The Shuddering

Ryan rose from his crouch next to the tarp, his arms at his sides, rubber gloves slick with blood.
    “I thought we were supposed to wait to see what happens,” he said. “Wasn’t that the plan?”
    “Yes, but the longer we stay here, the more opportunity they have to attack too.” No matter how much they planned and waited, there really was no guarantee of safety. No matter what they chose to do, it was going to be dangerous.
    “You know that if we do that,” he said, his voice strangely dry, as though he’d just woken up from an eternity of sleep, “there’s no turning back. Once we leave here, we can’t come back.”
    Sawyer stood motionless next to the kitchen door, his eyes fixed on the floor, his arms hanging limp at his sides. Jane looked away from him, knowing that his thoughts were with April. But Sawyer eventually spoke, though he never lifted his gaze.
    “I thought we were doing this so we could stay.”
    Jane’s heart twisted. “We don’t have anything to eat,” she reminded him.
    “I doubt they like the smell,” Ryan said. “Though God only knows why. It’s so fucking pleasant. We can mask our own scent, maybe get to the highway…”
    “But what if she comes back?” The hope that flashed across Sawyer’s face was too much to bear. She looked away, her jaw clenching tight.
    “Did you see the way it stopped?” Ryan asked, steering the topic away from April. Sawyer’s quiet desperation was getting to him as well. She could see it in the way Ryan tensed every time April’s name came up. “It was scared.”
    But the fire was almost gone, not having been tended for too long. It was little more than a few licking flames, glowing embers at their base.
    Ryan made a sudden move, stepping around the island to the stove, grabbing an empty soup pot that had been left on a burner. Jane had intended to use it to make their next meal, but that was before Ryan had burst through the door and shoved them into the pantry; that was before monsters were real. He set the pot down on the floor, then looked to Sawyer in expectation.
    “Help me,” he said, crouching to catch the tarp between his rubber-coated fingers.
    Sawyer hesitated but did what he was told, carefully pulling the tarp upward to pool the remaining blood into the center of the plastic. Stepping forward, Jane caught the end of the tarp and helped aim it into the pot. The foul-smelling blood splashed against stainless steel.
    Jane understood in a horrifying flash of realization: Ryan was serious. If they were going to leave that cabin, they’d do it covered in blood.
    It wasn’t that Sawyer wanted to stay. He knew they had to get out of there, knew that it was their only chance if they wantedto live. But he couldn’t shake a lingering thought—the idea that somehow, by some miracle, April was still alive, and that she was making her way back up the drive through the blizzard; that she would arrive only to miss them by a window of a few minutes, and that in the realization of her being completely alone, she would die not of the cold, not of the beasts outside, but of a broken heart.
    His logical mind tried to convince him that it was impossible: anyone who had been outside, even for a few hours, would have first succumbed to frostbite, and then to freezing to death. If those monsters were climbing onto the cabin’s deck and peering through the windows, they had either exhausted their food supply out in the wild or were tired of looking when there was a guaranteed source here. April had become part of the wilderness over twelve hours before. He didn’t want to believe it, but Ryan was right. She didn’t stand a chance. Not out there. Not alone.
    The dry crack of wood drew Sawyer out of his thoughts and into the present. Ryan had flipped the coffee table over and was kicking at its leg. There was a wall of firewood stacked along the outside of the cabin just beneath the deck, but despite its closeness it was too far away. They needed fire, and they were now resorting to apocalyptic means.
    “The Realtor will be happy,” Sawyer said.
    “The Realtor won’t care. The new owner will be happy,” Ryan corrected. “They’ll show up, ready for a relaxing weekend in their brand-new, fully furnished cabin…”
    “New owner?” Jane asked, the bloodied ax in her hands. She was trying to chop a chair into pieces, but there was no power behind her swing. Sawyer forced himself away from the window and took the hatchet from her,