Darkness

17

Michael cut the engine on the outboard, letting the boat drift silently through the bayou. He played his flashlight over the foliage, the brilliant halogen beam slicing through the darkness, illuminating the trees around him. Insects sparkled and glittered in the shaft of light, homing in on the artificial sun until Michael finally switched it off as they swarmed around him.

“Kelly!” he called out. “Kelly, it’s Michael. Can you hear me?”

He listened, but heard nothing except the sound of other voices, also calling. It was as if the whole swamp had become an echo chamber, with Kelly’s name drifting back and forth.

But he knew that unless she was in the immediate area, Kelly wouldn’t hear the searchers, for the thick mosses that covered the trees muffled sound quickly. Only a few hundred yards away, there would be no hint of the twenty-odd men who were combing the wilderness for her.

The cloud of insects that had answered the flashlight’s beacon moved on, except for the mosquitoes that whined around Michael’s ears, risking a landing every few seconds, only to be swatted away. At last Michael turned the light on again, its beam trapping a possum that clung to a tree a few yards away. The animal froze, mesmerized by the light, staring unblinkingly at Michael.

“It’s okay,” Michael crooned softly to the frightened creature. As if responding to his voice, the possum moved slightly. Suddenly a large green form dropped down from the branch above and a tree boa threw three quick coils around the possum’s body. The possum, squealing loudly with surprise and pain, struggled in the grip of the reptile, but the snake, responding to the movement, only tightened its grip on the little marsupial, crushing its lungs.

In a few minutes the possum’s wriggling began to weaken, and then as a final breath was squeezed from its body, it went limp in the snake’s grip.

The boa began to move, never releasing the creature from its grasp as it worked itself around so that its mouth was at the possum’s head.

Its jaws opened, stretching wide as it began working the dead creature into its maw. Michael watched, fascinated, as the boa’s mandible dropped away from its maxilla to accommodate the impossibly large body of its prey. Michael had seen it before, and knew it would take the better part of an hour before the possum’s long tail finally disappeared into the snake’s craw and the serpent, sated, crept off to coil in the crotch of a tree while it digested its meal.

At last, as the insects once more began swarming around him, he cut the light again and restarted the outboard. Shifting it into forward, he opened the throttle, and moved on.

He left the light off for a while, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dark. Around him other lights blinked intermittently through breaks in the foliage, and as he moved from one channel to the next, rounding small islands and crossing the wider lagoons, other boats drifted around him in a surreal, random pattern.

He knew where he was, so intimately acquainted with the geography of the swamp that each time he made a turn, another familiar landmark appeared.

But there was no sign of Kelly.

Once more he let the boat drift to a stop and cut the engine while he sat and thought.

He knew where she’d gone into the swamp, knew the island the footbridge she’d crossed led to. He’d explored every square foot of it years ago, when he’d first started going into the wilderness by himself. It was a long, narrow, strip of land that barely rose six inches above the water. Only at the near end was it truly solid; as it extended into the swamp, it became boggier and boggier, until at last you were wading.

In the darkness Kelly would have been unable to retrace her steps. Even in the full light of day, it would have been difficult, for Kelly had no familiarity with the area.

So she would have followed her feet, testing the bottom, feeling her way. And since she hadn’t come back to the end of the island at the bridge, she must have stumbled onto the one other spot where the island could be left: a narrow, shallow channel, too shallow for anything but the lightest of boats to navigate, with a second, larger island, on its other side.

Perhaps Kelly was still on that island.

Michael gazed around. The rest of the boats had momentarily disappeared, and he was alone. But at least he knew where to go.

Restarting the engine, he began threading his way through the maze of waterways.

Though Kelly was wandering on foot, Michael was confident he could follow her with his mind. In the swamp there simply weren’t that many paths she could follow.

Unless she made a misstep and stumbled into one of the great patches of quicksand that dotted the area.

Michael refused to think about that possibility.

• • •

“Help!” Kelly called out. “Someone, please help me!” Though she shouted at the top of her voice, even to herself the words sounded pitifully weak, seeming to die away into the heavy humid air almost as quickly as she uttered them.

She was tired now, but she kept moving, afraid even to sit down, for the last time she stopped to rest, lowering herself onto the damp earth, she felt something wriggling beneath her and leaped up, yelping with fright. So she kept walking, and finally, off to the right, she saw a faint glow in the sky.

Villejeune!

She quickened her pace, and the light grew steadily brighter.

Her spirits began to rise.

