The Killing Hour

CHAPTER THIRTY

Cyris is shouting at them and Jo can’t make out the words. She’s too cold, too confused, and she’s pretty sure her hearing may be permanently shot. You never see that in the movies-you don’t see bank robbers and homicide artists getting doctor’s appointments to have hearing aids fitted. She glances at the river, but knows only drowning waits for her there. It looks black and cold enough to stop her heart, assuming it’s still beating when she hits the surface-which at this point is a big assumption. She should have trusted Charlie. Should have trusted herself because she wanted to believe him.

The policeman is crawling toward Cyris. He has nodded at Charlie, and Charlie has nodded back, and she’s pretty sure something is about to happen, and she’s pretty sure she’s too cold and scared to go along with the plan, but she’ll do her best. The policeman’s leg is a mess.

One day, when she was a kid, her dad was driving off to work and she was standing in the driveway waving goodbye. There was a rabbit behind the car. They didn’t live on a farm, but in suburbia, so the rabbit must have been somebody’s pet. The damn thing didn’t move, it just stayed still, and by the time Jo saw it and screamed at her dad to stop, it was too late. He backed over it. The resulting mess, the insides of that rabbit, the way its innards seemed to take up more room on the outside than when on the inside, well, that’s where her mind went when she saw the policeman’s knee. It looked just like that. Except where there was fur all those years ago, there is a shredded pair of pants. She cried for days back when she was a kid. She’ll cry for days now too if she’s given the chance.

The policeman drags his leg, the raw wound of meat-that’s how she thinks of it now-behind him. He’s managed to unlock one of the cuffs. She knows what he’s going to try, but what she doesn’t know is if it’ll work. He makes his last lurch forward and latches the empty cuff around Cyris’s ankle. Both men yell out at the same time: Cyris in a loud “No,” and Landry in an even louder “Run.” Cyris stamps hard on the policeman’s hand. She sees the fingers buckle beneath his boots, and when Cyris steps away, the splintered fingers are splayed out like road signs pointing in all the wrong directions, but the handcuffs keep the two men joined. With his other hand the policeman throws the key into the darkness.

Cyris levels the shotgun down to the back of Landry’s head.

“Come on,” Charlie says, tugging her hand. She turns toward him. He doesn’t need to tell her what they need to do. They switch hands and step toward the river. There’s no hesitation. The shotgun explodes behind her, but she doesn’t look back to see what has happened. She stares into the water and a second later they’re falling into it.

She sinks as if a large stone has been shackled to her ankles, but the only extra weight she has is Charlie. She clings tightly to his hand as her nose and mouth fill with water that is far colder than she thought water could ever be. So cold it burns her eyes, and for all her efforts all she can see is nothing. This is complete and utter lack of any light. It feels heavy, almost appealing. For a moment-a long moment, impossibly longer than it ought to be, her heart stops. She’s sure of it. Doctors might disagree, but for a second or two the cold is enough to stop it beating, but then the shock of adrenaline starts it back up. She kicks upward, but it feels like she’s kicking at nothing. The current is moving them, but to where she doesn’t know. Maybe only deeper. Maybe nowhere at all. Maybe right back to Cyris. All three of those things panic her, but then, strangely, after a few more seconds, none of them do. She feels calm. It’s peaceful beneath the water. Quiet. And the prospect of drowning isn’t really that scary. In fact it’s almost. . almost what?

The answer is relaxing. Drowning is almost relaxing, and hadn’t she heard that somewhere before? Or read it?

Her feet hit something and she automatically pushes off from it, her survival instinct kicking in. Charlie moves in the same direction and she guesses his feet hit the same thing. The current twisting them, moving them through a corridor of no light, no sound. The relaxing feeling has disappeared. That panic from a few seconds ago takes hold, its hold so tight it makes her lungs burn.

They break the surface. It’s so quick she barely manages to suck in some air before being dragged back under. Charlie pulls her tighter toward him, then she feels part of him hitting something, but she can’t tell what. Her head hits something, something soft that she’s sure is part of Charlie. The pain is warm and reminds her all is not lost, but she’s not sure if Charlie will be feeling the same way. She manages to get above the surface again, but only for a moment, just enough to see the water angry around her. Charlie is pinned to a boulder, his back spread evenly across it, and the current is pushing her into him. He’s still holding the flashlight, only it’s not going anymore. The angle of the stream, the strength of the current, she’s not sure they’re going to be going anywhere either. She sucks in a deep breath and isn’t sure how much longer she can fight before the water pulls her back down.