The Last Thing I Remember Part 5

But not for long. Soon they were running toward me again. Now I could hear them shouting to one another, shouting at me: "Stop! Hold it right there!" They were getting close fast. They were leveling their weapons at me.

There was no more time. I had to go. I had to run. No matter how much it hurt, I had to run as fast as I could for that tree line.

Never give in.

I let go of the truck and took off.

It was a strange thing. I knew I'd been tortured, beaten, maybe burned. I knew I'd been roughed up fighting with the driver and knocked around inside the truck as it rolled. The pain all through my body was terrible, and I knew it should've been crippling. I shouldn't have been able to do more than limp a few steps and then fall exhausted to the ground. And at first, it was bad. Worse than bad. It was awful. At first, it felt as if my limbs and my torso were encased in some kind of spiked suit, some kind of torture suit that held me back and stabbed into me every time I tried to move.

Then, thougha"thena"with every new stepa"the suit somehow seemed to get lighter. Somehow, the faster I went, the lighter it got, until bit by bit, step by step, I was flying over the gra.s.s, racing as fast as I could for the trees, and the pain was leaving me as if the torture suit were breaking up and falling off, the pieces of it flying away behind me.

Never, never . . .

All right, Winston Churchill, all right already, do I look like I'm giving in?

I ran. I stuck to the dirt road and ran as hard as I could, racing toward the trailhead and the woods. The wall of trees rose up over me as I got closer. Huge maples and oaks and towering evergreens: the closer I got, the higher they seemed to rise, the more they seemed to block out the sky and the sun that was sinking behind them. Another step and the warm sun was gone, blocked out by the trees completely so that I was running in cool shadow.

I glanced back over my shoulder. The guards were almost at the truck now. One of them had dropped to his knees. He steadied his AK and started shooting at me. The deadly sputter of the guna"that heart-stopping sounda"reached me across the meadow and made my stomach turn over with fear. The guard was still too far away to get a clean shot, but that didn't make me feel any better. He didn't need a clean shot. He only needed a lucky one. Every moment, I kept waiting for the bullets to hit me and bring me down.

The fear gave me another burst of energy. I stopped looking back and ran even faster. Now there was nothing in front of me but the trunks of the trees and the deep depth of tangled green darkness that was the forest interior.

Then I felt an earthy cool, and the trees closed over me. The trail turned sharply and I tore along it. I looked back. The guards were lost to viewa"that meant they couldn't see me either anymore, couldn't get a shot at me at all.

But I didn't slow down for a second. I just kept running. Running on the trail fast as I could. Leaping over holes and roots and rocks. Running deeper and deeper into the welcoming shadows of the forest. Running through the pain. Running for my life.

Never give in.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

The Woods

I don't know how long I ran like that. A long, long time, it seemed like. The woods got thicker and thicker around me, darker and darker as they shut out the sun. I strained my eyes, looking for a sign of civilization. A house, a cabin, a ranger station, anything. But as far as I could see, the woods went on forever, an endless, mysterious pattern of vines and branches, ma.s.sive tree trunks and low shrub.

For a while, I stuck to the trail. It was broad and flata" more like a fire road than a hiking traila"so I could move along it quickly. I figured that was the best way to put some distance between me and the guards. In here, see, in the forest, their weapons were useless at long range. There was no way they could even see me for any distance, let alone get a shot at me through the trees. So they'd have to catch up to me first. They might be able to do that if they could push a vehicle through here. But if I was right about that trucka"if it was the only vehicle in the compounda"or even if they had to go back to the compound to get another trucka"then I had time to cover some territory before they could begin to close the gap.

So I ran along the trail as fast as I could go, deeper and deeper into the woods. But it was tough going. I was already unsteady, battered, hurt. Soon enough, I began to feel my legs start to weaken and my lungs start to give out. Not to mention, I needed a drink of watera"a lot. I didn't know how long it'd been since I'd had a drink, but I was starting to feel the need in a big waya"not just in my dusty mouth and my parched throat, but in the wooziness that was seeping into my brain like fog and the weakness that was spreading from the core of me out to my limbs.

Finally, I was staggering. The trail was no good to me now. I couldn't travel quickly anymore anyway. So I left it and plunged into the depths of the brush and trees. There was no running here, not for long. After just a few steps, the undergrowth got so thick that I had to tear it away with my hands to make any progress at all. On the plus side, the trail was soon invisible behind me, which made me suspect I was probably more or less invisible from the trail as well. Even if the guards caught up to me, they wouldn't be able to see me. They might well miss me and run right past.

