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The adrenaline and her strength waning, she barely stayed ahead of the skiff being bull-dozed through the grass.
Shelby surfaced for air, so tired she barely had the energy to breathe. It would be so much easier to die.
Holding onto several stalks, she turned to face her death.
The engine cut off. Two lights shined out over the marsh. Another light blinked to life, the beam sweeping over the skiff’s hull and the surrounding area.
As the beam neared Shelby, she sank beneath the surface and shifted the reeds enough to cover her head. The beam shone across her position.
Shelby froze. For a long moment, the ray held steady. If it didn’t move on soon, she’d be forced to surface to breathe.
When she thought her lungs would burst, the beam shifted past.
Shelby tilted her head back, let her nose and mouth rise to the surface and breathed in.
The light swept back her way so fast she didn’t have time to duck lower. Shelby stiffened, her pulse pounding through her veins and throbbing in her head.
Before the light reached her, it snapped off.
She dared to raise her head out of the water enough to clear her ears.
“She has to be dead,” a voice said.
Through the reeds, Shelby could just make out two silhouettes between the headlights of the airboat.
“We need to flip the skiff and make sure,” a lower voice said.
“I’m not getting in that water to flip no skiff. I saw four alligators earlier.”
“You don’t see them now,” the man with the lower voice argued.
“Exactly why I’m not getting in the water. You don’t know where they are in the dark. If you want to check, you get in.”
After a pause, the man with the deep voice said. “You’re right. Alligators are sneaky bastards.”
“Damn right,” his partner agreed. “Besides, that woman’s dead.”
“And if she’s not?”
The flashlight blinked on again, the beam directed at the skiff. “She’d better be,” the guy with the higher voice said. “Do you see the lettering on the side of that boat?”
“S-h-e-r…” Low-voice man spoke each letter out loud and then paused.
“It spells sheriff,” the other guy finished.
“Fuck,” low-voice man swore. “We killed a goddamn sheriff?”
“Yeah.” The flashlight blinked off. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The airboat engine revved, and the huge fan on the back of the craft whirred to life. The airboat backed off the skiff and turned, the lights sweeping over Shelby’s position.
She sank below the water’s surface, the sound of the airboat rumbling in her ears.
Soon, the sound faded.
Shelby bobbed to the surface. The airboat was gone, and with it, the bright lights. Clouds scudded across the night sky, alternately blocking and revealing a fingernail moon. When it wasn’t shrouded in clouds, it glowed softly, turning the inky black into indigo blue.
Her strength waning and her vision fading in and out of a gray mist, Shelby couldn’t think past the throbbing in her head.
