Page 41 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

Siren screeching, lights pulsing, the cruiser blew by him doing eighty. The cop at the wheel didn’t so much as give him a second look.

He was safe.

For now.

“Help!” Roberta cried, her heart pounding so frantically she was certain it would explode. She was waking up, her mind still fuzzy, but she knew she was in trouble. Some kind of unthinkable, horrible trouble. Or maybe it was a dream. A nightmare.

Yes. That was it.

Wake up. Wake up now.

She shivered and placed her hands against the tattered cloth of the lid of the box that held her. It didn’t budge. She pushed hard. Still nothing.

Terror raced through her blood.

Wake up. Wake up and you’ll be in your own bed.

She dragged in a breath of stale air…but it was so hard to breathe and…and…this had to be a nightmare of the worst kind.

Wake up, Roberta! For pity’s sake, wake up!

She forced her eyes open.

Blackness.

Total, Stygian darkness.

Something was terribly, vitally wrong. Her throat went dry. Her fear congealed into pure, undiluted horror.

Do something. Get out! For God’s sake, get out of here!

She pushed upward.

Nothing.

Again. Harder.

Her hands ached.

Her wrists felt as if they might snap.

This was no dream. It was real. She was trapped. Like a sardine packed in a tiny can. Oh, sweet Jesus, no.

Her mind cleared and she realized she was naked. Not a stitch on her body.

And her back was pressed against something that contoured to…no…oh…NO! The squishy thing beneath her was a body. The top of the box was actually a lid of a casket and she was no doubt being buried alive.

Like that poor other woman.

“Help me! Please, someone!” She began screaming and kicking, banging her naked knees, scraping at the coffin’s lid, yelling until her voice ached.

She didn’t dare think of what was beneath her—the metal of a belt buckle pressed into her back, the feel of bones beneath tattered clothing against her rump, bony ribs touching her shoulders. She screamed again and again, over her own sobs and the acrid stench of rotting flesh. “Help me! Help me, oooooh…God…pleeeease.” She was crying now, scraping her fingers raw, her lungs tortured and burning, her mind shrieking with fear. She couldn’t die like this, not squished against a dead corpse whose fetid skin and tissues were sticking to her hair and skin. Her flesh crawled and she imagined worms and maggots and all sorts of vile creatures crawling through the stringy, decaying muscles and innards beneath her.

“Let me out. Please, please…let me out of here!”

Half-crazed, propelled by adrenaline, she kicked harder.

Bam! She heard a sickening snap. Pain jarred up her leg. She was gasping, drawing in thin, wretched air.

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