15

I HADN?T BEEN THIS HUNGOVER IN A VERY LONG TIME. AS USUAL, I was too sick to remember much. When I moved, harpoons of pain shot into my brain and forced me to be still. I knew if I opened my eyes I?d vomit. My stomach also recoiled at the thought of motion, yet I had to get up. Above all, I was cold. My body was gripped by a chill that had taken over its core. I began to shake uncontrollably, and thought I needed another blanket.

I sat up with my eyes still tightly shut. The pain in my head was so fierce I retched up a small quantity of bile. I lowered my head to my knees and waited for the nausea to pass. Still unable to open my eyes, I spit the bile into my left hand, and felt for my comforter with my right.

Through the throbbing and shivering, I began to realize I wasn?t in my bed. My groping hand encountered twigs and leaves. That got my eyes open, pain or no pain.

I was sitting in a wood, in wet clothes and covered with mud. The ground around me was littered with leaves and small branches, and the air was heavy with the smell of earth and things that would become earth. Above me I could see a latticework of branches, their dark, spidery fingers intertwining against a black velvet sky. Behind them, a million stars flickered through the leafy cover.

Then memory logged in. The storm. The gates. The path. But how had I come to be lying here? This was not a hangover night, only a parody of one.

I ran an exploratory hand over the back of my head. A knob the size of a lime was palpable beneath my hair. Great. Bashed twice in one week. Most boxers are punched less often.

But how had I been bashed? Had I tripped and fallen? Had a tree limb struck me? The storm had been churning things up pretty well, but no large branches lay next to me. I couldn?t remember, and I didn?t care. I just wanted to be gone.

Fighting back nausea, on my hands and knees I fumbled for the flashlight. I found it half buried in mud, wiped it clean, and flicked the switch. Amazingly, it worked. Controlling my trembling legs, I stood and more fireworks exploded in my head. I braced myself against a tree and retched again.

The taste of bile filled my mouth and triggered more questions by my consciousness. When did I eat? Last night? Tonight? What time is it? How long have I been here? The storm had ended and stars emerged. And it was still night. And I was freezing. That?s all I knew.

When the abdominal contractions stopped, I straightened slowly and played the flashlight around me, looking for the path. The beam dancing across the ground cover tripped another cognitive wire. The buried bag. The burst of memory brought with it a wave of fear. I gripped the flashlight tighter, and turned a complete rotation, assuring myself that no one was behind me. Back to the bag. Where had it been? Recall was creeping back, but in still frames. I could see the bag in my mind, but couldn?t fix a location on the ground.

I probed in the adjacent vegetation searching for the burial. My head pounded and nausea kept rising in my throat, but there was nothing left, and the dry heaving made my sides ache and my eyes tear. I kept stopping and bracing against a tree, waiting for the spasms to subside. I noted crickets warming up for a post-storm gig, and their music had the feel of gravel sucked into my ears and dragged across my brain.

The bag was not ten feet away when I finally found it. Shaking so I could hardly hold the flashlight steady, I saw it as I remembered, though with more plastic exposed. A moat of rainwater circled its perimeter, and small pools had collected in the folds and creases of the bag itself.

In no condition to recover it, I just stood staring. I knew the scene had to be processed correctly, but was afraid someone might disturb it, or remove the remains before a unit could get there. I wanted to cry in frustration.

Oh, there?s a good idea, Brennan. Weep. Maybe someone will come and rescue you.

I stood, trembling from cold and whatever, trying to think but my brain cells not cooperating, slamming their doors and refusing all callers. Phone it in. That thought got through.

I identified the borders of the brushy path and picked my way out of the woods. Or hoped I was. Couldn?t remember coming in and had only a vague notion of the way out. My sense of direction had left with my short-term memory. Without warning, the flashlight died, and I was plunged into the near darkness of filtered starlight. Shaking the flashlight did not help, nor swearing at it.

?Shit!? At least I tried.

I listened for some audible direction finder. All I heard were crickets from every direction. Chirping in the round. That wouldn?t work.

I tried to distinguish shadowy small growth from shadowy larger growth, and crept forward in the direction my face was pointing. As good a plan as any. Unseen branches grabbed my hair and clothing, and vines and creepers tugged at my feet.

You?re off the path, Brennan. This stuff?s getting thicker.

I was deciding which way to veer when one foot met air and dropped off the earth. I followed it forward, landing hard on my hands and one knee. My feet were trapped, and my forward knee pressed against what felt like loose earth. The flashlight had flown from my hand and jarred to life when it hit the ground. It had tumbled and was now casting an eerie yellow glow back toward me. I looked down and saw my feet disappearing into a tight, dark space.

My heart in my throat, I clawed my way out and scrambled toward the light, sideways like a crab on a beach. Pointing the beam to where I?d fallen, I saw a small crater. It gaped fresh and raw, like an unhealed wound in the earth. Loose dirt rimmed its perimeter and gathered in a small mound behind it.

I shone the light into the opening. It was not large, perhaps two feet across and three feet deep. In my stumbling, I planted a foot too close to the rim, sending a stream of soil dribbling into the pit. Like Grape-Nuts pouring from a box, I thought. They joined those I?d dislodged by my fall.

I stared at the soil as it collected in a small heap at the bottom of the hole. Something about it. Then realization. The dirt was practically dry. Even to my scrambled brain the inference was clear. This hole had either been covered, or dug since the rain.

An involuntary tremor seized me, and I wrapped my arms across my chest for warmth. I was still soaking and the storm had left cold air in its wake. The arm movement didn?t really warm me, and drew the light away from the pit. I unfolded my arms and readjusted the beam. Why would someone . . .

The real question slammed home, making my stomach recoil like a .45 caliber pistol. Who? Who had come here to dig, or empty, this hole? Is he, or she, here now? That thought jolted me into action. I spun and swept the flash around in a 360. A geyser of pain vented in my head and my heartbeat tripled.

I don?t know what I expected to see. A slathering Doberman? Norman Bates with his mother? Hannibal Lecter? A George Burns god in a baseball cap? None of them showed. I was alone with the trees and the creepers and the star-pierced darkness.

What I did see in the rotating light was the path. I left the fresh hole and staggered back to the half-buried bag. I kicked a blanket of leaves over it. The crude camouflage wouldn?t fool the person who brought it there, but it might conceal the bag from casual eyes.

When satisfied with my ground cover, I took the can of insect repellent from my pocket and jammed it into the fork of an adjacent tree as a marker. Moving down the path, I tripped on weeds and roots and barely kept my feet. My legs felt as if they?d been deadened with drugs, and I moved in slow motion.

At the junction of the path with the roadbed, I stuck each of my gloves into a tree fork, and plunged on toward the gate. I was sick and exhausted, and feared I might pass out. The adrenaline would soon give out, and collapse would come. When it did, I wanted to be elsewhere.