Chapter Twenty-Four
Auralia
Auralia had to be pragmatic. She was one person, and she was exhausted.
She had Brandy under the armpits after she’d made last-minute adjustments to her rescue scheme.
The seat belt took three separate dives to cut free.
A fourth dive, and Auralia watched Brandy inhale, then she pinched the woman’s nose and drew her through the window.
In her imagination, that process had been smooth and quick, and in reality, it had been neither.
Auralia was out of breath. Her lungs screamed.
But if she let go of Brandy, even to rise to the surface for a quick gasp of air, Brandy would drown.
Auralia fought against panic.
She caught the woman under the arms, pulled her halfway out, then placed her feet on the window ledge and thrust upward with enough momentum to help the swim vest get them both to the surface.
It had been Auralia’s plan that while Brandy swam, Auralia could float into the eddy with the buoyancy of the life preserver and pull the rope she’d wrapped around Brandy’s chest to help the woman out of the current.
Brandy was loose-limbed and slippery. She had no energy in her arms or legs. Just dead weight. Auralia thought the dead part, then, in her mind, struck through it with an imagined editor's mark, just weight.
Auralia’s lungs screamed for air, and she had the facemask on.
If she were on her belly, she could flip the snorkel up.
But configured as she was, Auralia had to release Brandy long enough that she could pull off the mask, and grip it tightly as she hooked back under Brandy’s arm, all while fighting the white waters that pulled her to the front of the SUV.
As Auralia kicked her legs and dragged Brandy, she thought about the next steps.
Sheelah was not going to fit out the same window that Auralia was able to drag Brandy. She was unconscious and unable to give even a little bit of help. At least Sheelah hadn’t turned her head and sent Auralia one last long stare before she went on to her just rewards.
That’s how a ghost can attach itself to someone and haunt them for the rest of their days.
Auralia shook off that childhood terror.
There was nothing Auralia could do about Sheelah.
She wasn’t even sure she could save Brandy.
She had kicked them into the eddy and now her butt, in the black lace panties, grazed along the bottom of the river.
Auralia pulled her knees up and planted her feet, trying to press up from the squat, but it was impossible on the ground, which gave under her weight, sinking her up to her shins.
Auralia let go of Brandy and stood, then reached down to clasp the woman’s wrists and dragged her backward onto the sliver of land between the rising river and the rise of the slope.
Brandy was out of the water.
She was out of the water.
Winded and with legs shaking so hard she couldn’t stand, Auralia looked over to Brandy and for a moment wondered if she’d dragged a dead body from the car. But when Brandy blinked, then blinked again, Auralia clapped a hand to her heart and started crying.
She needed an emotional release valve to open for a minute.
This had been a stressful day.
Auralia crawled to her bin to retrieve her daypack, which contained the things she carried in case of an emergency.
She pulled out a Mylar blanket to spread over Brandy.
“This isn’t it. I can do more to help you.
I need a second,” Auralia said as she spread the blanket over the prone woman, using rocks to hold the edges down so the wind didn’t blow the resource away.
“But there are things that Creed, Gator, and Remi keep preaching about, like saving myself first. You don’t know them.
They’re—look, my mind is overwhelmed right now, I’m going to follow their counsel.
” She placed the last rock. “I’m sorry about your mamma. ”
When she looked over the woman, it looked like she was wearing a shroud, and Auralia was preparing the woman for burial.
Auralia reminded herself not to conjure any bad juju that might manifest between then and a rescue.
She pressed her hand under her breast to be sure she still had her phone, which would be their lifeline in just a moment. Auralia had to get warm first.
Pulling out a bottle of water, Auralia swished it through her mouth to clear it of the grit that had gotten into her mouth from the river. Then, she gulped some down.
The next thing she pulled out was her small, rough, and highly absorbent camp towel while she eyed the contents of the bin. There was a MOLLE bag that she knew contained a change of clothes, which she could use for Brandy.
