A Stranger Thing by Martin Leicht & Isla Neal

Author:Martin Leicht & Isla Neal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saga Press
Published: 2013-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

In Which our Group Realizes They’re Going to Need a Bigger Float

“Move your ass! Move!” Oates shouts at no one in particular. He’s strapping the remaining dogs into their harnesses, while Dad and Cole frantically pack all our gear onto the sleds. Bernard and Zee, meanwhile, are whipping the tent poles out of the ice so quickly, they nearly spear me several times.

“Leave that!” Oates says as I move to help dismantling the tent. “The food and the heating gear only!”

“Leave the tent?” I ask, incredulous. What the hell is going on? “But what are we supposed to use for—”

I’m cut off by another incredibly loud CRACK-BOOM! Only this time I don’t merely hear it. I feel it.

In the ice.

“Leave it all!” Oates shouts. “Get on the sleds!”

Booming ice seems to be all the incentive we need. Each of us instantly drops what we’re doing and jumps aboard the sleds, me with Dad and Cole, Zee and Bernard with Oates. Oates and Cole frantically urge on the dogs, and we take off. There’s another CRACK-BOOM! which jolts the entire sled. The runners bounce up several centimeters off the ice and slam back down with a thud. But the dogs keep running, like creatures possessed. I may not have any idea what exactly it is we’re running from, but those dogs sure seem to.

“Is the ice breaking apart?” I shout at my dad over the chaos. “I thought you guys said it couldn’t do that!” I look behind me, and sure enough, the ice is breaking away. But there’s something . . . else there too.

“What the hell is that?” I scream. Back at the campsite something beneath the ice pushes through to the surface. It’s dark and smooth, glistening with beads of water rolling down its sleek shape. The ice around it disintegrates, and our tent and all the supplies we were forced to leave behind plunge into the black water.

The dogs yelp and skitter on, running ever faster.

“Is that a submarine?” I holler. Holy shit. Of all the ways I imagined the Jin’Kai might track me down, this wasn’t one of them.

But then the shadowy form turns sideways in the water. And although I’m not super up to speed on my maritime craft, even I know that submarines don’t have eyes. For a second one large black eye meets mine, and then in a flash the creature dives deep into the murky depths of the ocean again.

What. Duh. Fuh.

Dad hollers something at me, but I lose it in the wind. We’re whipping along far faster than we’ve gone before, the dogs tugging the sleds forward until it seems their harnesses might snap. Cole urges the dogs even faster, trying to keep pace with Oates beside us. The CRACK-BOOM! s are beginning again, closer together now, sometimes overlapping. The ice all around us trembles and cracks. I look down and see a dark shadow racing along after us under the ice.

Hunting us.

One jolt hits directly beneath us, and again the entire sled lifts into the air and slams back down with a smash.

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