Just a few more minutes and she’d be out, emerging from the tangle of trees and reeds to find the canal, and the village beyond.

And then just as she was certain she was nearly there, the moon rose in the east and all her fears crashed in on her once more.

“Please?” she called out. “Can’t anyone hear me?”

No one answered her plea.

How long had she been walking, and in which direction?

Or had she simply been going in circles?

She didn’t know.

There was a high whining sound in her left ear, cut off as the mosquito settled on her forehead. She raised her right hand, slapping at it, then brushed at another as she felt it pierce the skin of her left hand.

Suddenly they were all around her, seeming to come out of nowhere, and she batted at them in the darkness.

She could feel their pricks everywhere on her skin now, and feel them in her hair, as well.

“No,” she whimpered. “Get away! Leave me alone!” Her arms windmilling as she tried to fend off the attacking insects, she broke into a run. Her foot caught in a root, and she sprawled out, feeling a sharp pain in her ankle. She lay still, waiting for the worst of the pain to pass, then sat up, gingerly pulling her foot free from the root, massaging it with her fingers.

Suddenly she sensed rather than saw a movement in the grass a few feet away. Instinctively freezing, she held her breath as she waited for the movement to repeat itself.

For a long moment nothing happened, and then a snake, weaving back and forth as it rippled over the ground, slid out of the grass and into a patch of moonlight that shone through the tall cypresses. Its head rose up from the ground, its mouth wide open, showing its fangs in the moonlight. From the whiteness inside the mouth, Kelly knew immediately what it was.

A water moccasin, hunting in the darkness.

It had sensed her, and now it was waiting, searching in the moonlight for the slightest movement at which to strike.

Kelly’s heart began to pound wildly.

Time stretched into an eternity as she sat on the ground, her eyes fixed on the reptile, every muscle in her body threatening to betray her.

The snake bobbed and weaved in the gloom, its tongue darting in and out of that hideous white mouth.

It moved forward, slithering toward her silently, as if it were now certain where she was.

Kelly tensed, willing her throat to constrict the scream that rose from her lungs.

The snake paused again, coiling back on itself, darting first one way and then another.

It crept still closer, and Kelly felt a shudder go through her as it neared her outstretched leg.

But as it touched her skin, and all her instincts screamed at her to jerk away, something reached into her mind.

Don’t move, an unseen presence spoke silently. Don’t move at all.

The unheard voice calmed her, and Kelly stared mutely at the serpent as it rippled over her calf, its scales making her skin crawl.

And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the snake slithered off into the foliage, its thick black body and yellow tail moving through the reeds with barely a sign that it was there at all.

Her teeth chattering with the sudden release of tension in her body, Kelly stayed where she was until the reeds stopped moving and she was certain the snake had gone. Slowly she raised herself up and carefully tested her weight on the injured ankle.

A sharp pain shot up her leg, but the ankle held, and she took a tentative step forward.

The pain eased slightly, and on the second step, the shock of her weight on the joint was less severe.

She could still walk.

But now she felt creatures lurking everywhere in the darkness, lying in wait, ready to strike out at her. Every vine she saw became a snake, and with every soft rustle she heard in the undergrowth she froze, searching in the faint moonlight for signs of the animals she was certain were there.

She trudged on. Now, straight ahead of her, a pair of eyes glowed brightly, low to the ground.

Another pair appeared beside the first, and then a third.

She stopped short, once again holding her breath.

The eyes moved, and then a raccoon, accompanied by two babies, crossed a small patch of moonlight. As Kelly uttered a sharp laugh of relief, the raccoons, startled, leaped into a tree and scrambled upward, pausing finally on a branch midway up, where they gazed warily down at her.

Kelly lingered there for a few minutes, watching the raccoons until they moved on, scrambling through the trees, where they disappeared.

And then, in the distance, Kelly saw a light, moving slowly, as if it was floating above the water.

Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she ran forward, calling out, “Help! I’m here! Help me!”

Abruptly the light stopped moving, hanging stationary in the darkness.

Ignoring everything but the light, Kelly bolted through the night. She felt her shoe flood with water but gave it no heed, stumbling on toward the glowing beacon, which now seemed to be coming toward her.

Her right foot struck a log that was half submerged in the shallow water, and she was about to step over it when, abruptly, it moved. The water roiled and an alligator rose up out of the mud and spun around, its tail lashing as its jaws gaped wide.