But if the way had been hard before, it was even harder now. Pushing through the brush, tearing through the hanging vines. Now that I wasn't running anymore, the paina"that spiky torture suit of paina"seemed to close over my body again. I ached and burned. Branches scratched my face and arms. Vines and tangled bushes wrapped themselves around my legs like hands trying to hold onto me. I yanked myself free of them. I shoved myself on. With every step, my thirst got worse. I got dizzier. The weakness at my center spread steadily into my legs and arms.

Then, suddenly, I was down. I didn't even remember falling. All at once, I was just lying on the forest floor with my face in the dirt and half my body caught in a tangle of th.o.r.n.y underbrush. I lay there, gasping, barely conscious at all. I tried to listen for voices, for footsteps, for gunfirea"to hear if the guards were closing in on me. All I could hear, though, was the harsh, rasping sound of my own breathing and the hammering rhythm of the pulse in the side of my head.

It was a long while before I stopped gasping and another long while before my breathing and heartbeat slowed. Then, as I lay there listening for any sound of the approaching guards, other noises came to me, the noises of the forest. They sort of rose up around me so that I knew they had been there all along and I was just becoming conscious of them. There was a steady flow of birdsong, birds calling to birds in the high trees. There was a steady trill of crickets and the rising, falling rattle of the cicadas. Bees hummed and twigs and dead leaves crackled as the lizards scrambled over them.

I lay there and listened. They were good noises somehow. They were cheerful, peaceful. Exhausted as I was, thirsty beyond belief and scared beyond telling, the noises soothed me. They gave me a sort of lazy, dreamy sensation, and I started to think there might still be some hopea"I might still get away from this insanity and back to the life I knew. Maybe someone would find me here, I thought sleepily. Or maybe I would somehow summon enough strength to get up and stumble on a few more steps and find a village or a highway or hikersa"or better yet, hunters with guns who would protect me. Or maybe I would just fall asleep and wake up in my own bed, as I had fallen asleep in my bed and woken up in this insanity.

I lay there lazily and listened to the forest noisesa" birdsong, crickets, bees. And without thinking much, I kind of gazed at my hand, the hand lying on the ground right in front of my eyes. That's strange, I thought in a distant, dreamy sort of way. Where's Beth's number? Because this was the hand that Beth had written on with her marker yesterday. And though it was bruised and b.l.o.o.d.y and there was an ugly burn mark on it, I could still see: the number was gone. There wasn't a trace of it. Which really was strange, wasn't it? I remembered how, just before I went to sleep last night, the last thing I did before I turned off the light was to look at my hand and see the number was still there. It was strangea"strange that there should be no sign of it now at all.

I lay there gazing at my hand and thinking about that and listening to the forest. My mind drifted from thought to thought, and not all my thoughts made sense as my consciousness came and faded. I don't know how much time pa.s.sed like that, but the next thing I knew, amid all the birdsong and so on, I became aware of something else: a deep, loud, almost comical burp of a noise. A frog. A big one, by the sound of it. A big old bullfrog honking it up not very far away.

The frog burped again, and it made me smilea"it's truea"a hunted guy lying there with my face in the dirt and my arm tangled up in scratching branches, and I smiled at the noise the frog made . . . and then I stopped smiling, because an idea had come to me.

I listened harder. Or that is, I shifted the way I was listening. I started listening for noises of a different tone, a different kind. Now, instead of the birdsong and all the rest, I was listening to the sound of the air moving through the treetops. I was hearing the creak and pop of wood bending as the trees stirred this way and that. I heard the low rustle of silence, and finallya"there!a"there it wasa"almost buried in that range of sounds but just audible: I heard the trickling whisper of running water.

The frog gave another great big burpy croak, and I not only smiled again, I almost laughed out loud. It was as if he were talking to me, calling to me through the forest, saying, "Here I ama"burpa"a froga"burpa"and what do frogs like?a"burrap!a"pardon me; must've been something I atea"they like water!

I'm not sure anything else could've gotten me moving again, not even Winston Churchill. But watera"oh yeah, I'd move for that. I ran my tongue around my mouth, trying to dampen the terrible dryness there. I braced my hand against the dirt. I started to push myself up. The bushesa"those thorns I was lying ina"they seemed to grab hold of me, as if they were trying to keep me there, as if they were saying, Not so fast, Harley-Charlie. What's your hurry, dude? Take it easy. You don't need water! You just need to lie here and sleep, sleep, sleep!

