Micro - Michael Crichton [44]
“Christ.”
He turned away from the monitor and ran outdoors.
Even though the moon was up, in the depths of the rain forest it was so dark it was hard to see her. He hurried down the trail, stumbling and slipping, heading toward her flashlight, and heard her saying, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” her voice soft in the gloom. She was shining the beam around.
“Alyson.” He paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust. “What don’t you know?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
She was a dark shape holding the bag out in front of her. As if it was an offering from a dark god. “I don’t know how they got away. Here: look.”
She shone the flashlight on the bag. He saw a jagged cut running along the bottom of the bag. It was a fine cut.
“One of them had a knife,” he said.
“I guess.”
“And they jumped. Or fell.”
“I guess, yes.”
“Where?”
“Right around here. I first noticed it here. I haven’t moved since. I didn’t want to step on them.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. They’re probably dead already.” He took her flashlight, crouched down, swung it along the tops of the ferns. He was looking for disturbances in the shimmering dew that coated the ferns. He saw nothing.
She started to cry.
“It’s not your fault, Alyson.”
“I know.” Sobbing. “I was going to let them go.”
“I figured.”
“I’m sorry, but I was going to do it.”
Vin put his arm around her. “Not your fault, Alyson. That’s what matters.”
“Did you see any sign of them? With the flashlight?”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s a big fall, and they don’t have much mass. They could have been blown a considerable distance.”
“Then they might still be…”
“They might, yes. But it’s doubtful.”
“We should look for them!”
“But at night, Alyson, we might step on them by accident…”
“We can’t just leave them here.”
“You know, the fall almost certainly killed them. Now, I believe you, Alyson, when you tell me that you didn’t cut the bag open and dump them out—”
“What are you saying—?”
“But the police may not believe your story so readily. You could already be implicated in Eric’s death, and now this—dumping those kids in the most dangerous place—intentionally. That’s murder, Alyson.”
“Well, you’ll tell the police the truth!”
“Of course,” he said, “but why should they believe me, either? The fact is, Alyson, we have only one way to go here, and that is to continue on the plan we started. Their disappearance has to be explained as an accident. Then if they reappear miraculously later on—well, Hawaii is a magical place, wonderful place. Miracles happen here.”
She stood very still in the darkness. “We should just leave them?”
“We can look tomorrow, in daylight.” He squeezed her shoulder, pulled her close to him. He shone the flashlight down. “Here. Let’s follow the path, we can see what’s ahead, and we can leave safely. Then we’ll come back tomorrow. But right now we have to deal with the car. Okay? One thing at a time, Alyson.”
Still sobbing, she allowed herself to be led out of the forest, back to the parking lot. Vin Drake checked his watch: it was 11:14 p.m. There was still time to carry out the next stage of his plan.
Chapter 12
Waipaka Arboretum
28 October, 11:00 p.m.
The students were jostled inside the paper bag, every movement of Alyson’s magnified and accompanied by a loud rasping sound as they scraped back and forth across the paper. Peter never realized that ordinary brown paper was so rough: it felt almost like sandpaper to his skin. He saw that the others had all managed to face inward, so they didn’t abrade their faces as they slid back and forth. They had been driven somewhere, and it had taken a long time, but where were they? And what would be done to them? It was hard to talk as they fell this way and that, and difficult to come up with a plan when everybody was talking at the same time. The Nanigen man, Jarel Kinsky, kept repeating that there had been some mistake. “If there was some way I could talk with Mr. Drake,” Kinsky said.
“Get over it,” Karen King snapped at him.
“But I can’t