Screaming, Kelly twisted away as the ’gator lunged at her, and she felt a sharp tug as its jaws snapped closed on the loose tail of her blouse. Her voice rose in another scream and she jerked hard, feeling the material of the blouse give way.

The ’gator dropped into the water, then started after her, rising up once more on its stubby legs, lumbering through the mud. Kelly hurled herself forward, but once more she slipped, lost her balance, and flopped into the water.

The alligator was closing again, its jaws wide, and Kelly raised her arm to shield herself from its attack.

And then, just as the ’gator was starting its final lunge, a shot rang out.

The ’gator stiffened, then dropped back into the water, its tail lashing spasmodically.

Kelly stared at it, a third scream rising in her throat. Kicking out with her legs, her fingers clawing at the soft bottom, she tried to pull herself away from the thrashing beast.

Hands closed on her shoulders and she felt herself being lifted up.

“He’s dyin’,” someone said. “He’s dyin’, an’ I got you.”

Kelly looked up. Above her, gazing down at her in the dim moonlight, was a narrow, pinched-looking face, its pale, deep-sunk eyes all but covered by a battered hat.

Kelly, already on the verge of exhaustion, felt a wave of dizziness overwhelm her. Then the blackness of the night closed around her as her mind began to shut down.

• • •

“This is nuts,” Tim Kitteridge muttered as Marty Templar turned their boat into yet another of the endless bayous. “I hope you know where the hell we are, because if it were up to me, I’d never get us out of here.”

Templar chuckled, but the laugh died away quickly. It had been almost two hours, and there hadn’t been so much as a trace of Kelly Anderson. He glanced at the chief out of the corner of his eye, then returned his gaze to the swamp. “Seems like maybe we ought to wait till morning,” he said. “We’re almost back where we started from, and if we’re going to keep on looking, we’ll have to do it on foot. Only places we haven’t been are where it’s too shallow to take a boat like this.”

Kitteridge nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. Let’s head back to the bridge.” He raised his bullhorn and called out to the next boat in the loose network, telling its occupant what they were going to do and asking him to pass the word along.

The search party began gathering at the bridge, the boats arriving one by one until there was a small flotilla rafted together in the canal. The men scrambled ashore, gathering around the chief.

“Marty and I think it’s time to call it off until morning,” Kitteridge said. “The way I see it, if Kelly’d been able to hear any of us calling her, she’d have answered, so wherever she is, she’s not where we’ve been looking, or she doesn’t want to be found.”

Ted Anderson pushed his way through the crowd to stand angrily in front of the police chief. “You mean you’re giving up!”

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Anderson,” Kitteridge replied patiently. “All I said is that I think we’d have a hell of a lot better chance of finding your daughter if we do it in the daylight. You can’t see a thing out there—”

“So you’re just going to quit?” Ted demanded. “What the hell kind of crap is that? She could be hurt out there! By morning she could be dead!”

A silence shrouded the group. Each of the men was unwilling to voice what he was thinking, but the silence itself spoke clearly enough.

“You all think she’s already dead, don’t you?” Ted said, his voice low and trembling.

Kitteridge shifted uncomfortably, but finally spread his hands helplessly. “I think it’s something we have to consider,” he said, unwilling to lie to Kelly’s father. “There’s a lot that can happen to someone out here, even in the daytime. At night …” His voice trailed off, but before Ted Anderson could say anything more, Craig Sheffield moved forward.

“I think we have another problem, Tim,” he said, his expression clearly reflecting the fear he was feeling. “Michael didn’t come back with the rest of us.”

Kitteridge started at Craig. “Michael?” he repeated. “Are you telling me your kid was out there, too?”

Craig’s voice took on a defensive edge. “Why wouldn’t he have been?” he demanded. “He knows the swamp better than any of the rest of us, and he knows Kelly, too. Do you really think I could have stopped him?”

Kitteridge took a deep breath, then slowly released it in a long sigh. “All right. So now we have two kids missing. Just what is it you want me to do? Keep this search up until every one of us is lost?”

Craig’s eyes fixed icily on the police chief. “I expect you to do whatever is necessary to find our children.”

Kitteridge felt his temper beginning to fray. He understood exactly how the two fathers felt, but he also was all too aware of the futility of night searches. Unless the person they were hunting for was able to respond — and wanted to respond — the task was next to impossible. He made up his mind.

“I intend to find these kids, Craig. We’ll start again at dawn, with more men.”

“What about dogs?” someone called out from among the men around him. “B. J. Herman’s got some of the best hounds in the county.”

