Northwoods Nightmare

by Jon Sharpe

  Fargo peered ahead, seeking some sign he was near the bottom. He had the illusion he’d slid half a mile but it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred feet.

  Suddenly he shot off into space. He looked down but saw only snow. Flakes got into his eyes, and his vision blurred. He tried to twist so he wouldn’t land on his head and neck but he was only partway around when he smashed down with a bone-jarring impact. If he counted on the snow to cushion him, he was wrong. It felt like his chest caved in. He slid he knew not how many more feet and crashed against a boulder.

  God, the pain! Fargo hurt all over. He thought half his bones must be broken. He marveled he was still conscious, and attempted to sit up. The attempt blacked him out. For how long, he couldn’t say, but when the stinging lash of falling snow revived him, the sky was darker.

  Night was falling.

  Fargo had to get up. He had to keep moving. If he stayed there he would freeze. His days of wanderlust, of roaming the frontier wherever his whims took him, would be done. He got his hands under and pushed but his strength had deserted him. He rose only as high as his elbows and then fell back.

  “Not like this, damn it.”

  Again Fargo sought to rise. Again his body betrayed him. He lay, staring up into an ocean of falling flakes, his consciousness swirling like the eddies in a whirlpool. He felt himself being sucked into a black abyss and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Nothing at all.