Текст книги "Lost"

Автор книги: Chris Jordan

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Helicopters are up,” Shane says approvingly. “Resuming their pattern. Remind me to ask Fish if he’s got a flare gun.”

I’m hearing Shane but not fully processing his words—helicopters, pattern, flare. I’m concentrating on the stillness in my heart, wondering if it will ever resume beating. Of course it never stopped, not really, it’s just a symptom of unbearable anxiety, thinking your heart has ceased beating.

Shane says lots of other stuff, probably reassuring things, but I’m not listening.

We never do see Leo Fish coming back. All of a sudden he’s there in front of us, soaking wet from the armpits down, and looking especially grim.

“Best follow me,” he says, retrieving his little boat from the bushes.

“Is it my daughter?” I ask, mouth dry.

“Can’t say,” Fish says, turning away.

Back to the taciturn hermit. As Shane and I clamber into the little boat, it feels like gravity has doubled. Everything is much heavier, even the air. I’m at the point where breathing is no longer automatic; I have to concentrate on expanding my lungs, sucking in the syrupy air. The mosquitoes so thick you have to breathe through a tightened mouth or risk drawing them into your lungs.

Fish, not a young man, poles the boat with fierce concentration, shoving us rapidly along, and the blood-tinted sky ripples in the wake. The blood color gives way to garish, neon-orange and by the time Fish nudges the little boat up on dry land—five minutes? ten? my inner clock no longer functions with clarity—the sky has become a thin wash of blue with a few stars or planets still showing.

I realize, with a sickening shock, that darkness made the wilderness smaller. With the blooming light comes a sense of vast distance. The tiny helicopters are miles and miles away, too far to make any sound. They say the horizon is only about three miles away when you’re at ground level, but from here it looks a thousand miles and a million years, with distance and time hopelessly entangled. Vast but hardly silent—a million birds are screaming bloody murder and things are splashing in the water, disturbed by our presence.

Before I quite know what is happening, Fish has grabbed the rope and he’s running across the grass, dragging the boat. Moving with urgency, as if he knows that some terrible thing awaits us. Which he must. He came this way, right? He’s already been here. He knows but won’t say because he’d rather show me.

Panic is like a fierce little bird trapped in my chest. I want to fall to my knees and let it happen, a full-scale panic attack, fluttering heartbeats, hyperventilation, the whole works. But my legs have ideas of their own, they carry me forward, over the damp grass and the firm mud beneath, through the ragged, toothy fronds of saw grass and palmetto slashing at my knees. Racing forward, my eyes searching wildly for the one terrible thing I hope never to see, my daughter’s name resonating within me, kellykellykellykelly on an endless loop until suddenly I burst through a thick stand of palmetto bushes or trees or whatever they are, and go facedown with a great womp! into the black water.

Shane pulls me out, holds me up, shakes me. Shaking me dry or maybe trying to shake some sense into me. Hard to say because I’m blubbering and with water in my ears not really listening. I see his mouth move, but what is the silly man saying?

“Nutter!” he says.

So he thinks I’m crazy. That makes two of us. Then the syllables begin to separate themselves and I realize he’s saying, “Not her.”

Not her. Not Kelly.

He sets me down, looking as worried as ever I’ve seen him. Worried for my state of mind, obviously. As he should be.

“Back with us, missy?” Fish wants to know.

Too soon to speak, but I manage to nod in the right places.

“Shots were fired here,” he says, indicating a thick area of mangroves. “I was too far away to see it, but there’s plenty of trace left behind. See the way those branches are bent? Two people lying there. Hiding, is my guess. Just above, where the branch is busted, that’s from the first shotgun. Ten gauge, from the sound of it, and looks to be a slug shot. Sorry, missy. That’s the size gun and ammunition a man might use hunting deer or wild boar.”

“Or people,” I manage to gasp.

“Or people,” he concedes. “Which is what he was doing, right enough. The way he fired the first two shots, he was maybe tryin’ to back ‘em out of the mangroves. There’s no blood, no indication they was hit.”

“They?” I ask. The guide’s methodical approach helps calm me, ever so slightly, and my heartbeat is no longer fluttering.

It helps there are no bodies. I was expecting bodies.

“The two was hiding in the mangroves,” Fish explains. “You see that area over there? Where it opens up and the water looks a little deeper along the shore? That’s one of Ricky Lang’s old camps. Used to be trailers and shacks and such like, until the rangers burned it all down. Ricky lived here till he was about twelve years old, is my guess. I’m also guessin’ he has someplace nearby where he kept his captives. Yur daughter and the young man.”

