Andrew Klavan - The last thing I remember

I gave a growl of resistance. I felt the branches dig into my flesh as I wrestled my arm free of them. Then I was up. On my knees; on my feet. I stood where I was, weak, hunched over, swaying slightly. Listening to the sound of water. Trying to figure out where it was coming from.

The frog croaked again. That was no help. You can’t find a frog by the sound of it. Try it sometime. It always sounds like it’s coming from where it’s not. Every time you move toward it, it comes again from somewhere else.

But the water-I could still hear that. I began to move toward it. Stumbling over the thick jumble of roots and bushes at my feet. Staggering from tree to tree. Leaning against the sturdy trunks to rest and catch my breath again.

The water sound grew louder quickly. In another few moments, I had found it: a small stream. It wound quickly through dead leaves. Its water winked and sparkled beneath the single pale yellow beam of sunlight that fell to the forest floor through the clustered branches above.

I stumbled to it, openmouthed. Dropped to my knees at the edge of it. I fell forward, my mouth seeking out the cool flow.

I didn’t know much about forest survival or anything like that, but I knew I was supposed to be careful about drinking water. I remembered something about trying to find the place where the water moved quickest and how you were supposed to be careful not to drink too much or too fast.

Yeah, I remembered all that-but I didn’t care. I was just too thirsty. I stuck my mouth on that stream and tried to suck the entire thing right out of the ground in a single gulp. When that wasn’t enough, I grabbed handfuls of it and shoveled it into my face as fast as I could.

Oh, it was an amazing sensation. With every gulp, I could feel the strength flowing back into my body. That cloud of dizziness that had closed around my mind-I could feel it breaking up into wisps and drifting away, leaving my thoughts clear. Everything around me-the leaves, the sunlight, the water, the whole world-was suddenly in sharper focus. It was practically magical, like stories from the Bible where people are healed, going from sick to well in a single second.

I drank and drank, and when I couldn’t drink anymore, I rolled over on my back and just lay there, gasping and feeling good and strong. I could think clearly again too. With the water in me, with strength in me, I could begin to think and plan, trying to figure out what had happened to me, what I was dealing with, how I could get away and get back home. There had to be a solution to this craziness, after all. There had to be some sort of reasonable explanation. This wasn’t a show on the Sci Fi Channel. Those weren’t space aliens coming after me. They didn’t tractor-beam me out of my bed into another dimension. Somehow I’d just been… stolen… stolen out of my life and shoved into this one. There had to be a method, a reason. And there had to be a way out. There had to be.

But before I could find the answers, I had to start moving again. I had to find my way to a road, to a town, to the police.

I had an idea. I turned over on my side and lifted off the ground-which wasn’t easy, believe me. Every time I stopped moving, the stiffness and pain settled over my body again. But with a lot of grunting and groaning, I managed it. I turned over and lifted myself up, and then grabbed hold of the slim trunk of a birch tree and pulled myself to my feet.

I looked down at the water. It had to run somewhere, didn’t it? It was just a narrow stream, but still, it had to make its way somewhere. Maybe it just petered out, but maybe it flowed into a bigger river that would lead me, in turn, to a town. Or maybe it ended at a lake, where there’d be vacation homes and boats and phones…

I tried to follow the flow with my eyes, to see where the stream led, but it was no good. The stream wound into the trees and disappeared from view. So-weary as I was-I started moving again. I began to follow the bubbling flow of the water.

I stuck close to the stream where the brush was thinnest. I pushed through the trees. I went around the bend.

And my heart sank as I saw where the stream ended. I saw the water curve around once, and then curve back. Then it came into a clearing, and there… it vanished into the earth.

I stood where I was. I stared unhappily at the place where the water disappeared. It was a clearing, an opening in the trees. At the center of it, there was a sort of depression in the earth. It looked almost as if the ground had collapsed there and fallen in on itself. At the bottom of the depression, there was a dark hole, an opening about as big around as a man. It seemed to lead into nothingness, complete blackness. The stream poured out of the deep forest shadows, skipped merrily over the brighter clearing, and then, with the suddenness of a snapped finger, it was gone, through that hole, into that impenetrable dark.

I knew what it was. As I said, I wasn’t a big forest survival guy, but I’d hiked in the woods around my home enough and I’d seen this sort of thing before. It was a sinkhole. The stone beneath the dirt here must be soft-limestone maybe. The water had worn a hole in it and there was probably a cave-even a network of caves-underneath.

Well, so much for that idea. There was no way I was going underground into absolute blackness. If I was going to die, I was going to die up here in the light. I’d have to find another way.

I turned from the sinkhole and scanned the forest. It was the same in every direction, the same tangle of branches and vines, the same streaking sunlight, and the same shadows slowly getting deeper, darker. Soon it would be night and there’d be no chance of finding my way. For now, at least I knew I’d been heading in the direction of the sinking sun when I left the compound. If I kept traveling that way, at least I’d put some more distance between me and the bad guys before dusk.

I was just about to set off when I heard it. An unmistakable sound. An engine-Maybe a car, I thought with faint hope-but no-no-it was a truck. It was getting louder, coming closer somewhere beyond the trees. It was out on the trail, out of my sightline, but not that far away, not far enough. For another second or two, I tried to hold on to the desperate hope that it was someone besides the guards, someone who might help me.

Then the truck stopped and I heard their voices, and my hope was gone.

“There,” one of them said in a thick, syrupy accent. “Look. The branches.”

“I see it,” said another.

It was the guards all right. They must’ve had a second truck back in the compound. Or maybe they’d gotten another set of keys to the truck I’d stolen. Or maybe… well, it didn’t matter, did it? They were here. They were close.

“Looks like he went off that way,” said the first man now.

“Yes,” said the second. “I see it.”

“Dylan and I’ll keep watch on the path in case he tries to double back and make a break. You three, take Hunter. Stay in radio contact.”

“Will do.”

For another second, I stood in the little clearing, unable to think, unable to move. My eyes darted frantically back and forth, looking for a way out-any way. If I was quick, I thought, I still might stay ahead of them, find a place to hide.

But the next moment, I heard something else, something new. It was a sound that seemed to go through me like a dentist’s drill hitting a raw nerve.

Take Hunter, the man had said.

And when I heard that next sound, I knew who Hunter was. He was a dog. A bloodhound.

And judging by the long, hungry howl that now came winding to me through the tangled branches, he had found my scent.

He was after me.

Into the Dark The forest seemed suddenly alive with noise-with noise and danger. The dog howled. The men shouted. Branches and leaves snapped and crackled as they stormed quickly through the underbrush. I couldn’t see them yet, but I could tell that they were on my trail. Every moment that passed brought them closer to me.