Bare Bones

35

I SMELLED MILDEW, MOSS, A FAINT SWEETNESS, LIKE LIVER FRYING in a pan.

I heard geese overhead, or calling to one another on some distant lake.

Where was I? Lying prone on something hard, but where?

My brain offered only disconnected fragments. The Cobb trailer. A gas station. A funeral home. Someone named Maples.

My fingers groped the ground around me.

Smooth. Cool. Flat.

I caressed the surface, breathed in the odor.

Cement.

I moved a hand over my face, felt crusted blood, a swollen eye, a lump on my cheek the size of an apple.

Another mind flash.

Pin-striped black. Antiseptic white.

The attack!

Then what?

I felt panic start to rise in my chest. My tortured gray cells shot orders, not answers.

Wake up!

Now!

Drawing both palms beneath me, I tried to push up to my knees.

My arms were rubber. Pain sluiced through my skull. A spasm gripped my stomach.

I eased back down, the cold cement good against my cheek.

My heartbeat hammered in my ears.

Where? Where? Where?

Another barked command.

Move!

Rolling onto my back, I sat up slowly. White light fired through my brain. Tremors twitched the underbelly of my tongue.

I drew my ankles to my bum, lowered my chin, and breathed deeply.

Little by little, the nausea and dizziness subsided.

Slowly, I raised my head, opened my one good eye, and peered intently into my surroundings.

The darkness was like a solid thing.

I waited for my pupil to dilate. It didn’t.

Gingerly, I rolled to my knees and stood, groping the darkness, crouching, hands extended. Blindman’s buff and I was it.

Two steps and my palms hit vertical cement. I crab-walked sideways. Three steps to a corner. Turning ninety degrees, I followed the perpendicular wall, right hand in front of me, left hand Brailling the concrete.

Oh, dear God. How small was my prison? How small? I felt perspiration form on my face, my neck.

Four steps and my left toe jammed a solid object. I pitched forward. Both my hands shot out and downward into darkness, then slammed something rough and hard as my shin cracked against an edge of something on the floor.

I cried out from the pain and trembled from fear.

Again the tremors in my mouth, the bitter taste.

I had tripped over what felt like a stone slab. I was stretched across it, my hands and arms on the floor beyond, my feet back where they had made contact with the near edge.

I melted to the cement. A tear broke from my good eye and coursed down my cheek. Another oozed from the corner of my swollen eye, burning raw flesh as it slid across.

Cooling sweat. Burning tears. Racing heart.

More images, faster now.

A bulldog man with thick black hair.

Metallic lenses. A fun house reflection of my startled face.

A ricochet flashback. Forty-eight hours. An exchange between Slidell and a feisty deb.

“What did you see?”

“Myself!”

Dolores was referring to mirrored lenses!

Sweet Jesus! My attacker was the man who had visited Cagle!

Cagle, who’d spent the last week in a coma.

Think!

My cheek was on fire. My shin throbbed. Blood pounded in my swollen eye.

Think!

Kaleidoscope images.

A jogger in headphones. Mrs. Cobb. The cuckoo. The photos.

I caught my breath.

The matches!

I jammed my fingers into a back jeans pocket.

Empty.

I tried the other, broke a nail in my frenzy.

Both front pockets.

One tissue, a nickel, a penny.

But I put the matches there. I know I did. Mrs. Cobb asked me to. Maybe I wasn’t remembering correctly. Think through the sequence more slowly.

I had a sensation of walls compressing around me. How tiny was the space in which I was trapped? Oh God! The claustrophobia goosed the fear and pain.

My hands trembled as I kept thrusting them from pocket to pocket.

The matches had to be there.

Please!

I tried the small square at the top of the right front pocket. My fingers closed around an oblong object, thick at one end, rough at the other.

A matchbook!

But how many?

I flipped the lid and felt with my finger and thumb.

Six.

Make them count!

Six. Only six!

Calm down! Take it by quadrants. Locate a light. Locate an exit.

Orienting toward what I hoped was the room’s center, I spread my feet, detached a match, and dragged it across the striker.

The head tore off without igniting.

Damn! Down to five!

I detached and struck another, pressing the head against the friction strip with the ball of my thumb.

The match sputtered, flamed, illuminated my shirt but little else. Holding it high, I crept forward and took a mental snapshot. From what I could see the room seemed fairly large.

Crates and cardboard cartons along the wall I’d been following. Headstone that had taken a piece of my shin lay flat on the floor. Metal shelving, perforated strips holding the shelves in place. Gap between shelving and wall.

Fire burned my fingers. I dropped the match.

Darkness.

More Braille-walking. At the end of the shelving I struck my third match.

Wooden door in the middle of the far wall.

Angling the match downward so the flame rose, I searched for a light switch.