“Seth,” I tell him. “His name is Seth.”

“Whatever you say, missy.”

“What happened? Where are they?”

Shane wants to know as badly as I do. We’re both waiting on Leo Fish, hoping he has the answers.

“Can’t know for sure,” he concedes. “Signs and trace give me clues, but it ain’t certain. Two people hiding in the mangroves, two shots to scare ‘em out. Minute or so later, comes another shot from a different gun. A twelve gauge, probably an AA-12. Very distinctive sound.”

“An AA-12, are you sure?” Shane wants to know, his voice laden with concern.

“Ain’t dead sure of nothin’ in this life, son. But it had the sound of an auto assault shotgun, firing a single. The Cuban paramilitary units used to train with the AA-12, pretending to invade Cuba. Very scary noise, when firing on full auto. Those boys would spook the wildlife for miles around, playing with their full-auto shotguns.”

“Two shooters,” Shane says.

“Yup, they was two. One killed by the other.”

Shane and I both have the same reaction. We look at the bare ground, as if expecting a body to materialize. Fish shakes his head and goes, “Sorry, missy. I ain’t used to explaining. That dark stuff spattered on the mangrove?” he says, pointing. “That’s blood, and if you’ll pardon me for saying so, it includes specks of brain matter. So we know it was a head shot.”

If there’s blood and brains on the mangrove leaves I’ll take Fish’s word for it. I have no desire for a closer look. I’m still trying to puzzle out why, if someone was killed, there’s no body. And how does he know that one shooter killed the other?

How—and this is killing me slowly—how does he know the spatter doesn’t come from Kelly or Seth?

“Because I seen him, missy. The dead man. He was shot from behind and fell back in the water. Made sure of who it was afore I come back for you.”

Fish hefts his push-pole, studies the oily black water, then plunges the pole into the surface not a yard from my feet. He levers the pole down, grimacing with the effort.

Something rises. A wet thing with not much of a face.

“Sorry, missy,” says Fish. “Seems like you need to see this, to prove it ain’t your daughter. This a local boy name of Dug Whittle and you’ll notice he dint let go of his shotgun. A ten gauge. So he was the one shootin’ at the mangroves.”

“Ricky did this?” Shane asks.

“That’d be my guess.”

“Oh my God,” I say, seeing what happened, finally picturing what Fish had seen at a glance. “She escaped! Kelly escaped! She was running away. She and Seth.”

“Looks like,” Fish says, lowering the pole. “But it didn’t hold. Ricky Lang has got ‘em now.”

16. Later Alligator

She floats in a jungle canopy, under a blanket of lush green fronds that cover her, good as any camouflage. All she can see is the green, up close and blurry, and it takes tremendous effort to keep her eyes open, so mostly she concentrates on floating. Also on breathing. She reminds herself that it is important to keep breathing even though the air doesn’t taste good. Breathing isn’t about taste, silly, it’s something you have to do whether you want to or not.

Remember to breathe. In, out, keep it going.

On some level Kelly knows that she has been drugged. Partly the recent memory of what the animal tranquilizer did to her the first time, there on the airstrip where all this began, when the dart was fired into her abdomen. This time the needle came from behind, wielded by the wild man with the crazy-looking shotgun. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a gun like that in some old movie. Terminator? Predator? One of those. So maybe this is dream about a movie and she’s really home in her bed experiencing that heavy, paralyzed sensation that sometimes happens in a dream. Where you want to move or scream but you can’t and it isn’t until you wake up that you fully comprehend what happened.

A voice comes through the palm fronds. A mad voice that insinuates itself into her waking nightmare.

“See you later, alligator,” says the voice, inches from her ear. “No, no, that’s not right. What I mean to say, see the alligator later. Which you will, I promise.”

The mad voice laughs and drifts away.

Kelly wills herself to wake up. If only she could scream she could wake herself up.

17. And Then The Boss Is Gone

“Good morning, Daddy, how you doing?”

Ricky, looking down at his father’s withered body, savors the irony. One of his first acts as tribal president was to designate a percentage of gaming revenue to the construction of a new Elder Care & Hospice Facility, located right here on the rez. He made it happen, made sure it was done right, sparing no expense in either the construction phase or the staffing. The individual suites are large, airy and comfortable, bearing little or no resemblance to a hospital room. There are no locks on the doors and each unit has a screened porch with a spectacular view of the Everglades. All in all it’s about as nice as such a place can ever be, considering that many of the residents are either dying or demented, or both.

