The Shuddering

their source of fire spiraled toward the ground. He bounded forward, catching it just before it hit the snow, the flame licking his exposed fingers as he readjusted his grip. And then he veered around, facing the threehissing, moaning creatures that he hadn’t bothered to look at but knew were there.
    Ryan pointed the burning torch toward them and sprayed April’s hair spray in a graceful swoop. Jane yelped as a wall of flame went up around them. The savages reeled back and scrambled away.
    “Oh my god,” Jane gasped, and he was whirling around again, searching for another parasite to toast. “Ryan, you’re bleeding.” She reached out to touch his shoulder but pulled her hand away just shy of contact. “Oh my god,” she repeated, on the verge of a breakdown. “Not you too,” she cried. “I can’t… not you too .”
    “I lost the lighter,” he told her, not giving her concern a second thought—he couldn’t afford to. First aid had been the one thing he hadn’t thought to bring, and Sawyer was in far worse shape than he was. Handing her the torch, he approached the dead demon in the snow, secured a boot against the thing’s massive head, and yanked the table leg from its jaws. He held it up to Jane’s fire, waiting for it to catch. When it did, he turned back to the carcass in front of him, sprayed the thing with aerosol, and lit up the dead.
    Ryan jerked awake with such a start he made both Jane and Oona jump. Jane stared at her brother as he patted himself down, his expression a strange mix of fascination and disbelief. She had worried that he would lose too much blood throughout the night, that he’d slip away from her when she succumbed to exhaustion, but he had insisted whatever damage had been done to his shoulder wasn’t that big a deal. Compared to Sawyer’s injury, it was little more than a scratch. Before she could ask him what was wrong, he was scrambling out of their shelter, shoving a corner of the tarp aside. Jane shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun,the snow sparkling around her like diamond dust. Ryan’s plan had worked—the small bonfires he’d built around the opening to their shelter had kept those things at bay. They had survived the night.
    Oona scrambled out after him, immediately up to her haunches in the drift. Jane moved only when she heard Ryan laughing. Crawling into the sun, she squinted up at him.
    “Look!” he said, presenting a breathtaking wonderland of white as though it was hers for the taking. “It’s the fucking sky .” And so it was, blue and enormous with a few fluffy clouds drifting across. She grinned as Ryan laughed up at it like a lunatic. They weren’t home free yet, but the feeling was mutual: it was hope. The clouds had burned away. The wind was gone. It was a perfect day.
    “Thank you!” he screamed up at the sun, spinning around to look at her a moment later. The expression on his face was enough to assure her that they had made it. It was over. Just as abruptly as the nightmare had started, it was gone.
    “Tom, look!” Jane twisted around to face Sawyer, unable to keep Ryan’s joyous laughter from creeping into her tone. Sawyer was huddled beneath his quilt, his head bowed, nothing but the top of his hat visible.
    She blinked when he didn’t move. Her smile faded. Her heart squeezed itself into a fist.
    “Tom?”
    Nothing.
    Her breath hitched in her throat. Her face went hot.
    Ryan was singing something as Oona barked, but for Jane, all sound was muffled. They sounded like they were underwater as she slowly sank down next to Sawyer, her hands trembling as she reached out toward her mother’s old quilt. The tips of her gloves brushed across the blanket, pulling back as soon as a corner fell away, unwrapping the man huddled inside.
    A sob tore from her chest when Sawyer didn’t move, but rather slowly tipped to the side, filling the space where she had tried to sleep throughout the night—she and Ryan on either side of him—in an attempt to keep him warm.
    Ryan blotted out the sun when he filled the entry of their shelter. At first his expression was nothing but confused, but as soon as Jane turned away from Sawyer, choking on her tears, his bewilderment was replaced with realization.
    Sawyer was gone.
    Ryan silently packed their gear as Jane sobbed next to him, her cries muffled by her gloves. He had re-covered the shelter with the blue tarp, stabbing one of their torches directly in front of it to keep those creatures