“Please listen to me,” he begs.
I set my jaw. “Why? So you and your family can laugh at my expense some more during your fucked-up hazing ritual?”
“Diana, I promise you, that’s not what’s happening here.”
“Then what? You expect me to believe that story wasreal?”
His face is grim. “Yes.”
I force a bitter laugh. “I may not be as educated as you and your family, Louis, but I’m notdumb.”
I turn away from him and resume struggling through the snow. The garage should be just a few yards away, but I canbarely see a foot ahead of me in this snowstorm. I stick my hands out in front of me, feeling for the structure, but there’s only empty space.
“I need you to understand that this is real,” Louis shouts, still following me. “You could be in danger, Diana, if you don’t take this seriously!”
“In danger fromKrampus?” I scream into the wind, not sure if he can even hear me. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
I take another step, and the world changes around me.
A hush falls, the howling of the wind turning to an abrupt silence. The snow stops pelting my face, and the last few snowflakes drift slowly to the ground and settle there. A sense of calm falls over the mountain landscape. I blink snowflakes off my eyelids and go instinctively still. Because while it is quiet, it is an eerie quiet; the quiet of a forest sensing a predator, an eye of the storm, a fear so deep you can’t bring yourself to scream.
As the storm dies down to a whisper, I can see again with perfect clarity. There is a sheet of unbroken white around us, stretching out in every direction. I can’t see the road anymore. The garage is… gone, somehow, as though it’s been erased from existence.
Louis reaches for me, but I pull away. “Diana, we need to go inside,” he says, a new urgency in his voice now. “Did you feel that? We just went through the veil. We’re in Krampus’s realm now.”
“Hisrealm?”
Louis nods. “Modern technology doesn’t travel with us. It’s just us, and the cabin my grandfather built for this.”
It doesn’t make any sense. But when I spin in a circle, still looking in vain for the garage, there is nothing but snow and forest. I pause as my eyes land on the latter. The trees wear white coats of frost, but there is something dark between the trunks.
I blink, rub my eyes.What is that?I think, but I am too afraid to voice it. Louis is frozen and silent behind me, but I can hear his breath, growing faster as the seconds pass.
The darkness steps out from the trees. It is huge, and it is moving toward us.
“He’s coming,” Louis whispers. “Inside. Now!”
“What is that?” I stumble back, nearly slip on the ice again. Louis catches me around the waist and half drags me to the steps.
“I already told you,” he says. “Nowgo. We don’t have time for this.”
He pushes me, and I stumble up the long staircase, my head spinning. One of my boots slips on a patch of ice, and my stomach bottoms out as I tilt backward.
But two firm hands catch me.
“I’ve got you,” Louis says.
I glance back at him to whisper a thanks, and I see the whites of his eyes, blown wide in terror. That’s a kind of fear you can’t fake. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the idea this might be more than a prank, but after that glimpse I caught ofsomethingin the woods…
I swallow and rush up the steps to the front door. I grab the handle and yank, but nothing happens. I plant my feet and yank again, the metal’s chill biting into my palms, my shoulders braced with the strain.
Louis is there a second later, elbowing me aside. He grabs the handle and pulls as I retreat. I look around and realize that the windows on the front of the cabin are all now shuttered by metal, turning the cabin into a true fortress.
And the door isn’t budging.
“Is it jammed?” I whisper.
Louis ignores me, straining and straining, and then lets out a low growl of frustration. He bangs a fist against the door. “Hey!” he shouts. “Let me in!”