First thing was to get Brandy out of her wet outfit.
With shaking hands, stiff with cold, Auralia battled with her bra clasp, finally feeling it give way; it was full of mud when she dropped it to the ground at her feet.
She pulled the phone bag lanyard over her head and set it in the bin before sliding off her panties. She’d call as soon as she could get herself and Brandy stabilized from the wet and cold.
Lifting the liter bottle of water, she let it drizzle down her body.
With her free hand, she swished and swiped over her skin to remove as much of the sand and grit as possible.
When she dressed, Auralia wanted all her attention to be on keeping the woman alive until rescue could reach them, and she didn’t need the distraction of her clothes rubbing against her like sandpaper.
Her mentor, Remi, had talked to her on many occasions about how taking care of things at the front end would keep her safe and comfortable enough to keep their focus on the story.
She had learned that things like rinsing off might seem like a time suck, but functionally, it was more along the lines of a “stitch in time.”
Using her camp towel, Auralia rubbed herself vigorously not only to absorb the water that helped the wind wick away her body heat, but also to generate some warmth back into her system. Her teeth were chattering, she was goose-fleshed, and her feet were purple with cold.
The extra panties and bra that she carried with her in her day pack were chosen for “shit hits the fan” scenarios, figuratively, of course. Covering, supportive, modest, and comfy, all Auralia needed to do was pull it over her head and adjust the girls into position.
Wet as she was, the bra rolled itself tight, and she was struggling to get it into place.
Note to self, front closure next time.
Knowing that she planned to dress Brandy in her emergency clothes, Auralia pulled the tactical pants she’d been wearing that day from the black plastic leaf bag and sat on the lid as she got her socks and boots on.
And that’s when a little black nose shoved under her arm.
“Rougarou, you startled the crap out of me, girl.” She saw a rope tied to the handle of Rou’s vest and traced it along the empty shoreline.
Her eyes searched up, and she found Creed on a rope system, walking himself down the slippery incline.
Without Brandy, she could have gone up that line and left this mess.
Without Brandy, this could be over.
She cupped her hand around her mouth. “About damned time you got here.” She tapped the side of her head. “I’ve been calling you for a while now. I thought you or Gator would come. Good thing I wasn’t twiddling my thumbs waiting to get rescued.”
“I heard,” Creed called back with a tap to his own head. “I saw you get out onto the beach and called Gator, who, by the way, dropped everything to race to you. I turned him around.” He continued to walk himself down the slope, jumping the last couple of feet.
“You call this a beach? The ground is only about five feet wide.” She caught his eye. “Thank you to you both.”
“You find an extra person?” Creed twitched the rope and released it. “Was she with you in the car?”
Auralia pushed Rou away and asked her to sit on a box top before pulling on her shirt and fleece.
“She was in the SUV under me. This is Brandy Morrison. Mom’s still under there. I can’t figure a way to get her out.”
“Brandy came through the window?”
“Yeah. And mom won’t fit. I didn’t try. She’s breathing in a pocket of air. That can’t last much longer. It’s mostly carbon dioxide by now. I made sure her tongue wasn’t obstructing her airway, and then I brought Brandy up.”
“You need help with her?” He coiled around his hand and elbow.
“If you can just help me get her over onto the tarp, I think I have it from there if you can figure anything about Sheelah.”
“Sheelah’s unconscious?” Creed asked as he crouched by Brandy, moved the rocks, and scooped her into a fireman’s carry, Mylar and all, and moved her as requested.
“She could be dead,” Auralia said. “I don’t know.”
He placed objects from the bin on the Mylar to hold it in place. “The good thing is, Sheelah can’t haunt you if she didn’t turn and look at you.” He strode the short distance between them.
“Please let’s not with the dark humor.” Auralia pulled on her jacket and tugged a beanie over her wet hair and down over her ears. “I don’t need you to jinx me today.”
Creed reached for her. “I just need to feel you in my arms for a second. Woman, do you know how many times you’ve stopped my heart today?”
