Drifting

Chapter 11

To Lara, it seemed as though the whole world had always been white. White on white on white with a few lights shimmering weakly through the dim swirling, white snow on black sky backlit with halogen orange or LED white-blue. She had never been cold for this long before. Moving in and out of heat and warmth only to be cast again into the blizzard exhausted her. The constant burn of worry and sharp pinch of anxiety drained her limbs. Things were getting slow and numb, including her mind. She jogged a couple of steps to catch up with Jesse, who plowed ahead through the drifts at a feverish, determined pace. Focus on your breathing, she told herself. He can't do this without you. Can't do this without you. Can't do this without you.

"No, I absolutely can't," he called into her ear as a gale drove up a painful handful of ice crystals into their faces, cupping his mouth with a gloved hand. "So don't quit on me. It's not much further."

"What?" Lara shouted.

"It's not much further!" His words came out much too loudly as the wind, exiting with the same swiftness as it came upon them, died off as they stepped behind the shelter of a tall apartment building.

The relief flooded them, and they paused a moment, leaning over their knees and breathing, enjoying the succor of protection.

Their peace was short-lived. Jesse caught his breath, only to put his hands to his face a moment. When he removed them, Lara's gut plunged at the sight of his haggard flesh, he hopelessness of his sagging mouth. "We aren't gonna make it in time, are we?" He asked, swallowing with difficulty. "She's dead, isn't she?"

"No, no, we're going to make it," Lara promised, stepping forward and grabbing his elbows, crinkling his puffy sleeves beneath her covered hands. "Don't give up. I'm not quitting, and neither are you. She's going to be okay. We're going to be okay." She pushed with her diaphragm and forced her face into a calm smile, a puppet dancing on frayed strings.

"You don't believe that," he said, pulling away from her as the wind picked up again, not as fierce, but still penetrating them with cold.

"Yes, I do," Lara argued.

"I can read your damn mind," he muttered, biting his lip and staring furiously up at the swirling sky. "You don't have to fake it anymore."

"Stop," Lara argued, grabbing his arms again. "You don't know, neither of us knows. What's the alternative, Jesse, huh? Giving up? Are you really going to just stop, after all we've been through, while there's still a chance, however tiny, that she's okay, that we can rescue her?"

He said nothing, dropping his face, snowflakes freezing into his stubble.

"If nothing else, we need to catch Matt Hart. He needs to pay for what he's done," Lara continued, shaking Jesse's stooped shoulders, trying to will him back to life. "All those women, all that suffering. If we leave it to the police, he'll be long gone before the city digs out."

Slowly, Jesse nodded.

"Let's find that crazy bastard, okay? Put a stop to this."

He nodded again.

Just then, a strange, muffled cry wove its way through the torrent of swirling snowflakes. Both Jesse and Lara stiffened, turning their heads to the east.

"Did you hear that?" Lara asked.

"Shh!" Jesse held up a finger to his lips. They froze and listened.

The cry came again, longer this time.

"That's a person," Lara said. "That's a person screaming." Not screaming, she thought, so much as wailing and punctuating each cry with a strange grunt. She scanned the deserted, snow-drowned street, but it was empty. It was savagely dark, now that the power was out, though the street lights, some of them, seemed to be running on a separate grid or some kind of emergency power.