“Okay?” she said softly “Yeah,” Lynn whispered.
“Cold.”
The water was extremely cold, and Janet’s ankles were getting numb.
She had no idea of how far they had gone, when, from way above and behind them, beams of white light shot out. She looked up out of the corner other eye but kept going. She thought she could see the ceiling of the cavern, but there was something odd about the shape of it. The dog started barking again, and then there were two dogs, getting excited now.
The light beams came down onto the lake and played about, and she could hear men’s voices, and more radio noises. Inevitably, one of the light beams found them.
“Halt!” a man shouted from up on the slope.
“Halt or I’ll shoot.”
“Fuck you,” Lynn said matter-of-factly, her voice carrying clearly over
the water. Janet squinted her eyes against the reflection of the flashlight in the water and kept going.
“Send the goddamn dogs,” a man ordered.
“It’s straight down,” protested a second voice.
Janet and Lynn were a good fifty yards off the rock beach by now, but Janet had no idea of how far they had to go. She dared not light a lantern.
The men argued, and then there was a yip from one of the dogs, which was followed by the sounds of a small-scale avalanche. Janet realized someone had pushed one of the dogs over the cliff, and it was coming down the slope. There was a loud splash, more yelping, and then the dog was out and casting about on the rock beach. A second dog came crashing down the slope. Janet kept going, taking bigger sliding steps now, determined to get off this ledge. She didn’t think the dog could follow them out here, but there was no telling. Then the flashlights came back to them, illuminating them both. Whether the dogs saw them or picked up their scent, they gave cry and came bounding down the gravel beach to the spot where the women had gone into the water.
“Git ‘em, Tiger,” a third man yelled.
“Go on, boy, git ‘em!”
From the sounds of it, the dogs were unwilling to plunge into the water and were milling about on the beach behind them, barking excitedly. Not small dogs, Janet thought as she pressed on. Her front foot slid out onto nothing and she barely got stopped in time. The ledge had ended.
“What?” Lynn asked as she came right up on Janet. The man up on the top of the slope was still urging the dogs to go after them. Their lights were weaker now that the women had progressed farther out into the lake.
“No more ledge,” Janet whispered.
“I think we’re fucked.”
“Are you sure?” Lynn asked.
“I’ll hold your hand. Reach way out.”
Janet leaned against the rock wall and extended her foot as far as she could. She thought she felt something, but she couldn’t quite reach. The flashlights were still on them. There was more light reflecting off the black water than shining directly on them.
“It’s a giant step,” she told Lynn.
“If it’s not the ledge, I’ll fall in.”
There was more noise from up on top of the cliff. And more lights.
“You have to try,” Lynn said.
“I can’t get past you.”
“I can’t do it with the lantern,” Janet said. Then she had an idea.
“Give me a match.”
Lynn passed her a match and asked what she was doing.
“I’m going to light this and set it afloat. That might distract them.
It’ll look like we’re not getting anywhere. I have to ditch it anyway to make this step, so what the hell, okay?”
She struck a match and lit the lantern. Immediately, there was more noise up on the cliff, with another voice telling them to halt or he would shoot, Janet set the lantern into the water; the weight of the base kept it upright, the wick assembly just out of the water. She gave it a gentle shove, took a deep breath, and stepped way out. Her foot hit ledge and she took a giant step across the gap. She moved forward one step and then told Lynn to pass her lantern over. The lantern in the water bobbed gently from side to side in the ripples coming from the dogs, who were splashing in and out of the water somewhere behind them. Lynn stepped across the gap, and they hurried on, getting farther from their pursuers and the bobbing lantern. The ledge actually began to get wider, and Janet, greatly relieved, was able to step normally now instead of slide. Lynn picked right up on it, and they made better progress.
Then they heard the sounds of men coming down the slope, accompanied by several avalanches of rocks, sand, and gravel and lots of shouting.
It sounded like at least half a dozen men were coming. The dogs stepped up their own noise, eager to continue the hunt but not sure how. Janet bent low after bumping her forehead on an overhang of rock that had appeared out of nowhere. She warned Lynn, but Lynn bumped her head anyway and swore.
“There’s a ledge!” a voice shouted.
“C’mon. We can follow them.”
Someone else back on the gravel beach punched on a much more powerful flashlight, which just reached the two women, and once again warned them to halt or he would shoot. Janet tied to ignore the noises behind them, but it sounded like both men and dogs were coming, the dogs swimming now and the men coming out along the ledge. Then a second light found and pinned them in its beam; at least one of them had remained back on the beach. There was a great splash and some excited yelling behind them as one of the men fell in, swearing furiously about how cold it was. Janet had to duck even farther under the overhang, which now stuck out almost three feet. There were more splashes, and it sounded like most of their pursuers were now in the water, thrashing about, trying to find the ledge in the darkness. The two bright white beams stayed on them, however, and the big voice warned them one more time.
“Halt or I’ll shoot. I mean it, goddamn it. Stop right there!”
“Keep going,” Janet whispered.
“Unless they have rifles, we’re too far.”
She was wrong, she realized, as a gun boomed behind them and a heavy round spanged off the rock face above them and slashed into the water.
The booming sound reverberated in the cavern. The powerful lights never wavered. Janet took two more steps and then a second round came, hitting between them and causing Lynn to cry out in fright. Janet stopped and turned around, blinded now by the bright light. Some of the men were still in the water behind them, apparently thrashing back toward the stone beach. Whoever had the lights on them was definitely down on the beach at the foot of the cliff. The sound of the shot reverberated in the cavern.
“Now what?” Lynn whispered.
Janet was about to answer, when there was a sudden noise in the water, about ten feet off. Then another, and another. Janet recognized it as the sound of something heavy and sharp hitting the water like a champion diver, a wicked slashing noise that was instantly covered over in a small boil of foam. Janet flattened herself against the rock wall under the overhang, pulling Lynn back with her. Then it was raining heavy objects, and a man screamed way behind them. A second man screamed, and the lights suddenly went out as a hail of stalactites came down from the ceiling of the cavern like a shower of stone knives. A dog made a horrible noise as it went under, still screaming. The rain of stone intensified for a few seconds, seemingly covering every inch of the lake before it stopped, leaving only an occasional cutting splash way out in the lake. Behind them, all was silent. Janet strained to see in the sudden silence, and she thought she saw a single flashlight pointing out into the water, but it was not moving.
Nothing appeared to be moving behind them anymore.
“Son of a bitch,” Lynn murmured. She lit her lantern.
“Micah said not to shoot off a gun down here,” Janet said.
