The knife moved away. I heard the sound of a cap being removed from a bottle, and then my nostrils burned as a chloroform-soaked rag was shoved against my face. Everything went blurry, and I returned to the wonderful world of unconsciousness.
I WOKE UP in a ditch. There are much worse places to wake up, such as tied to a chair with a burlap sack over your head in a room with a brutal killer, but it's still not the most delightful waking experience. I was lying on my side in the mud, with a nice sharp stick poking me in the thigh.
To my great surprise, Roger was there as well. I could barely see him in the dark, but he was lying on his back with his eyes closed.
I sat up, letting out a small groan as my brain neglected to rise with the rest of my body. I reached over and prodded Roger's ankle. "Roger...?"
He moaned something that was probably "Huh?"
"You alive?"
"I don't know yet. I doubt it."
I pulled up my sleeve, but the face of my light-up wristwatch had been shattered so I couldn't tell what time it was. Since it was still dark, Helen wouldn't be off work and wouldn't have the entire police force looking for me yet.
"Do you think you can walk?" I asked.
"Ask me in a few minutes," he said, though I could barely hear him. "I'm still working on whether or not I'm alive."
I got to a standing position, nearly losing my balance as my legs tried to give way beneath me, then stepped over to where Roger lay. I reached down and offered my hand. "Come on, we need to get out of here."
I pulled him to his feet. The arrow had been removed and his leg had been tightly wrapped with a cloth. "There's no way I can walk on my own," he said. "But I know how much you like it when I lean against you, so if you'll be a pal and keep me steady I can probably come with you to civilization." He glanced around the area. "Wherever the hell that may be."
"Nowhere around here, that's for sure," I said. "How's your back?"
"Hurts.But there's something wrapped under my shirt, so I think the bleeding's been taken care of. If I start gushing I'll be sure to let you know."
We got ourselves out of the ditch and began to walk along the side of the road, with Roger holding onto my shoulder for balance. I guess it would have been more dramatic had I been able to carry him rather than merely assist him in limping along, but unfortunately my best friend wasn't a tiny woman.
And why was he here at all? Why the whole setup about not calling the police if Roger was just going to be dumped in the ditch along with me?
"I miss anything important?" asked Roger, as we walked along the lonely, deserted road.
"Yeah.Jennifer was stabbed to death."
"Jesus. You saw it?"
"I heard it." I filled him in on everything that had happened since I'd been bashed with the chain. Roger shook his head with disbelief.
"So I came really close to never waking up again," he said with a shiver. "It's been a really good night to be a hypocrite and turn to religion."
"Well, I figure there are two explanations for you being released with me. Either something went really wrong, and the killer couldn't afford to keep you around, or he already got whatever he was looking for and didn't need you any more."
"Or else he has something worse in store," said Roger. "Who would have thought that the simple act of digging up a grave could get so complicated? And we didn't even get the twenty thousand bucks."
About fifteen minutes later, headlights washed over us as a beat-up pickup truck drove around a corner. I stuck out my thumb and it came to a stop beside us. The driver leaned over, threw open the passenger door, and gave us a look of surprise.
"Gosh, you're exactly the kind of people my mom would've told me never to pick up!"
The driver was a heavyset guy with glasses and a thick gray beard. He wore a bright red baseball cap with "Kiss Me" written on it. He was in his sixties or seventies...it was hard to say for sure, because his face sort of looked like somebody had yanked his skull out through his mouth then shoved it back in slightly crooked.
"Well, my mother always said never to hitchhike, so I guess we're even," I said.
"Hop on in, you two," said the driver, patting the seat next to him. "Actually,lemme find a towel to put on the seat first. No offense, of course."
"None taken."
He fished around on the floor until he found a towel that didn't look much cleaner than we were and spread it out on the seat. I helped Roger in, and then sat down next to him, shutting the door behind me.
"Where're you headed?" the driver asked.
"To the nearest phone."
The truck began to move again. "What can I call you two?"
I pointed to Roger. "This is RogerTanglen , and I'm Andrew Mayhem."
"Mayhem?That's aninterestin ' last name."
"Yeah, I think it explains a lot about my life. So what do we call you?"
"You can just call me The Apparition."
Roger and I exchanged a resigned look. With the kind of night we'd been having I guess it made perfect sense that we'd be picked up by a weirdo."Any special reason?"
"Nope.Just like the way it sounds. You two arelookin ' a little bit injured, if you don't mind mysayin ' so. What happened?"
"A rampaging weed whacker got us. We fought hard but in the end we were just no match for it."
"That's about what it looks like. I think there might be a rag or something in the glove compartment if youwanna clean up a bit."
I thanked him and found the rag. It appeared to have been used to clean heavy machinery, but I didn't want to be rude. I dusted my face off a bit, and then handed it to Roger.
"Looks like you took a few good hits," the Apparition noted, looking at me.
"Well, some of these marks are from last week's beating, not tonight's," I explained.
I began to straighten out my rumpled clothes. As I brushed off my leg, I noticed that something was stuck to the mud on my jeans. I pulled it off and held it up to examine it.
"What's that?" asked Roger.
"I'm not sure. Can I turn on the overhead light?"
"Be my guest," said The Apparition.
I flipped on the overhead light and saw that it appeared to be the corner of a playing card, though not from a traditional deck. It had the number 1 and depicted what looked like the end of a forked tail.
"I don't know what this is," I admitted. "Maybe it's Satanist currency.A Devil Dollar."
"I hate those damn Satanists," The Apparition muttered. "I haven't met any, but I sure have read about `em, and what I've read I hate."
I put the corner of the card in my pocket. It probably wasn't important, but it also wasn't exactly going to weigh me down. And any clue might be helpful if I wanted to track down the killer, not that I was necessarily going to try and do so.
"Do you know what time it is?" I asked.
"The radio said it was about two-thirty, but I forget how long ago that was."
"Thanks," I said. I shared another look with Roger, and we made a silent pact to keep speech to a minimum for the rest of the ride.
THE APPARITION dropped us off at a convenience store and wished us luck in our future endeavors, especially if they involved bringing harm to Satanists. After finding out from the clerk that it was almost four and that we were thirty miles from Chamber, I went to the pay phone and dug out a quarter. I also thought to check for my wallet, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it hadn't been stolen.