Speaker 1: Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. I was twenty nine when it happened.
My sister Lorna had just moved back to Maine after
spending a few years out west in flag stuff. She'd
gone out there chasing warmth, hiking trails, and some guy
who played in a folk band. All of that fizzled
up by the end of her third summer, and by
December she was back in the Northeast, just in time
for one of the nastest winters we'd had in a while.
She was crashing with me at the time, temporarily, she said.
My place was a small dupic outside Melbridge, about half
an hour from Bangor. I done the usual pre storm routine,
stopped the fridge in the pantry, filled every jrug bottle
and half broken cooler I could find with water in
case the pipe rose. I double checked the propin levels
round a test and the generator out back, and even
went so far as to dig out the old wind
up radio from a drawer that hadn't been opened since
the Obama years. We lost power before it even got
fully dark or round five maybe five point thirty. The
heat was the first thing. I brought out, one of
those portable propane ones you're not supposed to use ores
unless you're feeling brave or slightly wrickerus. I kept it
just outside the hallway to keep the warm air circulating
while it harmed away. I cooked up some can chilly
and the gastove, and Lorna buried herself under every blanket
I owned, nesting into the couch like a nervous cat.
The snow outside wasn't just heavy, it was loud. You
could hear a clinging to the siding. The wind dragging
sharp clumps of ice crossed the house in waves, not
just gus burse, like some one was pushing the wind
itself around with the shovel. We played cards by candle
light for a while. Rummy, I think she tried to
teach me a new game she'd learned from her ex,
but neither of us could remember half the rolls. We
gave up. Somewhere around ten she was snoring. By ten
point fifteen. I couldn't sleep. It wasn't fear. It was
more like a splinter in the back of my mind.
Something I'd forgotten, not beg just wrong. You know that
feeling when you leave the house and half way down
the road you stop wondering whether you unplug the iron
that except it kept nagging at me every five minutes.
Around two in the morning, I gave in the thought
wouldn't let go? What if I hadn't latched the garage
or from the inside. The garage was attached to the kitchen,
just a plain wooden door separating them, no drama. I
wasn't expecting anything weird. I opened the door slowly, already
annoyed of myself for getting out of bed, and stood
in the frame for a second. Cold there immediately slept
and around my legs just a couple degrees but noticeable.
Everything looked normal at first, snow blow tucked against the
left wall, bags of rock salt leaning in a half
fallen stack in the back, no noise, no obvious movement.
I was about to close the door and call myself
paranoid when stepped into a little farther and cut side
of the floor. There were boot prints, two sets coming
in from the back service stoor, the one that leads
into the yard. Thelled straight across the concrete floor and
in just inches from where I stood but there was
no returning princes, no loops, snow drought here marks, no
signs of someone turning around, just two sets walking in
and stopping. I just stood there for a second, long
enough to fill the cold creeping into my shirt sleeves.
Then I stepped back, closed the door gently, and locked it.
I didn't wake Lorner At first. I thought, maybe, just
maybe I tracked those in myself earlier and forgotten. Maybe
I gone in that morning, moved some things around and
didn't think twice about it. But I hadn't been in
the garage for at least a full day, and the
snow that had blown in under the back door was
light and fresh, just a dusting, but enough to catch
clear tread marks. Those prints were recent. I grabbed the
old alumina bat from under the bed, scratched to hell,
slightly bent from one too many back yard with football games,
and did a slow, quiet check of the entire house,
room by room. I even opened at a catch with
a broom handle and shine my fern light up into
the crawl space. Nothing. Everything was locked, Everything looked the
way it always did. I ended up back in the kitchen,
staring at the garage door like it owed me in explanation.
Eventually I dragged a chair over and wedged it under
the knoll. Sat there until sunrise, when the storm calmed
down enough to go outside without getting skinned alive. I
put on my boots and shoveled round the side of
the house to get to the garage back door. The
snow came up to my knees in some spots. I
had to cut a trench to even reach the door frame.
There were no prints, not mine, not any one else's,
no sign that any one had walked up to that
door at all. But there was something wedge between the
frame and the seal, A folded piece of receipt paper.
I almost missed it. It was from a store call
mac Gray's Market used to be Nelsworth, closed down a
couple of years back. On the back of the receipt,
some one had written a name first and last and
attendage of phone number and shaky handwriting. I didn't know either.
Later that day I called the number using a Dummu
line we kept at work for customer cullbacks. It rang
six times, then cut to the strange broken audio tone.
Not a voicemail, just static and a flat, almost glitched
out disconnected sound. Still hadn't told Lorna at this point,
but when she finally got up, I asked if she'd
heard anything weird during the night. She said no at first,
then hesitated. Well, she said, rubbing her neck, I thought
I heard some one walking around up stairs after midnight.
I didn't say anything. There is no stairs. It's a
one story duplex with a crawlsbyce attic, no flooring, no
just wiring and beams. You couldn't walk up though, even
if you wanted to. That afternoon, when the sun was
out in full and I felt a little less ridiculous,
I went back into the garage. I checked everything open,
every bin, every cabinet, every tool box. I even tipped
over the recycling tub just to be sure. Then I
opened the deep freezer. We'd cleared it at the week
before because the sill had started acting up. I hadn't
restocked it yet, But when I opened it, I saw
it wasn't as empty as I thought. That night, I
didn't sleep either, I packed it bag instead. By the
end of the week, I broke my lease, took the
financial hit, and moved into a small place in her owner.
I never told Lorna what I saw in that freezer.
I was thirty one when I took a house sitting
gig outside of Ellis, in a quiet little town in
northern Maine. The job was above as straightforward as they come,
watch the house, keep the pipes from freezing, shovel when
it snowed, and take care of the couples, two golden retrievers,
Boone and Danny. They were wintering down in Gulf Shores
and wanted some one on site just in case anything
went wrong. I think they were more worried about the
dogs in the house. Honestly, the first two weeks were quiet, peacefull.
Even Boone and Denny were sweet dogs, older, mellow, and
glued to me like shadows. I get up eurly, feed them,
check the thermost at, and then read or write until
the sun started dipping. Most days I didn't see another soul.
Didn't mind it one bit. Then came the storm. It
hit late one night in late January. The windship the
windows hard enough to rattle the glass, and the snow
piled up so fast I couldn't see the end of
the driveway. By morning, the power blinked a few times,
but didn't fully cut out. I layered up, pulled in
the clunkest boots I owned, and started digging up haf
to the mail books like a guy in a cartoon,
head down fighting gusts. That's when I noticed the boot prints.
They were faint, partially covered by fresh snow, but definitely there,
leading from the edge of the tree line, wrapping around
the side of the shed, and vanishing into the woods
up back. Not mine, not fresh, but not old enough
to ignore either. I walked the edge of them for
a bit, just to see if they led to the
road or circle back, but they disappeared into the deeper
part of the woods. My brain started throwing out half
baked ideas maybe a hunter, someone lost, maybe a neighbor
just checking in, even though at last one made's ero
since given how far apart the houses were still, I
didn't let it get under my skin. Not yet. That night,
the wind came back with a vengeance, thus slammed into
the siding like fists. I went to bed early, buried
under layers of blankets and lapoon and any club at
the foot of the bed. Around two in the morning,
they both sat up at the exact same time. No
barking that low steady growled deep in their throats, like
something ancient was waking up. I slid out of bed,
heart already starting to race, grabbed the flashlight I kept
on the nightstend and followed them into the living room.