It felt so good to be wrapped warm and safe in Creed’s arms. It felt so good to know that he had indeed known when she was in trouble and had come running.
He said he saw her come out on the shore.
He must have gone after the equipment to get her out of there.
She had been so focused on what was happening down here that if he were calling, it would have been a completely useless effort.
Adrenaline had a tunnel-vision design that could harm as much as it could serve.
Looking down at Brandy’s face, Auralia rose onto her toes and kissed Creed good and hard. “I have to take care of Brandy.” She snapped her fingers, “Rou, snuggle.” And Rue came over and lay against Brandy’s chest.
“Give me a picture of what’s going on down there.” He stood with his hands on his hips, facing Auralia’s car, assessing. “How’d you even know to go look?”
Auralia told the story of being Morrison’s lifeline.
“You remember that time we were out on the pontoon and you stepped on something in the silt, and it scared you silly?” Creed asked. “I never saw anything like that before or since.”
“I remember. I actually thought about that very story. But over here in the silt. Over there,” Auralia pointed at her car, “I thought about drowned souls finding their way out of the depths.”
“You are so grim.” He walked to a tree and set up his rope and pulley system, which he had pulled from the pack on his back.
“Did you figure something out to help Sheelah?” Auralia dug through the box of supplies, fishing out her first aid kit, which included a notebook and an all-weather pencil to write down any notes that might help a doctor, along with her rescue shears to cut Brandy’s clothes free.
Auralia would work from the waist down to begin with, then she’d let Rou warm Brandy’s feet. But Brandy’s core temperature must be very low after being in the water all that time. Better to let the emergency blanket and Rue’s body heat start to bring Brandy’s temperature up.
Auralia had a fire starter kit with her, and for a moment, she considered starting a bonfire as soon as she had the woman dried and dressed, but then she remembered the drought conditions and decided that wasn’t a great idea.
“Tell me about Sheelah,” Creed said as he sat on the tote to unlace his boots and take off his socks. “She was breathing?”
“I’m guessing. I can’t say for sure.”
Creed stood to pull off his clothes, dropping them into one of the boxes. He used a magnet from his kit to fish his ear canal comms out and put them in a bag with his sternal comms button. He was no longer a tap away from his team.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“Two-pronged,” he picked up the life vest and pulled it on.
He had to adjust the straps, and even then, they barely closed.
“I’m going to try to open the door a crack to shove a wedge in.
” He pointed at a delta-shaped rock. “Then I’ll tie off the door and swim back.
” He put the bike helmet on. “Then, I’ll use the pully system to drag it wide and tie the rope off, so it holds open.
Once I can get it angled so the current does the work, that should be easy enough. ”
“I have my snorkel mask there,” Auralia pointed out. “It’s the only reason I could see inside the SUV.”
“That might help. Third, I’m going back in and tying the rope around Sheelah. Angling her out, I’ll swim to shore a second time and use the pulley to drag her in. There’s no time to finesse this.”
“She’ll drown.”
“I know. But she’ll drown if she stays there, too.
So I bring her to shore and do CPR. My phone’s there.
” Creed pointed at his pants. “If I get her to shore, call it in. Tell them to bring the defibrillator.” He tied a rope around his waist, then picked up the rock and the loose rope that would secure the door.
“She’s going to have a rough ride. But if she’s unconscious, I don’t see another way, not in these white waters.
And to be honest, if their SUV was any farther out than the three meters or so, I wouldn’t chance it.
We called in a white-water team. They were training in the Shenandoah.
They got on the road immediately, but when I checked with Logistics, their ETA wasn’t for at least another hour. ”
Auralia stood and gripped his arm as she leaned her head back for a kiss. Her heart was squeezing so hard that her voice creaked when she said. “Try but don’t die.”
“Sage advice.” He chuckled before scooping her tight to his body and kissing her hard. “I love you deeply, wholly, completely. Get yourself warm. Stay safe.”