Revenant Rising (5 page)
Bill signs off and directs Nate to go outside and help gather supplies. “Most of the gear’s in the rig, but you’ll want that coat hanging over there in the shed. And bring those coils of ropes you’ll find on the hooks next to it. Oh, and you’ll see a bundle of road flares—bring those along. I’ve got matches, extra batteries, and the portable trouble lights. Whoops, almost forgot extra flashlights and blankets.” Bill detours from the Suburban back toward the house. “Won’t be long, then we can get goin’.”
Nate shoots the big old guy a dark look when he returns with the almost overlooked essentials; he’d already be gone if he had even one full-sized flashlight in his possession.
“Might help to know I’ve got a CB in the rig, so I can stay in touch with the sheriff,” Bill says as he climbs into the Suburban.
It did help to know, and it also helped to know the emergency vehicles would be traveling at high speed on improved roads the majority of the way to the accident scene, something learned while monitoring Bill’s end of the radio transmission. With his grip on the situation improved, Nate drives back to the crash site at a relatively sane speed.
But although he’s caught a break, he can’t help wonder how much of a break it is. What’s to prevent another deer from jumping in front of him, or another set of see-all-blind-all headlights from appearing on the wrong side of the road? He’s been away from the wreckage for over an hour now, and what’s to say Colin’s been able to hang on that long, alone out there in the pitch dark?
He crowds those thoughts out of mind and replaces them with more practical concerns. He checks his mileage to be certain the bridge he’s approaching is the one associated with the accident—as though it won’t always be part of his permanent memory—and the odometer confirms that it is. With Bill’s Suburban closing in fast, he parks well away from the ripped guardrail to leave room for emergency vehicles. He checks his watch one more time and is encouraged to register that the return trip took less than half the time spent looking for help.
Once they’ve fastened a guideline to an undamaged section of guard rail and uncoiled the rope down into the darkness, Nate suits up in the jacket from Bill’s shed and discovers it has a flashlight integrated into the chest area; two more large flashlights are in the deep utility pockets, and there are all manner of loops and clips to facilitate carrying other items.
“Turn-out gear. I used to be a volunteer fireman before I got too old,” Bill explains while securing tightly rolled blankets to Nate’s back. “There’s heavy gloves in there, better put ’em on,” he cautions as Nate prepares to go over the edge.
Equipped as he is now, this descent is a relative breeze. Halfway down he’s optimistic enough to announce his return. “Colin, I’m back . . . help’s on the way . . . hang on, man.” He repeats this like a mantra as he covers the remaining distance, pausing only when he thinks he hears noises—noises attributed to activity up above and his overactive imagination.
In the brighter wider beam of a full-sized flashlight, the wreckage looks much worse than it did within the limitations of a penlight. When he climbs over the truck bed as the quicker way of reaching Colin, he notices a lot that he didn’t take in earlier.
Earlier, he failed to see that a large section of roof is ripped open where the light rack used to be. It’s a wonder he didn’t slice himself on the jagged edges protruding into the cab, and he would have if he’d had to do anything at all for Aurora. This time, he checks for what might be hanging over Colin’s head before sticking his own head through the window opening. He sees nothing dangerous enough to further delay reassessing Colin’s condition, so it’s only another bout of cowardly trepidation holding him back.
Nate sucks in some relief once he determines Colin is still breathing, however unevenly. In this better light he sees that Colin’s eyes are still open, but they’re not reacting to the light the way they did last time. Nate gropes his jeans pocket for the penlight. Its tighter focus is more apt to produce the results he wants. His motions cause him to illuminate Aurora’s body. He wishes he hadn’t.
He may have screamed. Then again, maybe not, because his throat is closed, he can’t even swallow. Aurora’s head is gone; it’s not just bent at a bad angle, it’s removed from her body. For a ludicrous moment he thinks it may have fallen off. He looks for it behind the broken bench seat and on the ground around the truck. He revisits all the places he looked for a baby that was probably never there to begin with. Maybe her head was never there to begin with; maybe he just thought it was because the sight of a bloodied stump was too much to handle. But what about those spots on her neck? Didn’t he see with his own eyes those dark bruise-like markings that gave him the idea she was in a drug-induced state when she died because those markings resembled needle tracks?
He’s unable to return to Colin right away; he’s unable to speak, or think, or unfold the blankets he should be placing around Colin. And now, while he’s most vulnerable, his senses take another hit. He thinks he hears noises again. He does hear noises, and they’re different from the sounds that would be made by someone coming down the embankment. Something or someone is out there in the wilderness, grunting and snapping branches as it draws closer. Throughout the entire ordeal, Nate hasn’t dared acknowledge fear or it would have conquered him. Now he’s thinking in terms of unconditional surrender to fear when Bill heaves into view.
“Jesus
god
.” Nate lets out a ragged breath.
“Didn’t mean to spook you.” Bill labors under a load that includes a chainsaw, a large toolbox, and a pair of metal cylinders strapped to his back. “I could see your light from down below, so I didn’t bother with turning mine on.” He grunts again as he relieves himself of the load. “I’ll go back for the rest after I have a look around.”
“Wait,” Nate says, “what do you mean below? Is there another road down there?”
