Cold Dead Past Read Free Page A

uncontrollably.
    "That’s it.  Keep going."  Frank knew that the only hope was to keep a calm tone.  Gene might panic and they could all be lost.
    Jack and Tommy were face down, hanging on to Jay’s ankles for dear life.  In his panic, as he crawled, Gene ground one of Jay’s hands into the ice with his left foot causing him to lose his grip just as Frank’s head went under the water.
    The ice whipsawed up, sliding away from Jay, and knocked his other hand loose from Frank’s ankle.  It was as if someone had flipped a silent butler to dump the ashes.  The ice rose up about a foot in front of Jay, almost brushing his nose, as Frank slid head first into the water, his elbows flailing and feet kicking until he disappeared completely beneath the surface.
    It was almost majestic, the way the big patch of ice settled slowly back onto the surface of the pond and floated in to close up the opening.  The seam knitted back together almost perfectly and the outline of the crack and a few new, small holes were the only evidence that anything had happened.
    Jay’s pounding heart in his ears was deafening in the silence that followed.  He didn’t realize it at the time, but they told him later that he’d clawed at the ice, trying to kick his legs loose as Jack and Tommy pulled him back from the edge of oblivion.
    Gene just laid there, exhausted, soaked, and shivering.  Tommy knelt beside him, vigorously rubbing his legs in an attempt to keep him warm.
    "Guys," he said. "We need to get him up to the house.  He needs to get warm fast!"
    Jay got up on his hands and knees.  Frank was gone.  Swallowed up.  He began frantically crawling across the ice, brushing away snow and slush, looking for any sign of him.
    "Jack!  Get over here and help me!"
    Jack scrambled to his feet and rushed over to where Jay was searching.  He walked along the edge of the crack, or as near as he dared go.
    "Jay!  Over here!  Oh, God!  Here he is!"
    As Jay ran to his side, Jack began kicking the ice as hard as he could with the heel of his boot.  Jay looked down.  Directly beneath his feet was Frank.  His eyes were opened wide.  His face was drawn into a tight-lipped grimace.
    Little bubbles of air floated from the corners of his mouth and the water around him had taken on a pink tint that Jay didn’t understand until he saw Frank’s hands.  The fingers were bent and the tips of some of them were raw from his attempts to claw his way through the ice.  Jay fell to his knees and began beating the ice with his fists.
    Tears stung in the corners of his eyes as a sub-zero breeze whipped up icy granules from the edges of the pond and sent them swirling around him.  Below him, he could see Frank disappearing into muck stirred up from the bottom of the pond.  Jay kept pounding the surface until the sides of his fists had turned bright pink, long minutes after he’d caught his last view of the pleading look that seemed directed particularly at him.
    Jack grabbed his arm. "He’s gone.  Gene’s here.  We need to get going."
    He nodded, absently, and shifted his moist eyes to where Gene lay motionless on the ice.
    "We need to get Gene indoors and call somebody."
    Jack walked over to Tommy and Gene. Jay stood glued to the spot for a moment.  He felt a shock down his spine and wanted to throw up.
    "Come on," yelled Jack.
    As Jay turned to go, he heard a sound like shattering glass.  Hands, the fingers blue and waterlogged, clawed at his legs and clamped onto his ankles like vises.  He screamed, but the others couldn’t hear and kept getting farther away from him, half carrying Gene to the edge of the pond.
    He was whipped off his feet and came down hard on his face.  The cold, wet ice numbed his skin as he tried to gain purchase with his fingernails.  The last thing he remembered as he was pulled down into the water was Frank’s voice, gurgling and tinged with bitterness.
    "You left me."
    Jay let out a howl and sat upright in bed.  His