Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [30]
“Help!” he cried, the small part of his brain not yet in panic mode registering how stupid the cry was. “Help me!” The muck was now above his waist; his arms flailed instinctively, trying to push himself out, but this merely anchored both his arms and drew him in deeper. It was as if he were fastened in a straitjacket. He thrashed, trying to get at least one arm free, but he was powerless, like a fly in honey, sinking slowly and helplessly into the mire.
“Help me, for God’s sake!” D’Agosta screamed, his voice echoing over the empty moors.
You idiot, that small rational part of his brain told him, stop moving. Every movement was driving him farther under. With a superhuman effort, he willed his panic into submission.
Take a deep breath. Wait. Don’t move.
It was hard to breathe with the pressure of the mud encircling his chest. It was up to the tops of his shoulders, but by not moving, by remaining absolutely still, he almost seemed to have stopped sinking. He waited, trying to overcome the panicky sensation of the mud creeping up toward his neck, slower now. Finally it stopped. He waited in the driving rain until he realized that he had, in fact, stopped sinking; he was stable, in equilibrium.
Not only that, he now realized he was only five feet from the trail on the other side.
With exquisite slowness he began to raise one arm, keeping his fingers straight, extracting it slowly from the muck, avoiding any suction, giving the mud time to flow around it as he drew it out.
A miracle. His arm was free. Keeping it buoyed above the surface, he ever so slowly leaned forward. There was a huge moment of panic as he felt the mud creep up his neck, but by immersing more of his upper body he could feel a buoyancy effect on his lower extremities, and his feet felt like they might have risen just a little. As he leaned forward more, his feet rose in response. Gingerly, he immersed part of his head in the muck, which increased the effect and brought his legs up still more, tilting his body toward the embankment of the bog. Keeping as relaxed as possible, moving with agonizing slowness, he continued leaning forward and—just as the mud came up to his nose—he managed to reach out and grasp a branch of heather.
With slow, easy pressure, he drew his body toward the embankment until his chin rested on the grass. Then he extracted his other arm—slowly, very slowly—and reached out with it as well, grasping another bush and pulling himself out onto firm ground.
He lay there, feeling a wash of infinite relief. Slowly the pounding of his heart subsided. The heavy rain began to rinse the mud from him.
After a minute or two, he managed to stand up. He was chilled to the very bone, dripping with foul-smelling mud, his teeth chattering. He held up his wrist and let the rain wash the mud from his watch: four o’clock.
Four o’clock! No wonder it was getting so dark. The sun set early in October in these northern climes.
He felt himself shivering uncontrollably. The wind was gusting, the rain was lashing down, and he could hear rumbles of thunder. He didn’t even have a flashlight or a lighter. This was insane—he was risking hypothermia. Thank God he had found the trail. Squinting into the gloom, he saw the cairn ahead that he had been trying so hard to reach.
After shaking off as much mud as he could, he started cautiously toward it. As he approached, however, it began to look wrong somehow. Too thin. And then when he came up to it, he saw what it really was—a small dead tree trunk, stripped and silvered and scoured by the wind.
D’Agosta stared in pure disbelief. A freakish dead tree trunk, here in the middle of nowhere, miles