The Shuddering

courageous smile through his pain before coiling his arms around Oona, holding her in place.
    Ryan paused as if thinking the whole thing over, then shook his head and tied the leash of the supply board around one of his belt loops. “You’re going to lead. We’ll keep Sawyer and Oona between us.”
    “But—” She didn’t want to lead, but bringing up the rear seemed like an even more precarious position.
    “Janey.” Ryan looked at her steadily. “This is how it’s got to be. Let’s go.”
    Before she could say another word, Ryan rolled up the garage door and the cold swallowed them whole.
    Jane’s eyes watered against the wind. She pulled her scarf over her mouth and nose, hiding from the gale, breathing through her mouth so that her breath warmed the yarn closest to her lips. Reaching the driveway that would take them down the slope and away from that cabin forever, Sawyer and Oona sat on their makeshift sled like blood-soaked royalty. Ryan motioned for Jane to move ahead of him, and despite her trepidation she did, torch held out ahead of her.
    They trekked past Sawyer’s Jeep without incident. The trees were still, and no matter how hard she looked, Jane didn’t spot any shifting shadows behind the pines. But she knew they were there, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When Oona whined in Sawyer’s arms, Jane’s eyes went wide with panic. She shot a look behind her at Ryan, but Ryan didn’t see anything either. He shook his head at her, his expression anxious but mercifully put together. All it would take was for Ryan to lose his cool for the entire expedition to fall apart. Jane knew that if thathappened, her own resolve would crumble beneath the weight of her fear.
    “Where?” she asked, shoving her scarf down to her chin. “I don’t see anything. Where are they? Do you see them?” She waved the torch to and fro, spinning around, knowing that facing one direction for too long would render her vulnerable to an attack.
    As though having heard Jane’s question, one of them showed itself. It stood a few yards down the slope as if planning on boxing them in. The moment Jane spotted it every nerve in her body stood on end, crackling with terror. She veered around, staring wildly at her brother.
    “Face forward!” he demanded. He grabbed the leash of the supply basket and jerked it up the slope toward himself, grabbing April’s hair spray out of their arsenal. Oona bared her teeth and snarled, but Sawyer held her tight. His expression was unnerving, almost blank, as though his brain refused to register any more fear, as though it had shut down all his senses, overwhelmed by physical pain.
    “I thought they were scared,” Jane screeched. “You told me they were scared!”
    “They are scared,” he told her, trying to sound calm. He took a few steps down the slope toward the thing, and the creature crouched down, everything about its posture setting Jane’s teeth on edge. What if it lunged? What if it got him? What did he expect her to do if she was left alone out here with Sawyer and Oona? She couldn’t possibly pull them on her own.
    Lowering his torch, Ryan pointed the spray can in the creature’s direction and pressed down on the trigger. A blast of heat hit Jane’s face as the snow lit up in a dazzling display of glittering ice crystals, fire shooting toward the monster that had decided to try its hand at derailing their escape. Ryan was too far away forthe flame to reach the thing, but the explosion of fire had obtained the desired effect. The beast jumped back, startled, and ran away.
    Jane found it almost disconcerting how easy it was to scare them. Was that all it took? A little fire and they were powerless? On one hand, she hoped to God that was all they needed to survive; on the other, it made her queasy to think that if it was that easy to make them scatter, all five of them could have been walking out of there instead of only three.
    While Jane and Ryan slogged through the snow, Sawyer tried to stay alert. He felt strangely removed from the situation as he watched them struggle. Other than hanging on to Oona, there was nothing he could do. The pain that encompassed his back was indescribable—a kind of agony he’d never felt before. Jane had fed him a handful of Tylenol, but it hadn’t done anything to alleviate a sensation that teetered between hellfire and numbness. Sawyer was almost positive that the numbness wasn’t his back at all—it was him slithering in