Peter Clement - Mortal Remains

5:02 A.M.

Hampton Junction

Even in the shelter of the trees the snow fell so heavily it practically caused a whiteout, but Mark raced through it, slipping as he went, the previously made depressions in the trail already beginning to fill in. He ignored the noise of his boots crunching on the snow, thinking only of reaching Lucy. His breathing quickened more from fear than exertion, and he sucked in cold flakes with each gasp. They choked him, then burned at the back of his throat. Rounding the bend, he peered ahead to the swirling luminous opening that led to the clearing and poured on the speed.

His eyes accommodated to the darker forest, and he emerged to find the night cast in more visible shades of gray and silver. Immediately he saw two figures huddled side by side near the front of the building. They were peering down at something. His heart leapt.

“What’d you forget?” one of them called. Whether they glanced his way, he couldn’t tell. It was too dark to see their faces or clothing.

Which meant they couldn’t see his. But they’d obviously heard him coming. His making no attempt to hide his arrival must have inadvertently tricked them into assuming one of their buddies had returned. It gave him an edge. All this he realized in an instant. And his plan to exploit that edge came just as fast.

Bluff and get closer.

He gave a wave, as if signaling them to keep quiet, and started forward, his head down the way a man might walk in order to watch his footing. He had no strategy of attack other than cross the hundred yards and see what they were looking at, then trust to instinct and reflex. He tried to remember how his height measured against the two he’d left in the car. The driver at least had appeared to be tall, but there’d be no mistaking that Elvis suit of his. As soon as Mark got close enough to see details of their outfits, he’d have to make his move.

The pair kept their attention on whatever lay at their feet.

He quickened his pace, pulling the gun from his pocket.

He hated firearms of any sort, but as coroner he’d seen his share – enough varieties of weapons to find the safety on the one in his pocket. Feeling for it with his index finger, he clicked it off.

He’d closed the distance to about eighty yards when he made out a black shape at their feet. It appeared round and far too flat to be a body.

At sixty he could see it was an opening in the ground.

The well.

His stomach clamped down so tightly he almost threw up.

He broke into a run, watching their backs.

At forty he stopped and took aim. “Freeze,” he shrieked, all his rage at what they might have done to Lucy funneled into his voice.

The two men spun around.

“What the fu-”

“Shit!”

The one on the left grabbed for the inside of his jacket.

Mark shot him first, aiming for his legs.

The man screamed, grabbed his crotch, and doubled over. His partner immediately took off toward the building, dodging and weaving.

Sprinting forward, Mark fired on the run, still aiming low. Each shot sounded no louder than opening the twist top on a beer bottle, but the pistol gave a heavy kick. He missed every time. “Stop!” he yelled and drew a bead on his quarry’s back. Before he could pull the trigger, his target darted around the corner and out of sight.

The man on the ground continued to howl as he writhed in a ball. “You fuck! You goddamned fucking bastard!” The snow under him rapidly turned dark.

Mark knew he wouldn’t be causing trouble anytime soon, if ever. As for helping him – not even an issue until he had Lucy safe. He nevertheless paused to retrieve what the guy had been reaching for and dropped – a gun identical to the first – then raced by him. “Lucy!” he cried, sliding to a stop at the edge of the opening. Bits of snow dropped off into nothing as he teetered over the hole, and his stomach heaved to his throat. He snapped on his headlamp. Water gleamed back at him from forty feet below, the surface as shiny and black as oil. A white rope trailed into it from a large coil that lay half-buried in slush. He grabbed it up and started to reel it in, his worst fears lurching out of control.

But it came too freely. There mustn’t be anything on the other end. How could he get to her? Or maybe she wasn’t even in there-

It snapped taut, and he could barely haul it up any farther.

“Oh, God no.” He choked back a sob, tightened his grip, and strained to pull as hard as he could. But his hold kept slipping on an icy film that had coated the water-soaked nylon. He looped the rope around his hands, only to have it bite into his skin and cut off the circulation. Yet he raised the load, hand over hand, the effort making his head spin. Every few seconds he glanced over to the building for any sign of the man who had run off. He kept tabs on the whereabouts of the bleeder by his shrieks, though they were growing weaker.

His forearms vibrated as he taxed the limits of their strength, and he whispered, “Lucy!” over and over, as if calling her name could coax her to him, until the trembling stopped and he managed to pull some more.

Her body broke the surface with an echoing splash and the clink of chains. He didn’t dare get close enough to the edge to see her for fear of losing his footing and sliding in himself. He tugged all the harder, but managed only another four or five feet before the weight overpowered him. “Lucy!” he sobbed, irrational with fright, knowing she’d never answer. The noise of water streaming back into the well sounded like a dozen running faucets.

Without buoyancy to help him, he could barely hold her. His finger joints locked with the cold; his arms shook from the extreme effort. The rope started to slip from his grasp.

“No!” he screamed, twisting it yet another time around his arms. Even his feet slid as he tried to get traction to support the weight.

He quickly looked around for something to anchor her to. One of the medium-sized trees stood about twenty feet away. Feeding the rope through his palms, he managed to make his way over to the trunk and, using it like a winch, circled it three times, then tied off on it without letting her drop any lower.

In seconds he was back at the well, peering over the edge with his light. His knees buckled at the sight. She hung by her heels below him, her arms bound, her head trailing lifelessly a foot above the water, her hair pooled on the surface like black seaweed.

With no thought but to reach her, he straddled the rope with his back to the well, grabbed it with both hands, and let himself over the edge. He intended to rappel down the stone lining, but with the ice he slid most of the way, scraping the walls, abrading his palms, then ricocheting off her legs before plunging into the frigid water. He bellowed at the shock of the cold, but the water closed over him, swallowing the sound.

He had the presence of mind to clamp a hand over his headlamp so it wouldn’t come off, and quickly fought his way back to the surface. The beam never so much as flickered. Immediately he saw her face above him, upside down, covered in a silver glaze. He reached up to it, and at his touch thin flakes of ice fell off her like scales. Underneath, her skin taut with the gray-white pallor of a corpse, her eyes looked made of glass and stared off to one side, lifeless as they glistened through the remaining film of frost.

His sobs, unstoppable now, broke from deep within him, like retching, and racked him from head to toe. “Oh, God, please no” he cried, his mind hurtling between praying for a miracle and knowing she was dead.

With one hand he grabbed on to the chain that dangled from her heels into the water. At its lower end, a few feet under the surface, he felt the anchor they’d used as a weight and knelt on its flanges, bringing his head level to hers. With his free arm he clutched her to him. The meaty horror of what he held blasted all rational thought out of his brain, and his thinking collapsed in on itself like an imploding star. Yet a fragment of him still rebelled, refused against all logic to accept the clammy reality in his arms. He summoned enough of his training to slip his fingertips along the side of her neck and push them into skin that had the consistency of cold Plasticine. The vessels within lay lifeless as he counted off the seconds. Just hours earlier he’d felt them pump with excitement as he’d explored every dimple and depression of her with his mouth.