“Who is the other one? Is he as stupid as you?”
“Ryan.” Hearing a groan, Jason regretted all the shit he’d ever gotten his best friend into. “He knew this was a scam.”
“So, he’s no fool. But he has poor taste in friends.” The man’s coldness was underscored by one of those maddening cracking noises. It was longer. Louder. “He’ll pay for that now.”
“Are you crazy?” Jason screamed. “Let us go!”
Another crack. Jason could now feel something crackling beneath his frozen feet. The hard ground felt uneven, rock-hard yet still unstable. So very cold.
Terrified, Jason suddenly realized what the sounds were. And what was about to happen. He jerked, fighting the tape, knowing he should remain still. “No, don’t do this!”
He finally stared directly at the light—high beams from his dad’s banged-up Buick. Facing him, it sat at the top of a small slope a few yards away. As he watched, a dark, shadowy figure, faintly visible in the snowy night, walked up the slope toward it.
For one brief moment, the figure passed in front of the headlights, casting a shadow so long it seemed to stretch for miles, enveloping Jason in its blackness. Then it moved on until reaching the open car door.
Jason knew what the man was going to do even before he bent into the car and flipped off the lights. The sudden darkness was almost as blinding, the terror infinitely more extreme. Because he didn’t have to see the car being shifted into neutral or hear the emergency brake being released to know exactly what was happening. “God, no, please.”
The vehicle began to roll down the slope, drawing irrevocably closer to the icy pond on which Jason and Ryan were trapped. “Why are you doing this?” he yelled, straining against the tape even as the front tires reached the frozen shoreline.
Behind him, he felt movement. Ryan was coming to.
“Good-bye, Jason,” the voice called. “The world will be better off without you. Shame about your friend. You really should have come alone.”
The shadowy figure moved, disappearing into the swirling snow. A moment later, an engine rumbled, then slowly faded away. He barely heard it as the car eased closer, sliding across the snow-slicked ice. Adding weight, so much weight.
Crack.
How deep is the water? How thick could the ice be?
Will we freeze or will we drown?
“Jase?”
“Ryan, I’m sorry I got you into this,” he sobbed.
Ryan’s head moved, until his frozen hair touched Jason’s face. “S’okay. Sidekick’s always got the hero’s back.”
“Sorry!” Jason cried, trying not to move yet desperate to break away. But before he could do a thing, even say good-bye to his best friend, another crack came and the ice gave way beneath them. Freezing liquid rushed over his feet and ankles, bringing them back to life to experience the agony.
They plunged down until blackness covered their heads and ice seared his lungs. And as the water turned the world above him into an icy grave, Jason could think only of his parents.
God, how he wished he’d gone with them to Florida.
Fade to Black Page 33