KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

With each yard, I felt more wetness, more drag on my feet. The puddles merged. The water rose up the sides of my soles. Sewers have to empty into something .

Please, God, don’t let me be walking upstream.

Now and then I stopped to dip a finger. Was the water level rising? Should I turn back? Ahead, I sensed, more than heard, a low murmuring, like wings beating somewhere in the darkness .

One flashlight sweep illuminated an armada of tiny heads rippling the slick surface. I slogged on, refusing to consider what was swimming at my feet .

The filthy water. The rats. The anger and fear. Whatever the trigger, jigsaw memories now winged at me hard .

Adamski .

Claudel .

Ryan .

The confession .

I sloshed on .

The water covered my laces .

The missing phalanges .

The Lac Saint-Jean molars .

Marie-Andréa Briel. Miranda Leaver .

Sebastien Raines .

Had Raines put me here? Had he and Briel learned that I was onto them?

My abduction was still a void. Had I been drugged? Hit on the head? What did it matter? I was here and I had to get out .

Ten steps, then the beam sputtered .

Please, God. No!

I thumbed the switch to preserve the batteries, casting myself into absolute blackness .

The murmuring now had a backbeat of gurgling and slapping. Water covered my laces. My back and hamstrings screamed from the strain of doubling over .

Reverse?

Go forward?

I’d lost all feeling in my fingers and toes. I was shivering wildly. Fever? Hypothermia?

Find an out! Break free!

I continued onward, every cell in my body dedicated to escape .

My scalp tingled .

I ignored it .

Again the tingle, now on my forehead .

Feathery legs brushed my eyelid. The bridge of my nose .

A spider!

My hand flew up and my fingers raked at my face .

Trembling from revulsion, cold, and exhaustion, I leaned into the wall, despair threatening to overwhelm me .

Screw the batteries. I had to have light!

I flicked the switch .

The beam was almost useless except as an emotional crutch. I aimed it ahead, toward the source of the murmuring sound. Saw inky black .

My body was racked with ever more violent shivers .

As I wrapped my arms around my torso, amber light skimmed the brick at my shoulder .

Picked out something .

Breath suspended, I drew the flash close to the wall .

THE FUZZY AMBER SPOT CRAWLED BLACK MARKS ON THE BRICK .

Stenciled letters, faded and chipped .

I inched the light along, forcing my addled brain to fill in the blanks, form words, derive meaning ,

ALEX DRE DE S VE ET DU PAR L FONT INE

Street names .

Rue Alexandre-de-Sève Rue du parc Lafontaine .

An intersection .

Dear God, that corner was just blocks from the lab!

The brackish water. The stench .

The tunnel had to be a sewer. Did it underlie one of those streets?

But I’d awakened in a tomb .

It made no sense .

The bitter cold was jumbling my newly emerging cognition .

I struggled for a mental map of the terrain overhead .

Veterans Park. The entrance ramp toward the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. Rue Logan. Malo. Avenue Papineau. De Lorimier .

Another flash. Not recent. This synapse came from way, way back. From a written page .

Veterans Park was the site of the Old Military Burying Ground .

Had I been sealed in a tomb built for dead soldiers?

No way. Those graves were exhumed and moved in the forties .

Had some been missed? Raines was an urban archaeologist. He’d know about cemeteries. Tombs. Sewers .

My abductor had to be Raines .

I was starting to feel dizzy .

How much time had passed since I’d left the tomb? How long until I succumbed to hypothermia?

I tried to think clearly .

My brain screamed one word .

Move!

Jaw clamped against the tremors, I resumed hunchbacking forward, palm skimming the wall .

The downhill slope sharpened .

The murmuring-gurgling-slapping grew louder .

Water now lapped my ankles .

I slogged on, beam reduced to one strip of amber filament .

Another ten feet and I came to an opening, round, the lower half filled with broken brick and debris. From beyond came the unmistakable rush of moving water .

I pointed the beam through the gap .

The sewer I occupied was joining another. A main collector? Water ran through the larger shaft, a knee-deep river of swirling black sludge .

My eyes squinted for detail the light couldn’t find. Saw only a collision of shadows .

My ears told me the current was swift, strong enough to sweep my feet from under me .

My only choice lay behind me .

The tomb. The silent dead .

Don’t be stupid. You’ll never get back into it. The opening is too high .

It was then that the beam died altogether .

Desperate, I shook the flashlight .

The bulb sputtered to life, wavered, went out for good .

Using the cadence of my hammering heart, I hypnotized myself calm . You’re OK! You’re OK!

How long since I’d left the tomb? An hour? A minute? Time still meant nothing .

Plan your next move. Think. You have to keep moving.

Then, over the watery snarl, my ears picked out another sound. Grating, like metal scraping concrete .

Craning my head into the junction, I peered in both directions down the main line .

To the left, light seeped from a circular opening in the tunnel’s arched dome .

Had it been there before? Had I missed it?

No .

Then how?

A manhole!

Someone was entering the sewer!

As I stared, two legs appeared. A torso. A human figure began descending a ladder now visible against the curved tunnel wall .

“ I’m here.” Pure instinct. Yet the cry was feeble .

The figure continued its downward climb .

“Je suis ici.” Still hoarse, hardly above a whisper .

Two more rungs. The figure gleamed oddly, as though made of satin or plastic .

“ Help me!” This time I shouted with all my strength. “Please! ”

The figure froze .

“ Over here.” My shout echoed .

The figure scrabbled down the last few rungs, then scuttled into shadow .

I waited, blades of hope and fear windmilling in my chest .

Had I imagined it? Was I hallucinating?

No, the man was real .

Why didn’t he answer?

My stomach curdled at a terrifying thought .

The man was not a city worker .

My abductor had returned to finish me off!

It had to be Raines .

But no .

Raines was a gorilla. The figure on the ladder had long spider legs .

Spider .

The spider on my face .

Duclos’s “spider” tooth .

The itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout …