The Shuddering

to when the sun had finally come out to warm their skin. In their elation of finally reaching the highway and sun warming the frozen ground, they had let the torches burn out, forgetting one tiny detail: Sawyer’s lighter had been lost.
    A sob stifled her breathing. How could they have been so stupid? They had been so careful this entire time, only to let their guard down, only to rob themselves of the one thing they were sure those things were afraid of.
    Oona snarled at something unseen as Ryan grabbed the ax. She could see it in his eyes—he was ready to come apart, unable to believe they were worse off than before, that he had made such a damning mistake.
    “Fuck!” he screamed.
    Jane swallowed hard as Oona continued to bark in the distance—the kind of bark that held a warning: Stay back.
    That now all-too-familiar guttural purr sounded from the shadows. But this time it was different. This time it sounded like there were dozens of them, as though they had gathered up the troops for a final assault.
    Both she and Ryan exchanged a terrified look. Her heart pounded so hard against her ribs it nearly rocked her where she stood. She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him she loved him, to tell him that they’d be okay—they had to be. They hadn’t dealt with so much and come this far just to die. But before she could find the words, one of those emaciated creatures launched itself out of a tree and onto the highway. Jane gripped Ryan’s arm as the thing bared its grisly teeth at Oona.
    “Oh my god,” Jane whispered, and then she turned around and ran back to their basket of supplies.
    It was beautiful, the way the sun danced through the clouds, catching the bright blue of the sky before glinting off the snow. It was as if God were performing a light show—a silent sound track to the last moments of Ryan’s life. This was why he loved winter, the mountains. This very view was why he had fallen in love with the slopes.
    Looking over his shoulder, he watched Jane run back toward the unplowed road that had brought them here, the sun shining bright against the snow. He wished that she would keep running, that she’d forget him and save herself somehow—though how, he wouldn’t have been able to say.
    He took a few forward steps, his hands tightening against the ax handle. He was too far away to make it to Oona before that hellion decided on a course of action. So rather than crossing the distance himself, he’d have that predator come to him. Ryan puckered his chapped lips and gave a shrill whistle. Oona reflexively turned, bolting away from the creature and toward her owner. The demon squatted low, its muscles coiling beneath its waxy skin, and fell into a four-limbed run. Jane screamed as Oona bounded past her owner, breaching the chill of the shadowsthat had swallowed Ryan and most of the road. He reeled around, expecting to see his sister being torn apart, but she simply stood in the sunshine, a sharpened pool cue in her hands, her tears shining like diamonds upon her cheeks.
    Ryan looked back to the beast that had its sights on his dog, but the once rampaging creature was now standing at a dead stop just a few yards away. It toed the line between the sunlight and the shade, its nostrils flaring as it tried to breach the perimeter, only to emit a pained hiss, shaking its head as though it had been stung. It was their eyes; whether Ryan had been right and those creatures had come out of a cave, or whether they were simply so used to the shade that was forever present among the trees, they couldn’t handle the intensity of the sun.
    He turned to look at his sister. She was seeing it too. For a moment he wanted to laugh, wanted to fall to his knees and kiss the sunlit ground. But that promise of salvation was short-lived. The shadows were growing longer by the minute. Eventually the sun would set, and they’d be left out there with nothing. No light. No fire. Just the dreaded anticipation of the inevitable.
    Ryan tightened his grip on the hatchet, trying to formulate a plan. He pivoted on the soles of his boots and ran back to his sister, his breath puffing ahead of him.
    “We’re going to be okay,” he told her. She shook her head at him as if stunned by his statement, her expression asking him how? How could they possibly be okay? They were boxed in, shadow on either side of them. Their little patch of sunlight was dwindling fast and that wet rumble was getting louder, more incessant, hungrier by