Right before everything went black again he felt his mouth being prodded open. And then something hithim right below his chest.
Black.
He had no idea how much time had passed.
He felt himself jerk up and then fall to the side. He vomited and lay there moaning for a few seconds.
He felt something on his arm and pushed it away violently. Then Decker got to his knees and tried to scramble away.
He thought of the hairy creature. The pokes and prods.The breath. The blow to his chest. He was scared. Terrified. Was it a bear?
“Amos!”
At the sound of her voice Decker stopped scrambling, turned, and dropped to his butt, panting.
Jamison was on her haunches a few feet away. She looked dirty and disheveled, but unhurt. Yet there was such a look of terror in her features that Decker could only gape.
“A-Alex,are you okay?”
She rose on unsteady feet. “Me? You…stopped breathing. I had to perform CPR.”
Decker touched his lips and then his sternum.
CPR?
That had been Jamison breathing and pounding life back into him.
“That was you? I just saw…hair. I thought it was an animal. A big, hairy animal.”
Jamison frowned and pushed her thick hair outof her face. “Well, that’s the first time I’ve been equated with a big, hairy animal.” Her features softened. “Are you feeling okay now?”
Decker took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his head. When he took his hand away, it was bloody. “I felt something hit me back there. I guess it did some damage.”
“Oh no,” exclaimed Jamison. She took out her phone, engaged the flashlightfeature, and examined the back of his head. “It’s cut, a deep gash. You need medical attention.”
She pulled some tissues from her bag and pressed them against the wound. “Here, hold that there.”
Decker did so. “I thought I’d had a heart attack, but I don’t think that’s possible. I’d be out for the count.”
He slowly rose to his feet and looked around. The trailer wasgone. Their Yukon was heavily damaged.
“You saved my life,” he said.
“Well, you certainly saved mine.” She pointed at where the trailer had been. “That would have been our crematorium.”
He nodded and took a series of long, deep breaths. “It must have been all that smoke in my lungs. And then running.”
“With me on your back. And then your head wound. It musthave been debris from the explosion that hit you. I wish you could have fit under the car.”
“Even when I was thinner I really never could have fit under even an SUV.”
“We need to call an ambulance.”
“We need to call somebody if we want to get back to town.” He looked at the two front tires of the Yukon. They were flat and the wheels were pushed in. “And the fire departmentneeds to come out here and douse those flames before the forest catches on fire.”
Jamison pulled out her phone and called Green, succinctly explaining to him what had happened. The detective promised a response ASAP.
She put the phone away and looked back at the trailer. “Somebody really wanted us dead.”