Flashlights and walkie-talkies were handed out along with extra batteries. Eleven men (including the trucker, who wanted to help) would be involved, and the search would start from where Taylor found the blanket. From there they would fan out in three directions—south, east, and west. East and west paralleled the highway; south was the last direction Kyle had appeared to be headed. It was decided that one man would stay behind, near the highway and the trucks, on the off chance that Kyle would see the headlights and return on his own. He would send a flare up every hour on the hour, so that the men would know exactly where they were.
After Sergeant Huddle had given them a brief description of Kyle and what he was wearing, Taylor spoke. He, along with a couple of the other men, had hunted in the swamp before and laid out what they were up against.
Here, on the outer fringes of the swamp near the highway, the searchers were told that the ground was always damp but not usually underwater. It wasn’t until half a mile farther into the swamp that water formed shallow lakes above the ground. Mud was a real danger, though; it closed in around the foot and leg, sometimes holding it like a vise, making it difficult for an adult to escape, let alone a child. Tonight the water was already half an inch deep near the highway and would only get worse as the storm wore on. Mud pockets combined with rising water would make for a deadly combination. The men grimly agreed. They would proceed with caution.
On the plus side, if there was one, none of them imagined that Kyle could have gotten far. Trees and vines made the going rough, hopefully limiting the distance he might have traveled. A mile, maybe, definitely less than two miles. He was still close, and the sooner they got started, the better chance they would have.
“But,” Taylor went on, “according to the mother, it turns out that the boy probably won’t answer if we call him. Look for any physical sign of him—you don’t want to walk right by him. She made it very clear that we shouldn’t depend on him answering us.”
“He won’t respond?” asked one of the men, clearly baffled.
“That’s what his mother said.”
“Why can’t he talk?”
“She didn’t really explain it.”
“Is he retarded?” another asked.
Taylor felt his back stiffen at the question.
“What the hell does that matter? He’s a little boy lost in the swamp who can’t talk. That’s all we know right now.”
Taylor stared at the man until he finally turned away. There was only the sound of the rain coming down around them before Sergeant Huddle finally let out a deep sigh.
“Then we ought to get going.”
Taylor turned on his flashlight. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 5
Denise could see herself in the swamp with the others, pushing branches away from her face, her feet sinking into the spongy earth as she searched frantically for Kyle. In actuality, however, she was lying on a gurney in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital in Elizabeth City—a town thirty miles to the northeast—that had the nearest emergency room.
Denise stared at the ceiling of the ambulance, still shivering and dazed. She’d wanted to stay, she’d begged to stay, but was told that it was better for Kyle if she went with the ambulance. She would only hinder things here, they said. She’d said she didn’t care and had stubbornly stepped out of the ambulance, back into the storm, knowing that Kyle needed her. As if in complete control, she’d asked for a raincoat and flashlight. After a couple of steps, the world had begun to spin. She’d pitched forward, her legs uncontrollable, and fallen to the ground. Two minutes later the ambulance siren had roared to life and she was on her way.
Aside from shivering, she hadn’t moved since she’d been on the gurney. Her hands and arms were completely, eerily still. Her breathing was rapid but shallow, like that of a small animal. Her skin was pale, sickly, and her latest fall had opened her head wound again.
“Have faith, Miss Holton,” the attendant soothed. He’d just taken her blood pressure and believed she was suffering from shock. “I mean, I know these guys. Kids have been lost around here before, and they always find ’em.”
Denise didn’t respond.
“And you’ll be okay, too,” the attendant went on. “In a couple of days, you’ll be on your feet again.”
It was quiet for a minute. Denise continued to stare upward. The attendant began to take her pulse.
“Is there anyone you want me to call when you get to the hospital?”
“No,” she whispered. “There’s no one.”
Taylor and the others reached the spot where the blanket was found and began to fan out. Taylor, along with two other men, headed south, deeper into the swamp, while the rest of the search team headed east and west. The storm hadn’t let up at all, and visibility in the swamp—even with the flashlight—was only a few yards at most. Within minutes Taylor couldn’t see or hear anyone, and he felt a sinking sensation in his gut. Somehow lost in the adrenaline surge prior to the search—where anything seemed possible—was the reality of the situation.
