A Superior Death

“I was inside. What did he think I’d do? He’d jerk his thumb and I’d follow him docilely up to prison? A fool. I grabbed the tank, pulled it through, yanked the regulator out of his mouth and slammed the port. Two seconds, three at most.”

In her mind’s eyes, A

“I’d‘ve bolted for the surface,” A

“De

A

Fear stirred A

“Rest,” Patience said. “Lie back, A

“Fuck you,” A

White light came, surrounded her, surrounded the Venture. Tendrils of fog glowed like fingers lifting her to the stars.

“A

“Damn,” she said. “I’m in for it now.”

TWENTY EIGHT

“…Cut nearly in half. Look: it’s blood, blood in the sawdust.”

“Immortality is in your hands…”

“A needle and thread is all.”

“And a Dustbuster.”

“Put her down there, Dave.

“Carrie…”

A

Tinker was there somehow. She’d answered, “Yours. Mixed with his.”

“Sawdust,” Damien had corrected his wife and A

“That can’t be right,” she’d said and heard vaguely someone saying, “Hush. Rest now.”

Somewhere in the distance she thought she heard Patience’s low voice pitched in persuasive tones as if selling something. “Don’t buy it,” she had mumbled, wishing she could speak more clearly.

Then there was Ralph’s voice and engines roaring. A

Every part of her hurt. Her chest burned and sharp points of pain pierced her shoulder and knees. Tentatively, she wriggled her toes. They worked just fine. Over the years she had taken a few tumbles; bones had broken, muscles torn. The terror was always for the spine-paralysis. Again she’d gotten off lightly.

Then she remembered she’d not fallen off a Texas mountain, not been tossed from a horse. The lake had crushed her in its dark embrace. The damage would be internal, as dangerous and inexorable as the deep. “Oh dear…” she whispered.

“ ‘Bout time,” came a friendly voice.

Carefully, so as not to dislodge it from her shoulders, A

“It’s okay, A

“Backcountry…”

Ralph put a warm hand on her forehead to quiet her. “Lucas and I heard your little radio drama,” he said. “We just couldn’t call out. I was for going to bed and letting you fight off the forces of evil alone, but you know Lucas, he’s a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy. Made us do a forced march out in the dark. We got there just as the kids were dragging the bodies back into Rock. Lucas got the perpetrator to take care of. I got you.”

For a second time A

“Routine packaging,” Ralph reassured her. “There’s nothing wrong with your arm. I just bandaged it to keep you from moving it and opening the cut on your chest. Nothing too serious,” he went on. “You’ll still look terrific in a bathing suit. Just a scratch half an inch deep or so and about ten inches long. Looks worse than it is and it bled a lot. You were quite a mess of blood and sawdust when Lucas and I saw you.”

“Sawdust?” A

“Yeah. What were you doing with a teddy bear stuffed down the front of your dry suit anyway? Patience cut it in half. The suit was full of stuffing. Worked, though. She would have done a lot more damage with that fish gaff, maybe killed you. The bear took the blow, then the sawdust stopped your bleeding. Tomorrow I’ll put in a wire to the LAPD. Body armor is out. Toy bears are in for officer safety.”

“Oscar.” A

The paramedics on the medevac helicopter were efficient and kind. A

Ralph stayed beside her. Demoted from primary care-giver to companion, he was strapped into a seat at the foot of her stretcher. “I feel like the mother of the bride,” he joked.

A

“Just something to say,” Ralph soothed her. “Seeing you all in white and fussed over, nobody knowing where to put me. Take it easy, A

“Good.” As she drifted off, she heard him laughing.

When she reasserted herself in the conscious world, the helicopter was setting down.

“We’re there,” said one of the paramedics, a strong, handsome woman with big teeth and hair badly in need of re-perming. “Ninth floor, He

“Lost my sense of humor,” A

“Don’t you worry about a thing,” she said.

“Submarine” was an apt description of the hyperbaric chamber. An oxygen mask on her face, A