Risk by Francis Dick

Author:Francis, Dick [Francis, Dick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780786161744
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc.
Published: 1977-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

I awoke in the dark. Black, total darkness.

I couldn’t make out why I should be lying on a hard surface in total darkness, aching all over.

A fall, I thought. I had a fall at Towcester. Why couldn’t I remember?

I felt cold. Chilled through and through. When I moved, the aches were worse.

I suddenly remembered having dinner with Jossie. Remembered it all clearly, down to kissing her good night in the car park.

So then what?

I tried to sit up, but raising my head was BS far as I got. The result was whirling nausea and a pile-driving headache. I inched my fingers tentatively through my hair and found a wince-making area of swelling. I let my head down again, gingerly.

There WBS no sound except the rustle of my clothes. No engine. No creakings or rushings or water noises. I WBS not lying on a bunk, but on a larger surface, hard and flat.

I might not be in a sail locker, but I was certainly still in the dark. In the dark in every sense. Weak frustrated anger mocked me that in four days of freedom I hadn’t found out enough to save me from the gloomy present.

Every movement told me what I still couldn’t remember. I knew only that the fall off Notebook could not be the source of the soreness all over my body. There would have been a few bruises which would have been stiffened up overnight, but nothing like the overall feeling of having been kneaded like dough. I rolled with a grunt onto my stomach and put my head on my folded arms. The only good thing I could think of was that they hadn’t tied my hands.

They. Who were they?

When my head stopped hammering, I thought, I would have enough energy to find out where I was and try to get out. Meanwhile it was enough just to lie still and wait for things to get better.

Another thing to be grateful for, I thought. The hard flat surface I was lying on was not swaying about. With luck, I was not on a boat. I wasn’t going to be sick. A bruised body was absolutely nothing compared with the agonies of seasickness.

I had no shoes on, just socks. When I squinted at my wrist there was no luminous dial there: no watch. I couldn’t be bothered to check all my pockets. I was certain they’d be empty.

After a while I remembered deciding to go to the motel, and after that, bit by bit, I remembered booking in, and the affray on the doorstep.

They must have followed me all the way from Towcester, I thought. Waited through dinner with Jossie. Followed me to the motel. I hadn’t spotted them once. I hadn’t even heard their footsteps behind me, against the constant noise of traffic.

My instinctive feeling of being safe with Jossie had been dead right.

Ages passed.

The racket inside my skull gradually subsided. Nothing else happened.

I had a feeling that it was nearly dawn, and time to wake up.

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