They were staring through the glass of the sliding door
like they were trying to burn holes in it. The
porch light was off and the window was fogged over
from the cold. I wiped a little patch clear with
my sleeve and clicked in the flashlight. Nothing just now
blowing in the bean. The backyard was dark still and
totally empty, but the dogs wouldn't let it go. They
stayed rigid until I finally led them back to the
bedroom and locked the door behind us. I left the
flashlight in the night stand didn't sleep a second. In
the morning, I found more prints, this time right up
against the back steps. You could see where the snow
had formed round the boots, meaning whoever it was had
stood there for a while, just standing watching. I called
the homeowners gave them the full run down. They were
oddly calm, said it was probably some one passing through
or looking for a place to crash. I offered to
call the chef, but they waved it off. I should
have called anyway. On the third night, the power finally
gave out no warning. This time, it just clicked off,
like some one had yanked the plug. I let every
candle I could find and dragged a little propane heater
into the living room, bread some blankets in the floor,
curled up with the dogs, and tried to convince myself
this was all just temporary. Then came the knock. It
was soft. It was soft, dearely there, not at the
front door, not even at the back, at the kitchen window.
I froze, so did the dogs. Boone let out the
slow whimper, like he was holding something in his throat.
Then it came again, slower this time. I crawled toward
the kitchen, keeping low, and peeked over the sink. There
was a face right there, pressed against the glass, like
he was trying to become part of it. His skin
looked raw, wind chapped, and his eyes didn't blink. No hat,
no scarf, just this pale, beaten up guy with a
face like cold meat. I backed away so fast I
knocked a chair over. The dogs erupted, barking, snarling, throwing
themselves against the door for him. Then the knocking moved,
not louder, just constant, window to window, like he was
walking a perimeter, testing each one, no hurry like he
had time. The land line was still dead, no signal
on my phone. I locked every door, shut every blind
and sat in the living room with the tire iron
from the girls clutched in both hands. Every creak, every
gust of wind sounded like a person moving. Eventually it stopped.
The dogs calmed down. I didn't. At first light, I
went outside and saw the damage, footprints circling the house
again and again, some of lappings, some fresh. The weirdest
part was the hand prince on nearly every window, fingers spread, smudged,
like keeping pressing his hands flat against the glass and
just waiting. That afternoon, I huked to the neighbor's place,
an older woman named Carline. She let me use her
phone and I called the sheriff. Two deputies came out,
took a look, nodded like they'd seen this kind of
thing before, and said it was probably a transiend, maybe
someone camping out near by. They left me with a
number and told me to call if it got worse.
It got worse two nights later, the generator was running
low and the whole house felt like a tomb. I
was reaving under a battery lamp when I heard footsteps
in the porch, not fast, not panicked, just steady, deliberate steps.
Then the sound of the door knob turning. I froze
behind a couch, hot pounding so hard I thought it
might echo. The knob rattle for a few seconds, then stopped. Silence,
Then the footsteps again, moving to a different window, then
another and another. M It felt like he was pacing,
like he was memorizing the layout. And then from the
back yard I heard the shed door creak open. I
knew that sound, had opened it enough times to recognize it.
Blindfolded wood shifting, hinges, sticking, something moving where nothing should be.
That was if for me. I threw on my boots,
grabbed the dogs by their collars, and bolted for the truck.
Didn't even put a coat on, just got in, fired
it up and drove until the bars returned. On my
phone called the sheriff again. They searched the shed, searched
the woods, found more footprints, but nothing else. No man,
no camp. I went back the next day during day light,
packed everything I owned in on a fifteen minutes, left
the keys with carline and drove back to Portland without
looking in the rear ofy mirror. Once the homeowners were annoyed,
but they got over it. They hired some one else
to finish the job. That winter, I had a contract
gig through a small federal subcontractor, Morseleigh field Work. They
sent me to this remote corner of western Idaho, up
in the Bitter Range. My job was to inspect old
emergency radio towers, climb up, check the mounts. They put
me up in this government owned cabin a few miles
outside a place called Warren's Fork. Never heard of it
before I got there. It wasn't really a town so
much as a gas station, a bar, and a handful
of home scattered near the highway. A cabin itself sat
out near the tree line, six maybe seven miles from
anything resembling civilization. They told me to keep it fuel myself,
but everything was already stocked. Fire would stack high against
the shed crates of canned food, enough propane to last
a month. First couple of weeks went by without incident.
I'd wake up, head up with my gear, climbed house
for a few hours, log everything on a clunky tablet,
and come back before dark. I read a lot cut
the same boring meals, watch move as I downloaded ahead
of time, A kind of quiet that makes you feel
both relaxed and a little strange, like you olive in
a bubble nobody else remembers exists. Then came the storm.
Local radio had been warning about it all week, big
system moving in from the north, high winds, low visibility.
By the time it hit late Thursday afternoon, I was
already back at the cabin, fire going. Everything sealed up tight.
I wasn't worried. I had enough food and fuel to
it lasted easily that night. The wind howled, not stop,
not just background noise. It was loud enough that the
walls groaned every few minutes. Gusts hitten hard, sudden bursts
like something was physically slumming the air against the structure.
Snow smacked against a window so thick I couldn't see
past the glass. I shut the blinds, sat at the
little kitchen table with a mug of tea and a
space heater buzzing near my ankles while I typed up
maintenance logs. At one point a round ten. The light
flickered just once the generator had keeped caught again, and
everything went back to normal. I made a note to
check the fuel lines in the morning and went back
to work. It was a little after midnight when I
heard it, a soft, steady crunching. It took me a
second to register it. I had the heater running my
laptop fans were whirring a little, but under that barely
there I heard it, snow being walked on. I sat
up straight, muted the heater and listened hard. Nothing. I
waited maybe five minutes, telling myself it was probably a
pine brown shifting under snow. That happened a lot out there.
Then I heard it again, faint slow crunches, maybe four steps,
then silence. It didn't make sense. There was no reason
for any one to be out here, not in that storm,
not at that ire, and not on foot. I pulled
on my coat and walked quietly to the front window.
The motion light was on. It cast this hazy yellow
glow over the snow covered porch, and maybe a few
feet beyond. Wind swirled powder in every direction. I stared
for a long time, squinting against the glare, but saw nothing.
I told myself it had to be an animal. Maybe
a moose got close enough to trip the light, or
a deer wandered down out of the ridge. Still, I
locked the door again, double checked the dead bolt, and
went to bed. I hadn't been lying down more than
twenty minutes when I heard it. Just a soft, deliberate
shift the front door latch, A metallic noise, not loud,
just a click like some one gently tested the handle.
My mouth went dry. I didn't move the wind screened
against the roof, but underneath it I heard something else,
A slow drack, long and continuous, like the flat of
a hand, running along the outer wall of the cabin.
It started at the front corner and moved steadily toward
the side. I sat up slowly, barely daring to breathe.
I could feel my pulse in my fingers. Then came
the crunching again, this time circling whoever it was. If
it was a person, they weren't rushing. They were walking
in a deliberate, calm leap around the place, footstips in
the snow, slow and steady, like they were just inspecting.
I grabbed my phone from the night scent and flipped
it over. No signal, not a single bar. I stayed
like that for what felt like an ere I didn't
move to sat there in bed with the blankets pull tight,
staring toward the door, listening. The footsteps eventually stopped. The
dragging sound didn't come back. Everything went quiet again, except
for the wind. At some point I must have fallen asleep,
maybe I passed out from how to I was. I
woke up to gray light leaking through the blinds. Snow
was still coming down, but the worst had passed. Everything
was muted and heavy still. I pulled on my boots
and opened the front door. Snow up to my knees.