Kitteridge sighed. “We’ll sure try ’em,” he agreed, but privately wondered how anyone could expect a hound to follow a scent through a marsh. Still, he was willing to try anything.

“I’m not quitting, Tim,” Craig Sheffield said quietly. “And I don’t think Ted and Carl Anderson are going to give up and go home, either.” He glanced toward the two men, who nodded their agreement. Then he raised his voice so the rest of the search party could hear him. “Anybody else willing to keep looking?”

The men glanced uneasily at each other, then one by one nodded. “Seems like we can’t just leave them out there,” someone said.

Kitteridge hesitated, but knew he’d already lost control of the search party. They’d stay out all night, and by morning, when they’d actually have a chance of finding the two missing kids, they’d be exhausted.

Which meant that he’d have to find more searchers. Still, he understood how they felt. “All right,” he agreed. “Anyone who wants to, keep looking. But remember, if you don’t find them tonight, we start again at dawn.” He turned to Marty Templar. “Come on. You and I have some work to do. We’ve got to get the state troopers lined up, and maybe we can borrow some boys from up at Fort Stewart.” As the group of men started moving back toward the boats, he turned to Craig Sheffield and Ted Anderson. “I’ll go by Carl’s house and let your wives know what’s happening. And as for you, Craig,” he added, “I won’t try to stop what you’re doing, but I’m going on record right now as telling you it’s both stupid and useless. I don’t want anyone else getting lost out there. Do we understand each other?”

Craig was silent for a moment, but finally offered the chief his hand. “I know what you’re saying, Tim, and if it weren’t our kids out there, I’d probably agree with you. But Michael’s my son, and I can’t just sit up all night worrying about him. I have to do something.”

Kitteridge and Marty Templar watched as the search party set out once more, then returned to the squad car. As they headed toward the Anderson house, Kitteridge frowned.

“I never saw Judd Duval out there,” he said.

Templar chuckled. “I never expected to. He knows places in that swamp you and I could never hope to find. And if I had to bet, I’d bet that when those kids are found, it’ll be Judd who finds them.”

• • •

Michael knew he was close to Kelly now — he could feel it.

It had been nearly an hour since he’d turned away from the rest of the search party, slipping off into the narrow bayous, guiding his boat almost by instinct through the maze of islands, threading his way between sunken logs, raising the motor twice to row through water so shallow that the hull of the boat scraped against the mud bottom.

Ten minutes ago he’d heard a muffled shot, and knew it must have been fairly close by — even a gunshot carried only a few hundred yards in the swamp before dying away without so much as a trace of an echo.

He’d turned the boat in the direction of the shot, and finally had to get out and pull it over a bar between two of the islands, but now he was on his way again, every nerve in his body attuned to the slightest alien noises.

Suddenly, ahead of him, he heard a splashing in the water and switched on his light, playing its beam over the rippling surface.

Ahead, the water was frothing as an alligator thrashed spasmodically, rolling over on its back, its tail lashing weakly.

Michael frowned.

At night the ’gators were usually lying in the shallows, all but covered by the water, waiting for an unwary water bird to cruise too close. Or asleep.

He moved the boat closer, until he was only a few yards away from the big reptile.

It was lying on its back now, but suddenly the tail thrashed again and it flipped over.

He played the light over its body, then held it steady as the beam revealed a hole in the creature’s head.

He frowned, then understood.

Someone had shot the ’gator, apparently from close range. From the look of the hole, the animal must have been charging, and whoever held the gun had fired it straight into the ’gator’s mouth.

He moved the light forward, and his breath caught in his throat.

A piece of cloth, stained and muddy, was caught in the corner of the ’gator’s mouth.

Kelly.

Kelly had been here, and the ’gator had attacked her.

But someone else had been here, too, and fired at the ’gator.

He cast the beam of light around, searching for any sign of Kelly, but there was none.

Who had been here?

It was none of the searchers, of that he was certain. The rest of them, he was sure, had stayed together, combing through the swamp as best they could, never losing sight of each other.

One of the swamp rats.

It had to be.

One of them had been out here and found Kelly.

But who?

Had it been a coincidence? Had one of the men who hunted the swamp at night simply stumbled onto Kelly?

And then he knew.

Turning away from the dying alligator, he opened the throttle on the outboard. The engine roared to life, the stern of the boat dropping low as the bow rose up. A minute later, climbing up onto the plane, the boat skimmed across the water, moving deeper and deeper into the wilderness.

Only in the heart of the swamp, Michael knew, would he find Kelly.