Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 21796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 87(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 87(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
“Why?” I whispered. “Why me?” No answer.
My hand shook as I reached for the handle. The moment my fingers brushed the metal, three sharp knocks split the dark. I jerked my hand back as if I’d been burned. The knocks came again, slower this time. Rhythmic. Intimate.
Knock… Knock… Knock.
“Go away!” I screamed, my hands trembling, heat pooling low and shameful. Rage hit so fast it stole my breath, and before I could think, I yanked the door open—knife raised ready to strike.
The porch was empty. Snow whipped wild and clean, the world untouched. I couldn’t see them, but I knew they weren’t gone.
I stood there until my fingers ached around the knife handle. Then, softly, the crunch of boots in snow. Closer. Circling. Left. Right. In front of me. Taunting.
I slammed the door shut, the echo loud enough to shake dust from the beams. The air thickened, heavy with cold and something electric. Every instinct screamed for me to run.
But the other part of me, one that was reckless, the one that wrote men like these, kept me rooted.
I tore open the curtain. Dark shapes moved beyond the glass. A shadow. Then two. Then nothing. Adrenaline hit my veins like acid. My pulse thundered. Every nerve burned awake.
It would’ve been easier if they’d broken in. At least then, I could’ve fought—proved they were real. But this… this waiting was worse.
I grabbed my phone. Still no signal. My hands shook too much to hold it, anyway. Silence stretched long and thick, and for a second, I let myself believe it was over, that the storm and my mind had played me for a fool.
Outside, the snow slowed to a whisper. Gentle. Almost human. The sound brushed against the windows like fingertips. I told myself to breathe. To let it go. Then something caught the firelight, gleaming on the floor just inside the door.
A strip of garland, red and metallic, lying where there hadn’t been one before.
I crouched, touching it. The tinsel felt cold, almost brittle, as if it had been outside. I looked over my shoulder toward the Christmas tree… and froze. A strand hung torn and uneven, one end curling down like a wound that hadn’t healed.
They’d been inside.
3
The strip of garland glinted in my palm. I curled my fingers around it, then let it fall. It fluttered to the floor with a faint metallic whisper and slid an inch toward the door, like the cabin had exhaled.
I stepped back slowly. The fire threw restless light across the walls, shadows writhing and reforming. The wind howled, bending the flames until they licked sideways. Red and green bled over the floorboards, the tinsel sparkled red like it was alive, and frost crept deeper into the corners of the windows.
I stood still and just listened.
The storm had changed. Its violence was replaced by a hushed, relentless sweep. The kind of quiet that buried everything. No porch creaks. No boots crunching in the snow. No taunting knocks. Just the generator’s hum, the crackle of the fire, and the soft ticking of the cabin settling around me.
I checked every lock. The deadbolt on the front door. The back. The little window latch above the sink in its place. The narrow sliding door off the bedroom that opened to the deck. All sealed. All secure.
Back in the living room, I stared at the fire for what felt like minutes, hypnotized by the flames curling through the logs. Yellow, orange, and blue at the base. “You’re fine,” I whispered, but even I could hear the lie. “You’re inside. They’re not.”
A whisper of sound cut through the air. I spun, every muscle tightening. The bedroom door stood slightly ajar.
Just an inch. Just enough.
I knew I’d closed it.
“I must not have pulled it shut all the way,” I murmured, but my pulse didn’t believe me.
I took a step toward it anyway because, apparently, survival instincts meant nothing tonight. The floor moaned beneath my foot, the sound rippling outward like water. Another step. The fire hissed and popped, and my shadow leapt across the wall like a long, bent monster.
Then something else moved in the room.
A shadow taller than mine, wide and imposing. My body froze, breath shallow, heart hammering. Then I saw the shape above it. It rose, curved. First it was a crescent then it branched wider.
Antlers. Like the mask one of them had worn.
Every hair on my body lifted. I didn’t step closer. I wasn’t that stupid. When I turned back to the table, something else had changed. The chair I’d been sitting in was no longer tucked in. It had been pulled back and angled slightly toward me.
Across the seat lay several strands of silver tinsel, shaped into a crooked heart.
“Why don’t you bastards come out here and face me!” I screamed, knife tight in my grip. “Stop with the games.” My voice cracked, thin where I wanted it sharp. The sound came back to me smaller, weaker, swallowed by the cabin’s stillness.