I opened the door and called to him until he barreled through the opening into the warmth of the cabin, taking a cold, wet coating of snow and ice with him. He collapsed on the floor with this back facing me, I could hear him fighting for air.
I dove to the floor and flipped Trevor over to reveal why he was having so much trouble breathing.
Trevor’s face was coated in blood, the slow trickling stream of red coming from a hideous gash that went across his neck. I looked down into his horrified eyes to see him blink one last time and then go limp.
I had to leave. I headed right back out the door and into the unforgiving snow storm.
Once outside in the snow, it felt almost as if the moon had turned into a strobe light. The rapid falling of the snow all around me in the moonlight seemed to make everything I saw that was moving move in slow motion.
I sprinted around the cabin as fast as I could, headed to the trees figuring heading to Jo’s house was the best idea. I could still kind of see the trail the dog and I had taken that day and followed it, twisting through the trees until I came to a point where the canopy of trees opened up above and the trail was concealed by fresh snow.
There was a new path below my feet though and it was not muddy and dark like the other one. This was hot, red and vibrant in the frozen world all around me. It was a slock trickle of blood that gained volume as it led away from me until it led to a tree off to my right where I could see the body of a woman slumped up against its base. It was Jo. Dead and frozen.
I screamed, but cut it off, realizing the last thing I might want to do at this point was draw attention to myself. But it was too late, what I thought was a simple mound of snow on the ground just to my left erupted into the dark outline of a large man. He shook the snow off of himself and lunged at me.
I twisted away and ran off blindly into the snowy woods. I ran and ran without looking back until I was out of breath and staggering with drool running out of my mouth like I was a thirsty St. Bernard. Finally on empty, I fell to my knees in the snow and scanned the world around me.
