The Third Antichrist Read Online Free PDF Page B

partially cracked side window and peered inside. The naked bodies of the murdered narcotraficantes were bunched up against the roof. Their faces looked yellow in the murk.
    Abi pulled open the driver’s door and glanced across at the interior light. Dead. He wound the headlight switch to the right. No go. Hardly surprising after twenty-four hours in the water, but it had been worth a try.
    His breath was screaming to be let out.
    With his last remaining strength he yanked the bodies out of the car, clearing the cab for future access. They floated off and settled in slow motion on the floor of the cenote, head down and feet in the air, like a circle of skydivers.
    Abi kicked himself away from the car. He could feel the weight of the trainers holding him back. But he knew that if he cut them free on this, his first successful descent, he would never be able to get down this far again.
    Half a minute later he burst onto the surface of the cenote, coughing and wheezing.
    Rudra swam across and guided Abi back to the raft of corpses. ‘Did you find it?’
    ‘Yes. It’s clear as a bell. It helps that the fucking thing is white.’ Abi was sucking air in through his tormented lungs.
    ‘What about the stiffs?’
    ‘I got them out of there. It was not a pretty sight. They’ll bob up to the surface again in a few days’ time as refloaters. We can use them as back-up ballast if we’re still alive by then. Sort of like an assembly line of gas-filled corpses.’ He caught sight of Rudra’s face in the gloom. ‘Only joking.’
    Rudra shook his head. He was getting used to Abi’s grotesqueries by now. ‘Did you see anything else useful?’
    ‘That’ll be in the back of the car. I’ll get to that next time.’
    ‘Listen, Abi. You don’t look so good. And I don’t like the way you’re sounding. If you go on like this, you’ll give yourself hypercapnia. You want me to go down instead of you this next time? Or one of the girls, maybe?’
    ‘You wouldn’t make it. Neither would they. I’m on the very edge of my own capacities as it is. No. Let me go down one more time. Then I’ll rest up a bit. It’s not as if this thing is time sensitive.’
    Rudra gave his brother an old-fashioned look. ‘Oh, yes, Abi. It is.’

 
    11
     

    This time Abi swam through into the back of the Suzuki via the rear passenger door. He instinctively glanced up to check if there was an air bubble trapped in an upper corner of the roof. Yep. There was. Then he realized what sort of filth and noxious gases the bubble would probably consist of, and he discounted it. He would simply have to manage with what was left in his lungs.
    He ripped up the carpet in the rear of the car and groped alongside the spare wheel. Two tyre irons and a tow rope. He grabbed them.
    Then he felt around in the side compartment for the jack. His lungs were about to explode. He fought down his panic. The jack was heavy. It was attached to the main body of the car by a thick rubber strap. Abi jammed the tyre irons into his belt and sawed at the strap with his penknife. Air was bleeding out through his lips. He was ten seconds away from passing out. He made a desperate grab for the jack, and kicked himself off from the rear seat.
    It was then that he saw the fire extinguisher. It was a six-litre job. Far too big for the size of the car. But there it was. Tucked in between the passenger seat and the offside door. He didn’t know why, but he knew that he needed it. He lunged down with his spare hand and grabbed it, just as the trainers he was using as dead weights snagged themselves between the two front seats.
    He was stuck fast. The damned shoes would kill him. He had little or no control left over his lungs. He was losing consciousness.
    Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to die like this, Abi thought to himself. Just switch yourself off and pass out. He could feel his eyes turning up inside his head.
    Abi gripped the fire extinguisher hose in his teeth. He sawed at