Ted Dekker - The Bride Collector

Escape.

A phone, he had to find a phone. Or a car. He had to make contact with Temple.

No, first the medical kit.

He leaped over the blanket, threw the black medical kit open. Scissors, gauze, and a scalpel lay in a neatly arranged tray. A thick bunch of first-aid antiseptic bandages was bound together with a yellow tube of antibiotic ointment. Besides these items, he saw a large assortment of medications and some putty, a small chisel, and a hammer.

Brad ripped open his shirt and stared at the angry, bloody wound on his side. He picked up a small brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, spun the cap off with unsteady fingers, and splashed the disinfectant on his side. The liquid foamed as it made contact with the wound, which was not as deep as it looked. He deduced that his weakness was more from dehydration and blood loss than injury.

It occurred to him that he might not want to leave evidence of his pilfering out for Quinton to see. He stopped. Then again, the broken pole was evidence enough. His mind wasn’t working right.

Think!

Without taking any more time to cleanse the wound thoroughly, he applied a finger of antibiotic cream directly onto the entry point, slapped on an adhesive bandage, then wrapped his lower body with an Ace bandage. Then he quickly drained a bottle of water that sat on the counter.

He closed the bag.

On second thought… He reached back in, took out the scalpel, and closed it up again. Then he took a clawed hammer from the table and strode toward the open barn door, moving fast.

Dark outside, pitch-dark. A gravel driveway snaked into the night. Without any knowledge of where he was, he had little choice but to follow the road to wherever it led him.

For the first time in several hours, Brad began to hope. For what, he wasn’t sure, but he could hope now and so he did.

Please, God. Please let her be alive.

SHE REMEMBERED THE lights over her head as they rolled her down the hall, and she remembered hearing the attendants’ voices talking about the way she looked, but whatever they’d shot into her veins had pushed out the light, and Paradise had retreated into her fog of safety, away from the demons snapping at her heels.

The last conscious thought she could remember was that she’d finally gone crazy. For real crazy. Psychotic. But that was okay, because Roudy and Andrea and Enrique were also psychotic now and then, and she loved them just the way they were.

They must have placed her in a hospital bed and pulled a blanket over her head. Either that or she was dead and they’d taken her to the morgue. But she’d opened her eyes and could feel the blanket over her face. It was pitch-black under here.

Her arms didn’t want to move.

No sound. She wasn’t lying flat on her back. She was slouching against the elevated mattress behind her. She’d been in this situation before, seven years ago. The only way to avoid more medication was to act totally normal. A problem for a person who was not normal. But she was normal, right?

Her first impulse to throw the blanket off in a panic was tempered by her slow-moving muscles and by her clearing reason.

Depending on what drug they had given her, she might soon be clear of the fog they’d induced. Most antipsychotic medications took days to work their way out of a person’s system, but maybe they’d only given her a sedative.

Or they’d given her an antipsychotic and her mind would clear because of it. She wasn’t psychotic, but she had no other explanation for the behaviors that had led to her being brought here.

At the moment this was the last of her concerns.

The phone call from the killer suddenly blasted into her mind, explaining why she was lying here, incapacitated in the hospital while…

Dear God! He had Brad!

Her pulse raced. She had to get out into the hall, find a phone, and call Allison. The killer had prohibited it, but that didn’t matter anymore. She had to tell Allison everything!

She forced her hand off her belly where it rested and clawed at the cover. Her muscles nearly didn’t obey. The blanket slipped off her head, freeing her eyes to see the darkened hospital room.

But it wasn’t a room. She blinked, fearful that she was hallucinating. Her drugged mind was telling her that she was inside a pickup truck parked at a gas station, but she knew better. She was in the hospital where she’d been drugged and admitted.

Unless that was the hallucination and this the reality.

Or unless she had been in the hospital but was now in a pickup truck, staring out a dirty side window at a row of Chevron pumps. She blinked again but the image remained.

Paradise sat up and pulled the blue blanket down to her waist. She was in a pickup truck, one with a center console that divided her seat from the driver’s. A can of Dr Pepper sat in one cup holder, a phone in the other. The phone the killer had left for her.

So then…

She snapped straight as a springboard, face throbbing with heat. This was his truck, she was in his truck, he somehow managed to get her, she didn’t know how, but she was here at a gas station and she was in the killer’s truck.

For a full ten seconds Paradise tried to think clearly enough to make a decision. She tried to move, to run, to scream, to hide, to do anything but sit here like a lump waiting for him to come back, because he was gone and she didn’t know where and she had to do something, something, anything.

But she couldn’t move.

Her muscles broke free of terror’s grip all at once and she was clambering. She grabbed at the door handle, yanked it. Her hand slipped off and it banged loudly.

Locked.

She searched for the locking mechanism, but couldn’t find one. She wasn’t familiar with cars, and it didn’t matter because he wasn’t stupid enough to leave her in an unlocked truck. But she had to get out!

A strange whimpering sound, like a kitten in trouble, broke the silence. She shut her mouth to still her cry and breathed through her nose in shallow, panicked draws of air as she twisted left and right, searching for something.

Anything!

Pale light washed over the interior, revealing clean, uncluttered surfaces. The dash was empty. The seats looked new. She jerked the glove compartment latch and the drawer flapped down. Inside she found a map, still folded neatly, a black comb, and a packet of tissue paper. That was all.

It occurred to her then that she should kick at the window, break it out.

She slammed the glove compartment shut, pulled her legs up, leaned back against the center console, and kicked her bare feet into the window with all of her strength. They bounced off with a thud, and she did it again… and again.

Screaming this time.

She pressed her face against the window and was about to pound on it as hard as she could to draw attention from a someone, anyone, when she saw him.

The man she’d seen upon touching the dead body, the same one she’d drawn for Brad, was at the corner of the convenience store, walking toward the front door in even strides, unconcerned. He was tall, dressed in gray slacks, dark hair. In his right hand he held a piece of wood with a key attached to it.

He was the only one in sight and theirs was the only vehicle as far as she could see.

Paradise pulled back and ducked, trembling. The only person’s attention she would draw here would be his.

She waited a moment in her slouch, but he would return soon. She had to move now, get out now.

She peeked over the door frame and saw that he was inside. On the window a sign read WELCOME TO ST. FRANCIS GAS AND GO in large red letters trimmed in black.

She was peering over the door frame at the outside world, and it was as threatening as her worst fears had taught her.