Bones of the Lost: A Temperance Brennan Novel by Kathy Reichs

Author:Kathy Reichs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Medical, Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers, Genre Fiction, Horror, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 9781439102459
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2013-08-26T17:00:00+00:00

I OPENED MY eyes.

Darkness.

I listened.

Absolute quiet.

By instinct I’d cupped a palm around my mouth to create an air pocket. And my helmet had helped. But the small bubble of space wasn’t enough. My chest was compressed, my lungs squeezed too tightly to function. The heavy armor only made the pressure worse.

I tried to breathe. Couldn’t.

I tried again. Got no air.

Panic began to set in.

How long could a person go without oxygen? Three minutes? Five?

How long had I been trapped?

I had no clue.

Again I tried to inhale. Again I failed.

My heart was banging. Pumping blood that was fast losing what little oxygen it held.

I tried moving the hand away from my mouth. Hit resistance within millimeters.

My other arm was numb. I had no sense of its position. The position of my legs.

A wave of dizziness flooded my brain. I saw images of the mesa. Of the ladyfinger rocks.

Rocks that now imprisoned me like a coffin.

How many feet? How many tons?

The panic increased. Adrenaline shot through me.

Breathe!

I tensed my neck and shoulder muscles. Bent my head forward as far as I could, then thrust it back.

My skull cracked rock. Pain exploded through my brain.

But the move worked. I heard the hiss of falling sand, felt a little less pressure on my chest.

I breathed in slowly. The dusty air coated my tongue, my throat. My lungs exploded in a series of hacking coughs. I breathed again. Coughed again.

The dizziness passed. My thoughts began to organize into coherent patterns.

Shout? But in what direction? How was I lying?

Was anyone out there? Was anyone alive to free me? Had the others also been buried?

I blinked sand from my eyes. Saw only inky blackness. Heard only stillness. No voices. No shovels. No movement.

Again, the panic.

Think. Forget the rubble. The dust. The deafening quiet.

I tried rolling to my left. My right leg was pinned. I could feel a sharp edge pressing the flesh of my calf.

I tried flexing my knee. A hot spike ripped up from my ankle.

I tried rolling to my right. Got nowhere. My shoulder was jammed tight against rock. Rock that moments before had overhung the graveyard. Rock that now buried me like the dead we’d just raised.

Think.

I willed myself calm. Willed my breathing steady. Willed the bulky armor to rise and fall.

In. Out. In. Out.

I tried yelling, but my mouth was too dry. I mustered what saliva I could and tried again.

My voice sounded dull, muffled. And which way was up? Down? Was I yelling into the sky or the earth?

My thoughts were again growing muddled. Oxygen deprivation? Or was it carbon dioxide overload? I knew the answer to that once. It was not coming to me now.

Questions winged.

An incoming mortar? A surface-to-surface missile? Launched by whom?

What did that matter?

Were Blanton and Welsted also buried? The two young diggers?

I closed my eyes. Heard only the soft hiss of sand worming through cracks.

Why was no one probing? Digging? Shouting? Had the villagers abandoned us? To let our people get us out or not?

Would I die?

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