in a river in Scotland and was under for forty minutes and then was successfully revived. And just this past winter a young woman was pulled from her automobile twenty-five minutes after plunging into an ice-encrusted pond and was successfully resuscitated.”
“And were they all right?” David asked.
“In these two particular cases, after sufficient medical treatment both were able to resume normal lives.”
“But how?” Melanie asked, grasping her husband’s hand hopefully.
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