“When I come back, I’ll whistle ‘Happy Birthday.’ Shoot anyone else. Don’t hesitate.”
She nodded, her features tight. “You’ll come back.”
“I will.”
Ghost paced from the living room to the kitchen and back, alert and wary, a low rumbling growl deep in his chest. He felt a little better with the dog with her. Only a little.
“Use your whistle if you need me,” Liam said. “Where’s your .45?”
She shifted, holding Charlotte with one hand, and pulled the gun out of her sweatpants’ pocket. “It’s loaded. Round in the chamber, like you taught me.”
“That never leaves your hand.”
Her expression hardened. “I know.”
Pike
Day Twenty-One
Pike doubled back on his own tracks.
Soldier Boy erroneously believed he was the hunter. Alas, he was not.
Along the outskirts of town, the houses along the river ended abruptly as the ground dipped into a steep ravine near the river’s edge. Woods lined the ravine on both sides.
The snow had started up again. Even under the canopy of the trees, the powder rose midway between his knees and thighs. He waded through it. His boots made muffled squeaking sounds with every step.
Snow built up on his head and shoulders, drifting into every crack and crevice, sneaking between the folds of his scarf, dripping down his neck and back, and slipping between his gloves and coat sleeves.
The rapidly falling snow made it impossible to see more than thirty feet in front of him. It would get worse. Pike wasn’t worried.
He’d created the necessary tracks before doubling back, planting the fresh kill, and waiting for the trap to be sprung.
The soldier would follow the plan perfectly. He believed that Pike was ahead of him; he’d never see him sneaking up from behind.
Pike had no sense of fairness, no honor. As soon as he saw the man, he intended to shoot him in the back.
The storm offered cover. The soldier wouldn’t hear his approach over the wind. Wouldn’t be able to smell him or sense him. Hell, Pike couldn’t trust his own senses.
He plodded through the snow, stepping in Soldier Boy’s methodical footprints that trailed his own, pushing blindly forward. It was becoming more difficult to see. The wind was picking up, sending clouds of ice crystals swirling across the packed snow.
He tightened his grip on the pistol and quickened his pace.
A sound ahead of him. Fifteen, twenty feet. Directly ahead? Or a little west?
Pike whirled around, gun up, searching the trees. Everything looked the same. The same ugly barren oak and maple trees. The same pine and spruce laden with snow.
A flicker of unease curdled through him. It wasn’t a feeling he was accustomed to. He didn’t like it.
Another noise, this time behind him. A soft squeak, like careful footsteps sinking into the snow.
He twisted around, craning his neck wildly.
He sensed movement to his left. Then ahead.
He didn’t hear a sound. He didn’t see a thing.
The forest was a tangle of black straggly trees that pressed in on him from all sides. The menace was palpable, the frigid air heavy and smothering.
To the southwest, a branch overloaded with powder snapped beneath the weight. A mound of snow thudded to the ground.
He gritted his teeth in irritation. Just his overactive mind playing tricks on him. This brutal cold getting into his head.
He kept going, pushing hard through deeper drifts. The tracks were partially buried and becoming harder to locate with each passing minute.
His legs felt leaden and stiff. He tripped over something buried in the snow and nearly fell but regained his footing.
He was fast growing tired of this.
The girl was waiting for him in the warm house. He wanted Soldier Boy dead—he didn’t care how anymore. It was time to end this and be done with it.
A branch creaked. Powder thudded to the ground. A chipmunk skittered through underbrush.
Sound drifted. It was impossible to tell where it came from.
Behind him. Ahead. To the left or right.
That disconcerting feeling niggled at his gut. Maybe the soldier was smarter than he’d anticipated. More wily and cunning.
Maybe Pike was no longer the only one playing the game.
He felt the ground sloping beneath his feet and recalled the location of the ravine. It should be directly to his left. Ten feet? Fifteen? In the near white-out conditions, he couldn’t see the drop-off past the thin line of trees.
He visualized the topography in his mind. It was a sharp incline and steep. Easy to fall over a cliff of snow and tumble fifteen yards down to the river below, the water black as blood.
With the inclement weather, an unsuspecting person wouldn’t even see it coming.
Pike stepped into the next footprint and halted abruptly. His unease growing, he blinked the ice from his eyelashes and squinted down at the prints.
Something was off. Nothing he could put a finger on, just a gut feeling.
He brought his pistol up and twisted left then right, neck craning, squinting hard, searching for any hint of danger.
Nothing. He could see nothing. But he felt the soldier like a sinister presence, lurking just beyond his line of sight.
His apprehension transformed into something else—an alien feeling, but one he still recognized, an instinct every mammal possessed, even him.
Fear.
Like prey, Pike ran.
Liam
Day Twenty-One
The snow drove into Liam’s face, stinging his cheeks, forehead, and nose.
It was miserable. His lower back ached in protest. He’d been crouched in the same position for too long.
His teeth chattered. His hands were stiffening. He flexed his fingers on the trigger guard of the Bushmaster AR-15 to keep the blood flowing.
Liam squatted behind the cover of a cluster of trees about fifteen feet to the left of the trail of breadcrumb tracks that Pike had left for him to follow. He’d followed them around a bend and was lying in wait, ready to ambush his target.
Pike had attempted to circle around and sneak up on Liam from behind. It wouldn’t work. He would use Pike’s own plan against him.
Liam had checked for double-backed tracks. He’d swept in a semi-circle from the obvious trail outward until he’d found it, and then he’d set up his ambush after checking the ground conditions around his firing position.
From Liam’s vantage point just behind a V-split in the trunk of an oak, he would see Pike before Pike saw him. And then he would kill him.
Liam shivered. He was surrounded by white static. When he turned to look the way he’d come, there was nothing but white, like the houses had been blown away completely. Or had never existed.
The snowstorm had blown in seemingly out of nowhere. Snowstorms blew in across vast Lake Michigan all the time. It wasn’t unusual. But without weather alerts, they no longer had forewarning.
Even with his parka, layered clothing, and the Ziploc baggies between his socks, he wouldn’t last in conditions like this for very long. No one could.
Cold was a far greater threat to survival than it appeared. It decreased the ability to think and subdued the will to do anything, even to survive.
The cold was an insidious enemy. And Liam already had Pike to contend with.