Page 256 of It Happened on the Lake

Zing!

Zing!

One dart hit her on the shoulder.

The second pierced her cheek.

She cried out but kept stumbling forward, the watery smell of the cave closer. She ripped the dart from her cheek, felt a trickle of blood. Didn’t care. In the wavering light, she saw the door to the storage room with the abandoned boating equipment.

And then a straight shot to the boathouse.

Finally!

If she could just get through—

Zing!A dart caught her in the arm, and she had to bite her tongue so she didn’t cry out.

Another door.

Then she would have to cross the final storage room before reaching the boathouse. But she didn’t have far now.

Zip!

A dart cut through the air, a hair’s breadth from her ear.

That was the fifth, she thought. Right? Or the sixth. Did he still have one more?

She raced forward, the rank, fetid smell of the boathouse reaching her nostrils. She was close. So close.

And he was right behind her, breathing hard.

Another dart zipped past her.

Damn!

“Stop!” he yelled.

Oh God, he was almost on her.

“Harper! Stop!”

“Screw you!” She flung open the door, saw the yawning blackness of the boathouse, and raced through. A cloud of bats swirled around the old, rotting Chris-Craft hanging drunkenly above. It swayed and creaked on the moldering straps of its sling.

“Stop!” Craig yelled before she could jump.

He was too close.

He would catch her in the water.

Drown her.

She wouldn’t have a chance.

“Harper! Stop!”

She spun, leveling the gun at the bobbing flashlight with its bright beam. If she pulled the trigger now, the shotgun blast would pepper him with pellets. But she backed up, her finger on the trigger, hearing his echoing footsteps. Could she do it? Could she shoot him? Kill him?

She yelled, “Youstop!” Behind her the empty boat slip yawned, a black abyss. Above the slip, the old boat groaned. Carefully she edged toward the water, along the thin wooden decking, the rotting wooden boards slick with mold and bat dung.

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