The Shuddering

Janey?”
    “Sure there are,” Ryan cut in, not allowing his sister to answer. “Giant mutant wolves that stalk the forest at night, looking for fresh meat.”
    “Stop.” Lauren chuckled, but her tone was laced with apprehension.
    “And what’s safe, anyway; a car, a cabin? What if they have a key?”
    Jane covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.
    “I’m just saying”—he shrugged—“we think we’re safe until we’re dead.”
    Lauren leaned forward and punched him in the arm, and he beamed at her childishly.
    “You’re a true gentleman,” she told him. “Prick.”
    “Don’t listen to him,” Jane told her. “He’s an idiot.”
    Ryan opened his mouth to protest, feigning a look of offense.
    “Drive,” Jane told him.
    “Driving,” he replied, turning his attention back to the road, leaving the tract of bloody snow behind them. “The hapless trio, driving back to the cabin…”
    Jane leaned forward, shooting Lauren a look.
    “You never mentioned you have an evil twin,” Lauren told her.
    “But I did tell you he’s an idiot.” She smirked, then twisted the volume knob on the stereo, a saxophone solo drowning out her brother’s laughter.



CHAPTER TWO
    I t wasn’t like Don to stay out so long. It was well past lunchtime, and he had left the house hours before. It never took him this long to collect the wood. The little sled he used to pull it behind him could only hold so much. Jenny stood at the window, her fingers dancing against her mouth. Maybe he had gotten winded, injured… She turned away from the glass, shaking her head. Of course he was fine. They’d lived out here for three decades. Don knew know to handle himself. He was just running late.
    It was only after she pulled her cinnamon raisin bread out of the oven that she realized just how long it had been. Crossing her arms over a waist that had expanded over the years, she stared at the ham sandwich she’d prepared for him nearly two hours before and frowned. Don hadn’t eaten since breakfast. No doubt he was starving. Reaching behind her, she grabbed hold of her apron strings and pulled, tossing the plaid pinafore onto the counter before marching out of the kitchen.
    She stopped in the door of their bedroom and stared at the photograph on the dresser—the two of them smiling in front of that very cabin thirty years before, she in a pretty summer dress, he with his fluffy beard and ridiculous Bermuda shorts. Grabbing her coat and scarf, she pulled a hat tightly over her ears, wrapped his ham sandwich in a square of wax paper, tucked it into her coat pocket, and stuffed her hands into a pair of gloves. If he wasgoing to insist on staying out and catching his death, he may as well eat first.
    She grabbed Don’s gun from beside the front door. They’d noticed the wolves early this year, the beasts stalking through the trees in search of prey; yet another reason why Don should have known better. He had his ax, but he wasn’t young anymore. If a pack fell on him…Jenny put it out of her mind as she stepped outside, the snow crunching beneath her boots.
    She looked to the west, squinting against the sun. The snowcapped summit of the nearest peak was clear, but clouds loomed in the not-so-far-off distance. He had complained about his knee the night before, so they knew a storm was closing in. She had been the one to remind him about the wood. The nights had been unseasonably cold, and they had burned through their supply in half the expected time. Had she not mentioned it, there was the possibility that they would have been snowed in without a fire, but at least she would have known where he was; home in his recliner, chuckling beneath his breath at disillusioned antique collectors. She turned away from the mountain, putting the clouds to her back, and began to follow his tracks—footprints flanked by two straight lines left by the rails of his firewood sled.
    It was his usual route. Don hardly ever trekked more than a mile before sinking the blade of his ax into the trunk of a tree. He had learned his lesson the hard way. Thirty years before, when the newlyweds had settled into their mountain home, he had stepped into the first snowfall of the season and chopped down a pine not three yards from their front door. Jenny had screamed at him for weeks after and brought up his indiscretion for years, unable to help herself whenever that ugly stump came into view. Ten acres of land and a thousand miles of timber to either side