Left for Dead: A gripping psychological thriller by Deborah Rogers Page A
Authors: Deborah Rogers
Ads: Link
against my right knee, a stone or stick, so I focus on that, moving my knee. Left, right, left, right. It’s taking too long. My lungs scream for oxygen. My head’s about to explode. I try harder. Pivot my leg back and forth. But there’s just no way.
My brain turns to cotton and I begin to fade. Somewhere in this fuzz, I think of him—his face, his hands around my throat, the whites of his eyes. What he did to me. I won’t allow him to win. I push with everything I have, press my ribcage against the load, arch my back. But the dirt might as well be a solid wall.
I try to remember every bad thing I ever saw, the YouTube clip of that white supremacist pouring Jim Beam down a puppy’s throat, that time in eighth grade when Brent Maxwell stole the cowboy hat from the Down Syndrome kid on the way to school in the bus, those people in the Twin Towers who had only two choices—burn alive or jump. It works. Adrenaline jets into my veins. I thump my chest against the earth tomb and a small channel opens up and I can scarcely believe it and I think more angry thoughts and fight harder and dirt loosens and crumbles and finally gives way and I go up and up until I’m breaking through the surface and sucking in the wet night air.
I begin to laugh. I did it. I am free. I am alive.
I brush the soil from my face and blink into the dark and my joy fades. He could be here, watching on in amusement, ready to do it all over again. I listen for his breath, the snap of a twig, the sound of his voice. I lift myself out of the grave and force one jellified leg in front of the other, heading for the trees, moving quickly but carefully to avoid knocking myself out on the low-lying branches. It’s so dark I can’t see my own hand in front of my face.
I reach the first spruce and pause there and listen again. I keep going, arms out front as I walk, changing course whenever my fingertips brush against bark or the sharp point of a branch.
Swallowing hurts. I try not to think about it, that someone tried to kill me, but I can’t help it. I walk and cry, sputtering into my hands because I don’t want to make a sound in case he’s still here, and, oh God, trying not to cry, trying to hold it in hurts my throat and I wonder if there are broken bones in there or if he’s fractured my windpipe because this aching doesn’t feel normal and I think to myself this is trauma, I am traumatized, I am split in two—the before and the after.
I drop to the ground. I try to get up but my feeble legs give way.
I look at the forest. The blackness is impenetrable. All around me, pines creak. Things scamper in the undergrowth. The distant moan of a wolf.
I back up against a tree and stay there, listening.
Something comes near. The crack of timber. Slow, careful steps. I cannot breathe.
I reach out and feel the ground beside me. A rock.
I take a shallow breath and taste iron on my lips. A pinecone comes loose and drops into the leaves. Then nothing. I press myself close into the bony roots of the evergreen and remain there with the rock in my hand. My human scent engulfs me. I wait and listen in the long, dark night.
18
Sleep does not come. The night inches by. Finally, light begins to seep through the treetops. With it, patches of brilliant blue. The forest stirs in ways different than before. Cicadas rasp. Birds flit overhead. A bunch of sagging oxeye daisies stiffen in the sun.
I look around. I am in thick, steep woods. Even so, I feel exposed. Is he here? Hidden where I can’t see him?
He’s gone, I tell myself. I have to believe that or I will be paralyzed with fear.
I spit out some dirty drool and glance down at my filthy skin, the black bruises around my wrists and ankles, my bare feet. I’m trembling from cold and shock. Move, I think.
I stand up and face the woods.
“Okay, I got this.”
But I remain anchored to the spot and before I know it I’m sobbing again. Last night someone tried to kill me. Last night I nearly died. I
My brain turns to cotton and I begin to fade. Somewhere in this fuzz, I think of him—his face, his hands around my throat, the whites of his eyes. What he did to me. I won’t allow him to win. I push with everything I have, press my ribcage against the load, arch my back. But the dirt might as well be a solid wall.
I try to remember every bad thing I ever saw, the YouTube clip of that white supremacist pouring Jim Beam down a puppy’s throat, that time in eighth grade when Brent Maxwell stole the cowboy hat from the Down Syndrome kid on the way to school in the bus, those people in the Twin Towers who had only two choices—burn alive or jump. It works. Adrenaline jets into my veins. I thump my chest against the earth tomb and a small channel opens up and I can scarcely believe it and I think more angry thoughts and fight harder and dirt loosens and crumbles and finally gives way and I go up and up until I’m breaking through the surface and sucking in the wet night air.
I begin to laugh. I did it. I am free. I am alive.
I brush the soil from my face and blink into the dark and my joy fades. He could be here, watching on in amusement, ready to do it all over again. I listen for his breath, the snap of a twig, the sound of his voice. I lift myself out of the grave and force one jellified leg in front of the other, heading for the trees, moving quickly but carefully to avoid knocking myself out on the low-lying branches. It’s so dark I can’t see my own hand in front of my face.
I reach the first spruce and pause there and listen again. I keep going, arms out front as I walk, changing course whenever my fingertips brush against bark or the sharp point of a branch.
Swallowing hurts. I try not to think about it, that someone tried to kill me, but I can’t help it. I walk and cry, sputtering into my hands because I don’t want to make a sound in case he’s still here, and, oh God, trying not to cry, trying to hold it in hurts my throat and I wonder if there are broken bones in there or if he’s fractured my windpipe because this aching doesn’t feel normal and I think to myself this is trauma, I am traumatized, I am split in two—the before and the after.
I drop to the ground. I try to get up but my feeble legs give way.
I look at the forest. The blackness is impenetrable. All around me, pines creak. Things scamper in the undergrowth. The distant moan of a wolf.
I back up against a tree and stay there, listening.
Something comes near. The crack of timber. Slow, careful steps. I cannot breathe.
I reach out and feel the ground beside me. A rock.
I take a shallow breath and taste iron on my lips. A pinecone comes loose and drops into the leaves. Then nothing. I press myself close into the bony roots of the evergreen and remain there with the rock in my hand. My human scent engulfs me. I wait and listen in the long, dark night.
18
Sleep does not come. The night inches by. Finally, light begins to seep through the treetops. With it, patches of brilliant blue. The forest stirs in ways different than before. Cicadas rasp. Birds flit overhead. A bunch of sagging oxeye daisies stiffen in the sun.
I look around. I am in thick, steep woods. Even so, I feel exposed. Is he here? Hidden where I can’t see him?
He’s gone, I tell myself. I have to believe that or I will be paralyzed with fear.
I spit out some dirty drool and glance down at my filthy skin, the black bruises around my wrists and ankles, my bare feet. I’m trembling from cold and shock. Move, I think.
I stand up and face the woods.
“Okay, I got this.”
But I remain anchored to the spot and before I know it I’m sobbing again. Last night someone tried to kill me. Last night I nearly died. I
Similar Books
