First Blood

And soundless. Even when he moved, through leaves and crumpled fenders and broken glass, he made no noise. He was gliding. And somehow he knew it was not the kid who was after him, but someone else. But why was he afraid at the sight of the road through the ghostly carcasses? Why was he afraid of the row of Guardsmen trucks parked along the road? Christ, what was happening to him? Had he lost his mind?

No people there. Nobody near the trucks. Fear draining. A police car empty, the last in the line, nearest town. Ecstatic now, creeping from the derelicts, doorless, seats ripped, hoods raised, into the field, silent, close to the earth, toward the car.

A sudden noise disturbed him, fracturing glass that split finely in his eardrums, and he blinked. He was on his back once more. Had somebody shot him in the field? He felt his body for the wound, felt a blanket, no earth beneath him. Soft cushions. A coffin. He started, in a panic, understood. A couch. But Christ where? What was going on? He fumbled for a light, knocked a lamp, and switching it, blinked, discovering his office. But what about the forest, the wrecks of cars, the road? Christ, they had been real, he knew. He looked at his watch, but it was gone, glanced at the clock on his desk, quarter to twelve. Dark outside through the Venetian blinds. The twelve must be midnight, but the last he remembered was noon. What about the kid? What's happened?

He faltered to sit up, clutching his head to keep it from throbbing apart, but something had raised the floor of his office, tilting it high away from him. He cursed, but no words came from his mouth. He wavered uphill to the door, grabbed the knob with both hands and swung it, but the door was stuck, and he had to tug with all his might, the door jolting open, almost reeling him downhill to the couch. He threw out his arms, steadying himself like a tightrope walker, his bare feet off the soft rug of his office onto the cold tile of the corridor. It was in gloom, but the front office was lit; halfway there he had to put a hand against a wall.

'Awake, Chief?' a voice said down the corridor. 'You O.K.?'

It was too complicated to answer. He was still catching up to himself. On his back on the bright floor of the truck, blearing up at the greasy tarpaulin that was the roof. The voice from the radio: 'My God, he isn't answering. He's run deep into the mine.' The fight with Trautman to keep from being carried to the cruiser. But what about the forest, the dark-

'I said are you O.K., Chief?' the voice said louder, footsteps coming down the hall. There was an echo enveloping.

'The kid,' he managed to say. The kid's in the forest.'

'What?' The voice was directly next to him, and he looked. 'You shouldn't be walking around. Relax. You and the kid aren't in the forest anymore. He's not after you.'

It was a deputy, and Teasle was sure he ought to know him, but he could not recall. He tried. A word came to him. 'Harris?' Yes, that was it. Harris. 'Harris,' he said proudly.

'You'd better come up front, sit and have some coffee. I just was making fresh. Broke a jug carrying water from the washroom. Hope that didn't wake you.'

The washroom. Yes. Harris was echoing, and the imagined taste of coffee squirted sourly into Teasle's mouth, gagging him. The washroom. He staggered through the swinging door, sick in the urinal, Harris holding him, telling him, 'Sit down here on the floor,' but it was all right, the echoing had stopped now.

'No. My face. Water.' And as he splashed his cheeks and eyes coldly, the image flashed in him again, no longer a dream, real. 'The kid,' he said. 'The kid's in the forest by the road. In that junkyard of cars.'

'You'd better take it easy. Try and remember. The kid was trapped in a mine and he ran deep into a maze of tunnels. Here. Let me have your arm.'

He waved him off, arms down supporting himself on the sink, face dripping. 'I'm telling you the kid isn't in there now.'

'But you can't know that.'

'How did I get here? Where's Trautman?'

'Back at the truck. He sent men with you to the hospital.'

'That sonofabitch. I warned him not to. How did I get here instead of the hospital?'