Chapter 8 - The Hounds of Winter
The baying of the hounds echoed across the hollow, rising in pitch as they caught the fresh scent of blood from Mark’s lacerated knuckles.
""They have dogs,"" Sarah whispered in horror. ""We can’t outrun them, Mark.""
""We don't outrun them. We use the creek,"" Mark said, pulling Leo onto his shoulders. ""Hold tight to my hair, Leo. Don't let go, no matter what.""
The boy nodded silently, his small fingers tangling in Mark’s hair like vice grips. Mark led them down a steep, shale-covered bank toward Blackwood Creek. The water was waist-deep, rushing black and freezing from the autumn runoff.
Mark waded in first, the biting cold stealing the breath from his lungs. He reached back and pulled Sarah into the current, guiding her along the gravel bottom. The frigid water effectively erased their thermal and scent signatures, but the current fought them with every yard.
Above them on the ridge, high-powered halogen flashlights swept through the pine branches, turning the falling rain into shafts of silver needle-fire.
May you like
""Down!"" Mark ordered softly. They submerged themselves up to their chins beneath the overhanging roots of an alder tree.
A tracking hound burst through the brush at the water’s edge, sniffing wildly at the muddy bank ten feet above their heads. Behind the dog, a laser sight swept across the dark surface of the river, pausing directly on the log just six inches above Leo’s shivering head.
