The Shuddering

damnedest to run despite the depth of the snow. But her steps slowed when Jake tried to cry out behind her—a different sound from the one she had heard before, a wet, smacking gurgle like a kid blowing bubbles through a straw. When she looked over her shoulder she couldn’t see him anymore. Two gaunt figures were perched above him. Their bodies were covered in scars, either from their prey or from each other. One of them shook its head back and forth like a dog, bloodspraying from its mouth to either side. The other shoved the first creature away with its…its hands , like an annoyed little kid. Tara watched them snap their jaws at each other, her eyes wide, horrified. Jake was convulsing beneath them as if overtaken by a violent case of shivers. He was dying, but she was too terrified, too hopped up on adrenaline to stand there.
    She felt like she was going to vomit, gasping for air as she clambered up a tree-dotted slope. The mountain went wavy behind her panicked tears, but she was sure if she kept going she’d find the main ski trail. Those things were distracted, fighting over their kill, and if she could just make it out into the open she’d be okay.
    Her heart thudded in her ears as she threw herself forward, clawing at the embankment, scrambling up the incline as fast as she could. Panic having squelched her sobs, the icy slope of the blue run came into view, offering the hope of safety with its groomed, wide-open expanse. She struggled, trying to pull herself up to its surface from the snowbank, her legs stuck in the soft snow four feet below. Sucking in a steadying breath, she coiled the muscles of her legs and sprang forward, the front of her jacket kissing the iced-over surface of her escape route. Her gloved fingers curled into the ground as she crawled, kicking her legs in desperation, trying to find some leverage to get the rest of her body onto the same level as her torso and arms. Finally managing to get one knee up, she shoved herself forward. Overwhelmed with a rush of relief, she crawled out of the snow. She was going to make it.
    But her heart stopped when her foot caught on something behind her. She shot a look over her shoulder, as one of those things coiled a huge hand around her ankle—almost human save for the wide flat of its palm, three crooked fingers and a thumb clamping around her foot so viciously that she could feelthe pressure from inside her boot. She thrashed against its grip as she screamed, desperate to get away, but the more she fought it, the more it exposed those predatory teeth, the more she was convinced it was smiling as she fought. She pulled in a breath for another scream, but it soundlessly escaped her lungs when the creature yanked her backward, so quickly that the world became a pale blue blur. It pulled her back into the snowdrift.
    Back into the snow.

    Sneaking up behind her, Lauren rested her chin on Jane’s shoulder. Jane was standing at the step that separated the kitchen from the living room, holding a steaming mug of tea between her palms, pretending to watch The Thing while the dual ovens worked away beside her. The scent of roasted meat that coiled through the house only reminded Lauren how hungry she was, not having eaten since breakfast. But Jane’s seemingly steadfast interest in the TV didn’t fool Lauren for a second; Jane hated horror movies. April and Sawyer were sitting on the couch together, Sawyer’s arm looped around that dark-haired pixie’s shoulders.
    “Is watching movies about monsters stalking through an icy tundra while in an icy tundra kind of masochistic, or is it just me?” Lauren asked. Jane’s mouth quirked up in a halfhearted smirk, as though she had been wondering the same thing. “When’s dinner?” Lauren asked, turning toward the top oven. She cupped her hands against the oven’s glass door and peered inside.
    “About an hour,” Jane told her, her gaze still focused on the living room, hypnotized by the couple that sat less than ten yards away, seemingly happy as could be.
    “Is it weird?” Lauren asked, her words quiet enough to remain between only them.
    Jane finally turned away from the living room and stepped to the kitchen island.
    “A little, but it’s good.” She nodded as if affirming her own hushed words. “It clears things up, you know?”
    “How’s that?”
    Jane lifted her shoulders, letting them fall a moment later. “You stop thinking about it,” she said quietly, casting a glance over her