She smiled to herself as she continued the tour. Behind the kitchen were the bedroom and bath. The bedroom had a big bed with a cozy-looking quilt, a good-sized closet, and a door to the stairs to the small unfinished attic. The bathroom was old-fashioned but it seemed functional, and Hailey loved the clawfoot tub.
“Good,” she said to herself. “Good, good, good.”
But her happy thoughts were cut short as there was a sort of mechanical thunk and the whole house went dark.
She let out a little shriek without meaning to, and the sound of it scared her even more.
“It’s okay,” she told herself as she fumbled for her phone, managing to drop it on the floor before she could unlock it.
The wind rattled the windows as she crawled around the floor, feeling for her phone. When her hand finally locked around it, she turned on the flashlight and stood, willing herself not to shake.
The thin beam of light in the otherwise dark house looked like something out of one of the horror movies she’d never been able to watch. She hurried back through the house and out the front door.
The darkness outside was so much less profound than the darkness inside. At least out here there was a glow of moonlight on the snow.
Her feet carried her through the line of pine trees toward her nearest neighbor before she consciously made the decision to visit them.
She tromped through the snow in her suede boots,figuring that if she could get a view of the other house, she would know if the whole area had lost power, or if it was just her.
As she expected, on the other side of the pines was the meadow, and just beyond that was the old A-frame house. Light glowed from the glassy front onto the snow and it called to her like a beacon.
She picked up her pace, relief in her heart at the sight of that warm light.
She was almost across the meadow when she heard the first bark.
It wasn’t a yip, like one of the little city dogs either. It was a deep, throaty warning.
Terror shot through her and she froze in place, her blood running colder than the snow beneath her feet.
Another dog began to bark, this one just as intimidating as the first one.
No, please, no,she prayed.
Hailey had always had a deep-seated fear of dogs. It didn’t come from any particular bad experience, but it probably didn’t help that her mom had taken her by the hand and crossed the street every time they saw one in town.
“Why do people have those things?” her mom would mutter worriedly as they hurried away.
A third dog’s barking joined the first two, and there was movement from the house.
To her complete horror, a collection of inky black shadows leapt off the porch and streaked across the meadow toward her.
Stay calm,she told herself inwardly.Slowly back away.
But she was locked up as still as a statue and couldn’t seem to do anything but await her doom.
“What in the world?” a familiar deep voice boomed across the dark meadow.
“What is it, Daddy?” a little girl’s voice piped up from the house.
“Stay there, Mae,” he called back. “Travis, keep your sister in the house, please.”
The dogs were almost on her now, Hailey swore she could feel the ground shaking as they thundered toward her. As they got close, she could tell by the black and tan fur and the pointed ears that they were German shepherds.
“Aus,”the man called out.
Instantly, all three beasts skidded to a stop, their ears pricking up as if eager for more commands.
Air rushed back into Hailey’s lungs and she was finally able to look up from the dogs to the man who was now standing right behind them.