Tito Lang scores on both counts, his liver slowly failing, his brain irreversibly damaged by a thirty-year immersion in alcohol.

“Look who’s here, Daddy. Your grandchildren! Did you ever meet them? I been trying to recall, but it seems like maybe you were already too far gone. Doesn’t matter, today we make up for lost times. Say hello to your grandfather, children. Daddy, this is Alicia, Reya and Tyler. See how they’re all dressed up? They’re going to a costume party. Little Tyler, he really wanted to be a pirate but I said, no no, children, no more pirates or princesses, no more dressing up as white people. Today you dress up as Nakosha people.”

Ricky smiles down at his children, who flit around in such a way that it’s difficult to see all three at once.

“Kids, do me a favor, go play on the porch. Your grampa Tito and I need to have a grown-up conversation. Alicia, honey? Don’t let Tyler go outside, I want you all together, okay? For the party later, that’s why. Good girl. Go on, shoo.”

Ricky shaking his head and smiling, pleased that his father has finally had a chance to see his beautiful grandchildren. From the scent of shampoo and soap, he knows his father has already had his morning bath, and that the hospice aids will not be back to check on him for at least twenty minutes.

Plenty of time for a conversation.

“I been thinking, Daddy. That’s what’s wrong with me, too much thinking. All the time, day and night, awake, asleep, always thinking. Is that why you drank so much, to keep from thinking?”

His father’s eyes skid away, unable to hold focus for long. The diagnosis, rendered months ago, was unequivocal. Neuronal damage to the cerebral cortex with serious cognitive impairment, resulting in a borderline vegetative state. Nominally conscious or wakeful, but no longer able to form or hold thoughts, and verbally unresponsive on all levels.

Tito Lang, once a big talker, speaks no more. His awareness comes and goes. He likes it when the nurses sponge him, and will swallow soft food spooned into his mouth. When spoken to, his eyes at first respond, then quickly drift away. The lights are on, dimly, but he’s rarely at home in any meaningful way. Perversely his heart remains strong. No one has been able to say how long he will linger in his present condition. Could be weeks, months, maybe longer.

“What have I been thinking about?” says Ricky, sitting on the edge of his father’s bed. “I’m glad you asked. I’ve been thinking about the old times. Before I was born, before you were born. The long-ago times, and how our people lived back then. You ever think about that? Yeah?

“You’re right, Daddy. In those days when people got old, too old to contribute to the community, they went away. They got left behind. The people would give them a weapon and maybe a little water and a blanket, and the people would move on, leaving the elder behind. Sounds cruel but it ain’t, not really. It’s natural. My guess, it didn’t take long. And next year when the people came back they’d gather the bones and bury them in a big jar. They call it an ossuary. That’s the white word. We’ve forgotten the Nakosha word, isn’t that sad?”

Out on the screened-in porch the children are playing cowboys and Indians. Despite his native costume, naughty Tyler is pretending to be the cowboy, which means he gets to chase his big sisters around, shooting them with his make-believe gun. They indulge him, being sweet girls. Look how they pretend to die, writhing on the floor. Ricky smiles indulgently. They’re good kids, he’s lucky to have them.

“You know what, Daddy? Lately I’ve been thinking maybe it would be better if all of us got left behind. All the Nakosha people. Our cousins and brothers, all of them. Time has come to let the other people move on, leave us behind. That would be the kindest thing. No more fighting, no more betrayal, no more pain, no more suffering. Wouldn’t that be better? We’ll all of us go where the spirits go, and we’ll be together. The world will be clean and new and it will last forever.”

In the end, after the conversation is over and Tito agrees, Ricky uses the pillow.

Sally Pop finds it more than a little weird to be back on the reservation, hanging out with so many cops and federal agents. Some are polite, some choose to aggressively ignore him. Mostly they’re focused on coordinating the search for Mr. Manning’s son and the pretty lady’s daughter, so he tries not to take offense.

Back in Jersey he avoided cops and Feds like the plague. Not because he was in any great danger of arrest or prosecution, but because guys in his situation were expected to avoid the company of cops and Feds. Tough guys. Guys of a certain size and heft, useful in casino establishments as a kind of enforcement decoration. Okay, sometimes he got a little rough, maybe accidentally fractured a limb or kneecap while encouraging payment obligations. But really it was all an act, part of the routine that kept him employed. Act a certain way, talk a certain way, they’d fall for it because he looked the part, courtesy of not being able to avoid a punch in the boxing ring.