But the tracks, those were impossible to miss. They want
animal tracks. These were boot prints, big ones, deep crispages.
They made a full loop around the cabin twice, straight
up to the door, then back around. No other tracks
leading in or out, just those slow circles. I followed them,
maybe twenty feet, but the wind had started to cover them.
Beyond that, nothing but smooth white. Then I noticed where
the second set led right to the side window, but
one directly next to where my bed was. I just
stood there, staring at it for a long time. Trying
to think of something, anything that made sense. Eventually I
would have run back to check the generator still running,
fuel levels fine, no damage, no signs of tampering. Then
I walked out to the shed, nothing missing, till still
lined up where I left them. But something felt off.
One of the folding chairs I kept leaned against the
wall had been moved. It was now sitting dead center
in the floor, slightly angled like some one had pulled
it out, sat down and faced the door like they
were just watching. I didn't touch it, tis left it
where it was close to the shed and lock everything
up again. That night I didn't sleep. I lay in
bed with every light on, a hatchet by my leg, listening.
Nothing happened. The next morning, I waited until I got
a single bar of signal and called the Sheriff's office
in Reed's Way. The deputy answered, sounded tired, said nobody
else had reported anything unusual. No hiker's gun missing, no prowlers.
He took my name, told me to keep alert, and
said they'd violet. That was it. To this day, I
can't sleep if there's a chair facing a doorway. I
always turned them around, doesn't matter where I am hotels, rentals,
even my own house. I was twenty nine when it happened.
The kind of winter we at that year will felt
like something out of a survival documentary. Snow non stopped
for almost forty eight iOS piling higher the night seen
in years. The plows couldn't keep up, are culled, The
sack looked abandoned, just mounds of white swallowing up mail boxes, fences, everything.
Only two trucks had made it down our streets since
the sum really picked up, and even those left huge
rots behind like they Bailey made it through. I work
for the county as a mechanic, not exactly a glamorous cake,
but it's steady and I'm decent with my hands. When
snow like this hits, most folks hunker down and waited out,
but not us. We the ones making sure the plows
don't fall apart mid road, and when they do, which
is often, and the guy called to crawl under them
with freezing tools and frozen fingers. That night, I was
scheduled for the graveyard shift ten o'clock until summriz. I
was already mentally prepping for the usual mess. Then around
eight my supervisor wrong called He never calls, just texts
like a normal person. When I saw his name pop
up on the screen, I thought some one had crashed
or one of the rigs caught fire. Instead, he says,
don't bother coming in to night. We're shutting things down
for a now. Wait outs getting too bad. I had
never happened before. They always pushed through, even when visibility
was garbage. But Ron didn't sound like he was in
the moot to argue, and honestly I wasn't either. I
thanked him and hung up, then just stood there in
the kitchen for a second kind of stun that I
actually had. The night off didn't feel real. My place
was right in the edge of town, last house before
the woods started, real quiet, specially in the winter, no traffic, sunds,
no for traffic, just a long stretch of trees behind
the yard and a driveway that loved ice over. I
figured I'd make use of the time and get ahead
of things, so I went out back to shovel the
steps before everything froze solid. That's when I noticed the tracks.
They cut straight through the yard. Not beot prints, not
animal tracks, bare feet, just a single line of them
heading from the woods. Right to my house. I remember
us quinting at them, trying to make sense of it.
They were half filled with snow, already starting to smooth over,
but still clear enough to make out the shape toes arches,
even the little curve of the heel. No trucks going back.
I stood there way too long, trying to rationalize. Maybe
someone could turned around in the trail and wandered through
the yard to get the bearings, but barefoot in this
call that didn't track. I did a full lap around
the house, just to make sure they hadn't walked around
the other side. Not Then the trail ended right beneath
my kitchen window, not under it, like the crouch. There
just ended no sign of where they went after. I
went back inside and locked every window and door, even
the ones I usually ignored. It was probably nothing, I
kept telling myself, just some weird trick of the snow,
a couple of kid being idiots. Still that had me wired.
I kept checking over my shoulder like something was going
to be there when I turned around. By midnight, the
power gave out. I was already in bed, not really sleeping,
just scrolling through random videos on my phone and waiting
for the signal bar to give up. The outage didn't
shock me. Pwur lines out here don't hold up well
when you've got wind howling like a freight train and
snow coming in sideways. I got up to check the
fuse box, just in case it was something internal, grab
my flashlight. When downstairs, flipped everything open. Nothing tricked. Everything
looked totally normal, except the house didn't feel normal. The
windows were groaning under the weight of the storm, and
the front door at a wall of snow pressed against it,
like something had tried to bury me in. I didn't
like it. The whole house felt too quiet, like the
kind of quite you get when someone's holding their breath.
That's when I heard it, tap tap tap tap tap
pose poles, then again, tap tap tap. It wasn't loud,
just soft, deliberate knocks, and not from the front door,
from the kitchen window, the same one the tracks had
stopped under. I didn't move, just stood during the dark,
flacoid in hand, frozen could have been a branch. I
told myself. Maybe the storm loosened something and the wind
was rattling it against the glass. But it was too even,
too steady. Nothing in nature knocks three times and then
waits politely to do it again. I didn't go check.
I backed out of the room, slowly went back to
the bedroom and locked the door. Somewhere around here in
the morning, I woke up to cold. Not the usual
winter kind of cold eater. This was biting, like the
inside of my bones had dropped a few degrees. I
reached for the quill, already wrapped in it, and still
couldn't get warm. Then I noticed the window. It was
wide open. Snow was blowing in sideways, dusting the floor
and piling up along the wall. I hadn't opened that
window in weeks, didn't even remember where the key for
the latch was. It was the kind of window you
forget even count open because it stays locked all year round.
I jumped up and slammed it shut, hand shaking. There
was a wet patch right under the sill where snow
had melted through, and just below it, smudged on the
floorboards was a handprint, not normal four a long finger marks,
no thumb, no palm, just streaks like something I see.
It had pressed down hard and dragged off the edge.
I didn't sleep again, es sat and bewed with a
flashlight pointed at the door until daylight started creeping and
through the curtains. When the storm finally let up that morning,
I went outside to dig out the driveway. Didn't want
to wait for the plows. I figured if I had
to bail, i'd want a clean path ready. That's when
I saw something buried in the snow bank along the street,
just the edge of something dark poking out like a
corner of fabric. I dug it out by hand. It
was a coat, black, heavy and completely frozen. One sleeve
was almost torn off. The whole thing looked like it
had been through a blender. No tags, no liming, just
for a fallen ice. I don't know why I brought
it inside. I think I was just on not a
pilot at that point. Took it into the kitchen, set
it down on a chair, and immediately something changed. They
have felt thicker, heavier. It was like I wasn't alone
in the room anymore. The silence had weight to it.
I stood there, holding my breath, waiting for something, a sound,
a movement. I didn't wait long. I picked the coat
back up and threw it outside. Didn't even hesitate that night.
I didn't go to bed. I sat up in the
living room with the fire going and every battery powered
light I had round three a m I heard it again,
movement from upstairs. That made zero sense. I don't use
the second floor. It unfinished, just wood framing and insolation.
I keep the door locked because there's nothing up there
but some old junk. I never impact, but those were
definitely footsteps. I growled Krowbert took the flask light and
crept up. With every step I took, it got colder,
like the air was getting pulled away from me. The
room looked empty, nothing move until I glanced up. The
added panel was open, just hanging there, like someone had
nudged it up and then forgotten to put it back.
