I lay there lazily and listened to the forest noises— 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 bloody 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 strange—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 passed 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 smile—it’s true—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 finally—there!—there it was—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 am—burp—a frog—burp—and what do frogs like?—burrap!—pardon me; must’ve been something I ate—they like water!
”
I’m not sure anything else could’ve gotten me moving again, not even Winston Churchill. But water—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 bushes—those thorns I was lying in—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 water—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 sturdy 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 clustered 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 that—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 mind—I could feel it breaking up into wisps and drifting away, leaving my thoughts clear. Everything around me—the leaves, the sunlight, the water, the whole world—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 space 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 ground—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. So—weary as I was—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 soft—limestone maybe. The water had worn a hole in it and there was probably a cave—even a network of caves—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 ev
ery 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 engine—Maybe a car, I thought with faint hope—but no—no—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 out—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 noise—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 passed 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 butt 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 fine—I saw it once on the Discovery Channel. But maybe if I went into the caves— 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 passage, 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!”
“There—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!”
“Go, Hunter! Good boy!”
“This way!”
And the branches started crashing again, and the whisk and rattle of the leaves was so near it made the breath catch in my throat. I looked in the direction of the noise. There they were. I caught my first glimpse of them. Hulking shapes moving between the tree trunks. They would be here in a minute, maybe less.
With a grunt of effort, I slid myself farther into the sinkhole. The water and mud now oozed up over my shirt, over my neck. I felt the cold, damp, gritty mud lapping against my cheek, leaking into my mouth. I felt the gun in my waistband press into my belly as my waist went over the edge and the narrow hole closed in around me. I felt my legs kicking, searching for a place to rest, dangling in nothingness. I whispered the fastest prayer I know, probably the oldest prayer known to man: Help me!
Then, my fingers clawing at the wet earth, I slid in the rest of the way.
I gripped the edge of the earth as my body hung down, as I swung my legs against the wall and my feet scrabbled against its slippery surface. Another burst of howling from the dog made me look up. The daylight had telescoped to a narrow gray circle over my head. When I looked down I saw that gray light fade away to nothing.
Finally, I felt something: a little ledge in the rock. I wedged my toes on top of it. But the second I tried to shift my hands from the wet ground above and find a grip on the wall, I slipped. The next moment, I was plunging downward into darkness.
It was a short fall. I landed hard, banging against the wall as I touched down, scraping my knee, tearing my pants. I stumbled, grabbing the wound, grimacing against the pain, trying to keep hold of the slick stone.
I steadied myself. I looked up. The sinkhole was now nothing but a patch of blue sky about as big around as a basketball. The wild howls of the dog and the deep shouts of the guards filtered down through it, fading into echoes.
I looked down. There was just enough light from above to make out where I was standing. I was on a broad ledge of rock with the water from the stream spilling down to it, running over it. My eyes followed that flow to a wall of rock, only just visible, a few feet in front of me. A dead end . . . No, wait: the water ran to the base of that wall and then into a gap at the bottom of it. The gap was long and maybe two feet high. If I laid myself down on the ledge, I should be able to slip into it, slide myself into the space beneath the wall. It wasn’t a very nice thought. It’d be a tight fit with no way out. If they caught me in there, there’d be no escape. But what else could I do? I could hear the footsteps of the guards now, crunching over dead leaves, splashing through water. They had come into the clearing. They were right above my head.
I lowered myself onto the cold gray stone. I felt the thin stream of water running into me, bubbling against me,
soaking my shirt. With a grunt, I began to shove myself into the gap beneath the wall.
And oh yes, it was tight in there—way tight. I felt as if I were being buried alive, as if the weight of the whole Earth were settling onto my back, pressing down on me. I felt the pistol jammed hard against my belly. There was no room to bring my hand to it, no way I could use it or pull it free. I couldn’t even turn my head, couldn’t look back to see the sinkhole anymore or the little circle of sky. I could make out only the faintest gray shading in the darkness, the last trace of the light.
Still, I edged in farther underneath the stone. It was like climbing into my own coffin.
It took the guards about ten more seconds to find the sinkhole. Then the sound of their voices changed. They got louder, deeper, more echoic. The dog, Hunter, stopped his howling and let out a series of wild, throaty, triumphant barks. They were right above me. They were looking into the cave.
“Must’ve gone in here!”
“Well, that’s it. He’s cornered now!”
“Hey!” the first guard shouted down to me. “West! Come out of there, you’re finished.”
“Give up, kid. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”
How much worse can it get? I thought. I lay there, like a corpse in a coffin, but alive, claustrophobic, trying to keep my breathing steady, trying to keep the panic sparking in my stomach from catching fire and flaming through me.
Another man—another man with a thick accent— cursed. “I can’t believe it!”