Sally thinks of it like the old joke about not being a doctor but playing one on TV. He’s not really a tough guy, but he plays one in real life.

Edwin Manning, being a very smart dude, seems to have figured this out. He’s dismissed the others and is no longer relying on Sally for security—who needs private security when you’re surrounded by cops and Feds?—but has decided to keep him around to serve as an extra pair of ears. Sally performs that function quite willingly—the pay is still good, and he likes being around all the action. So when Manning calls down from the chickee hut—the official visitor’s hut, whatever that means—Sally obediently trots up the steps, finds his boss standing at a railing, staring out at the nasty big wet grassland or mosquito breeding ground or whatever. A freaking swamp is what it is.

“Coffee?” asks Sally. “They brought in a fresh urn.”

Manning declines the offer. Looks like hell, his eyes sunk so deep in his head it’s a wonder he can see. Still eating himself up over the decision to level with the Feds, admit his boy got snatched. For what it’s worth, Sally thinks he made the right choice. When you’re dealing with Indians, especially ones who confiscate your guns, sometimes the best thing is to call in the cavalry.

“What are they saying?” Manning wants to know.

“Nothing new. They got the chopper thing going, they’re hoping to spot something from the air, just like yesterday.”

What they’re calling the “forward deployment area” is in fact a couple of portable trailers, with room in front for an improvised helicopter pad. The choppers can touch down and pick up, but refueling has to be done off the rez, at the Dade-Collier Training airport, north of the Everglades.

The whole business of helicopters is way too noisy, Sally has decided. So far lots of flash but no result.

A resupply station has been set up for the ground-based effort. The “boots on the ground” troops. Since the area is far too large for any generalized search, the volunteers have been divided into units and are presently tramping through likely quadrants, as directed by the tribal police in coordination with federal agencies. Checking out various hunting and fishing camps, other places Ricky Lang has been known to frequent, as well as so-called anomalies identified from the air, which have so far turned out to be things like animal carcasses.

Basically everyone is guessing, from what Sally can tell.

“No word on Lang?” Manning wants to know.

“Nothing since he burned the airplane.”

“I don’t give a shit about the plane,” Manning says, grimacing. “Enough about the plane! They got five hundred people out there and they can’t locate one man? What the hell are they doing?”

“They’ll find him, sir.”

“Based on what? Putting on a big show? What if he’s already dead?”

Sally blanches. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Ricky Lang. He’s off his rocker, maybe he killed himself. What if he killed himself and left Seth out there to die? No water, no food. Exposed to the elements. Have they considered that? Have they?”

Sally gets why Healy and Salazar and the other agents are avoiding Edwin Manning. Ostensibly they’re supposed to be informing him of every step of the investigation, but in practical terms the little guy goes ballistic when they bring him anything but good news. Questioning their competence, insulting them and so on, but all along really second-guessing himself. Plus just being on the rez seems to piss him off, since he considers himself betrayed by the tribe.

Which is why Sally decides not to mention the dogs. Waiting in line for coffee as the sun came up, he heard this one guy let it slip they had corpse-sniffing dogs ready to go. Sally figures Mr. Manning doesn’t need to know about the dogs. Not at this particular juncture.

“I heard one of the agents say they get good results eighty percent of the time,” Sally says. “Those are pretty good odds.”

“Oh yeah? It’s bullshit. In a situation like this there are no odds. They either find him alive or they don’t. So please don’t bring me any more happy talk, or stuff you overheard. Just facts.”

“Yeah, of course,” Sally says affably. “You sure you don’t want coffee? It ain’t half-bad.”

“No.”

“How about some pastry. They got this Cuban stuff is really tasty. You gotta eat something, boss. Keep up your energy.”

The bodyguard’s hand instinctively slaps at a particularly nasty mosquito feasting on the back of his neck, and is startled to find some sort of dart protruding. He’s thinking he needs to say something, warn Mr. Manning, but the thought never triggers the words because a great, warm numbness flows out from the dart, paralyzing his jaw.

Funny, he has no recollection of falling but there he is on the floor, looking sideways at Edwin Manning, who lies sprawled nearby, a dart protruding from his neck.