I pulled it down, climbed into the kraal space. It
was tight, crapped, a kind of place where you can't
stand up and your knees creak the second you crouch.
At the far end was my old kemping gear, and
sitting neatly on top of it, bone dry, perfectly folded,
was that same black coat. I didn't touch it, didn't
say anything, just back down the ladder, closed the panel
and left the house. I didn't even grab my keys,
just started the truck and drove straight to the Sheriff's office.
I told them someone had broken in. They did a
full sweep, checked for footprints, nothing, no forced, no tempered locks.
They even pulled the footage from the security cameras I'd
installed lost spring after a breaking scare. They told me
I might have imagined it. That cold and stress can
do weird things to your head. Long winter, they said,
probably just fatigue. I sold the house a week later.
Guy who bought it was a contractor from Alton. Last
I heard he halted renovations after one of the crew
had an accident, fell through the attic panel. I was
thirty two when it happened. This estate park tucked out
near Marlow Ridge. I've been working there seasonally for a
few years, Cheril clan up facilities, checks stuff like that.
That winter, I agreed to take the weekend shift during
the storm front. It was voluntary extra pay, not mandatory,
and I figured I could use the cash. There wasn't
much to it, just keep the generator running, checking on
the buildings, report anything that got damage, and listened for
a weather alerts in the radio. Most of the time
you just sat in the staff cabin doing nothing. Friday morning,
the other ranges packed up and left early, trying to
beat the snow. By that afternoon, the road end had
already iced over. I wasn't worried. The cabin was solid,
stopped for food and back of Peters, and I'd stayed
through worse. The park was technically closed to visitors during
stones like that, so I didn't expect anyone to show up.
By Saturday night, the wind was howling loud enough that
even the walls of the shed sined to vibrate. I
had the radio on low, mostly for company, though it
was hard to hear anything over the wind. The January
to hum steadily outside, and I double check everything before dark.
I remember thinking it would be an easy, quiet night.
Then just after nine Cyril, the motion light outside clicked on.
That caught my attention. It's the kind of light that
only trips of something passes directly in front of it,
nottswaying trees, not wind. Maybe an animal, a dear maybe
or a fox. But when I looked out the window,
I saw tracks in the snow, small ones, uneaten, a
little scattered, but definitely footprints heading right up to the
front steps. I grabbed my coat, sitted up tight, and
opened the door. She was just standing there, a girl,
maybe seven or eight, no jacket, no boots, just as
flimsy like purple sweater and black leggings. Her hair was
wet and plastered to her for had like she'd been
out there for a while. Her cheeks were pale lip too.
I froze for a second, not because I was scared,
but because it didn't make any sense. There were no cars,
no snowshoes, nothing on the surface road leading in, and
no family. No one was supposed to be in the park.
I stepped closer and asked if she was okay. She
didn't answer. She just looked up at me with these
dull eyes and asked, can I come in? There was
no urgency in her voice, no emotion at all. Really,
she sounded like some one asking for the time. It
was weird, yeah, but my brain jumped straight to hypothermia.
Maybe she wandered off from a cabin near by. Maybe
she'd been out too long and didn't know where she was.
I asked her name, nothing, just the same question again,
can I come in? So I let her in? What
else was I supposed to do? The second she stepped
over the vessel, the lights cut out all at once,
total darkness, total darkness. The generator stopped humming, the radio
went silent. She didn't even flinch, just walked inside like
nothing had changed, and sat down on the floor near
the cold stove, legs crossed, hands in her lap. I
grabbed the emergency lantern from the shelf and flipped it on,
said it beside her. The light caught her eyes in
a weird way, too bright to glassy, but I figured
maybe she was in shock, or had eyes in her
lashes or something. I wasn't thinking clearly at that point.
My adrenaline was going haywire. I tried the radio, nothing,
not even static, just empty. Checked a fuse box. Everything
looked fine. I put on gloves and went outside to
check the generator. Horror still warm, no ice blockage, no
reason for it to be off, but it wouldn't turn
over again. When I came back in, she hadn't inch.
I grabbed two thermal blankets, wrapped them around her shoulders.
Tried again to get her to talk. I crouched down,
looked her right in the face, and asked if she
knew where her parents were. She didn't blink, just stared
at the lantern flame. Then, finally, almost under her breath,
she said, there coming. It wasn't a warning, it wasn't hopeful,
just a flat, casual statement, like she was commenting on
the weather. After that, she didn't speak again. The next
ire crawled. I kept checking the windows, though the snow
was falling so thick I could bare as he pass
the porch. My phone showed no baws. I tried climbing
up onto the desk by the window to get a
better signal. Nothing. I even considered hiking down to the
shed again to try the emergency line, but I didn't
want to leave her alone in the cabin. Even if
she wasn't acting normal, she was still a kid. I
made instant souper round eleven, put a steaming cup in
front of her. She didn't even glance at it. I
watched her for a long time, waiting for some sign
of life, shivering, blinking, swallowing nothing. At one point, when
the cabin door again to check the build up, I
glanced down at the steps in her footprints. The ones
she left coming up were gone, completely gone, not even smudged,
just a smooth stretch of snow where there should have
been a trail. Around midnight, I saw headlights through the trees.
I pressed my face to the window. A black suv
crawled up the service road. It didn't have part to
cows or emergency lights, no flushers, just steady, low beams.
It stopped a few feet from the porch and idled.
No one got out. I threw on my coat again
and opened the door, expecting to see a ranger or
maybe some local who got lost. But when I turned
to tell the girl, she was already at the door.
No sound, no movement before that, she was just there
beside me. Then she stepped outside, barefoot through the snow,
and walked toward the suv. The passenger door opened slowly
before she reached it. I leaned forward, trying to see inside.
There was no one in the driver's seat, no movement,
no light from the dashboard, just darkness. She climbed him
without a word. The door shut, the suv reverse turned
and disappeared down the trail without headlights. I watched until
the tree swallowed it. I don't know how long I
stood out there. When I went back inside, the cabin
felt colder than it had before, not temperature wise, just empty,
like she'd taken something with her. Around dawn, everything powered,
back up, lights, radio, generator, all of it just kicked
on like nothing had ever happened. My phone buzz were
backed up with alerts, all normal. I made the call
to the ranger station just after seven, told them a
kid showed up during the storm, said she got separated
from some hikers and someone came together her. They lowered it,
thanked me, didn't ask for much detail. That shift was
the last winter watch I ever took. I asked to
be reassigned to spring maintenance and never looked back. They'd
set me up north again, this time to win Farm
in western Nebraska, just outside a little town, cold Farage.
The job was a three week maintenance rotation. I was
filling him for a guy who'd gotten in shattered his
ankle stepping off the lift platform during an ice storm
typical for January. There were five of us total, working
in a kind of rotating split shift pattern. We each
had our assigned clusters, and unless he were lucky enough
to cross paths at the control shehdow during a radio
check in, it was easy to go days without seeing
another human face. I didn't mind the solitude. I'd always
been the kind of person who preferred mechanical problems over
people problems. Just me, a tolkit and one hundred fifty
feet of steel tow humming in the wind. There was
something almost peaceful about it. And told the storm the
forecasts had four inches of snow overnight. That's it. No warnings,
no alerts, just your average dusting. Instead we got buried
full long, wide out by sundown wind howling like it
was trying to peel the nasals clean off their spindles.
