“What the fuck?” the killer cried in her so-familiar voice, but she wasn’t leaning into the opening any longer, not speaking to Cassie, but someone else. Someone who had startled her. “Where the hell did you come from? Ouch! Jesus!” The words were muted, but there were other noises as well. Scuffling footsteps. A struggle? Could the police have arrived, or was it her savior Trent?
He had to be alive. Relief washed over her, but she couldn’t just lie here. She had to help.
Groaning, her shoulder on fire, she twisted, rolling to the side, off whatever had broken her fall and suddenly felt the entire floor shift and rattle. More dust. The silage or feed or fodder was giving way. She hadn’t fallen from the very top of the structure, but closer to the bottom, the main floor of the barn to the lower level where the cattle were fed, less than a story. Rattled, still trying to get her bearings in the darkness, she reached out a hand. Touched the object that had broken her fall and felt the cool clamminess of bare skin beneath her fingers.
Human skin?
An arm?
Her stomach turned in on itself.
Screaming, her voice reverberating up the shaft of the silo, she flung herself away, tried to swim in the shifting sea of grain. But the thing moved, too, and the arm stretched out, a clawlike hand scraping against her, fingernails scraping her face.
Get out, Cassie. Get the hell away from that thing!
Frantic, she pressed against the wall, circling away, the kernels swirling and swishing, almost laughing at her impotent attempts to get free.
Think, Cassie, think. Find a way to escape!
She was in a full-blown panic now, her headache thundering, her fear so real she could taste it. She moved along the edge of the cylindrical structure. The body swayed closer.
There had to be a way out. A chute to pour the grain from the silo, but where the hell was it. Where?
The ocean of grain rolled again and this time, not just the arm, but the entire torso of the unknown person fell against her. Cold. Clammy. Dead! The body hadn’t moved on its own. No. It had only shifted on the waves of grain that moved because of Cassie’s attempts to get away, and had fallen against her, nearly pinning her, the head rolling to one side.
Springy hair brushed against Cassie’s neck.
Oh. Dear. God.
She pushed it away, felt her thumb touch an eyeball that gave way under the pressure.
Cassie shriveled at the thought as she tried to put some distance between her and God, who? Who was this dead person trapped here with her? Again the body rolled closer and this time she felt a leg slide across her. She touched it long enough to fling it away and realized her fingers had brushed nylon.
In her mind’s eye she thought of the nurse who had visited her late at night. The curled hair under the cap, the white stockings.
Oh. Ick! This was Belva Nelson and she was dead?
Stomach roiling, her brain pulsing with the need to get free, she pressed harder to the sides of the silo, and her shoulder, already screaming in pain, hit something hard and metal.
A door latch?
Oh, please! A way to get out!
With an effort, she turned and fumbled at the metal.
Not a door, but the bottom rung of a ladder that stretched ever upward and back to the floor above.
Using all her strength she started climbing.
Trent’s bad leg gave way and he grabbed the edge of a post for balance near the yawning open doorway.
Silhouetted by the headlights shining through the doorway, Shane Carter, weapon drawn, made his way into the barn.
Relief swept over Trent. “Don’t shoot! It’s Kittle,” he said.
Ca
rter looked in his direction but didn’t drop his weapon.