“I thought I recognized this spot when you described it earlier. Them there tin can barriers are not much better than the old log and cable ones they used to use. Bridge never shoulda been built here where the drop-off’s so steep, but it woulda cost more to put a curve in the road to where the grade’s better. And now what money that was spent’s a waste cuz there’s nothin’ down there now but an abandoned railroad line, and even the tracks and ties are gone. Only the roadbed’s left and that oughta be bulldozed cuz it encourages them fools with the motorized tricycles and snow sleds to go helling around in places they’ve got no business.”
“Then there’s a road leading to this old railroad track?”
“Not a regular road. Just the beat-down path the hellions wore, but it can handle a four-wheel drive. My rig’s down there now and that’ll be the best way to get your friends out. Not very far, not too steep. I’ll have that look around, now, if you don’t mind.”
Bill examines the broken tree before he looks at the wreckage, then emits a low whistle when he looks into the passenger side.
“Mrs. Elliot’s a goner, that’s for sure. But Mr. Elliot over there looks as stable as he’s gonna be in this situation. You did right by not tryin’ to pry him out. Coulda hurt him worse.”
“Wait! I never said who they are. What makes you think you know?” Nate says.
“Oh, everybody knows. You and him’ve been big news ever since you crossed the Mackinac Bridge this afternoon, and then there was that there ruckus outside Bimmerman. You and him are all anyone’s talkin’ about.” Bill shows a semi-toothless grin, ghoulish in the trouble lights he’s setting up.
“But no one paid the slightest bit of extra attention anywhere we stopped today,” Nate says.
“Prob’ly not . . . not our way. I’m not speakin’ for all, but in these parts most of us know who famous folk are and we just don’t carry on about it in a public way.” He indicates where Nate should fasten ropes to the half-felled tree.
“What about Mrs. Elliot?” Nate says. “She was from these parts . . . Didn’t her recent reappearance cause any—”
“Cause a stir? Audrey—she was known here as Audrey—and I’d call her infamous more’n famous,” Bill says and steps forward to give Nate a boost onto the foreshortened hood of the pickup.
“I won’t argue that.”
“Y’know, there’s one or two that still believe your friend there was her ruination, but the higher-thinkin’ folks know she was already a lost cause when she left here. Too bad your friend didn’t share that thought.”
“Yes, definitely too bad.”
“Don’t know how he managed to put up with her shenanigans for so long.”
“Colin Elliot has an amazing capacity for love and he never gives up on anybody, least of all himself.” Nate recites as though from a prepared statement and recognizes the recitation as the probable key remark he’ll make to the media. With a change of tense it could also do nicely as the main theme of a eulogy. He shivers in the heavy coat when Bill indicates the stringing of lines is finished and he can climb down.
“You were askin’ if Audrey’s return here brought out any marching bands and the answer’s no,” Bill says. “She was more in a position to be scorned than worshiped, and anyone havin’ any doings with her was from the bad element, if you know what I mean.”
“Uh . . . Do you know if she was pregnant when she got here?” Nate says after they circle back to Aurora’s side of the wreckage.
“Can’t say as I do, but she coulda been cuz her belly’s still swole some.” Bill probes it with a gloved finger, the same one he uses to examine the metal shards protruding into the passenger compartment and the gore atop her torso. When he finishes these investigations he says nothing at first, just covers the hideous sight with one of the blankets.
“Wouldn’t do for the mister to come to and find that staring him in the face . . . well, not staring.” Bill gives another one of his mirthless one-syllable laughs and Nate reminds himself the guy is not a medical examiner, he’s only an Army medic from a long-ago army.
“Too bad about her head,” Bill says as he repositions a couple of the lights. “She was always so purty on the outside. Did you find the head yet? Sometimes they’re shot quite a ways from the scene when they come off like that, so clean and quick. If it’s any consoling, she didn’t feel nothin’.” And don’t worry yourself about it, we’ll find the head come sunup. Not likely a wolverine’s drug it off—hasn’t been a wolverine in the Wolverine State in two hundred years.” He gives another semi-laugh, a sound that could become seriously annoying if Nate hadn’t caught on early that it was intended to distract, to keep despair at bay a little longer.
“If I’d knowed I woulda brung the dog to sniff out the head,” Bill goes on. “I don’t think you said the extent of her injuries . . . or that you hadn’t found the head when you said she was dead . . . back at the house there.”
Nate listens for anything beyond mild admonishment, anything resembling an accusation or a threat, and it’s not there. Nor is there anything in Bill’s expression to set off any alarms when he produces professional-grade foam earplugs from a pocket and hands two sets to Nate.
“Here, put these in your ears and a pair in the mister’s ears. “I’m startin’ on the tree now and there’ll be a lotta noise at close range. My saw’s prob’ly a little louder than that musical racket you folks are used to.” Bill plugs his own ears and displays the snaggletoothed grin again.
Nate quick inserts a set of earplugs rather than endure the laugh he knows is coming, then does his best not to look at the pink foam in the corner of Colin’s mouth when he plugs Colin’s ears as well.
Once the tree sections are cut away, they’re able to open the door on the driver’s side without using the acetylene torch.
“I don’t mind sayin’ that woulda worried me,” Bill says after they’ve removed their respective earplugs. “Usin’ the torch, I mean. I wasn’t lookin’ forward to usin’ the chainsaw either.”
The old guy’s in the lengthy process of explaining why those tools held inherent dangers in a field of spilled gasoline when siren sounds interrupt his talk. He lifts his head, cocks an ear in a northerly direction: “Them’ll be the emergency team from the hospital in Portage St. Mary,” he declares, “and just in time, I reckon.”
1987