Visibility dropped to nothing in under two hours. I was
lucky enough to already be stationed inside my assigned tower,
BEAMNUS seventeen. When things turned. We lost contact early. I
remember trying to radio in a routine deg nosticheck and
getting nothing but static, not even a crackle. I figured
dispatch with update US when the signal cleared, I wasn't panicked,
not yet. Then Marcus went missing. He'd radioed that he
was headed to the auxiliary Shedney Taubens nine to grab
Baca Peter's. That was around four in the afternoon. By nightfall,
he hadn't checked in and no one could raise him.
I figured maybe he'd hold up in one of the
closer towers, waiting for things to calm down. We'd all
done it before, stand up procal when visibility dropped and
you can't see your own boots. Still, something about the
silence after his lost coal got under my skin. My
own tower, be Minu seventeen, was one of the oldest
on the side, Loud, drafty and hafty. Internal lights flickered
like dying Christmas decorations, but it had one thing going
for it, a functioning baccapeter. The others had burned out
or gun cold during the previous freeze. So that night
I bumped up inside the nasal sipped into one of
those the industrial sleeping bags. It smelled like mildew and vinyl,
but it was warm. I was grateful for that hum
of the heater, dull and steady, like a heartbeat some
time around to you. In the morning, I woke up
drenched in sweat. At first I thought the thermost hat
had gone haywire. The air inside felt wrong, dense, like
I was breathing through wet towel. I sat up to
fasten the well, tilted, my head spun and I had
to steady myself against the wall. I could feel the
weight of the heat pressing against my skin, thick and stale,
like it hadn't cycled in. IROs. I crawled over to
the rear hatch and cracked it just enough to let
some of that frigida cut through the stuffness. It helped
the disiness eased, and I started to feel like myself again.
That's when I noticed the axis panel. It was one
of those standard emergency kitts, bolted into the sidewall first
aid spare filters, a back up radio battery. I'd opened
it earlier that evening to check inventory. I close and
latched it tight. I'm methodical like that, but now the
panel door hung slightly jar, and the latch looked bent,
not broken, not kicked in, just twisted like someone had
drenched it open from the inside. The kit itself hadn't
been disturbed. Everything was in its place, but that latch
stuck with me. I couldn't stop looking at it. Something
about it felt personal, like some one had tried to
get my attention without leaving a note. I tried the
radio again. Still nothing, just dead air and a low,
coaling static that almost sounded like whispering. If you listened
too long. I needed to move, needed to do something,
so I forced myself into a basic walk through of
the nasal interior. I checked every kibble housing, every port,
even the bolts in the axis hatch. Everything looked fine,
except for the glove. It was wedged deep into the
edge of the battery compartment, half hidden behind the insulation form.
I almost missed it. It was mine. Wrong sighs, wrong color.
I wore thick black gauntlets. This one was navy blue, sleeker,
more like what you'd wear on a cold hike. No
company logo. The fingers were stiff, and when I pulled
it out, it was frozen solid. There was no reason
for that glove to be there. By the time the
sky started to brighton, if he could call it that.
In a storm, the heater it completely cut out. No warning, beap,
no system error, just silence. I bundled up and climbed
down to check the system, and that's when I saw
the footprints. They were cursp by, mistakably fresh. The snow
round them was undisturbed, no sign of drift or melting.
They led away from the tower, away from everything, out
toward a clump of trees, maybe half a mile off.
There's nothing in that direction, though, road, no structure, just
a patch of pine, barely taller than the turbines themselves.
What really got me was the size. The prince were small, narrow,
no heel drag, no stagger. Whatever boots made them, they
weren't standard issue. The tread looked wrong, too, like something
you'd buy at a sporting good store, not an industrial supplier.
I followed them just for a bit, maybe twenty minutes,
twenty five yards. But the further I went, the worse
of silence. Felt like I was being watched or listen to.
It was hard to explain, but my whole body felt wired,
like the inside of my chest was buzzing. I stopped,
looked up at the trees in the distance. Then I
turned around and went back to Beaman of seventeen. Inside
it was already colder. I rigged what insulation I could,
wrapped my sleeping bag and a top, and sat close
to the wall for warm. I kept trying the crank
radio every hour, hoping for a break. Nothing That night dragged.
I didn't sleep. At one point, maybe three in the morning,
I heard something scrape across the outside hallnot went not
metal shifting. This was deliberate, like someone dragging a tool
against the tower skin. I sat there in the dark,
holding a wrench like it meant something. Didn't move, didn't
even breathe. Next morning I got a signal faint but
there a burst of static and a voice cutting in
and out. Medical Irak turbund. Six minutes one emergency six minutes.
One was east far side of the field, a mile
maybe more in the snow. I didn't think twice. I
grabbed my gear and left, took over an iro. I
was exhausted by the time I reached it. The hatch
was open, not a jar, wide open inside. The latter
lights were on. I called out, no reply. I climbed anyway.
About half way up, I saw it, something dark, frozen
along one of the wrongs. I leaned in blood, a
smear of it, right where your hand would land if
you were climbing up in a hurry. Michaelovesitched. I didn't
want to keep going, but I did. At the top,
the nasal was empty, no one, no gear, just a
single sleeping bag in a corner, unzipped and crumpled like
some one left in a hurry. And above the dead
heater units grasped faintly into the aluminum panel before words,
don't follow the boots. I stared at that for a
long time. Then I climbed down, went back to be seventeen,
and locked the hatch behind me. I stayed there for
three more nights, eight protein bars cranked. The radier didn't sleep.
When the chopper finally came, I barely heard it over
the wind. I waved and waited. Every One else made
it out. Marcus didn't. They found pieces of his gay
near a frozen creaked bed six miles east past the
tree line. They said exposure, this so orientation, maybe even
hypothermia and disbehavior. I was twenty four when it happened.
My cousin Marra had asked me to have sit while
she was out in Montana for a teaching seminar. She
just got a tenure at some small college and was
doing all these professional development retreats. Her place was up
in northern Vermont, way past Saint Saying Alban's practically brushing
against the Canadian border. She lived in this old a
frame house her partner had fixed up. Before this split
cozy would stove lots of glass spacing the trees pretty
enough in the fall, I imagine, but in early winter,
right before everything shuts down for the season, a whole
area just feels emptied out, like the world press palls.
I drove in on a Monday, snow was already starting
to dust the treat ups, and mar told me to
stock up on groceries in town, because once the snow
started falling up there, I wouldn't want to be driving anywhere.
She was right. The nearest market was nearly an Ira way,
and the little general store a few miles off the
main road barely canted. They sold more hunting gate and food. Still,
the idea of being holed up in a cabin with
nothing but Juniper, a little shaggy mutt, and a stack
of books didn't sound so bad. The storm walled in
late on my second night. At first it was just floorers.
I watched them fall through the big living room window
while I made poster and let Juniper chase her tail
across the floor. By the time I went to bed, though,
the wind was upon howling through the rafters, making these strange,
hollow morning sounds in the chimney. It was scary, exactly,
just loud and weirdly constant, like someone was trying to
homitune through the walls. Self service had already dropped out
no Boss since some time after dinner, but the power
was still on, and I figured if it stayed that way,
I could write out whatever came. By morning, everything was buried.
I looked out the front window and couldn't see the
driveway at all, just a sheet of white stretching to
the tree line. Snow had piled half way up the
port railings and the stairs leading down to the yard
were basically gone. The wind was still going strong, and
the sky had that thick, low hanging look that says
we're not done yet. I made coffee, wrapped myself in
a blanket, and settled on the couch with Juniper snoring
beside me, watching muded runs on the DVD player. And
then around noon some one knocked, not generally either three
sharp raps fastened deliberate. I froze. Juniper perked up immediately,
ear stiff, body alert. For a second, I honestly thought
maybe I'd imagined it. The storm had been beating against
the windows all morning, and sometimes her brain turns noises
into patterns. But then it came again, same three knocks.
