Then the entire car bounced as an unearthly roar of rock and sand landed on the roof. Lucy whimpered.
“Move over,” I told her. “Give me room.”
I worked myself around and got on my side, folded up, and wedged my shoulders against the back of the trunk. I hammered the back of the rear seat with a foot, about where I figured a catch would have to be. Nothing gave. More dirt landed on the roof with a sickening thud.
I slammed the seat again. And again, again, again. In bare feet, it hurt like a sonofabitch. Another huge load of dirt landed on the car, then suddenly the latch broke and the backseat on the driver’s side flopped down.
“Go through,” I told her. “Turn on the overhead light. There should be a switch on the fixture. Fold the other backseat down, then see if they put our guns in the car. Check under the seats.”
She crawled forward, catching me in the face with a foot, which hurt. The darkness was complete. More dirt landed on the roof. I could feel the weight of it, deadening the car’s suspension. I sensed it pressing like death against the Caddy’s windows.
Then the dome light came on, bathing the interior of the car in weak yellow light. Dirt covered the outside of the windows. This is what it would look like from inside a transparent coffin. A shiver of raw fear crawled up my spine. Earth pressed against the windows like a malevolent force, eager to get in, snuff us out, fold us into its black arms forever.
I crawled out of the trunk. Felt more than heard a muffled thump as more dirt landed on top of what was already there.
“I got all three guns,” Lucy said breathlessly. “They were in back, on the floor.”
“Loaded?”
She snapped the cylinders out. “Well, shoot. No bullets in any of ’em. But it’s not like we’re gonna get a good sight picture in here, Mort.”
Gallows humor, God love her.
Outside, I didn’t hear anything. “Quiet,” I said. “Listen.”
We went still. All I could hear was a hiss of dirt sifting over the windows and along the skin of the car. I closed my eyes. No, there was the faint sound of a diesel engine, and as I strained my ears, it grew fainter, fainter still, then it was gone.
We’d been buried alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“NOT MUCH AIR, not much time,” I said.
“I know that.”
“Stay back. Find our clothes. Make sure you get our shoes. Try to conserve air.”
She didn’t ask why. I’d taken the jack handle with me as I’d crawled out of the trunk. I lowered the backs of both front seats as far as they would go, then slammed the jack handle into the windshield, passenger side, felt the glass crack.
“What’re you doin’?”
“Only thing I can think of, kiddo.” I swung the handle again and again, finally broke through the glass. It was tough, hanging in webs of flexible plastic—a lot safer if we’d been in a traffic accident, but I wanted the glass out.
It took more effort than I’d anticipated. Dirt and dust sifted in. I felt the air in the car start to go stale. Not a lot, but it was going to get worse, and soon.
I kept pounding the glass, hammering around the edges of the hole I’d started until it was finally big enough for me to get my shoulders through. A few hundred pounds of earth had come into the car—gravel, dirt, sand. Most of it ended up on the floor. I reached into the hole and dug furiously with my hands, shredding my fingernails.
“Can I help?” Lucy said.
“Not enough room in here for two, Honey.”
“Honey. I like that.” Her words sounded forced, airless.
I pulled dirt into the car, shoved it down to the floorboards. It was the only way. I couldn’t push the dirt out so I had to pull it in. I hoped there was enough volume in the car to take enough dirt, and that we wouldn’t run out of empty space or air before I burrowed a hole to the surface.
A rock wedged in the hole. I had to knock out more glass to pull it inside. It weighed at least two hundred pounds. I hoped there weren’t any more up there. I shoved it onto the driver’s seat then rolled it down into the foot well on that side.
With both hands up through the hole, I pulled more dirt into the car. It poured in like sand through an hourglass, jamming frequently. The passenger foot well was almost full. My mouth was full of grit. The air was getting bad.
About the time I couldn’t reach up any farther, an avalanche of dirt cascaded down through the windshield. I gagged, spitting out a mouthful of dirt.
“Let me,” Lucy said. “Trade places.”
She’d been shoving dirt back into the trunk. I clambered into the back and she took over at the windshield.
My breath came in tight gasps. Not much oxygen left. Lucy pulled dirt inside, and I pulled it back over the console between the front seats. She crouched on the dash with her shoulders and chest through the hole, windshield even with her waist. She dug furiously. Dirt came down around her, then suddenly she stopped.
“Lucy?”
No answer. Her feet kicked. I grabbed her and pulled her back inside the car along with another hundred pounds of dirt.
She lay on her stomach, spitting, gasping.
Not much time left. I was going to have to be a gopher and maybe die trapped in a vertical shaft of earth or the two of us were going to die in that car.
I pulled more dirt inside, worked my shoulders into the gap, then shoved myself upward, hands first, grabbing dirt, elbowing it down past my body, trying to shove it down and away with my feet. I felt the blackness start to get hold of me—when the brain feels those first cobwebs of floating thought and you know there isn’t much left, then