Nothing.

The flame went out. I dropped the match, strode toward the door, groped for the knob, and twisted.

Locked!

I flung my weight against the wood, banged my fists, kicked, called out.

No reply.

I felt like screaming in anger and frustration.

Stepping back, I turned toward three o’clock, took several steps, and lit my fourth match.

A table emerged from the inky black. Objects lined up on the tabletop. Bulky items stacked beside it.

The match died.

My visual recall centers pasted the three glimpses to form a composite sketch.

The room was about twenty by twelve feet.

OK. Manageable. My claustrophobia ratcheted down a notch. My fear did not.

Boxes and shelving along one wall, table or workbench opposite, storage beside that, door at the far end.

Recentered in the room, I turned my back to the door and inched forward, planning on a closer inspection of the back wall.

Trembling, I placed the next-to-last match head on the striker strip. Before I struck it, I sensed that this part of the room was more pewter than black.

I turned back. A small rectangle was visible high above the table.

I peered more intently.

The rectangle was a window covered with grillwork, grime, and dust.

Shoving the matchbook into my pocket, I climbed onto the table, stretched up on my toes, and looked out.

The window was half underground, surrounded by a vine-clogged well. Through the top portion I could see trees, a shed, moonlight oozing through a crack between eggplant clouds.

I heard more geese, realized their squawking was muffled by earth and concrete, not altitude or distance.

My pulse began to race again. My breath came even quicker.

I was trapped in an underground room, a basement or cellar of some sort. The only way out was probably a stairway beyond the locked door.

I closed my eyes, breathed deeply.

Move! Take action!

As I hopped from the table, a dozen filaments swayed in the moonlight, each glistening like spider silk. The sweet liver smell was stronger.

I stepped closer.

Each filament held a fleshy mass about the size of my fist. Each mass was suspended over a small shielded burner.

Bear galls! They must have been dried already because the burners weren’t on.

Outrage and anger sent the last of my claustrophobia packing.

Act now! Do it fast! The break in the clouds won’t last.

I struck match number five and moved to the far end of the table.

File cabinets. Parking signs. Flower stands with long spiky points. A baby casket. A miniature steel vault. Rolls of fake grass. A tent.

Unrolling a layer of canvas, I grabbed a tent stake, stuck it in my pocket, and crossed the room.

Find candles! Get light next to the door. Use the tent stake to try to break the lock or pry the handle.

Barely breathing, I struck the last match and scanned the cartons.

Embalming fluids. Hardening compound.

I got to the shelves, squatted, peered into an open box.

Eye caps, trocar buttons, scalpels, drain tubes, hypodermic needles, syringes. Nothing that would break a door.

The room began to dim.

Could I move one of the burners? Could I light it?

I stood.

The upper shelves housed a theme park of urns in bronze and marble. An eagle with outstretched wings. Tutankhamen’s death mask. A gnarled oak. A Greek god. A double crypt.

Sweet Jesus! Did the urns contain cremains? Were the uncollected dead staring down on my plight? Could a bronze eagle break a wooden door? Could I lift it?

The clouds closed. Darkness claimed the basement once again.

I felt my way back to the table, climbed up, and peered out. Could I attract anyone’s attention? Did I want to? Would the dark-haired stranger return and finish me off?

My leg and face pulsated with pain. Tears burned the back of my lids. Clamping my teeth, I held them in check.

The landscape was a study in black.

Minutes passed. Hours. Millennia.

I fought feelings of helplessness. Surely someone would come. But who? What time was it?

I looked at my watch. The darkness was so thick I couldn’t see my hand.

Who knew I was here? Despair clawed my brain. No one!

Suddenly, a light appeared, flickered as it moved through the trees.

I watched the light bob toward the small patch of denseness I knew to be the shed. It disappeared, reappeared, bobbed in my direction. As it neared, I started to yell out, then stopped myself. I began to make out the form of a man. He drew close, veered out of my field of vision.

A door banged overhead.

I dropped from the table, scuttled across the room, and shrank behind the far end of the shelving. The case wobbled as I pressed against it. Reaching into my pocket, I withdrew the tent stake, wrapped my fingers around it, and dropped it to my side, point down.

Moments later I heard movement outside the basement door. A key turned. The door opened.

Barely breathing, I peered between the urns.

The man paused in the doorway, lantern held above his right shoulder. He was short and muscular, with thick black hair and Asian eyes. His sleeves were rolled, revealing a tattoo above his right wrist. SEMPER FI.

Hershey Zamzow had spoken of Asian middlemen in bear gall trafficking.

Sonny Pounder had spoken of a Korean dealer, someone with an inside line.

Ricky Don Dorton had worked his mortuary scheme with a Marine Corps buddy.

Terry Woolsey was suspicious about her lover’s death, and about his replacement as coroner.

