To Catch a Killer(86)

I’m flooded with relief. I roll onto my hip and struggle into a semiseated position. “Thank God,” I whisper.

“Journey, back here. We need to bust out these windows to let in fresh air,” Victor says. Journey squeezes between me and Spam to get to the back. I go first, rolling to the left. Then Spam goes right. Journey grunts as he makes a powerful crawl and manages to squeeze between us. I gasp for air. With all four of us trying to move in different directions, it’s quickly getting tight and sweaty, and the exhaust fumes are getting thicker by the minute.

Victor surges up on his knees and starts to ram the back window. It’s too high for his shoulder, so he’s forced to slam it with his forehead. It sounds a lot like trying to break glass with raw chicken.

Journey has made it to the back, so now instead of one thump against the window I hear two: thump, thump.

“Erin, get to the front,” Victor gasps. “You and Spam … away from the fumes. Find a way to turn off the key.”

“Okay.” My voice sounds thin and papery. If I stretch my head and neck forward and then bring my knees up toward my chest, I’m able to move across the rough wooden floor. Splinters gouge my skin straight through my clothes.

Spam stops. “Wait,” she says. “Over here. I found the boot phone.”

A crazy laugh escapes my ravaged throat. I turn to roll toward her instead of heading to the front of the van. “Coming,” I say.

“Forget the phone,” Victor orders. “Get to the engine.”

“You don’t know Spam.” I don’t know if they even hear me because I can hardly hear myself over the loud thuds of them banging their heads against the window. There’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears and my mother’s voice, which sounds like summer rain on a tin roof. “Don’t touch her. She’s not your daughter.”

I don’t know how, but I manage to scoot up to Spam’s back. She presses her boot into my hands. “It’s in there, I just can’t get it out.”

I get it. It’s hard to think with all these fumes. I try to tip the boot upside down and it tipples over. I giggle a little bit. It doesn’t tipple. It topples over. It must have been enough though, because far away, I hear Spam’s voice.

“Got it.”

Even farther away, I hear the rhythmic drumming of Victor and Journey still bashing their heads against the window. The sound is dull and wet, and the air inside the van grows hotter and thicker, so I know they haven’t succeeded.

“Erin, damn it. Get to the front.” Victor coughs.

I realize I’ve been holding my breath for a long time. I take in a huge gasp and it’s like sucking a load of hot sand into my lungs. I cough. I’m so tired.

“I will … in a minute. I just need to close my eyes for a sec.”

“No!” Victor shouts. “Do not close your eyes! Get to the front. Kick your feet. Crawl. If you don’t find a way to shut off that engine, we will die in here.”

Too late. My eyes are welded shut. But Victor’s voice drives me to push on. I kick and struggle. I imagine that I’m one of those fish that live in the mud. I don’t exactly have feet and I don’t exactly have flippers.

I’m a mudfish.

I keep scooting, inch by inch, through a thick haze until I bump my head on the gearshift. The stupid, ridiculous gearshift in Journey’s stupid, ridiculous van. I’m going to die here and I never learned how to drive a stupid ridiculous stick shift without stalling the stupid—

Ha! All of a sudden I go from stupid to brilliant, because even though I can’t open my eyes or climb over the seat or figure out how to turn off the key with my teeth, I know how to kill the engine … if only I can stay awake long enough.

I press my side against the gearshift and use it as a brace to raise myself up into a sitting position. Once I’m sitting up, I lean back into it. My arms ache and my hands are so numb they feel like they aren’t there anymore. I’m sweating and exhausted, but I struggle to lift my left side high enough to wedge the gearshift knob into my armpit. My plan is to twist and throw my body forward until I pull the van into one of the gears, but instead I begin to cough and gasp for fresh air.

I can’t breathe and I can’t stop coughing. My body convulses and lurches forward. My ribs are being crushed from the inside.

And yet somewhere, way in the distance, the van shudders and I hear the crunch of breaking glass. A draft of cool air skims over my skin. I breathe in a deep lungful. I’m too tired to cough anymore.

But my world is all mixed up, because now there’s music playing and people dancing. Suddenly Officer Baldwin is here and he’s carrying me. Rachel and the chief are here, too. Rachel is clinging to Lysa’s hand, and Lysa’s parents are pounding the chief on the back. But I don’t know how they got here, because I have Rachel’s car. And I can’t possibly be seeing any of this, because my eyes are welded shut.

And I’m very, very tired.

*

I wake up with my throat on fire, like I’ve gargled sriracha with a side of jalape?o juice. My head throbs and my lungs sound like a weak accordion.

I made it out of the van, though, because white light’s seeping through my closed eyelids. I open them carefully. Holy crap, I’m in the hospital. I try to sit up but my muscles scream, Don’t even think about it.