You decide to drive out to the lake. Cabin fever is real, you think, and if you can't get outside now, when temperatures are hovering just below freezing, then you'll never go when the real cold hits.
So you go.
The lake is frozen, covered in snow, and the whole area is hazy with fog. There are plenty of footprints, so the ice is probably safe.
You walk.
Suddenly, the footprints end. The fog thickens.
You keep walking.
You hear a distant sound--half rumbling thunder, half gunshot--the ice is cracking, somewhere.
You almost turn back.
You remember being told that cracks sometimes form in even the thickest ice, a matter of pressure from the water below, so it's probably still safe.
You walk on.
Sometimes, you hear a faint crackling, barely offset from the crunch of your own boots, like something walking lightly in your footsteps, just out of sight. The fog thickens.
You turn.
Nothing.
You keep walking.
Amidst the ice crack-rumbling and the faint crunching echoes, a new sound, a quick whoopwhoopwhoop. It's quiet, so quiet that you think you imagined it. The fog thickens. whoopwhoopwhoop--a little louder, a little faster
You look around.
Nothing.
You turn back toward your car, now half-hidden by mist.
whoopwhoopwhoop-- louder, faster.
You keep looking around as you start walking back.
Still nothing.
whoopwhoopwhoop
The fog thickens.
You run.
