What had happened?
Who had killed Mama and Daddy?
Why? She felt the tears start to freeze on her cheeks as she ran through the thickets she saw in her mind’s eye, her family, bloodied and slashed, horrid images flashing through her mind, appearing behind the trees that were a blur. Her parents unmoving as they lay in their own blood. Sam Junior and Donner with their hair matted in blood, eyes glazed as they lay next to each other. Jonas raising up, telling her to run. Get help. And Marlie, ghost white, peeking from behind a long-needled pine, urging her to keep going. Run, Kara! she yelled over the pounding in Kara’s ears.
All in her imagination, she knew.
All ghosts.
Her vision blurred with tears, but she forced her legs to keep moving, her near-frozen feet to fly through the snow.
She heard him coming after her, the heavy footsteps pounding on the path, the crack of a brittle branch as he passed.
Faster. Run faster!
Kara was breathing hard, but she saw the glitter of the lake. Through the forest, the icy surface gleamed in the moonlight, beckoning. On the far shore, lights of a few houses glowed like beacons.
If she could make it.
She could!
She would!
Faster. Run faster!
She slammed her toe into an exposed root and flew forward, crying out. Pain pulsed through her foot and she stumbled a few steps, temporarily hobbled, and she wanted to give up, to fling herself into the snow and cry.
No! Keep running. Get help. Jonas is still alive!
She plowed forward.
The killer was closing in.
She heard his ragged breathing, felt his footsteps shake the ground. But he, too, was struggling and when he called out, he was gasping. “For the love of God, girl, stop! I’m not . . . I’m not going . . . I won’t hurt you.”
She didn’t believe him for an instant.
Move! Her mind was screaming at her and she was nearly panting.
She reached the bank, her feet sliding out from under her as she slipped downward toward the lake.
“Stop!” the man shouted. “Jesus Christ, stop!”
She hurled her body forward, tumbling onto the glassy surface, skidding away from the shoreline.
“Hey!” he was yelling again, his voice raw.
She ignored him and sliding and spinning, she finally made it to her feet, but she couldn’t get traction and had trouble running. She should have run around the shore. But it was too late.
The killer was on the ice.
No!
She threw herself forward, her feet sliding wildly as she willed herself across the icy expanse toward the winking lights, where she would find someone to help her, someone in one of those cabins. She had to.
“Don’t! Oh, shit!”
He followed, slipping out onto the ice.
More panicked than ever, she scrambled forward wildly only to fall flat and bang her chin.
“Stop!”
He was making his way across the frozen surface.
Getting nearer!
She had to outrun him! Had to get away!
Another glance over her shoulder and she saw him in the corner of her eye.
He was too close! Only a few steps away.
Kara redoubled her efforts as he took a swipe at her.
Crrrrraaaacccck!
She felt a shifting and saw, to her horror, the ice fissuring beneath her feet. First a single jagged line, then cracking like a giant spider web beneath her.
He froze. “Shit!”
The web splintered.
“Oh, God,” he said. “Stop!”
In the back of her mind, she thought about the fact that she could barely swim. She didn’t move.
But it was too late.
Another loud, ominous crack, almost a moan, reached her ears.
Then, in an instant, the ice beneath her feet shattered.
Screaming, Kara fell through, plunging deep into the frigid depths that swallowed her whole.
She sank like a stone into the darkness, into the lake’s frigid grasp.
Flailing wildly, fighting panic, she tried to swim through the air bubbles and chunks of ice to the surface, where she spied the moon through the layer of ice above. Lake water swirled around her and filled her throat.
Still, if she could reach the surface and— More of the thin ice splintered, the water around her roiled and she was tossed about as the man fell through, his huge body, so close to hers, creating waves that pushed her away from the dark space free of ice, away from the air she so desperately needed.
No, no, no!
She tried to bob up, kicking to get back to the ice-free surface, while he, too, was struggling to get to air, his heavy clothes and boots like dead weight on him. But he saw her and reached out.
He reached for her and she slipped out of his grasp, trying to swim, flailing frantically, panicked as she searched desperately for the surface, for the moon riding high in the night sky. Instead, she found darkness. Water all around her. Her lungs on fire.