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“Dad! Zak?” My shouts are drowned out by more thunder and wind. The rain is really cold now and I feel my teeth starting to chatter.
Oh, Zak, why didn’t I just stay there with you? You know what to do, you always do. I should’ve-
I feel the whole side of the hill I’m on start to move, without me doing anything.
I drop onto my belly, hugging the ground, screaming for Zak now.
It can’t be, it must be some optical illusion from all this rain.
But once I feel the liquid mud in my face, and my hands melting through it, I understand.
I’m in big trouble.
I scream and scream, for Zak and then Dad, finally for anybody to help.
The rain and mud, mixed with the wind on the jacket which has tangled itself around me blocks out anything.
In the end, I just slide down, down the hillside and I can only hope a tree, rock, or branch will stop me before I reach the edge of the little cliff I know is just before the lake.
I manage to untangle the stupid rain coat from my body, still calling out when I have breath, and look back to where I think the house should be.
“Zak!” I cry again, really just sobbing now. I’ve never felt so hopeless in my whole life and I just know this can’t end well.
How much rain must have poured on this hillside over the past week? I’ll never know. One thing’s for sure, it’s washing down into the lake and it’s sure as hell taking me with it.
Before I manage to turn onto my rump, I look up one last time, shouting with all my might for the one thing, the only thing I know I want right now.
Zak.
As if by some miracle, I make out his huge form on the ridge above, both his hands to his mouth, as he calls down to me.
I’m worried for a second he won’t see me, and try to call out again, but it’s too late.
I feel myself going over the last ledge before the lake, watch it race towards me.
The normally crystal clear lake is a muddy brown and seems so far.
Until I feel the ledge disappear from under me, ending up weightless for a few moments before the freezing water swallows me whole.Chapter EighteenZak“I’m going too,” I tell Mark defiantly, almost stepping on his heel as he makes for the back door before he spins on it, grabbing my throat.
“Look, Zak! I’m not fucking blind, okay? I know when someone’s making eyes at my daughter, and I know when she’s covering for him.”
My eyes relax, so does my body. Because I know he’s right. I can’t lie about it to him a second longer.
But at the same time, he hasn’t asked me anything directly, so I’m not breaking my promise to Misty either.
I look to the door, which the wind has blown open, Misty pulled it shut hard enough to bang, but the bolt is old, like the rest of this place.
A huge thunderclap shakes the whole place and that wind has an edge to it neither of us likes. The light from the windows gets real dark, real quick and in seconds we can both hear the sheets of freezing rain lashing against the house.
The thought of Misty out there in it, in just her robe and some shoes, is enough to call Mark to attention.
“I’m going out there,” I tell him firmly but calmly. “And I’m going to get Misty and bring her back in here, alright… buddy?”
I growl the last word, pushing him back from me, watching him make a face as he tries to hide his back pain all over again.
Whatever wonder woman tippy-toes Barbie did last night, it’s worn off. I feel for Mark, I do.
But Misty’s out there and I don’t like the look or sound of this weather that’s blown in so quickly.
In all the excitement we had, I never once thought to check a radio for a weather report.
Who knows what could happen next.
“Zak!” Mark gasps as I push past him.
I turn back to look at him. “I’m sorry, Zak,” he says, meaning it. A tear in his eye that isn’t back pain.
I know it isn’t.
It’s the pain of twenty plus years of friendship, twenty plus years of being a father too, flashing before his mind’s eye.
But I haven’t got time for reminiscing right now. I’ve got a bad feeling and my girl’s smack dab in the middle of it.
Out there.
Before I head out, I slip on a pair of Mark’s old boots by the door. He has a couple of pairs there and to my surprise, we still have the same fit.
Maybe not the same taste in boots, mind. But the same fit.
Peering out through the rain I can’t see her, but I know there’s only one way she could have possibly gone.
