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The drips of blood that trailed him like scarlet breadcrumbs assured him that this wasn’t a dream.
The monsters of his youth were chasing him. They were hungry. They were real.
the impending blizzard would see to it that he paid for his idleness later.
Had he known it would have ended up this way, he would have told Jenny he loved her; he would have reminded her she was still the woman of his dreams, always and forever, even today.
And that was when he saw them, lined up like undead soldiers just beyond the trees, still hidden by branches as if afraid to come into full view. Don couldn’t see them outright, but he could make out their shapes: skinny, sinuous, terrifyingly tall.
A low, unified growl sounded from the trees. It rattled deep in their throats, an eerie, almost human quality to its tone.
Because if he sacrificed himself, perhaps they’d be satiated enough to move on, to distance themselves from his home, from his wife.
They fell on him, but Don didn’t feel a thing. He was too busy picturing Jenny in her wedding dress, twirling in the sunlight that filtered through the stained-glass windows of a tiny church. He was too busy listening to her hum, her singing blocking out the silence of winter, distracting him from the tearing of his own flesh.
sun baked the top of the snow into a fine, brittle crust.
a blanket of virgin snow,
“I’m just saying”—he shrugged—“we think we’re safe until we’re dead.”
“The hapless trio, driving back to the cabin…”
She continued forward, one hand squeezing the cold barrel of the gun while the other stole half of Don’s sandwich. It was his own fault. He knew she never ate without him.
“Still forever attending funerals, I see.” Ryan raised an eyebrow at Sawyer’s all-black ensemble—a style Sawyer hadn’t been able to shake since high school. “They don’t start with ‘fun’ for nothing,” Sawyer said.
“We’re a million miles from anywhere,” Ryan said. “It’s just us and the trees. Nobody will know, because nobody knows we’re here.”
while she silently raged behind him.
That creature was perched in the branches above him, voyeuristic, waiting to see what Tara would do.
A future was just that: the rest of your life. A relationship could crumble at any opportunity.
soothe the burn of jealousy.
she’d cry when she was scared or angry, as though processing an excess of emotion at once was too much for her to handle.
cigarette dangling from the swell of his bottom lip.
anemic yellow glow.
burning crawl of blood loss snaked around the inside of his skull and squeezed his brain.
her sinuses flaring with her sudden urge to cry.
“All I know is that we’re leaving,” April said. “Today. This morning.” “How?” “I don’t know. Figure it out. Why don’t you go wake up your friend, go plow the road? Speaking of…” Her words tapered off. Jane looked back to the kitchen just in time to catch Ryan’s entrance. His hair was wild, sticking up in every direction. He shielded his eyes against the glare of the snow, then greeted the fighting couple with a few gravelly words: “Plow it with what, my dick?” Jane looked away, biting back a bitter laugh, a flare of vindication igniting at the pit of her stomach. Ryan had a way with words. He
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“I have my radar set to batshit. I can smell a psycho from a mile away.”
the voice that had just spooled across the blanket of snow.
Passive-aggressiveness had slithered into his bloodstream, infecting him like a disease.
ghost of relief.
A picnic in the mountains didn’t sound so bad as long as he was by her side. She was tired of being damaged. She was ready to let it all go.
With those few carefully selected words, Jane was rendered speechless. And within her silence, she loved him more than ever.
It was watching them, as though relishing the horror that wafted off them like a pheromone, as though enjoying the cadence of Lauren’s quiet, weepy gasps as she struggled to right herself.
He reached for her hand, unable to breathe, about to choke on his own pulse as the creature down the slope of the drive launched itself forward.
Sawyer could see Ryan’s severity eating at her, singeing the fine-spun fibers of her self-control.
his lapse in sympathy was far outweighed by the way Lauren had stared at him, almost bewildered by the fact that her life was over, that Ryan just stood there not doing a damn thing, because there was nothing left to do.
Her heart crawled into her throat, threatening to choke her if the fear didn’t asphyxiate her first.
Ryan went numb, dread spiking his bloodstream. They’re intelligent.
How could they be sure of anything with a nightmare lying at their feet?
It was good that she was keeping herself busy. When she had nothing to do, she’d fall into a haunting, unnerving silence.
She stared out at them, her palms pressed to the glass, the helpless look on her face rousing a wave of foreboding in the pit of Sawyer’s stomach. He took a moment to stare back at her, considering the fact that this might be the last time he’d see her, hating that if it was, he couldn’t see her smile instead.
They were all in the same situation, man and monster, left with no other choice.
But the look on Sawyer’s face confirmed what was occurring; Sawyer was dying, and he was doing it right in front of Ryan’s eyes.
His expression was unnerving, almost blank, as though his brain refused to register any more fear, as though it had shut down all his senses, overwhelmed by physical pain.
Jane had checked out, trembling beside him as she stared at the ground. He supposed it was for the better. There was no way out of this. He only hoped that she could forgive him before it was over. He only hoped she knew that he loved her, that he had loved Sawyer, that he had wanted a chance to love Lauren, that if he had known, he would have sacrificed everything—Switzerland, his company, his life—to take back the last four days.
The least he could do was do the same for his sister, his other half, the one girl who had stood beside him through thick and thin. Maybe if they had him they’d retreat—let her live. “Janey,” he said, but she didn’t respond. She shivered, her teeth chattering behind her wind-chapped lips. “Jane,” he whispered. “I’m going to go, okay?”
He had wanted to save his sister the way he had saved her before—because that was what he had to do; that was why there were two of them: to protect each other, to never let each other down.
He looked up at the sky, the sun still shining bright. Oona whined as she looked up at her owner, and Ryan recognized understanding in her eyes. She knew. Of course she knew. She was a fighter, and so was he.
