The Shuddering

CHAPTER ONE
    D on slapped the trunks of the trees with his left hand as he ran past them, a small ax held tight in his right. He struggled for breath as steam rose from his lungs. As he twisted midrun, casting a wild-eyed look over a shoulder, he was sure he’d see them snapping at his heels, their hard black eyes glinting in the grayness of the morning. He saw nothing—only thin swaying pines bending in the breeze, cutting into the cold blue of the sky, drowning him in their shadow—but Don knew they were there. The drips of blood that trailed him like scarlet breadcrumbs assured him that this wasn’t a dream. They were watching him as his legs burned with each footfall, waiting as his boots kicked up snow. The trees shuddered all around him, shaken by an invisible hand. No matter how fast he ran, they were one step ahead of him, obscured by branches and tree trunks and snow, keeping themselves concealed despite their conspicuous movements. It was a game, and Don was their target.
    His heart thudded in his chest as he skidded to a stop, his mind reeling as he stared at the blood dripping from the fingers of his ungloved right hand. The throbbing of his arm reminded him that his heart was still beating, that he was still alive; that ax gave him a glimmer of hope. Maybe, by some miracle, he still had a chance. Maybe he could still make it home; he could survive. He launched himself forward despite the pain, stumbling headlong into what he hoped would be escape, unable to wrap his mind around the simple fact that the monsters his father had toldhim about—terrible stories whispered by the pale yellow glow of a lamp, quiet so that his mother wouldn’t scold them both—had been far more than childhood fiction. The monsters of his youth were chasing him. They were hungry. They were real.
    It was unbelievable to think that just an hour before he had been sitting at his kitchen table, listening to his wife hum as she washed the breakfast dishes. The only thing out of the ordinary that morning was the bitterness of the cold. Don felt the oncoming storm in his bones long before it hit the news, long before those so-called meteorologists fumbled the prediction. His right knee ached, and that meant more snow—snow on top of the four-inch base that already blanketed the mountains of southwestern Colorado.
    It was the perfect reason to pile firewood high against the side of the house. Don had been lazy for the past few days, spending more time in his recliner watching Antiques Roadshow than keeping the place in order. The unseasonable chill meant that the firewood was almost gone, and the throb in his joints assured him that if he didn’t get out there now, the impending blizzard would see to it that he paid for his idleness later.
    But free firewood was one of the perks of living out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t anyone to stop a man from grabbing his ax and doing it the old-fashioned way. So he finished his eggs and toast, buttoned up his North Face jacket, tied a hand-knitted scarf around his neck, and pulled a fur-lined hat over his slept-in hair. When Jenny turned to him, she couldn’t help but smile. It was coming up on their thirtieth wedding anniversary, twenty-three years of which he’d spent half-hidden by an unruly beard that had turned white with age. It made him look like an off-season Santa, and Christmas was her favorite time of year.
    “You be careful,” she told him, tightening the scarf around his neck before kissing the tip of his nose. “Don’t go chopping off any fingers.”
    He gave a sideways grin at her warning. Jenny still treated him like he’d never held an ax before, though Don had worked as a logger his entire life. It had been a tough way to make a living, but it had afforded them a nice little house and a full ten acres of unspoiled land. Grabbing his hatchet from next to the front door, he ducked into the cold morning without a good-bye.
    His boot caught a buried tree branch and Don skidded onto his front, the snow momentarily blinding him as it blew into his face, stinging his eyes and catching in his beard. 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 Jenny would have rolled her eyes at him and dismissed his boyish proclamations with a giggle and a wave of her hand.
    Fumbling back onto his feet, he winced against the burning of