Page 49 of So Dark

Her father’s voice echoed absurdly in her mind.In one ear and out the other.

She heard another branch snap, and her paralysis broke. She got to her feet and sprinted away, leaping over rocks and ducking under branches. Her flashlight shook and bounced as she ran, and it took all of her strength not to scream for help. All that would do was draw the attention of the man chasing her.

Images flashed in her mind. Her parents in Fairbanks. She hadn’t spoken to them in months. Her sister in California who she hadn’t talked to inyears.Jake and Kevin and all of the other men she’d dated, all brief flings that meant nothing, but all memories. Herlife.

Her life was flashing before her eyes.

She ran, tears streaming down her face, and prayed silently that she would make it through this and have a chance at a real life, one that mattered.

She looked up at a towering Sitka Spruce tree a few yards from her. In the beam of the flashlight, she could see the twisted whorl of a large knot the size of a dinner plate growing around chest height. She recognized that tree.

The cabin! She was close to her cabin! Like many survivalists in the area, she had constructed a few lodges to serve as shelter and supply caches in case she ran into trouble and couldn’t reach civilization in time.

There was a satellite phone in that cabin and a small portable generator. It would take time to warm the generator and heat the gasoline enough that she could fuel it and use the energy to charge the phone, but there was a crossbow there as well with twelve bolts, and once the generator was on, she could stay inside the cabin and bar the door until she could call for help. If she moved quickly enough, she could be safe before she was caught by whoever was chasing her.

She started south, navigating by memory to the next landmark, a hemlock that had been struck by lightning years ago and now grew branches only on one side. She figured she was a mile away from the cabin. If she could reach it before her stalker did, she would be safe.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

After an hour of traveling, they had covered about six miles by Faith’s estimation. Her lungs burned, and a stitch threatened to form in her side. She regularly ran this distance back home, but running during the cool Philadelphia mornings was a very different thing from jogging over rough terrain in a parka during the freezing Alaskan winter at night.

Relief came, but not in the way Faith wanted it. Turk slowed ahead of them and then stopped. He cocked his head for a moment, then barked and put it to the ground again. He moved slowly up the trail, crossing from side to side and looking for the scent he had lost.

Michael huffed and puffed up to her, stopping at her side and putting his hands on his knees. “Holy… shit,” he breathed. “I’m… out of shape.”

Faith didn’t have the energy to sympathize with him right now. “Turk lost the sent,” she said. “It’s gone. He can’t smell her anymore.”

“Really? Oh… crap…”

She shook her head. “Come on, there has to be a clue around here. The scent wouldn’t just die off.”

“Maybe it would,” Michael said. He had caught enough of his breath that he didn’t have to gasp after every few words. “Scent is caused by chemicals, usually pheromones or odors from bacterial secretions.”

She rolled her eyes. “Lovely. That’s what I needed to know.”

“Well, it’s important because freezing temperatures can cause bacteria to die off and pheromones to freeze or change chemically. It could be that the scent literally froze. Take your parka off.”

The last sentence was such a non sequitur that it took Faith a moment to be sure what she heard. Watching Michael strip his own coat off, followed by his boots and pants, convinced her that she had heard right. "Are you serious?" she asked.

“Deadly serious,” he said. “I’m not kidding. If you sweat in this kind of cold, you can die within minutes. The sweat will freeze over your body and give you hypothermia. Take your parka off until you cool down, then we’ll get dressed again.”

Faith shook her head. “I’m taking your word for it.”

She removed the thick coat, fur-lined boots and plush pants, setting them on the ground next to Michael’s. The cold immediately pierced through the heat of her recent exertion, but she found to her surprise that she remained warm. She had pushed herself nearly to her limit.

“We’ll say two minutes,” Michael said. “It’s colder than hell out here, so that should be enough time to cool us down.”

“Colder than where?” Faith asked.

“You’ve got to read Dante’sInferno,” Michael replied. “The ninth circle of hell is frozen.”

“Who goes there?”

“People who betray someone close to them.”

Faith felt a touch of discomfort at that, though she couldn’t quite say why. “Got it. Well, I’ll take your advice, but if Turk picks up the scent again, we’re running again.”

“Oh yeah, for sure. I just figured we should wait to die until after we rescue Kelly.”

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