Mary, Mary

Chapter 118

SUDDENLY THE PAIN SEEMED TO BE EVERYWHERE in my body, and it was nothing if not extreme. I was only semiconscious of thick fir trees and underbrush giving way to the car as it rocked and rolled and caromed out of control, threatening to flip.

We probably fell for only four or five seconds. Still, the eventual impact was enough to jam my chest with incredible force against the steering wheel. The seat belt probably saved me from going through the windshield. I knew Bell hadn't been wearing his, and could only hope that he was badly hurt. If I was lucky, maybe he was unconscious, or dead, in the backseat.

I already had my hand on the door handle, and I rolled out of the car as best and fast as I could manage.

My whole body throbbed with a numbing ache that made it hard to move quickly My right arm hung useless at my side.

I saw James Truscott's body, facedown and spread-eagle in the dirt. Apparently he'd been thrown loose in the crash.

Then Michael Bell moaned in the backseat. He was alive inside. Too bad. With a great mustering of resources, I managed to get up on one knee. Suddenly my shoulder screamed with pain; I knew it had to be broken.

I took a halting step forward, expecting Hat ground - but there was an almost invisible bank of tangled brush.

I went down, landing in half a foot of water. I'd been totally unaware of the stream until now It was shallow here, but the water stretched out farther across than I could see in the dark.

The icy water sent an electric current of shock right through me.

I hadn't thought the pain could get worse, but I saw a wash of white before my sight partially returned.

Again, I started to push myself up, only to be knocked back down. This time, it was Bell.

He pushed down on my neck and head, and he was strong as hell. Then I felt his foot pressing down on my back. Water rushed up into my nose and mouth.

“Where the flick do you think -”he was yelling.

I didn't give him a chance to finish. I scissored my legs hard against his ankle, and it took most of the rest of my strength just to do that. It caught him off guard though, and he fell backward off of me. I heard two splashes, and hoped one was his gun.

Half in, half out of the water, leaning hard on my good left hand, I raised myself up enough to launch at him. I managed a ground tackle, and then a left hook before he could respond. He reached up and laid a heavy grip on my face, digging in with his fingers.

Michael Bell was about my height, but a super heavyweight; despite his weight loss in the past few weeks, he had at least thirty pounds on me.

I got a hand on his throat, dug in, and pushed as hard as I could. He gagged some, but didn't let go.

Leverage was the only thing I might be able to increase, but when I moved my foot, it hit a slick of algae.

The sudden shift of weight sent me lurching with an agonizing twist of my body, and I landed back in the freezing cold water.

God, it was cold - but I almost didn't care.

Michael Bell stood up faster than I did this time. Not a good sign. He had a second wind.

The dead weight of my aching right arm slowed me down.

I saw him in vague silhouette, picking up what looked like a flat rock about the size of an encyclopedia. He raised the rock high in both hands as he came toward me again.

“You stupid fuck!” he yelled. “I'll kill you! That's my plan, all right. That's how the story ends. This is how it ends!”

I scrabbled back and away from Bell as best I could, but I knew it wasn't enough. My hand landed on something hard in the shallow water. Not rock, at least I didn't think so.

Metal?

“You die!” Bell yelled at me. “How that for a plan? How's that for an ending?”

The metal object. I knew what it had to be. I yanked Bell's gun out of the water and fumbled with the trigger. “Bell, no!”

I screamed. He kept on coming with the enormous rock held over his head. “Die!”

So I fired.

I couldn't tell exactly what happened in the moonlit woods. I had no idea where he was hit, but he grunted noisily and stopped for a second.

Then he charged forward again. I fired a second time. And a third. Both upper-chest shots, at least I thought so.

The heavy rock he was holding fell back into the water. Suspended for a moment by some invisible force, Bell staggered away two or three drunken steps. Then he fell over face first into the water, making a loud splash.

Then nothing. Silence in the woods.

Trembling badly, uncontrollably, I kept the gun trained on Bell with my good hand. It took incredible effort just to get over the slick rocks to where he lay.

By the time I reached him, there was no movement. I took his arm, held it up. I checked, but he had no pulse. I checked it again - nothing, nothing but the silence of the woods, and the awful cold.

Michael Bell was dead, and so was Mary Smith. And very soon, in these freezing wet clothes, I would be, too.