Dark Hearts (23 page)

As she was shifting her perch, she began hearing what sounded like a helicopter. She looked up, craning her neck, praying it would fly over this way, but when she finally spotted it, it was so far away she knew they would never see her or the Lewises. After that her fever came back, raging through her body until she was half out of her head.

She began looking at the sight before her with the eyes of an artist, thinking how she would make it come to life on canvas, planning what colors she would mix to get it right.

On the surface, the water just looked black, but it really wasn't. It made her think of dark brown chocolate with varying shades of umbers and reds. And the sky was streaky—a mixture of pewter-gray, a tinge of marine-blue and just the least bit of titanium-white to muddy the sharpness of the hues. The sharp greens of the treetops seemed out of place in the dismal landscape, as did the incongruity of seeing a bright red pickup being pushed past her location by a pile of debris.

She drank another sip of water and then burst into tears when she caught a glimpse of a dog out in the stream, paddling frantically to stay afloat. This was a nightmare without end.

She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on something positive.

Favorite food: shrimp and grits.

Favorite color: aquamarine blue.

Favorite holiday: Christmas.

Favorite memory: making love to Tate.

Thinking of Tate again made her sad and, at the same time, angry. Enough of favorite things.

She looked across the way at the Lewis house and thought she could hear singing, or maybe praying. She couldn't tell what they were saying, but their presence was comforting.

A short while later a big alligator swam into her line of vision, obviously flooded out from its normal habitat. The mere sight of it made her draw her feet up onto the limb, even though she was in the thick of the tree and safely out of reach from a snap from its massive jaws.

The sun was directly overhead when she began hearing an outboard motor, and once again the sound gave her hope. She craned her neck to get a better view upriver, and when a motorboat suddenly came into view, she gasped.

Praise the lord, they were about to be saved!

When Whit Lewis suddenly stood up on the roof and began waving frantically and laughing, she knew he'd seen the boat, as well. When the man in the boat turned in their direction, she felt like cheering.

Even from this distance she could tell he was in uniform but couldn't tell what kind. She was debating with herself about when to climb lower to get his attention when she saw him suddenly raise his arm, then switch something he was holding from his right hand to his left. She didn't know it was a gun until she heard the shot.

* * *

Fifty-year-old Whit Lewis and his wife, Candy, had watched daylight break over what looked like a scene from a horror movie, while Candy's mother, Ruth Andrews, continued to pray aloud for mercy. Bloated carcasses of animals floated past on rushing waters, reminders of what could happen to them if they faltered. Whit knew his neighbor, Nola Landry, had been home the day before because he'd seen her car in the carport. Now her house was completely gone, and he had no idea if she'd gotten out or had already drowned.

One hour passed into another and then another as the water continued to rise and their hopes for rescue grew dimmer. Once they saw a helicopter in the distance, and although Whit stood up and waved and waved, the copter soon disappeared from view.

There was less than two feet of roof left between them and the floodwaters when he heard the sound of an outboard engine. Candy and her mother were praying so loudly he wasn't sure if he'd imagined it, and then he heard it again.

“Candy! Ruth! Listen! I hear a motor.”

They froze, clutching each other in desperation. “I hear it, too!” Candy cried.

“Praise God,” Ruth added, as they looked upriver.

When they saw the motorboat coming toward them, they began screaming and shouting, waving at the parish policeman manning the motor. When he turned in their direction, they began crying with relief. The policeman angled the boat up close to the roof.

“Praise the Lord. We thought it was over,” Whit said.

“And you were right,” the officer said.

He pulled out a pistol, then switched it to his left hand and put a bullet between Whit's eyes. Before the women could react to what had happened, he'd shot both of them dead. He watched their bodies roll off the roof into the floodwaters, and waited until they sank before moving away from the site.

* * *

When Nola saw Whit fall, she thought for a few seconds she must be hallucinating. But then she heard the same pop she'd heard before, when Whit dropped and fell into the water, and now she was seeing the women falling one by one into the flood, as well. The horror was real.

When the officer revved the motor and made a half circle away from the house before moving back into the flow of the current, she realized he was going to pass right by her. Her heart was hammering so hard in her chest that it felt like thunder. Surely he would hear it. Surely he would see her, and if he did, she didn't have a chance. She would die after all, just not like she'd expected.

In a last-ditch moment of desperation, she climbed higher into the tree, as far up into the thickness of the foliage as she could get, and then clung to the backside of the trunk, praying he would pass her by.

She could hear the sound of the outboard as he came closer and closer. She was almost afraid to look for fear any movement would alert him she was there, yet at the same time, she had to see him. But when he finally moved past her, from this height, the cap he was wearing concealed most of his face. All she could see was a white, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and a big mustache. As the boat moved past the tree and then downriver, she went limp with relief.