I got up slowly and went to the front door.
Looked through the peep hole. There was a man on
the porch. He was standing just far enough back that
the overhang didn't fully cover him, hut up, face half
in shadder, wearing a gray pocker dodge and soap from
the knees down. His boots were half buried in the snow.
But what stuck with me was how still he was
completely motionless, no stomping his feet, no brushing snow off,
just waiting. He saw the people shift and tilted his
head slightly, then smiled. I didn't smile back. I didn't
say anything. I stepped away from the door, and then
he knocked again, slower this time, like he knew I
was right there. You got a phone, he said, His
voice was muffled but clear. My car stuck down the road.
That was believable. I guess there was a sharp bend
a mile or two back where you could definitely skid
out if you weren't used to mountain driving. Still, I
kept my voice level when I answered, no signal, I
said through the door. Lines are down, Can I come in?
Just want to call at a shock? I won't stay along.
He said it politely, calmly, that there was something off
in the way he spoke. It wasn't what he said,
it was how confident he sounded, like he already knew
I'd opened the door. Likeness was just a formality. I said,
no from this time, sorry, I can't let anyone in.
He didn't argue, didn't plead or curse. He just stood
there another few seconds. I counted them. Then he turned
and stepped off the porch. I rushed to the side
window and watched him. He wasn't heading for the road.
He was circling the house, moving through the snow, slowly,
like he was checking something, not looking in the windows,
just walking the perimeter, like people do when they're scoping
out a place. That's when I grabbed Juniper and double
checked the back door, locked it, turned off all the
lights except the kitchen. Then I waited. He didn't come back.
No more knocks, no sounds, nothing but wind and snow outside.
Still The rest of that day dragt. I kept the
bath from the hallway closet beside me, Juniper stay glued
to my side. At one point I thought I heard
something on the roof like a creak or shuffle, but
it could have been snow sliding off. I told myself
it was snow that night. I didn't go upstairs. I
dozed off and on with that. He be humming static
in the background. Juniper gurled under her breath every time
the wind shifted. Then at two in the morning, almost exactly,
I heard the back door of Braddle just once, like
some one testing it. I didn't breed, didn't move. Then
came the tapping, not loud, not even forcible, just a
finger tapping the kitchen window above the sink, A light,
steady rhythm, tap tap, tap, tap, same speed each time.
I pictured some one standing out there using their knuckle.
I crept to the hallway and grabbed the bat again,
metle against my palm. Juniper was stiff beside me. Here
is pinned back, not making sun. This time I waited there,
crouch for I don't even know how law. Eventually the
tapping stopped. I gave it at least thirty minutes before moving.
When I finally dared to peek, the window was empty,
but the snow just outside. There were footprints, their foot prints,
no boots, just human feet. He They led straight from
the edge of the woods to the back door, then
turned and disappeared into the trees. I stayed awake the
rest of the night, lights on bat in hand. When
the sun finally came up and the snow led off
enough for the plas to clear the roads, I growbed
my things, loaded Juniprint to the suv and drove straight
to the sheriff's office in town. They sent some one
back out with me, nice guy, Deputy Moser, I think,
but he didn't find anything. Then that winter had different,
not just colder, but heavier somehow. I'd been working maintenance
as sell a monitoring station outside a little town named
Montana cold ryse Field. If you blinked, you'd miss it.
Just a dine at a gas pump and a post
office that closed by the facility was about twenty miles
further out, real medal of nowhere stuff. We had strift protocols,
no overnight's days, the buildings weren't designed for it, and
there was a full time crew on site. Usually I'd
been and out in a couple ears, check the equipment
log any faults, then back on the road by late afternoon.
But that day a storm rolled in earlier than expected.
I was on the roof checking junction seals when the
wind picked up. Visibility dropped fast. One second I could
see the gravel lot, the next it was like being
inside a snow globe. Some one shook too hard. By
the time I climbed back down, the road was already
asked over. There were no tire trucks left from when
I'd come in, just a thick white blanket swallowing everything.
I didn't have snow chains with me, dumb mistake. Figured
i'd be back before things got bad. Luckily there was
an old shed tuck behind the main facility. Everyone called
at the cabin, though that was being generous, just a
glorified storage room that some one had stuck a cot
and appropian heater in years back. It was supposed to
be for merging sees. Only A radio dispatched to say
I'd be hunkering down until the storm passed. Got nothing
back but statik in that sharp digital wind the radios
made when they couldn't find a signal. Still, I wasn't
too worried. It wasn't my first time getting stuck somewhere.
Over night. I found a few cans of soup in
the cupboard, used the heater to warm one up, and
settled on to the cot in my coat. The wind
banged around outside for ires, like it was trying to
rattle the bolts loose. I eventually dozed off, wrapped in
two emergency blankets and hoping I wouldn't have to dig
the truck out in the morning. Then at some point
deep into the night, I woke up freezing. It was
that kind of cold, the punches through layers, not a
gentle chill, an absence of warm, so sharp it feels
like someone sucking the heat out of your bones. I
sat up, confused the heater had stopped hommy first thaw
out of fuel. I swung my legs off the cot,
bracing myself for the coal floor, and that's when I
noticed it. The door. It was shut all the way,
just hanging there a couple inches open enough for the
wind to snake through. But the strange pot was I
knew i'd latched it. It wasn't a casual, push closed
kind of door. It had a thick, industrial grade latch.
She had to slide into place with real force. It
made the sharp clanking sound. Would it locked loud enough
to echo in that tiny space. I just stood there
staring at it. My ears were ringing from her silent
and everything was that kind of silence you only get
out in the deep cold, no like something physical. Eventually,
I stepped forward and pushed the door open a little further.
The snow had eased up. It was still falling, but
in that soft, quiet Waylika didn't want to draw attention
to itself. I stepped out and looked around. Nothing, no
footprints leading in or out. The snow was smooth and broken,
not even the usual drift patents. It looked almost too clean,
like it had for said itself. Somehow. I backed inside,
locked the door again with a heavy clunk, and checked
the probein tanget wasn't empty. It had been turned off.
Some one had twisted the knob to the off position.
I stood there with my hand on the valve, not
really knowing what to make of it. I checked the window,
no cracks, no signs of tamper in the place were
sealed up, and yet that the door had definitely opened,
and the heater some one had to physically turn it off.
I didn't sleep the rest of the night, just sat
on the cot, watching the door listening to every creek
and gone the walls made there weren't many, just that low,
almost under water silence, like the world had stopped moving.
When the sky lightened and it felt safe enough to move,
I packed up my bag and hight cross the lot
to the main facility. The wind had died, but the
snow's deep and uneven, making each step awkward. I slept twice.
By the time I got to the building. My gloves
were stiff with cold. The power was still out, but
I had a master key and let myself in. It
was warmer inside even without the heat, probably residual from
the insulated walls. I headed to the break room first.
That's when I noticed it, a ther mess, just sitting
there in the middle of the table, plain black one
with the company logo. I hadn't touched that building since
the previous afternoon, and I knew the schedule. No one
else was supposed to be on sight for another forty
eight iOS. I picked it up. It was still warm.