In a heartbeat my mind forged another composite.

My attacker was the man who had hastily embalmed Murray Snow’s body. The man who had visited Wally Cagle. The man who smuggled drugs and bear galls with Ricky Don Dorton.

My attacker was the Lancaster County coroner, James Park! James Park was Korean.

Park stepped through the doorway and swept his lantern about. I heard a sharp intake of breath, saw his body stiffen.

Park moved to a point directly opposite the shelving and hefted a burlap bag in his left hand. The bag moved and changed shape like a living thing.

Adrenaline shot through every fiber in my body.

Park’s circle of light darted through the basement’s macabre assemblage, its jerky motion a barometer of its holder’s anger. I could hear Park’s breath, smell his sweat.

My grip tightened on the tent stake. Unconsciously, I tensed and pressed closer against the shelving.

The shelving wobbled, ticked the wall.

Park’s light leapt in my direction. He took a step toward me. Another. The glow lit my feet, my legs. Moving slowly, I slipped the hand with the tent stake behind my back.

I heard another gasp, then Park stopped and raised the lantern. Though not bright, the sudden illumination caused my good eye to squint. My head jerked to the side.

“So, Dr. Brennan. Finally we meet.”

The voice was flat and silky, high like a child’s. Park wasn’t bothering to disguise it now, but I knew instantly. The Grim Reaper!

My grip tightened on the stake. Every muscle in me tensed.

Park smiled a smile that was pure ice.

“My associates and I are so appreciative of your battle on behalf of wildlife, we’ve decided to give you a small token of our gratitude.”

Park raised the bag. Inside, something writhed, causing shadows to ripple and morph in the burlap.

I stood frozen, back pressed to the wall.

“Nothing to say, Dr. Brennan?”

How to play it? Reason? Cajole? Lash out? I chose to remain mute.

“All right, then. The gift.”

Park took a step back, allowing shadow to swallow me once again. I watched him set the lantern on the ground and begin unknotting the tied ends of the bag.

Barely thinking, I slid the tent stake behind the shelving and levered with both hands. The top-heavy case swayed forward, settled back.

Engrossed in his task, Park didn’t notice.

I dropped the stake.

Park’s head came up.

I grabbed a metal upright with both hands and rocked the shelving away from the wall with all my strength.

Park straightened.

The shelving pitched forward. Urns flew through the air.

Park threw both hands up, twisted his upper body. The Karnak special caught him in the right temple. He dropped. I heard his skull crack against cement.

The lantern glass shattered and its light went out, leaving only the smell of kerosene.

For what seemed a lifetime, objects crashed and rolled on the floor.

When the noise finally ceased, there was eerie quiet.

Catacomb darkness.

Utter stillness.

One heartbeat. Two. Three.

Was Park unconscious? Dead? Lying in wait? Should I flee? Grope for the tent stake?

Burlap rustled, sounding like thunder in the silence.

I held my breath.

Was Park releasing his malicious present?

A whisper, like the soft brushing of scales on cement.

More silence.

Had I imagined the sound?

The tiny scraping started again, stopped, started.

Something was moving!

What to do?

Then a terrifying, stupefying rattling deadened my every response.

Snakes!

I pictured slithering bodies coiling to strike. Darting tongues. Lidless, gleaming eyes.

Glacial cold cramped my chest, then rolled outward through my heart, my veins, my stomach, my fingertips.

What kind of snakes? Moccasins? Copperheads? Did those snakes rattle? Diamondbacks? Something exotic from South America? Knowing Park’s history, I was certain the snakes were venomous.

How many were out there, slithering toward me in the dark?

I felt totally alone. Totally abandoned.

Please, please let someone come!

But no one was coming. No one knew where I was. How could I have been so stupid?

Struggling to function, my mind flew in a million directions.

How does a snake locate its prey? Vision? Smell? Heat? Motion? Does it go on the attack or try to avoid contact?

Do I freeze? Bolt? Go for the tent stake?

More rattling.

Panic overcame reason. Good eye wide in the darkness, I shot toward the door.

My foot caught on the fallen shelving and I pitched headlong into the rubble. My hand hit flesh and bone, unconsciously jerked left.

Hair. Something warm and wet, puddled on the cement.

Park!

The rattling reached a crescendo.

Fighting back tears, I rolled to my right and felt a wooden leg.

Stand! Raise your head out of striking range!

As I tried to pull myself up I noticed lights rake the window.

Then white-hot fire shot up my ankle.

I screamed from pain and terror.

As I draped myself over a table, the burning moved up my leg, my groin. What little vision I had blurred.

My thoughts floated to a different place, a different time. I saw Katy, Harry, Pete, Ryan.

I heard pounding, scraping, felt my body lifted.

Then nothing.