Deep Sleep by Charles Wilson

Author:Charles Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250126870
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER 20

THE HELICOPTER PASSED SLOWLY overhead, its dazzling light illuminating the treetops in a luminous glow.

Dunn watched the bright circle pass on across the treetops, fade, then disappear in the distance. Lowering his gaze, he found that his eyes were no longer acclimated to the dark. He looked at the faint flashing flashlight beam of the deputy in the distance to his right. Back to his left he had to look for several seconds before he even caught a glimpse of that deputy’s beam. They were spreading out too thin. They could walk right past Womack without noticing, if Womack remained still.

He started moving forward again and was immediately slapped in the face by a low-hanging thin branch that he hadn’t seen. Cursing under his breath, he drew the branch back out of the way.

Approaching a large cypress, he noticed how unusual its shape was. The bottom six feet of the trunk seemed to be swollen wider than normal before it narrowed into a much smaller circumference running up into the shimmering grayness above him. He blinked his eyes, trying to see better.

He was nearly to the tree before he noticed that the trunk seemed to separate.

Henry Womack didn’t move any more quickly than he had at any other time that night. The only thing that prevented Dunn from getting away was his initial shock at thinking he was seeing a tree trunk move, momentarily freezing him in place.

Womack swung the limb hard into Dunn’s face.

* * *

Mark slowed his rapid pace and came to a stop. He shined his light across the ground in front of him. And then around him.

He had lost the prints.

But he knew that if he hadn’t become disoriented, he was still going in the direction they had gone. He couldn’t be far from Dottie now.

It was then he heard the sound off to his right.

He swung the flashlight in that direction.

Framed in the light’s beam, Dunn, down on all fours, was trying to push himself to his feet.

He looked toward the light.

As blood poured from his face he tried to say something, but it was more of a tortured mumble.

Then his words were clear: “Where’s my baby?”

The muscled man was crying like a heartbroken child.

* * *

Patsy refused to get up.

Her face in her hands, sobbing silently, she sat on a fallen log.

Shaking his head in exasperation, Denny peered through the trees in front of them.

He glimpsed something.

A glint? A reflection off something?

He looked back at Patsy and then walked a few feet farther away from her. It—whatever it had been—seemed like it wasn’t more than fifty feet away. But he couldn’t see it now.

It had definitely been a reflection off of something.

He walked a few feet farther.

He leaned his head to the left to look around the large oak. He leaned the other way and looked around its other side.

And he saw it again.

Keeping his body leaned forward, he narrowed his eyes, trying to focus them better. He took a couple of steps forward.

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