Peter Clement - Mortal Remains

Sure enough, all the tools were gone from his Jeep.

He turned the ignition, hit the wiper switch for front and rear to clear away the snow, and accelerated down his driveway. Christ it felt slippery. He braked for the turn onto the road, but too late. He started to skid across it, right into a two-foot bank the graders had left from previous plowings. “Shit, shit, shit!” he muttered as he jockeyed the vehicle back and forth, delicately working the accelerator so as not to spin his wheels.

She’s probably perfectly okay, he had to keep telling himself.

By the time he got free, the dash clock read 4:42 .

He forced himself to drive more slowly, peering through the dazzling swirls of flakes highlighted in his low beams. What time she’d gone out there, he’d no idea, but already the storm had filled in her tire tracks.

After five minutes of crawling along, he turned on the radio to keep from screaming in frustration at the slow pace. Normally he would there by now.

“I’m gonna be all right…” Jennifer Lopez sang.

He had less than two miles to go when he spotted the glow from the high beams of an oncoming car.

Lucy careened once off the stone sides before the anchor crashed through a thin layer of ice and pulled her into the frigid darkness.

The descent accelerated. Water streamed up her nostrils and through the back of her throat. She started to choke and heard bubbles pouring out her nose but couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything now. The pressure on her head and ears squeezed in until she thought the end would come when her brain burst. Even greater weight crushed her chest and expelled more bubbles, those in a deafening gargle from where the tape tore free of her mouth. Searing pain burned through her limbs and her mind issued frantic alerts that they were in flames; that lactic acid bathed the tissues inside and out, that she had the metabolic consequence of no oxygen – the sorts of clinical snippets she might have used to save another, but not herself.

Yet her superb condition prolonged her dying. Her heart, trained to endure on near anoxic blood, continued to beat, her brain to think.

And down she went.

Finally, the inky darkness from without seemed to spill into her mind, and she knew her ordeal would soon end. She felt her entire body stiffen against its restraints and begin to undulate in the jackknife movements of a tonic-clonic seizure, the last bequest from a nervous system gone mad for want of air.

No white light awaited her. No final flash of memories comforted her. Rather the hurt subsided, and she seemed to take leave of her body. But instead of rising peacefully upward, she stayed suspended in the water looking down at herself, watching her remains continue to jerk through the dark in a desperate, never-ending dance.

The white glare hung just over the horizon, the way extraterrestrial events are portrayed in movies, then became very ordinary as the headlamps crested a low hill, and the dark shape of the vehicle drove slowly toward Mark at a cautious speed equal to his own.

Let it be her.

He hadn’t met any other vehicle on the road.

Sure enough, as they closed the gap between them, he made out the familiar shape of her station wagon.

Thank God, he thought, relief flooding through him.

He flicked his high beams at her.

And saw two men driving.

“What the hell!” he yelled.

He must have taken them by surprise as well; the night immediately lit up with the red illumination of brake lights, and the station wagon skidded out of control.

Caught in the glare of his lights, they both gaped at him, their features coarse, white, and garish as they glided closer.

He saw the man on the passenger side reach down and come up with a gun.

Mark floored the accelerator. The much-heavier Jeep rocketed forward and smashed into them head-on. For the second time in a week he was surrounded by the impact of crumpling fenders and exploding air bags, but this time he was ready. Gripping the steering wheel, he’d pushed himself well back in his seat and barely felt the blow against his chest. Better still, his windshield stayed intact.

He held his foot on the accelerator. His tires whined, the Jeep shook, but shuddered ahead, pushing the lighter car before it. Not that its two occupants were about to cause him much trouble. They must have been the kind not to wear seat belts. Both looked to be slumped on the dash, asleep on big white pillows. One had blood pouring out his nose.

Mark kept the pedal to the floor, aimed for the ditch, and, continuing to shove Lucy’s car until its rear end lifted up over a snowbank, stranded it so nothing short of a tow truck would set it free. Throwing the Jeep into reverse, he shot back to the right side of the highway. Despite the body damage, it still drove fine. Sick with fright over what they’d done to Lucy, he slammed the gearshift into drive, ready to speed away and find her at the home. But wait. She might be in the back of the car tied up on the floor. Or they could have already taken her somewhere else.

Shit!

Grabbing his bat, he jumped out of the cab, ran to the driver’s side of the car. A quick glance in the back, and he knew they didn’t have Lucy with them. He wrenched open the door. Neither man moved, but both were still breathing. The gun he’d seen before lay on the floor between them. He didn’t know what type, but its stubby silencer on the end of the barrel made it look like something James Bond would carry.

He reached across the knees of the one closest to him and grabbed it. Then he went through their pockets. No more weapons, but the roll of duct tape he found would be useful. And in the second man’s pockets he’d found what he wanted most of all – a cell phone from the bad guys. It at least wouldn’t have a tap on it.

In the minutes it took to bind their hands and feet, the driver started to moan and come around. The passenger hadn’t budged, his respirations growing increasingly gurgly, and from the lie of his head, the neck looked a little twisted.

Mark grabbed the driver by the collar of his ski suit, pinched him hard on the earlobe to speed his ascent from the depths, and yelled, “What have you done to Lucy?”

The guy opened an eyelid. “Go see for yourself, asshole.”

Mark balled his fists and yanked the creep forward, as close to killing someone as he’d ever been. But Lucy mattered more. He threw the scum back, picked up the cell phone, and roused a very sleepy Dan Evans. “Don’t ask questions. Bring the cavalry-”

“Mark?”

“I’m east of the entrance to the home for unwed mothers. You’ll find two of Braden’s killers bound and gagged in Lucy’s car. One’s alive, the other – handle his neck with care if you ever want to question him.”

“Wha’-”

“Hurry! They’ve done something to Lucy.” He hesitated. Should he assume the worst? Better safe than sorry. “Get an air ambulance to the grounds of the building, pronto!”

“My God! Right!” He finally sounded fully awake.

Two minutes later Mark pulled his battered Jeep up in front of the gate, slipped the gun into his pocket, and yanked the headlamp over his ski hat. Quietly, he climbed the gate and started to run, entering the darkness of the forest. He didn’t turn on his light in case he’d give himself away. His insides seized with dread at what he’d find up ahead. Glancing at the luminous dial of his watch, he read 5:01 .

New York City Hospital

Earl awoke with a jump, and immediately realized he’d dozed off. “Damn Demerol,” he muttered, glancing at his watch. Christ, he’d been asleep well over three hours.

Had someone slipped in here during that time?