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. Noboots 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’tthatstupid. 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.
I lifted the tinsel from the chair, the metallic strands crackling under my fingers. It was cool, felt faintly oily. Then I threw it to the floor, daring the cabin to fight back, to give me something I could destroy and prove I still had control.
The bedroom door loomed open. No one could be inside. Everything was locked. I exhaled, rolledmy shoulders, and shut it with a hard click that sounded too final.
I checked the kitchen again because, well, that’s what people did in movies before they were killed. The knives were all in their block except the one in my hand. Every drawer, every cabinet, perfectly in place.
I passed the fireplace. Heat licked my ankles. Wind moaned down the chimney, bending the flames until they thinned then straightened again.
I walked over to the front door. The deadbolt was still set. I pressed my fingertips to the cold metal just to feel something solid. Breathe, I told myself, but the taste in my mouth was sharp and metallic as adrenaline bled through me.
Shaking, I went back to the table. The laptop glowed against the dark, a square of cold light. My stomach dropped. A new paragraph had appeared… one I hadn’t written.
I counted to ten and stared, heart hammering hard enough to bruise. Someone was here. Someone had written the words to terrify me, and they’d succeeded.
“Count to ten again,” I whispered, trying to anchor myself. But the air around me filled with something I couldn’t name.
“One, two, three.” The longer I counted, the steadier I felt. “Four, five, six.” My shoulders eased, the world snapping back into focus by inches. “Seven, eight, nine, ten.” I exhaled.
“Good girl,” said a voice from the bedroom—low, muffled, a vibration in the air more than sound.
I didn’t scream. Couldn’t. The air shifted against my neck, and every nerve caught fire.