I gave a growl of resistance. I felt the branches dig into my flesh as I wrestled my arm free of them. Then I was up. On my knees; on my feet. I stood where I was, weak, hunched over, swaying slightly. Listening to the sound of water. Trying to figure out where it was coming from.

The frog croaked again. That was no help. You can't find a frog by the sound of it. Try it sometime. It always sounds like it's coming from where it's not. Every time you move toward it, it comes again from somewhere else.

But the watera"I could still hear that. I began to move toward it. Stumbling over the thick jumble of roots and bushes at my feet. Staggering from tree to tree. Leaning against the st.u.r.dy trunks to rest and catch my breath again.

The water sound grew louder quickly. In another few moments, I had found it: a small stream. It wound quickly through dead leaves. Its water winked and sparkled beneath the single pale yellow beam of sunlight that fell to the forest floor through the cl.u.s.tered branches above.

I stumbled to it, openmouthed. Dropped to my knees at the edge of it. I fell forward, my mouth seeking out the cool flow.

I didn't know much about forest survival or anything like that, but I knew I was supposed to be careful about drinking water. I remembered something about trying to find the place where the water moved quickest and how you were supposed to be careful not to drink too much or too fast.

Yeah, I remembered all thata"but I didn't care. I was just too thirsty. I stuck my mouth on that stream and tried to suck the entire thing right out of the ground in a single gulp. When that wasn't enough, I grabbed handfuls of it and shoveled it into my face as fast as I could.

Oh, it was an amazing sensation. With every gulp, I could feel the strength flowing back into my body. That cloud of dizziness that had closed around my minda"I could feel it breaking up into wisps and drifting away, leaving my thoughts clear. Everything around mea"the leaves, the sunlight, the water, the whole worlda"was suddenly in sharper focus. It was practically magical, like stories from the Bible where people are healed, going from sick to well in a single second.

I drank and drank, and when I couldn't drink anymore, I rolled over on my back and just lay there, gasping and feeling good and strong. I could think clearly again too. With the water in me, with strength in me, I could begin to think and plan, trying to figure out what had happened to me, what I was dealing with, how I could get away and get back home. There had to be a solution to this craziness, after all. There had to be some sort of reasonable explanation. This wasn't a show on the Sci Fi Channel. Those weren't s.p.a.ce aliens coming after me. They didn't tractor-beam me out of my bed into another dimension. Somehow I'd just been . . . stolen . . . stolen out of my life and shoved into this one. There had to be a method, a reason. And there had to be a way out. There had to be.

But before I could find the answers, I had to start moving again. I had to find my way to a road, to a town, to the police.

I had an idea. I turned over on my side and lifted off the grounda"which wasn't easy, believe me. Every time I stopped moving, the stiffness and pain settled over my body again. But with a lot of grunting and groaning, I managed it. I turned over and lifted myself up, and then grabbed hold of the slim trunk of a birch tree and pulled myself to my feet.

I looked down at the water. It had to run somewhere, didn't it? It was just a narrow stream, but still, it had to make its way somewhere. Maybe it just petered out, but maybe it flowed into a bigger river that would lead me, in turn, to a town. Or maybe it ended at a lake, where there'd be vacation homes and boats and phones . . .

I tried to follow the flow with my eyes, to see where the stream led, but it was no good. The stream wound into the trees and disappeared from view. Soa"weary as I wasa"I started moving again. I began to follow the bubbling flow of the water.

I stuck close to the stream where the brush was thinnest. I pushed through the trees. I went around the bend.

And my heart sank as I saw where the stream ended. I saw the water curve around once, and then curve back. Then it came into a clearing, and there . . . it vanished into the earth.

I stood where I was. I stared unhappily at the place where the water disappeared. It was a clearing, an opening in the trees. At the center of it, there was a sort of depression in the earth. It looked almost as if the ground had collapsed there and fallen in on itself. At the bottom of the depression, there was a dark hole, an opening about as big around as a man. It seemed to lead into nothingness, complete blackness. The stream poured out of the deep forest shadows, skipped merrily over the brighter clearing, and then, with the suddenness of a snapped finger, it was gone, through that hole, into that impenetrable dark.

I knew what it was. As I said, I wasn't a big forest survival guy, but I'd hiked in the woods around my home enough and I'd seen this sort of thing before. It was a sinkhole. The stone beneath the dirt here must be softa"limestone maybe. The water had worn a hole in it and there was probably a cavea"even a network of cavesa"underneath.

