Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

was there, drifting past the back of my hand. I grabbed what felt like an ankle and pulled it as I backed myself out into the open water. I tugged the body behind me, working it clear of the car interior. I made no effort to be cautious or delicate. I just pulled. My lungs were burning, my throat aching. I had lost all feeling beneath my waist. Still, I pulled and pulled, and once the body was clear of the car and I had it around the waist and against me, I clawed my way to the surface with one arm. It took all I had to keep from breathing till my head cleared and I felt the brutal cold air around me.
    It stung my face and tore my throat as I gasped. I took in water and coughed it out as I held tight to the body, its back pressed against my ribs. Its face was matted with long hair but through the mesh it made I could see to the bruises beneath, the cuts and blood, the staring, lifeless eyes. I saw no signs of consciousness, felt no movement from the ribs beneath my arm.
    I didn’t have the strength to keep us both up. Water rushed into my ears and splashed into my mouth as I tried to breathe. I was sinking back into icy cold, and there was nothing I could do about it. I could barely feel the water around me, it was like I was treading thin air. I tried to find the car with my feet again, and finally did, only to have it tilt over and sink fast beneath me.
    I felt myself getting drowsy. I was slipping under, and that was all there was in the world to know. I was seconds from breathing in cold water and drowning, and really maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.
    But then over my splashing and coughing I heard a rushing sound. I turned my head toward it. Only my nose and eyes were above the water now. I sucked in air through my nose and watched through blurry eyes as Augie’s pick-up truck backed suddenly into the pond till its front tires were all that remained on land and its rear bumper was well submerged under the black water. The truck stopped and Augie climbed out of the cab and into the tilted back bed and lumbered like a sailor on a rolling deck down into the water till he found the tailgate. He climbed over that to the back bumper and held onto the gate with one hand and leaned out, the water over his waist, and extended his free hand toward me. In it was his cane, and the curved handle hung in space just a foot from my face.
    The strain showed on his face. He was in pain. My hand burst from the water and snatched at the trembling handle. I hung onto it as Augie pulled us in toward him.
    He lifted the driver into the back of the truck like she was nothing and laid her flat in the bed. Then he grabbed me by the hand and hauled me in. I landed on my knees in the water-filled bed, coughing. Augie immediately checked the girl for a pulse, then began to work to resuscitate her.
    She looked to me to be maybe sixteen, no more than that. There was no getting around the fact that she was dead. Her pupils were fixed, large black holes in her head. I pulled myself up the slanted truck bed to the cab and climbed in behind the wheel. My legs ached as if I had just run miles. I shifted into first gear and pressed the accelerator. There was slippage, and then the tires caught and the truck bucked and pulled up onto land. I heard water rushing out of the bed behind me over the sound of the powerful motor. I shifted into park and got out and went around to the back side of the truck. Water was still draining. I opened the tail gate and let it all come rushing out onto the ground.
    I looked at Augie. He was knelt beside the girl and breathing hard into her mouth. I climbed up into the truck bed as quickly as my arms and legs allowed and knelt at the girl’s other side and began to press on her sternum with my hands. Augie leaned back and counted off each thrust.
    “One. Two. Three. Four … “
    He was winded already, panting as he spoke. My arms trembled with each downward push I made against the lifeless girl, and my breathing wasn’t any better than his. I really couldn’t think of anyone then more unlucky than this young woman.
    As I looked at her I felt betrayed by my own body, by the weakness of it, how the cold could rob me of strength and leave me infirm, unable to perform, useless.
    Still, I hung in there, pressing my palm against the girl’s chest, one, two, three, four, five, then resting, counting, “One, two, three, four, five,” while Augie pinched her nose and tilted her head back and breathed into her