The Bodies Left Behind

glass had pierced her eardrum. Then her left ear popped and tickling water flowed out. She heard the lapping of the lake.
    After muscling her way out of the car, nestled intwenty feet of opaque water, she’d tried to swim to the surface but couldn’t—too much weight from her clothes and shoes. So she’d clawed her way to the rocks at the shore and scrabbled upward, desperate hands gripping whatever they could find, feet kicking. She’d hit the surface and sucked in air.
    Now, she told herself, get out. Move.
    Brynn pulled up hard. But got only a few inches. No part of her body was working the way it should and her wet clothes must’ve boosted her weight by fifty pounds. Her hands slipped on the slime and she went under again. Grabbed another rock. Pulled herself up to the surface.
    Her vision blurred and she started to lose her grip on a rock. Then forced her muscles to attention. “I’m not dying here.” She believed she actually growled the words aloud. Brynn finally managed to swing her legs up and found a ledge with her left foot. The right one joined in and finally she eased herself onto the shore. She rolled through debris—metal and glass, and red and clear plastic—into a pile of rotting leaves and branches, surrounded by cattails and tall, rustling grasses. The cold air hurt worse than the water.
    They’ll be coming. Of course, those two men’ll be coming after her. They wouldn’t know exactly where the car went in but they could find out easily enough.
    You have to move.
    Brynn climbed to her knees and tried crawling. Too slow. Move! She stood and immediately fell over. Her legs wouldn’t cooperate. In panic she wondered if she’d broken a bone and couldn’t feel the injury because of the cold. She frisked herself. Nothing seemed shattered. Sherose again, steadied herself and staggered in the direction of Lake View Drive.
    Her face throbbed. She touched the hole in her cheek, and with her tongue probed the gap where the molar had been. Winced. Spat more blood.
    And my jaw. My poor jaw. Thinking of the impact that had cracked it years ago, and later the terrible wire, the liquid meals, the plastic surgery.
    Was all that cosmetic work ruined?
    Brynn wanted to cry.
    The ground here was steep, rocky. Narrow stalks—willow, maple and oak—grew out of the angular ground horizontally but obeying nature turned immediately skyward. Using them as grips, she pulled herself up the hill, toward Lake View Drive. The moon, neatly sliced in half, was casting some light now and she looked behind her for the Glock. But if it had flown from the car before the dive, the weapon, perfectly camouflaged for a dark night, was nowhere to be seen.
    She picked up a rock shaped a bit like an ax head. Gazed at the weapon manically.
    Then Brynn recalled finding Joey bloody and gasping after eighth-grader Carl Bedermier had challenged him after school. Acting by rote, from her medical training, she’d examined the wounds, pronounced him fine and then said, “Honey, there are times to fight and times to run. Mostly, you run.”
    So what the hell are you doing? she now snapped to herself, staring at the chunk of granite in her hand.
    Run.
    She dropped the rock and continued up the inclineto the private road. As she neared the top her foot slipped, dislodging an avalanche of shale and gravel. It fell in a huge clatter. Brynn dropped to her belly, smelling compost and wet rock.
    But no one came running. She wondered if the men were deafened themselves from the shooting.
    Probably. Guns are much louder than people think.
    Move fast while you can still take advantage of it.
    Another few feet. Then ten. Twenty. The ground leveled some and she could move faster. Eventually she was at Lake View Drive. She saw no one on it and crossed fast, then rolled into a ditch on the far side, hugging herself and gasping.
    No. Don’t stop.
    She thought of a high-speed chase last year. Bart Pinchett in his Mustang GT, yellow as yolk.
    “Why didn’t you pull over?” she’d muttered, ratcheting the cuffs on. “You knew we’d get you sooner or later.”
    He’d lifted a surprised eyebrow. “Well, long as I was moving, I was still a free man.”
    Brynn rolled to her knees and stood. She slogged up the hill away from the road and into the trees, plunging into a field of tall yellow and brown grass.
    Ahead of her, two or three hundred yards or so, she saw the silhouette of the house at 2 Lake View. As earlier, it was dark. Would the