Taylor had searched for lost people before, and he suddenly knew there weren’t enough men out here. The swamp at night, the storm, a child who wouldn’t answer when called . . . fifty people wouldn’t be enough. Maybe even a hundred. The most effective way to search for someone lost in the woods was to stay within sight of the person to the right and left, everyone moving in unison, almost like a marching band. By staying close, searchers could canvas an area thoroughly and quickly like a grid, without wondering whether something had been missed. With ten men that was simply impossible. Minutes after they’d split up, everyone involved with the search was on his own, completely separated from the others. They were reduced to simply wandering in the direction of their choosing, pointing the flashlights here and there—anywhere—the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. Finding Kyle had suddenly become a matter of luck, not skill.
Reminding himself not to lose faith, Taylor pressed forward, around trees, over the ever softening earth. Though he didn’t have any children himself, he was godfather to the children of his best friend, Mitch Johnson, and Taylor searched as though looking for one of them. Mitch was also a volunteer fireman, and Taylor wished fervently that he was out here searching as well. His main hunting partner for the past twenty years, Mitch knew the swamp almost as well as he did, and they could use his experience. But Mitch was out of town for a few days. Taylor hoped it wasn’t an omen.
As the distance from the highway lengthened, the swamp was becoming denser, darker, more remote and foreign with every few steps. Standing trees grew closer together, rotted trees lay strewn across the ground. Vines and branches tore at him as he moved, and he had to use his free hand to keep them away from his face. He pointed his flashlight at every clump of trees, at every stump, behind every bush, moving continually, looking for any sign of Kyle. Several minutes passed, then ten.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
Now, deeper in the swamp, the water had risen past his ankles, making movement even more difficult. Taylor checked his watch: 10:56. Kyle had been gone for an hour and a half, maybe more. Time, initially on their side, was rapidly becoming an enemy. How long would it take before he got too cold? Or . . .
He shook his head, not wanting to think beyond that.
Lightning and thunder were regular occurrences now, the rain hard and stinging. It seemed to be coming from all directions. Taylor wiped his face every few seconds to clear his vision. Despite his mother’s insistence that Kyle wouldn’t answer him, Taylor nonetheless kept calling his name. For some reason it made him feel as if he were doing more than he actually was.
Damn.
They hadn’t had a storm like this in, what, six years? Seven? Why tonight? Why now, when a boy was lost? They couldn’t even use Jimmie Hicks’s dogs on a night like tonight, and they were the best in the county. The storm made it impossible to track anything at all. And simply wandering out here blindly wasn’t going to be enough.
Where would a kid go? A kid afraid of storms but not afraid of the woods? A kid who’d seen his mother after the accident, seen her injured and unconscious.
Think.
Taylor knew the swamp as well as, if not better than, anyone he knew. It was here that he’d shot his first deer at the age of twelve; every autumn he ventured forth to hunt ducks as well. He had an instinctive ability to track nearly anything, seldom returning from a hunt without something. The people of Edenton often joked that he had a nose like a wolf. He did have an unusual talent; even he admitted that. Sure, he knew what all hunters knew—footprints, droppings, broken branches indicating a trail a deer might have followed—but those things didn’t fully explain his success. When asked to explain his secret skill, he simply replied that he tried to think like a deer. People laughed at that, but Taylor always said it with a straight face, and they quickly realized he wasn’t trying to be funny. Think like a deer? What the hell did that mean?
They shook their heads. Perhaps only Taylor knew.
And now he was trying to do the same thing, only this time with much higher stakes.
He closed his eyes. Where would a four-year-old go? Which way would he head?
His eyes snapped open at the burst of the signal flare in the evening sky, indicating the turn of the hour. Eleven o’clock.
Think.
