John Sandford - Mind prey

The pain in his stomach was growing, but tolerable. He crawled sideways through the corn, careful not to disturb the stalks, then low-crawled to the fence. The cattails were now between him and the deputy, and he could see the open end of the culvert. A thin, keening excitement gripped him: it wasn't big, but he thought it would do. This just might be possible. Just barely. He'd slip these cocksuckers after all, Davenport and his thugs.

He lay on his back and edged under the lowest strand of barbed wire, then slid down the side of the ditch into the swampy patch. The cop turned his head, looking the other way, and Mail gained three feet, into the cattails, and stopped. If anybody walked down the shoulder of the road now, they'd look right down at him. But looking from down the road-from where the deputy stood, scanning the field with binoculars-he was covered. He found himself holding his breath, watching the deputy through a half-inch opening between blades of the cattails, and when the deputy turned his head again, he made another two feet, the water now almost covering him, like an alligator in wait.

The culvert was only ten feet away.

"Choppers coming in-the medevac one and a federal one. They say they've got some plate in the floor, they can get right down on the deck with it," Peterson said.

Lucas nodded; "I'm gonna walk out along the road."

"Okay," Peterson nodded. "We'll flush him."

Lucas watched as Andi Manette, Grace, and Genevieve were loaded into the medical helicopter, Genevieve as an unrecognizable bundle of blankets. Andi Manette stared blank-faced at him as the chopper lifted off. In a few seconds, it was a speck in the northern sky. At the same time, another machine, larger, powered in from the north. The feds, Lucas thought.

He walked down the road, slowly, a step or two at a time. There were only three deputies along the whole length of the road: the visibility was so good that Peterson was routing newcomers to the other edges. But Mail had come this way.

The corn waved in the light breeze, ripples running through it like wind fronts on a lake. Nothing jerky, nothing too quick. Lucas came up to the first deputy, a chunky blond with mirrored sunglasses and a shotgun on his hip.

"Was that the kid there in the well?" he asked as Lucas came up.

"In the cistern, yeah," Lucas said. "She's gonna make it. See anything at all?"

"Nothing. There's just enough wind that the corn's moving, and you can't see much." He pointed his nose into the wind and sniffed, like a hunting dog, and Lucas continued down the road, studying the field.

Two-thirds of the way to the next deputy, he saw the culvert poking through under the road. It wasn't more than eighteen inches in diameter, he thought, maybe too small.

But this was where Mail was headed.

In fact…

A thin vein of water led from the fence to the shallow puddle near the end of the culvert pipe. Could he already be inside?

Lucas stepped carefully down the embankment.

And saw the grooves in the mud heading to the culvert. Thighs and shoe tips. And there… a speck of blood, almost black on the green grass. The culvert was small, and he risked a quick peek inside. He could see only a tiny crescent of green on the other side. As he watched, the crescent vanished. Mail was pulling himself through. The space was tight, but he was moving.

Lucas climbed the bank, walked to the other side, and looked over the edge. The pipe emptied into another cattail swamp on the opposite side, with a little mud delta leading away from the pipe itself. The delta was undisturbed and Lucas again let himself down the bank. He could hear Mail, possibly halfway through, scraping along, struggling.

And what did Mail's file say? That he was a frantic claustrophobic?

Mail had gone headfirst into the pipe, his shoulders tight against the corrugated sides. There was mud in the bottom of the pipe, and halfway through, the pipe itself was more than half-blocked by a rotten wooden board and a clump of dead weeds. But on the other side of the blockage, he could see a disk of light. If he could get that far…

He pulled the board and the weeds away with his hands, passing them down the length of his body, then kicking them back with his feet. He had barely enough room to maneuver his arms, and his breath came harder. He kicked, found one foot held tight; he kicked again, and still was stuck.

Now the claustrophobia seized him, and he began tearing frantically at the mud, whimpering, spitting, grunting, his breath coming harder and harder… and he broke free. Twenty feet from the end, fifteen feet. Pain burned through his stomach, and he had to stop. Goddamn; he touched his shirt, pulled his hand away; he couldn't see it, but he could smell it. He was bleeding worse. When he tried to move, he found he was stuck again, and he kicked frantically at whatever held him; splashed water, where part of the pipe had corroded away. Heard a noise. A rat?

Was there a rat in here with him?

Close to panic, he bucked down the pipe, the pain tearing at him. But could see green at the end of the pipe.

Okay. Okay. He pushed the panic back: he'd have to be careful now. He'd have to make himself move slowly, even with the impulse to dash into the cornfield. If he could get in undetected, he could do this. He'd never really thought there was a chance, but now…

A heavy clump of something-dirt, sod-dropped into the circle of light at the end of the pipe, half-blocking it. Then another clump.

Mail, shocked, froze.

And a familiar voice said, "Is it wet down there, John?"

The embankment had been seeded with some kind of heavy, thick-bladed grass. The recent rain had softened it, and by grabbing clumps of the grass by the base, Lucas found he could pull up a foot-square clump of sod. He pulled out a half-dozen clumps, then sat down on the embankment above the pipe. When Mail was close enough, he dropped the first of the clumps into the mouth of the culvert.

"Is it wet down there, John?"

There was no answer for a moment, then Mail's voice, low, desperate. "Let me out of here."

"Nah," Lucas said. "We found the little girl in the cistern. She was alive, but not by much. How in the fuck could you do that, John? Throw the kid in the hole?" He dropped another clump of grass into the entrance of the culvert.

"Let me out of here, I'm hurt," Mail screamed.

"Not for long," Lucas said. "The water's draining through from the other end. I'll block this up, the pipe'll fill up… it won't take long. Nobody will know. They'll think you got away. It'll almost be like you won-except you'll be dead. And I'll have a good laugh."

Mail screamed, "Help… help me," and Lucas could hear his hands and feet beating on the inside of the pipe. He was apparently trying to move backwards.

Mail pushed himself away from the sound of the voice, aware now that the water under him was moving with him. Must be downhill. Maybe the pipe would fill up… must get out. Must get out…

He backed away, frantically, until his feet hit the muck he'd passed behind himself coming in: and he remembered. He kicked at it, couldn't see it, couldn't move. He was stuck. Ahead, there was only a small square of light at the mouth of the culvert. He crawled forward again, stopped, twisted around enough that he could free the pistol, and pushed it out ahead of him.

"Let me out," he screamed. He fired the pistol. The muzzle blast and flash stunned and deafened him. He inched forward like a mole, in the water, fired again.

He couldn't see much at all, just a thin rim of light. Davenport said something, but Mail couldn't make it out. He simply lay in the deepening water, in the dark, with the pain in his stomach, the strange blindness in his eye, the world closing in on him. Davenport would bury him alive, he could feel the water rising. He thrashed and couldn't move, couldn't move; he had the gun, and without thinking, pushed it under his chin.