That gave me pause. But what hit even harder was
the chair. One of the plastic chairs at the table
had been pulled back several feet, not tucked under the
table like the others. It was turned slightly angled toward
the hallway that led to the server room, like some
one had been sitting there watching. I checked the axis locks.
My badge was the only one scand and over the
last twenty four hours, I double checked nothing, not even
the weekend janitor. Then I pulled up the perimeter cameras.
Most were glitching, snow distorted, but one had managed to
record about five seconds of footage around one point thirty
that morning. It showed the back path, the one leading
from the cabin to the main building. The image flickered,
blurred with blowing snow ow, but just before the feet
cut out, something stepped into frame. A figure tall, broad shoulders,
no face visible, just a bulky out line half shadowed.
It was walking slow, one leg drag behind like it
was fully lifting it. The movement was jerky, unnatural. I
watched it loop three times, each time the same awkward drag.
I didn't know what to make of it. I tried
to tell myself it was a neighbor. Maybe someone had
gotten turned around in the storm. But that path was
a straight shot. No one would have wandered up it
by accident, And even if they had, why not knock,
Why just lurk? The roads didn't clear for another two days.
I stayed in the main building the entire time, sleeping
in a chair in the control room, lights on, door locked.
I didn't go back to the cabin until the day
I left. Only returned because I had left my toolbooks
some winter gear inside. I kept it quick in, grabbed
the bag at but just as I was about to leave,
something stopped me. The cot had been moved, not by
a lot, just pulled slightly away from the wall, but
enough to notice, enough to make me pause. And the
blanket still creased where I had slept. But now there
were two impressions, one at the top where my head
had been, and one smaller one near the foot, like
someone something smaller, had curled up there beside me, facing
the other way. I froze. There was this rush of
heat up the back of my neck. Not fear exactly,
more like this full body awareness, like muskin. Suddenly remembered
I was alone. I should have left right then, but
for some reason I turned to look at the window.
There on the inside of the glass were for smudges
in the frost, long thin lines angled downward, light fingertips
dragging from the top corner of the window down toward
the middle. I didn't breathe, did it blink, just turn,
grabbed the door handle and got out. I drove straight
through the pass, changed or not, white knuckled it the
whole way back to Ryersefield and didn't even stop to
check in. Just called my supervisor the next day and
said I needed time off. The storm was already getting
serious by the time I clocked out and left the wares.
A few of the guy's Brian Melt and the new
kid who always wore head ferns, told me I should
just cross there for the night. They'd enrolled some mats
near the break area and were already plying to heat
up left over pizza. I appreciated it, but I passed.
I at this stubborn thing about finishing what I started,
and at night. What I started was a week alone
in the hills with no one around. The idea of
waking up in a dusty wharuse next to the vending
machine just didn't match the plan. My cabin wasn't far
about forty minutes north, near a stretch of woods outside
Carver's Ridge. I had taken some time off work to decompress,
not for any dramatic reason, just to build up of
too many days in a rowse bend under buzzing life
light and hearing the same conversations I wandered quiet. I
found this rental online a little a framed tug back
off a barely paved access road, no Wi Fi, barely
any cell service. It was perfect. The first part of
the drive was uneventful, even kind of peaceful. I had
the heat cranked in one of those long ambient playlists
going the kind with wind chines and soft cords like
Coatel Spall Music. But about twenty minutes in the snow
picked up fast. I'm talking white up conditions, thick flakes
hammering the windshield, the kind that blow your headlights and
turn everything into static. I slowed way down. Didn't matter
that I had snow tires. If you can't see the road,
they don't help much. That's probably when I made the
wrong turn. It couldn't have been more than a few
degrees off the correct route, but in that weather, that's
all it takes. One moment I was cruising between familiar
trees and old wooden mail boxes, and the next hour
was staring at a dead end, a bunch of down branches,
and what look like the edge of a small ravine.
No signs, no lights, no indication I'd ever been on
that road before. I tried to reruiate myself. That's when
I saw it alongside road leading off to the left,
perfectly plowed, not just scrape ones either. It looked freshly cleared.
I figured it had to lead somewhere civilized, maybe a
lodge or ranger station. Every other road I passed had
been swallowed by snow, so this one stood out too much. Honestly,
I checked my phone, no signal. GPS was frozen mid
load right, but the alternative was sitting there waiting to
get stuck or worse. So I turned onto the plaid
road and hoped for a turn off or lit that
my connect back to the highway. That road felt like
it went on forever, no street lights, no signs, just
thick trees pressing in on both sides and the occasional
flicker of an old fence post under the snow. A
couple miles in A saw tire trucks ahead of me,
just one set, partly covered but recent. A little further
down there was a rusty gate hanging crooked off its hinges,
wide open, like someone had left it in a hurry.
Past the gate was a clear with a few large
concrete buildings, government looking maybe a state facility. At first glance,
it reminded me of the summer camps built in the seventies.
Plain functional, weirdly grim. Most of the windows were boarded,
some half smashed paint head peeled off in sheets. Still,
something about the place didn't scream abandoned. It felt paused,
like people had just stepped out. I pulled into what
looked like an old lot and parked near the smallest building,
the one closest to the road, probably used to be
the main office. The wind had died done for a bit,
just a dull roar in the distance. I got out,
stretched my legs, tried my front again. Still nothing. The
snow was already filling my tier tracks. I figured i'd
knock on a door. Maybe someone kept the place as
a window base or emergency station, or at the very
least I could wait inside and get my bearings until
the storm settled. The front door was locked. It opened slow,
the kind of slow that tells you nobody's come through
it in a while. The hallway inside smelled like cardboard
an old carpet, but it was dry. I stepped through
dusty foy with broken chairs and a dented vending machine,
then into a larger room that looked like a visitor
check in area. There were still some papers pinned to
the bulletin board, most had yelled to brittle tan. Off
to the side was a small room with a big
desk and a cracked window, the security booth probably inside.
I found a space heater, a batted silver chair, and
a few empty water bottles under the desk. I flugged
the heater in just to see. Surprisingly it worked. That
felt like a wind. I sat at a sund which
had packed her a layer and tried to think my
pand was to stay put, warm up, and head out.
One's visibility returned. It was quiet, not peaceful quiet, more
like the kind of quiet where your brainstuts and venting
background noise to fill the silence. The heater hum steadily,
giving off just enough warmth to make me forget how
cold the rest of the building was. Then I heard voices.
At first I thought it was static from the heater,
but no, this was speech, male voices at least two
of them, not yelling, not panicked, just talking blurfs. I
turned the heater off. The voices got clearer. Don't want
to drag them out there, not while it's still lie.
Doesn't matter. If someone sees tracks, that's worse. What about
the car it's new, that's not local. Then me deal
with it like the others. Those last three words they
didn't feel hypothetical. Everything in my body tensed. I didn't think.
I just slid down behind the desk and stayed low.
The room had one narrow window, but the snow had
fogged it over. I couldn't see out, but I could
hear footsteps, steady, calm approaching. Then creek one of the
hall way doors opened. I pressed my hand over my mouth.
I could hear the four boards just outside the booth,
the creak of weight shifting, Then boots right in front
of the desk. A man's voice, This one's not empty.
Another voice further off. Your heater's running. I didn't wait
to hear anything else. I grabbed my backpack and bolted
for the side door. My foot caught on something I
don't even know what, and I went hard down the
icy stairs, catching myself with my left hand. It went
numb immediately. I didn't stop. I ran across the lot,
weaving between buildings, slipping on frozen patches, ducking under what
used to be a covered walkway. I didn't look back,
but I could hear one of them shout. The wind
muffled the words. There was no getting to my car.