“Thank you, God,” she muttered, and tried not to think of her neighbors' bodies now part of the morass that was the flood.

She clung to the tree through the late afternoon as her fever returned. She drank more water, trying to fend off the delirium, but it was no use. The longer she clung, the weaker she became. When she felt herself on the verge of passing out, she took the string out of her hoodie, tied one end around her wrist, put her arms around the tree and tied the free end to her other wrist. The last thing she remembered was feeling the tree trunk vibrating against her cheek from the water's rush.

* * *

Shug Wilson had been a chopper pilot for the Louisiana National Guard most of his adult life. His first military mission had been flying choppers in Desert Storm, then, after 9/11, his military missions had been in Afghanistan. His last tour had been sixteen months in Iraq, and he had been home less than four months when the Mississippi flooded.

When the governor called out the National Guard, he was the first one at the armory, and he'd been flying rescue for days. They'd been sent down to this area yesterday and had been on the job since just before daylight this morning. This was their first trip into a new quadrant after a refueling stop.

The two soldiers with him were PFCs Wilson and Carver, who were on the lookout for live bodies as Shug flew over the flood zone. They'd been in the air less than thirty minutes when Carver suddenly pointed.

“Hey, Colonel, circle back over that stand of trees and take it down.”

Shug nodded as Carver's voice came in loud and clear on the headset.

“Roger that,” he said as he made the loop and went low.

“There! Look there!” Carver said. “There's someone in that tree.”

“I see him,” Shug said, and settled into hover mode as Wilson quickly hooked up his body harness. He gave Carver a thumbs-up, okaying him to activate the winch to lower Wilson down.

The backwash from the chopper blades was whipping the tree limbs with hurricane force, battering the victim to the point that he apparently lost hold.

“He's going into the water!” Carver yelled.

Wilson heard the voice in his headset and gritted his teeth.

“Not if I can help it,” he muttered, and went feet first into the treetop, grabbing at the body just as it lurched off the limb.

Wilson's reaction to the situation was immediate as he assessed the situation.

“Okay, boys. It's a woman, and she's tied herself to the tree. Damn smart, because she's unconscious. Hang on while I cut her loose.”

“Ten-four,” Shug said.

* * *

Nola came to just in time to realize a strange man had a grip around her waist. She couldn't see his face for the helmet he was wearing, but she saw the knife and began fighting for her life.

“Easy, lady, I'm trying to help you,” Carver said.

He wasted no time cutting her free and then pulled her up into his arms.

Nola was conscious just long enough to register the National Guard insignia on his jumpsuit, and then she passed out again.

“She's out again. Take us up,” Wilson said.

She woke up in the chopper, flat on her back. She saw soldiers, heard the rotors and knew they were in the air. Someone was talking to her, but she couldn't hear what they were saying and turned loose of conscious thought.

The next time she came to she was in a hospital bed. There was an IV in her arm, and a nurse was standing at the foot writing on her chart.

“Where am I?” Nola asked.

The woman looked up and smiled. “Well, hello there. You're in Tidewater Municipal Hospital. Can you tell me your name?”

Nola's head was pounding. Tidewater? That was forty miles south of Queens Crossing.

“Nola Landry.”

The nurse smiled again. “Finally a name to go with that pretty face. You came in as an unidentified rescue. Do you have any family we need to notify?”

It hurt to answer. “No.”

The nurse's smile slipped a little, but she didn't waver.

“How do you feel?”

“Sore, confused.” Then she put a hand to her forehead. “But no fever!”

“No fever is right. That broke about noon yesterday,” the nurse said.

And just like that, Nola remembered the killer. “Yesterday? How long have I been here?”

“This is your second day, honey.”

“I need to talk to the police. I witnessed a murder.”

“A murder?”

“Yes, of a whole family.”

The nurse eyed her curiously. “Are you sure? You were out of your head. You don't think it might have been a hallucination?”

The question made Nola angry. “No! Oh, my God, no! They were my neighbors. Never mind. I'll call them myself.”

She began pushing back the covers and trying to sit up, but the room was spinning.

“I'm going to be sick,” Nola muttered.

The nurse grabbed a wet washcloth and immediately put it on the back of Nola's neck, then gently wiped it across her face and forehead, and just like that, the wave of nausea passed.

“I need the police,” Nola mumbled.

The nurse gave her hand a quick pat.

“I'll call them for you.”

Nola fell back against the pillows, shaking.

“Call now. Promise?”

“I promise,” the nurse said, and hurried out of the room.

Copyright © 2013 by Sharon Sala

ISBN-13: 9781459292444

Dark Hearts

Copyright © 2016 by Sharon Sala

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