Chapter 16
IT WAS Anew color.
Yellow.
Blue meant death in his synesthetic brain.
So what the hell did yellow mean?
Heaven?
Am I dead?
He couldn’t seem to open his eyes, so maybe he was.
Yet the fact that his eyes weren’t open and he could still see the color yellow meantthat he was viewing it in his head. Was that evidence of conscious thought and thus life?
Or was it hisafterlife?
He felt something. A poke, a prod. It seemed distant and distinct from him.
His ears hurt. But he could sense something there too.
He was vaguely aware of a loud sound. Like a cannon going off.
He could feel nothing else about himself.Just the sound. And the color yellow.
And the poke and the prod.
The sensation in his ears continued. Growing in intensity.
Something hit his face. Lightly, then harder.
He tried to open his eyes, but the only thing he seemed able to manage was to scrunch up his forehead.
The next blow on his face did the trick.
With a monumental effort,he managed to blink.
At first all he saw was darkness.
Then he glimpsed something in the middle of that darkness. It was hairy and close to him; he could smell its breath.
Then his eyes closed again. He seemed to sink into the ground.
He remembered now. They had been out in the woods.
The trailer.
The trailer had exploded.
Then Decker stopped thinking. His chest stopped rising.
He had a moment’s sensation of the hairy creature’s breaths coming closer.
An animal. An animal come to feast on him.
He dropped into unconsciousness. He dropped into something maybe more than that.