FORTY
Dean felt a primal wave of self-preservation sweep over him. “Is that another avalanche?”
Grace trained her ears toward the sound. As they listened, the ground beneath their feet started rumbling. Snow shook, moving in shifting drifts around their boots. Adrenaline kicked up the pace of Dean’s heart.
“Yes. But we should be safe in the trees,” Grace told him.
Dean wasn’t convinced. “Did you see the section of forest the last one took out?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“And you think that won’t happen here?”
“We’re higher up on the slope, in denser trees.”
The mountain really started to shake beneath them, and Dean grabbed onto a tree trunk to steady himself. “Where is it?”
Grace tried to see upslope, past the trees. “Must be on the slope to our left.” She waited. “I think it’ll pass us by.”
The mist was so dense that Dean couldn’t see past the edge of the trees. For all he knew, the avalanche could be speeding their way. It was humbling to think that a wall of snow could just wipe them off the mountain. He listened for the crunching of wood, the splitting of trunks, anything that would give away the direction of the avalanche or if it were taking out another swath of trees.
“Maybe we should move in the other direction, or go upslope?”
Grace stood still, listening. Beneath them the snow had shifted so much from the vibrations that their boots were completely covered. Then the quaking lessened.
“I think it’s ending,” she said finally.
The rumbling stopped, the roar in the distance fading away as the snow settled.
“So we’re safe?” Dean asked.
“For now.”
“That doesn’t instill a lot of confidence. We need to get to the ski resort.”
Dean started upslope again, winding between the trees. Grace followed, occasionally glancing nervously in the direction of the avalanche noise.
The low cloud layer was almost claustrophobic at times. Their stalker could be following them and Dean would never see him. In fact, he was pretty sure he was still following them. He could feel eyes staring into his back.
Supernatural Fresh Meat
Alice Henderson's books
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Ancient Echoes
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Bad Games
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy
- Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)
- Blood, Ash, and Bone
- Bolted (Promise Harbor Wedding)