38. Danny

38

DANNY

The cracks zigzagged outward from where Erin was standing, the snow shifting and dipping as they passed, as if sea serpents were moving beneath us. They reached me and I felt the ice move sickeningly under my boots. You bloody idiot, Danny! This was the same lake I’d seen on the map. How could I have forgotten?

Erin had started to run towards me. I held up my hand. “No! Don’t bunch up! We have to spread our weight!” I pointed. “Get to shore!”

I was further out than she was, which meant I was probably on thinner ice. But she was between me and the shore and I didn’t want to risk moving any closer to her. So I stayed where I was, listening to the ice fracture and snap around me, while she ran for the edge.

She was quick, but I could see the ice moving each time her foot came down, the cracking noises getting louder and louder. She’s not going to make it. “Stop!” I yelled. “Drop to the ground!”

Both of us dropped to our bellies and starfished, spreading our weight. The cracking noises under Erin stopped. But they kept going under me: I was heavier.

“Your pack!” yelled Erin.

I hadn’t thought of that. Panting, I shrugged out of the straps, then grunted and hurled my backpack as far away from me as I could. It slid across the ice, spinning around and finally coming to rest a hundred feet away. The ice there must have been thinner because I saw the backpack drop a little and the snow turned to slush as water soaked through from underneath. The backpack didn’t fall through but it was going to, any minute. My stomach twisted. That could be me.

We lay there panting, waiting. I’d knocked the snow aside when I fell to the ground and I could see straight through the ice to the black water beneath it.

The cracking slowed…and stopped.

I waited until the lake was completely silent. Then, “Erin, very slowly, start to slither to shore.”

She took a deep breath and then began to slide on her belly. The ice held. But when she was almost to shore, she realized I hadn’t moved. “Come on!” she yelled.

Reluctantly, I began to slither forward. But as soon as I moved, the cracking started again. I was heavier and the ice under me was thinner. It sagged under me and then freezing water welled up through the cracks and soaked my clothes.

I went stock-still and the cracking stopped again. “If I move, the whole thing will go,” I yelled. “You have to leave me.”

39. Erin

39

ERIN

No. No way was I leaving him. “I’ll pull you in to shore!”

“You can’t reach me,” he yelled. “If you come close we’ll both go in.”

I thought hard. “There’s rope in your backpack!”