It’s more a fright than that, really. Not knowing what to make of a something you hear. Like in the dead of winter sometimes, nights so cold that the snow squeaks loud under your boots, sometimes they’ll be a crack! Off in the distance, crack! like a gunshot. And you wait, you stop walking so the snow don’t squeal, and you wait for the sound of voices running, sirens, shouts, echo, anything. There’s nothing but the empty endless wind from across the lake and prairie, the sad scuffle of it out on the harbour ice and the huffing sound of your own breath, a plane high above.