Amazing. What happened exactly? Sally’s thoughts have become vague. Is he dying? If so, it’s not so bad. So far.

A big, meaty fist comes into his angle of vision. For some reason it reminds Sally of one of those coin-operated games on the boardwalk, the one where you try to snatch a kewpie doll with a little crane. The big fist locks on Mr. Manning like he’s a kewpie doll, and from behind comes a haunted voice that says, “I decided you and your son should be together.”

And then the boss is gone.

18. Events In The Sky

Even as an adult, whenever I got seriously out of whack my mother had a favorite song she would hum—”Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.” She always did it with a smile—the idea was to kid me into straightening out, or at least accepting reality—but she had it right, believe me. For many years I

was the queen of denial. Something about the world I didn’t like, I’d tune it out, ignore it to the point it no longer existed.

Best example, getting pregnant. I’m sixteen and my periods have always been somewhat irregular. So it’s fairly easy to not pay attention when the time comes and goes. And okay, I did pretend to use and dispose of tampons, so Mom wouldn’t catch on, but that was just to avoid embarrassing questions about menstruating, not because a pregnancy was possible. No way. Couldn’t be. Don’t even think about it.

I tucked away the fear—it was a terrifying notion, me having a baby—and went on with my teenage, high school life. A life in which I was the shy girl without a boyfriend. There were plenty of girlfriends and friends who were boys, but no actual hang-out, take-you-on-a-date, try-to-make-out boyfriends, because either my father chased them away or I did. He because of a deep belief that all teenage males were basically evil and me because the whole idea of sex and boys was scary.

I wasn’t ready, didn’t have a clue.

Amazing attitude, considering that I was pregnant. The queen of denial, floating on a river of lies. One month went by. Two months. Three.

My body cooperated with my brain, hiding the truth. I put on a few pounds, but not many, and besides, my weight was fluctuating then, as I lost baby fat and put it back on, dieted and binged. My belly muscles tightened rather than expanded. Most women, healthy women, when they get pregnant they want to show, and they do. Not only did I not want to show, I refused to admit the reality of what was happening. If I didn’t have a protruding belly I couldn’t be pregnant, therefore I didn’t allow myself to have a belly. That was good for about five months and then my seamstress skills came in handy, altering blouses and skirts, making sure the cut and drape of the fabric concealed what I continued to deny.

Amazing what a few blousy frills can hide. Not even Fern suspected, although to be truthful at the time she was pretty busy with her own new baby, and fighting day and night with her future ex-husband.

Bottom line, nobody knew, not until I was well into the seventh month. I’m lying on the couch because my “tummy” aches. Too many damned potato chips, according to my stern and disapproving father, but in reality the infant in my belly is kicking with both feet. We’re watching Seinfeld, my father and me, while Mom is in the kitchen polishing the dishes with a special cotton cloth so as to avoid my father’s wrath about spots on the dishes, one of his numerous pet peeves. Anyhow, I must have groaned in a certain way because Mom came flying out of the kitchen and before I could stop her she put her hand to my belly. She knew.

“Maybe it’s her appendix?” my father suggests, backing away from the couch as if fearful his inexplicable daughter might explode.

Mom reminds him that I had my appendix removed at the age of eight. Her immortal, marriage-ending words: “She’s pregnant, you asshole.”

Kelly was born three weeks later, a preemie but strong and healthy despite that. It was a very long labor, with several starts and stops, and when I finally got home from the hospital, shocked and thrilled and terrified of the tiny infant in my arms, my father had moved out of the house and from then on it was just Mom and me. And Kelly, of course, who ruled from day one. What a pair of fists that little girl had! Grabbing at anything within reach and refusing to let go. Tiny, impossibly small hands, of course, but amazingly strong. First time she latched onto my nose and wouldn’t let go was also the first time she laughed. Gleeful. An actual grin of triumph. She was ten weeks old. Way early, according to the pediatrician, but Kelly always got there early. High-speed crawling at seven months, walking at nine. She never toddled. She walked and then she ran.

The queen of denial is back, refusing to believe that Kelly escaped and then was again taken captive. My girl is running. No way did she let herself get kidnapped all over again.

Leo Fish may think he’s seen the “signs” and what he calls the “trace,” a few spots of blood, the imprint of a flat-bottomed boat nudged on the grass, and what he insists are footprints. To my eye it’s all just bent grass. He can’t possibly know what happened, other than that one man was murdered.

