Sleep No More by Susan Crandall Read Free Book Online Page A

three hundred and sixty degrees. Nothing but tall grasses on the far side of the van. There was a fairly dense woods to the left, hulking trees draped with Spanish moss beneath which grew a tangle of undergrowth. That had to be the direction of the road.
    Steadying herself with one hand on the open van door, she pulled her left foot out of the muck and her shoe was sucked off her foot.
    Don't think of the snakes.
    Slowly, she put her bare foot on the marsh bottom again.
    She took another step that cost her right shoe. One more step and she wouldn't be able to steady herself with the van's door any longer.
    No choice but to go forward.
    Fighting the drag of the water and the pull of the mud, it was slow going. The more she tried to not think of all the things that lived in marshes and ponds, the more snakes and gators dominated her mind.
    There! Did she hear something? She halted and held her breath.
    Definitely. A rustling in the vegetation. The lap of a water ripple against something solid.
    She held perfectly still until the chattering of her teeth told her she had to move--take her chances of attracting a gator or die of hypothermia.
    There is no gator. Get moving.
    Almost to the first scrubby tree. Just a few more steps--and she didn't hear a gator thrashing behind her.
    Gators don't thrash until they have you--
    Something bumped against her leg.
    With a scream, she tried to run. The mud held onto her feet and she pitched headlong into the water, losing both the flashlight and her purse.
    Her feet broke free and she flailed toward the trees, anticipating the painful chomp of a gator or the sharp sting of poisonous snake fangs.
    Neither came.
    She pulled herself out of the water and up a short slope by grasping handfuls of tall weeds and low branches.
    Once at the grade of the narrow road, she took several loping steps, then collapsed onto the ground, gasping and spitting out brackish water.
    After she caught her breath and was certain no gator was on her heels, she stood up and looked around.
    Giant old-growth trees lined both sides of the road; ghosts of Spanish moss shifted in the breeze. Beneath the arching boughs, scrub and squat palmettos were so dense it was difficult to even see the water she'd just fled. Looking around, she couldn't believe she hadn't hit one of the thick trunks or gnarled low-reaching branches as she'd veered off the pavement.
    Long fingers of fog rose from the marsh, reaching across the narrow road in several places. The road itself was unlined crumbling asphalt, barely wide enough for two small cars to pass one another. Definitely not the road between Jeter's and home, but it could be any one of a dozen roads in the general vicinity of Preston.
    Had her van been in the marsh for hours and hours? It was impossible to see from the road; no one passing by would notice it without really looking for it.
    Turning in a circle, she couldn't decide which way she should start walking.
    Then, far down the road, she saw light. Headlights. The twin dots increased in size so quickly that she knew the vehicle was coming fast.
    Help. Someone was here to help. It was a miracle out here at this hour on a weeknight.
    Before the vehicle was close enough for its headlight beams to illuminate her, it stopped so suddenly she could hear the tires skid on the pavement.
    "No!" She tried to trot that way, limping, waving her hands over her head. "Help!"
    The headlights swung around in a reckless three-point turn.
    Abby slowed, staring at red taillights that were receding as quickly as the headlights had been approaching.
    "Come back... please..." She stood shivering in the center of the road; dizzy, barefooted, her wet blouse clinging to her.
    Suddenly a strobe light reflected off the foliage around her. She spun around. An emergency vehicle, lights flashing but without a siren, was coming from the opposite direction.
    "Thank God." She raised her hands and waved.
    The police car stopped a few feet in front of her and its