They were between me and the road now, so I
did the only thing that made sense. I ran into
the woods. The snow was almost knee deep in places,
and every few steps I thought I'd trip or roll
an ankle. I kept my eyes, and the creek had
passed earlier, the one I'd seen through the trees. It
was mostly frozen, but still gurgling faintly under a thin
strip of dark water. I followed that sound form mys probably,
or at least if fought that way. Eventually I found
an old utility shed near broken fence line. The door
had a chain on it, but no lock. I climbed
inside and pulled the chain clothes behind me. There was
nothing inside except rusted tools and a stack of crush boxes,
but it was shelter. A cross in the corner. Trying
not to breathe too loud, trying not to cry. I
stayed there until nightfall, Somewhere in that dark cramp space.
They must have passed out from exhaustion. When I came
to you. My legs were stiff, my fingers burning from
the cold. But the wind had stopped, the woods were still.
I slept out, moved slow and cap hitting west. I
didn't stop until I saw two lane road and the
blinking light of a snow poll in the distance. The
driver didn't ask many questions. Back in town, I went
straight to the shere's office and told them everything. The
deputy on duty gave me a long look and said
the road I described didn't exist. Claimed there was nothing
out that way except burned out correctional center that had
been shut down for years. Said the Axiss road had
been removed entirely. I asked if I could take them there.
They told me to go home, get some sleep, and
come back. When I was thinking clearly. I worked solo,
running medical equipment out to small clinics across northern Minnesota.
This happened in late January, right in the thick of
one of those weeks where the snow just would stop
piling up and the cold makes your steering wheel feel
like a frozen pipe. You step outside and your nose
hairs freeze up in seconds. You know the kind of
cold I mean, the sword that doesn't just settle in,
It clumps down and hangs there. I just wrapped up
a delivery at clinic in a place called Renford, real
Sma all blinks by if you sneeze kind of place.
The plan was simple, hit south two ires on back
roads through forest and farmland, and stop for fuel near
Helma's crossing before heading home. The drives started out quiet,
just a dull stretch of gray and white, the kind
that makes your eyes glaze over if you're not careful.
I didn't have a signal for MOSCIVI, which was pretty
normal out there. The farther I drove the worse. The
snow forgot thick enough that I had to lean forward
just to see past the hot head lads practically bouncing
off a wall of white. Then came the pop, loud
and abrupt, like a gunshot. Under the van. One of
the rear tires blew, and I felt the whole vehicle
shift hard left. I wrestled it back, but couldn't stop
if from sliding into snow bunk on the right side
of the road. It hit with a heavy thud that
jowled me forward through the sleeper caught me in time.
For a second. I just sat there with both hands
and the wheel hal thumping from the jolt. Then the
frustration said in. I knew before I even got out
what I was going to find. Sure enough, the tire
was toast, half burdened, snow half shreded. I stood thus,
staring at it, snow needling my face, wondering if I
could dig it out enough to change it myself. I
didn't think I could not without freezing half to death
in the process. I my phone still dead to the world,
no bars, no data that when the headlights appeared in
the mirror, dim and slow moving, cutting through the snowful
behind me, a dark blue recuv creeping up until it
came to stop a few feet back. The window rolled down,
and a woman leaned over from the driver's seat. She
looked mid forties, maybe a little older, show up, brown hair,
flushed cheeks like she just common from the cold, though
she was already outside. She wore a white pocket with
the hood down, which struck me as odd. Everyone else
I'd seen that day had been bundled to the eyebrows.
She didn't seem bothered. You stuck, she asked, not as
a question, more like a statement. I nodded, tire's gone.
No signal. She didn't ask if I was okay, didn't
offer a phone or a blanket or even her name,
just said her brother lived nearby, had ho chain in
his garage and could pull me out if I followed
her up the road. Said it wasn't far. I told
her I'd tried to call for service once I got
a signal, but she shook her head. You want out here,
just follow me. It's nothing. The way she said it,
it was fast, washed, like she wanted to close the
deal before I could think about it too hard, and
I hesitated. I really did. Every part of me was
saying this is off. But it was snowing harder by
the minute, and standing out there wasn't helping. I figured
i'd follow her, see the supposed garage, and worst case
turn around, I had the van I could leave any time.
She pulled ahead, and I climbed back into the driver's seat,
teeth chattering now from the cold. I eased the van
out of the snow bank and followed her slowly down
the road. We drove maybe ten minutes. Her flasher was
blinking through the white out. Then she turned down a
side road I hadn't even noticed until she was already
on it. No sign, no markers, just a narrow track
between the trees. That's one thing started feeling really wrong.
The trees closed and fast on both sides, pine bread
bunch is low enough to scrape the roof and places,
the road twisted more than it should have. No tire
tracks except for hers and mine. Then after one sharp bend,
we rolled into a small clearing. There was a cabin
at the center of it, old wood, low roof, no
garage inside. A faint yellow like glowed behind one window,
though there were thick blankets nailed up over it from
the inside. No driveway, just snow packed on in two
fresh sets of tire prints. She stepped out of the
suv and waved like she was welcoming me to dinner party.
I didn't move, just kept the engine running and watched.
A minute later, another vehicle appeared, and older ad picket
that crunched slowly over the snow. The man who climbed
out didn't match anything she'd said. He looked well into
his sixties, weathered face, slow steps. He wore a heavy
brown hunting jacket with stains on it that looked too
dark to be mud. He didn't glance in my direction,
just walked over to her and started talking in a
low voice. They kept glancing at me between sentences. Then
she came back alone and stopped at my window again.
I cracked it half way. She smiled again, still too wide,
and said he's grabbing the chain. You can come in
where it's warm. I shut my head. I'm good here.
She paused, just stood the smiling like she didn't hear me,
then finally nodded and walked way back to the man.
I sat there, trying to figure out what felt so wrong.
The window was lit but sealed up. There were no
other houses, no visible wires or satllite dishes, no signs
of recent snowfall on their vehicles, but mine was already
wearing a fresh white cap. That didn't make sense. Then
the man came back out. He had the chain, now
heavy and lawn. He didn't look at me, just walked
behind the van and crouched low, too low. I checked
the mirrors but couldn't see what he was doing. I
only saw his head and shoulders moving in short, cuick
motions under the bumper. Something in me snapped. I dropped
the gear into reverse and slammed the gas. Van lurched backward,
and I felt the back wheels bump over something hard.
Maybe the chain may be his foot, I didn't know.
He jumped back, arms flailing, shutting something I didn't catch.
I didn't stop. I jerked the wheel and spun around
the van, fish tailing until the ties found traction again.
Then I fawed at tearing back down that winding forest
road as fast as I could manage. Nobody followed. I
didn't look in the rarvy mirror until I hit the highway.
Even then nothing but white behind me. I kept driving
until I reached a gas station, almost thirty minutes later.
My hands were shaking as a pump gas signal finally
came back, just one bar, but it was enough to
call at her truck. When they lifted the vent the
mechanic fan, the chain twisted tightly round the rear axle,
not hooked, not wrap for towing, just looped and for
I did in a way that didn't make sense unless
you were trying to lock the wheel solid, he said.
If I'd driven another few minutes like that, the whole
axle could have seized up, could have flipped me. I
didn't tell any one what happened, not officially. I didn't
file a report or try to describe the woman or
the man, or that we had rowed that doesn't seem
to exist any more. I don't even know what i'd say,
and that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
I will see you in the next one.