“Okay, she was here, she escaped, I believe that part,” I tell him. “But how can you assume Lang grabbed her? Maybe she got away while he was shooting this other man. It was dark, you weren’t there, you can’t possibly know what really happened.”

“I agree it ain’t a certainty,” Fish says. “I can see where you might be doubtful, not recognizing sign and trace.”

He’s being patient with me, which of course drives me nuts. How dare he?

“Maybe Ricky got her, maybe he didn’t,” Shane says, interceding. “Whichever it is, we still need to locate her.”

“Best get a move on,” Fish suggests, preparing to lead the way.

“My cell is out of range,” Shane says. “Got any flares?”

“Might be one or two in the pan,” Fish responds.

Shane’s idea, set off a flare to alert the helicopters, let them know where to recover the body. It’s not just the body, but whatever evidence may be developed from the site—his old FBI instincts tell him there may be important clues in the vicinity, and he can’t walk away without notifying the authorities.

I immediately like the idea, because if Kelly is out there, running or hiding, she may see the flare and understand that her rescuers are nearby.

“Ricky will see it, too,” Fish points out, but he doesn’t argue the point. Knowing two very stubborn people when he sees them.

Standing ankle deep in the dark water, so as not to set the grasslands on fire, Shane ignites the flare and holds it high in the air, a Statue of Liberty pose without the crown or the gown. The hot-red flame is so bright I have to look away as billows of white smoke rise up into the morning sky.

“They gotcha,” Fish comments in his laconic way.

He indicates a direction and I pick up on a helicopter cruising the distant horizon. Sure enough it has shifted course and is heading in our direction, no doubt having spotted the smoke if not the flare itself.

As we wait for the helicopter the discussion turns to strategy. Should we proceed by air? Does it make sense for Fish to guide search parties from the helicopter? Shane seems to be pushing for the helicopter, in the belief that we can cover more ground quickly, whereas Fish seems to think the helicopter is a bad idea because Ricky will hear it coming and take precautions.

“Man apparently believes he can make himself invisible,” Fish points out. “In some ways he can, if we’re in the air and he’s on the ground. This may look like open country but it ain’t. There’s a million places to hide and a thousand ways to not be seen. Ricky knows all the tricks. Best chance is me locating his sign.”

In the end the discussion is settled by events in the sky. The search-and-rescue helicopter, which Shane identifies as a Bell 412, is close enough so we can discern the pilot, as well as a passenger using binoculars. The passenger seems to be pointing, no doubt at the flare smoke, which has begun to disperse. Worried that they’ll lose us, I wave my arms and jump up and down. Figuring if I can see them, they can see me, which may or may not be true.

Which is why I’m looking directly at the helmeted pilot when the helicopter explodes in a ball of hot orange flame.

“Pretty cool, eh Tyler?” Ricky says, lowering the RPG launcher.

Tyler grins, makes a boom! motion with his hands, and goes back to running in circles around his sisters, who are drifting through the saw grass, light as butterflies in their pinafore dresses.

The children have been with him more or less continuously since he had the conversation with his father. Their presence is a comfort, and he doesn’t want them frightened away by roving helicopters. Figuring one down, they’ll call back the rest. Not expecting rocket-propelled grenades or, indeed, any of the other interesting weapons he has in his arsenal. What did they think, his weapons would be limited to bow and arrow?

“Reya, honey? Careful of the water, you don’t want to get your shoes wet.”

Reya—it means queen in Spanish, her mother’s idea—Reya is the middle child, tends to be careless of her belongings, and she sticks her tongue out at him and skips through the shallow water in open defiance.

Ricky smiles. This is the new Ricky Lang. There was a time when he might have lost his temper, maybe even spanked her little bottom, but those days are over. He’ll not raise a hand to any of the children now, or ever again. Solemn promise, hand to his heart.

Strange. His big hand searches around his chest, attempting to locate a heartbeat. Can’t find one. As the black smoke rises from the wreckage of the helicopter, he grabs his wrist, checking for a pulse.

No pulse. Amazing.

The sudden realization that he’s dead fills Ricky Lang with joy. He’s left himself behind! He can no longer be killed.

Being dead creates all sorts of interesting possibilities.

19. The View From The Fire Tower

Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, but up to now the only place I’ve ever seen a dead body was in a hospital setting or a funeral parlor. In the hospital the dead look empty and at peace and at funerals they tend to resemble wax dummies. Sad but not remotely scary, and never a hint of violence.