Stone Cold Dead by James Ziskin (great novels of all time txt) 📕

dignity as all eyes watched me go. It’s not easy to hold your head high when someone calls you a whore at a wake. But I did.

The New Holland Bucks tipped off in Johnstown at eight. Ted Jurczyk played the finest game of his short career, scoring thirty-two points with ten assists and five steals. He was masterful, and New Holland won going away, 76–58. I congratulated him after the game, and he smiled.

“One last question for my profile, Ted,” I said. He nodded. “How do you do it? How do you manage to play so beautifully on such a sad day?”

He wiped his sweaty brow with a towel and sighed. “It’s hard,” he said. “Until the whistle blows. Just like my butterflies, everything else disappears. My nerves, Darleen, Patricia’s leg braces, my mom . . . The court is a sanctuary for me. The most peaceful place on earth.”

I knew I would end my feature with that line.

“You showed a lot of courage this afternoon at the funeral parlor,” he said. “Gosh, I admire you, Miss Stone.”

Outside the gym, I fumbled for my keys in the cold. The door nearly wouldn’t open, again the residual effect of the dunking the poor car had taken in Winandauga Lake. I drove off, heading for the office to finish my story on Ted and to write the summary of the game as well. I wanted to be free of work responsibilities the next day. There was my big date with Mike Palumbo, after all.

I was cruising east along Route 67, through the desolate farm country between Johnstown and New Holland, when I first noticed the thumping of my right rear tire. A flat, damn it. I pulled over to the shoulder and cursed my bad luck. It was bitterly cold, but the tire needed to be changed.

I climbed out, nearly breathless from the frozen air, and retrieved the jack and spare from the trunk. Positioning the jack carefully, I began to crank it up. A motorist slowed and pulled over to give me a hand. That was welcome. I stared back into the burning headlights behind me, squinting to see. Why didn’t the idiot switch them off? Then he did, and I dropped the tire iron and ran.

I raced for my life as I sensed the man gaining on me. My legs felt leaden, and it seemed the harder I pushed, the slower and more palsied my movements became. It was like running in water. The icy air seared my throat and lungs, but I couldn’t stop, I knew that much. The steps drew closer, terrifyingly near, and I could hear his breath and the pounding of his boots behind me.

Dick Metzger corralled me after about thirty yards, grabbing me by the neck and nearly yanking me off my feet. He dragged me back to his truck as I kicked and screamed, losing both my shoes, but we were in the middle of nowhere, and no one heard. Once we reached his pickup, perhaps tiring of my resistance, he reared back and plowed his fist into my face. I saw stars. I went limp, and he opened the tailgate and threw me into the flatbed. I wanted to climb over the side immediately, but I couldn’t move; my head was still swimming from his punch. He seized my ankles and pulled me into position atop a heavy tarpaulin, which, to my horror, he began rolling up on me like a cocoon. He turned me over and over until I was trapped tight, rendered immobile and unable to escape. My head hurt, but my senses returned. There was not much air, and I feared I would be smothered if I continued to struggle. Somehow, even in that desperate moment, I couldn’t shake the image of an old cartoon from the New Yorker. Two men in pith helmets up to their shoulders in quicksand, and one says to the other, “Quicksand or not, Barclay, I’ve half a mind to struggle.” I tried to steady my breath and think and, of course, resist the urge to struggle. Wrapped in the tarp, I heard Metzger climb into the cab and drive off.

It was a cold, bumpy ride, and I rolled from side to side whenever the truck turned sharply. From time to time, I yelled for help, but my screams were suffocated by the heavy, foul-smelling canvas. I doubted there was anyone near to hear me anyway. We drove for about thirty minutes, and I thought he intended to freeze me to death. I tried to think of a way to extricate myself from the tightly wrapped tarpaulin but realized that the only chance I had was to roll, and there wasn’t enough space in the flatbed to unravel the canvas.

Eventually we slowed down. I could feel the truck bouncing over an unpaved surface; I had still no idea where he was taking me. Then he stopped and switched off the engine. The night was silent, but my heavy breathing resounded under the tarpaulin, and the close cover and terror of anticipation were exacerbated by a growing claustrophobia. I waited on my side for him to come for me. I listened, wondering where he was. What was he doing?

I intended to scream as soon as he returned and freed me, but in that moment, I just listened. Finally, after three or four agonizing minutes, I heard his footsteps approach, his boots crunching over the frozen ground. I have never experienced such abject panic. I screamed and rolled and writhed on the flatbed of the pickup. I can’t exactly say my life passed before my eyes, but there were flashes of images from my youth. I saw a pair of patent leather shoes and then a schoolbook. Elijah’s guitar. My father’s back and my mother’s face, smiling, all as I thrashed. Then the tarpaulin was peeled away, and I loosed a cry with all my might and scratched and spat and kicked as if my life depended