IT’S ALMOST SCARIER when you can’t hear the howling.

Dawn and Lucas descend back into forest and emerge at the end of the first of the lakes. It’s long and narrow and ringed by avalanche paths: big, gigantic boulders that were a bitch to cross the first time and will be even worse in the snow.

Behind them, Brandon and Evan have stopped yelling, or maybe it’s just that their voices are muffled on the other side of the ridge. Either way, it’s eerily quiet down here by the lake. Dawn and Lucas could be the only people left alive in the world.

It’s also beautiful here, if you can find a minute or two to stop and appreciate the surroundings. The lake is an emerald-colored jewel and the snow surrounding it is pristine, blanketing the mountainsides and the forest in unblemished white. There are no cell phones allowed in Out of the Wild, but if there were, Dawn would be an Instagram legend.

But, of course, she has other things to worry about.

She and Lucas skirt the side of the first lake, following a narrow trail between pine trees, and clamber across the avalanche fields, careful not to fall into the deep holes between the rocks. They stop to refill the canteen and drink greedily, and the water is frigid and refreshing and invigorating.

It does nothing to calm Dawn’s nerves. The boys behind them have stopped howling and they could be anywhere. Dawn keeps glancing behind her, sure that Brandon and Evan are going to appear on the trail in the distance, running like killer zombies with only one thing on their minds.

She starts to think that maybe the boys have already made it past them, that they’re waiting on the trail somewhere up ahead, planning an ambush. She tries to walk quietly, not make any noise. Strains to listen through the silence for any sound that will give away Brandon and Evan’s position.

She hears nothing. Her whole body is tense, and her mind, too, like a soldier waiting for the next bomb to hit.

The boys are out there; Dawn knows it. She doesn’t know where, and that’s the part that really sucks. She starts to think maybe it would be better if she could hear them howling, just so she wouldn’t feel so damn paranoid.

Then the howling starts up again, and Dawn immediately wants nothing more than to make the noise stop.