Krampus is just a few yards away. How is he so fast?
I have no breath to scream, so I just let out a tiny gasp of terror before starting to run again. But I’m slowing down—lungs aching, legs trembling, head spinning. Adrenaline keeps me on my feet, but I’m waning.
When another root snags my ankle, I fall again. Harder this time, landing on my hands and knees. I try to push myself up, only to fall again. My body is giving out.
No.
I grab on to the nearest tree anddragmyself up, panting for air as black spots dance in my vision. I stumble forward again, grabbing branches for support.
It’s quiet, this deep in the forest. The trees keep the wind at bay. The silence would be peaceful, except that it only emphasizes the steady clomp of hooves following me. The heavy drag of metal chains through the snow.
I whimper, vision blurring with tears. I don’t even know where I’m running. I’m movingawayfrom the safety of the cabin rather than toward it. But what safety could I really find there, anyway? My car is missing; the front door is locked.
Louis left me.
He brought me here. He knew this would happen.
Rage breaks through the paralyzing grip of my terror.
If I die here today, nobody will ever know. Louis and his family will never pay. I will be another crossed-out name in that goddamn book. I refuse to let that happen.
I can’t run anymore, so there’s only one option left. As impossible as it seems, I have to fight.
My weary feet stumble to a stop, and I grab the closest tree branch off the ground. It’s heavy, but adrenaline lends new strength to my limbs as I lift it. I whirl toward the hulking creature behind me—socloseto catching me, just a few feet away now—and heft it like a weapon.
I look up at the creature, more than two feet taller than me and thick as a tree trunk, and meet his burning red gaze. And I open my mouth andscream. It’s not a sound of terror but a war cry ripped from my throat. The sound echoes through the quiet forest and sends birds scattering in a flapping panic.
As the sound dies down into quiet echoes, I heave for breath and stare up at the monster in front of me, finally getting a good look at him.
He is easily eight feet tall, with broad shoulders and a thick, muscular torso. His upper body is humanoid, his face disturbingly human despite the thick horns curving out of his head and his tapered goat’s ears. From the waist down, he is more animal than man, covered in thick black fur and clothed only in a ragged loincloth. Instead of feet, he has a pair of black cleft hooves that move through several inches of snow as though it’s nothing. Behind him, a long black tail whips, the tuft of fur at the end dragging through the snow behind him.
His eyes are the color of fire, of blood. His pupils are horizontal like a goat’s, but watch me with an eerie intelligence.
I’m not sure whether to think of this monster as an animal or a man. But either way, the sight of him strikes terror deep in my gut. His intent is all too clear from what he carries. My eyes dart from the length of heavy metal chain wrapped around one of his massive fists to the birch rod held in the other.
He looks at the stick clutched in my trembling hands and he comes to a stop several feet away from me.
Then my gaze finds his mouth as his lips peel back to reveal sharp teeth. A long, forked, red tongue slides out to glide over his canines as his eerie red eyes find mine again.
“Your punishment will be worse if you fight it.”
I nearly drop my stick as he speaks. His voice is almost impossibly deep and gravelly, edged with a snarl that no human could manage, but so close to human despite it. He speaks with clear intelligence I did not expect.
He is neither man nor animal, but something else. Something worse.
A monster.
“What punishment?” I ask.
“The one you deserve. Nothing more and nothing less.”
I swallow hard as fear slithers down my spine. “Who are you to decide what I deserve?”
He huffs, twin plumes forming in the cold air in front of his face. “You know who I am.” He takes a step forward. I try to move back, but my knees have locked, a paralyzing fear seeping through me. “You signed my book in blood. You knew the rules.”
This close, I can smell him. It is not the pungent animal stink I expected. Instead, he smells like pine and smoke, like pepper and clove. Musty and masculine and woodsy. Christmasy.
He takes another step, and I regain my senses. I swing my branch, teeth gritted with the effort as it whistles through the sparse remaining space between us.