The emergency room in Elizabeth City was crowded. Not only those with serious injuries had come, but people who simply weren’t feeling that well. No doubt they could have waited until the following day but like a full moon, storms seemed to bring out an irrational streak in people. The larger the storm, the more irrational people became. On a night like this, heartburn was suddenly a heart attack in the making; a fever that had come on early in the day was suddenly too serious to ignore; a cramp in the leg might be a blood clot. The doctors and nurses knew it; nights like these were as predictable as the sunrise. The wait was at least two hours long.
Due to her head wound, Denise Holton, however, was taken in immediately. She was still conscious, though only partially. Her eyes were closed, but she was speaking in gibberish, repeating the same word over and over. Immediately she was taken in for an X-ray. From there the doctor would determine whether a CAT scan was necessary.
The word she kept repeating was “Kyle.”
Another thirty minutes passed, and Taylor McAden had moved into the deeper recesses of the swamp. It was incredibly dark now, like spelunking in a cave. Even with a flashlight, he felt the beginnings of claustrophobia. Trees and vines grew even closer together, and moving in a straight line was impossible. It was easy to wander in circles, and he couldn’t imagine what it was like for Kyle.
Neither the wind nor rain had let up at all. Lightning, however, was slowly lessening in its frequency. The water was now halfway up his shin, and he hadn’t seen anything. He’d checked in on his walkie-talkie a few minutes earlier—everyone else said the same thing.
Nothing. Not a sign of him anywhere.
Kyle had been gone now for two and a half hours.
Think.
Would he have made it this far? Would someone his size be able to wade through water this deep?
No, he decided. Kyle wouldn’t have gone this far, not in a T-shirt and jeans.
And if he did, they probably wouldn’t find him alive.
Taylor McAden pulled the compass from his pocket and pointed the flashlight at it, figuring his bearings. He decided to go back to where they’d first found the blanket, back to square one. Kyle had been there . . . that’s all they knew.
But which way had he gone?
The wind gusted and trees swayed above him. Rain stung his cheek as lightning flashed in the eastern sky. The worst of the storm was finally passing them by.
Kyle was small and afraid of lightning . . . stinging rain . . .
Taylor stared up at the sky, concentrating, and felt the shape of something there . . . something in the recesses of his mind slowly beginning to emerge. An idea? No, not quite that strong . . . but a possibility?
Gusting wind . . . stinging rain . . . afraid of lightning . . .
Those things would have mattered to Kyle—wouldn’t they?
Taylor grabbed his walkie-talkie and spoke, directing everyone back to the highway as quickly as possible. He would meet them there.
“It has to be,” he said to no one in particular.
Like many of the volunteer firemen’s wives who called into the station that evening, concerned about their husbands on this dangerous night, Judy McAden couldn’t resist calling. Though Taylor was called to the station two or three times a month, as Taylor’s mother she nonetheless found herself worrying about him every time he went out. She hadn’t wanted him to be a fireman and told him so, though she finally stopped pleading with him about it once she realized he’d never change his mind. He was, as his father had been, stubborn.
Still, all evening long she’d felt instinctively that something bad had happened. It wasn’t anything dramatic, and at first she’d tried to dismiss it, but the nagging suspicion persisted, growing stronger as the hours passed. Finally, reluctantly, she’d made the call, almost expecting the worst; instead she’d learned about the little boy—“J. B. Anderson’s great-grandkid”—who was lost in the swamp. Taylor, she was told, was involved in the search. The mother, though, was on the way to the hospital in Elizabeth City.
After hanging up the phone, Judy sat back in her chair, relieved that Taylor was okay but suddenly worried about the child. Like everyone else in Edenton, she’d known the Andersons. But more than that, Judy had also known Denise’s mother when they were both young girls, before Denise’s mother had moved away and married Charles Holton. That had been a long time ago—forty years, at least—and she hadn’t thought about her in years. But now the memories of their youth came rushing back in a collage of images: walking to school together; lazy days by the river, where they talked about boys; cutting the latest fashion pictures out of magazines . . . She also remembered how sad she’d been when she’d learned of her death. She had no idea that her friend’s daughter had moved back to Edenton.