Well, so much for that idea. There was no way I was going underground into absolute blackness. If I was going to die, I was going to die up here in the light. I'd have to find another way.

I turned from the sinkhole and scanned the forest. It was the same in every direction, the same tangle of branches and vines, the same streaking sunlight, and the same shadows slowly getting deeper, darker. Soon it would be night and there'd be no chance of finding my way. For now, at least I knew I'd been heading in the direction of the sinking sun when I left the compound. If I kept traveling that way, at least I'd put some more distance between me and the bad guys before dusk.

I was just about to set off when I heard it. An unmistakable sound. An enginea"Maybe a car, I thought with faint hopea"but noa"noa"it was a truck. It was getting louder, coming closer somewhere beyond the trees. It was out on the trail, out of my sightline, but not that far away, not far enough. For another second or two, I tried to hold on to the desperate hope that it was someone besides the guards, someone who might help me.

Then the truck stopped and I heard their voices, and my hope was gone.

"There," one of them said in a thick, syrupy accent. "Look. The branches."

"I see it," said another.

It was the guards all right. They must've had a second truck back in the compound. Or maybe they'd gotten another set of keys to the truck I'd stolen. Or maybe . . . well, it didn't matter, did it? They were here. They were close.

"Looks like he went off that way," said the first man now.

"Yes," said the second. "I see it."

"Dylan and I'll keep watch on the path in case he tries to double back and make a break. You three, take Hunter. Stay in radio contact."

"Will do."

For another second, I stood in the little clearing, unable to think, unable to move. My eyes darted frantically back and forth, looking for a way outa"any way. If I was quick, I thought, I still might stay ahead of them, find a place to hide.

But the next moment, I heard something else, something new. It was a sound that seemed to go through me like a dentist's drill hitting a raw nerve.

Take Hunter, the man had said.

And when I heard that next sound, I knew who Hunter was. He was a dog. A bloodhound.

And judging by the long, hungry howl that now came winding to me through the tangled branches, he had found my scent.

He was after me.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Into the Dark

The forest seemed suddenly alive with noisea"with noise and danger. The dog howled. The men shouted. Branches and leaves snapped and crackled as they stormed quickly through the underbrush. I couldn't see them yet, but I could tell that they were on my trail. Every moment that pa.s.sed brought them closer to me.

For another second, I stood where I was, too confused and frightened to move. One more time, my eyes scanned the forest, looking for an escape route. There was none.

Without thinking, I let my hand flutter down to my waistband. I felt the b.u.t.t of the pistol there, the gun I'd taken from the truck driver. But what good was a pistol against machine guns?

It was no use. No use to run. No use to stand and fight. There was only one thing for me to do.

I turned to face the sinkhole, that opening into absolute blackness. On TV and in the movies and stuff, all you have to do to throw a dog off your trail is splash around in some water. But that's not real. In real life, a dog can follow you through water just finea"I saw it once on the Discovery Channel. But maybe if I went into the cavesa" maybe I could lose the bloodhound in there . . .

Still, I hesitated. If I went down there and there was nothing, just a dead end, a small chamber, the guards would climb down after me. They would corner me down there and put an end to it. And even if there was a pa.s.sage, a network of caves, how could I find my way through it? I could be lost forever underground. I could starve to death in the terror of that darkness.

The dog howled. The men shouted. The branches and leaves snapped and crackled. Closer.

"This way!"

"Therea"over there!"

"The dog's got his scent! Go, go!"

Closer still.

I took a deep, trembling breath. I stepped into the little stream. Splashing through it, I walked unsteadily over the clearing to the sinkhole.

The hole was small, set into the bottom of the depression just like a drain at the bottom of a sink. When I reached it, I had to lie down in order to slide into it feet-first. I lowered myself into the water and mud and mulch that had washed to the mouth of the hole with the current. I eased my feet into the opening, into the unseen.

The hole was narrow. I had to work my way in, turning to lie almost facedown in the muck. I slid my way down the funneling stream and felt my feet go over the edge and into thin air. I gripped the wet, slippery ground to keep from falling. My feet felt around for a ledge I could stand on, for anything I could stand on. There was nothing there. For all I knew, it was a straight drop into oblivion.

Suddenly, the dog let out a fresh howl, so close it felt as if he were standing right beside me, howling into my ear. The men answered him with a fresh round of shouts.

"Here. Look here!"

"Water!"

"Look at the branches."

"He must've found the stream."

"There's the trail!"

"He's following the water!"