Infested by Mark R Faulkner Read Free Book Online Page B

needed to drink too. The day was turning out hotter than
the one before and without suntan lotion, we were both starting to go pink.
I’d already been hugging the bank, trying to keep in the shade as much as I
could. We were on a part of the river where the banks were not so steep and
there were fewer trees and I just hoped we reached Oxford quickly.
     

 
    Ten
     
    It must have been mid-afternoon when we reached the next lock. The
correct channel, under normal circumstances, was marked with an arrow and the
word ‘LOCK’ in bold black letters on a white, battered sheet metal sign. The
thirst of earlier was many-fold worse than it had been; I had to keep trying to
make spit just for something to swallow. And I had a raging headache, forcing
me to half close one eye against the sun’s glare. Drinking from the river was
becoming an ever more tempting thought, but one I was resisting and also
encouraging Lindsey to resist, because of the near certainty that the water
would make us both ill.
    I’d been giving serious consideration to turning myself in to the
authorities when we reached Oxford. It wasn’t transpiring to be the relaxing
trip I’d hoped for and after missing a night’s sleep, all I wanted was
somewhere safe to rest my head; even if that place were to be a police cell. I
was thinking I might earn some leniency for rescuing Lindsey. I turned my eyes
forward, to where she was sitting. She’d not spoken in a while, neither of us
had. “Same as last time then, okay?”
    “Okay,” she replied without turning and as we reached the wire rope,
she flattened herself to fit underneath.
     
    I’d decided to tackle the weir exactly the same way as the other, but
as the dull roar of ever falling water got louder, my nerves began to fray. We
were, however, committed to the ride and so, just before we pitched over the
edge, I shouted for Lindsey to hold on tight again.
    As we tilted forward, two things simultaneously caught my attention.
The first was that the stopper at the bottom was much larger than before, and
the other thing which distracted me was a vast wall of black smoke in the
distance, blotting out a sizeable piece of the sky in that direction. Both of
these things, combined with fatigue, caused in a moment of panic for me to lose
concentration and as we plummeted down with water boiling on either side, the
canoe skewed slightly to the left.
    We hit the wave side-on. I was thrown clear so all I knew was water
filling my senses and bearing me away downstream in a rush of bubbles. I was
tumbling underwater and couldn’t tell which way was up and which was down.
Even after I surfaced the current was too powerful for me to fight, and I was
carried along; just another piece of flotsam. By the time the river slackened,
it had jettisoned me a hundred yards downstream. I looked back toward the weir
to see the canoe; half-submerged, bobbing toward me. There was no sign of
Lindsey.
     
    I swam back toward the weir, hugging the margins of the river where the
current was slackest. Half the time I was only pushing my belly through the mud
and even though it would have been quicker to get out and run along the bank,
it wasn’t planning on leaving the water. I had to stand and wade the last bit,
with the churning river battering my legs and trying and steal them away from
under me. It was a losing battle and I was still nowhere near the stopper.
    And then I saw her rise to the surface; her limp body rotating as it
came up through the water, red hair wrapped around her face and trailing behind
her. Her body folded when it broke surface, loose, and then she sank once more
beneath the churning water and there was nothing I could do. She was already
dead and I couldn’t take her with me, presuming I managed to retrieve her from
the weir without killing myself.
     
    I turned and let my legs buckle beneath me, the current carrying me back
downstream to where the swamped canoe was lazily spinning in the water. I was
numb,