by JA Ellis
thud, a solid sound, not the soft plop of snow. Then the unmistakable sound of footsteps, as if someone was running across the deck. The sound passed the kitchen window, but whatever it was wasn't tall enough to see it. Charlotte jumped from her seat and rushed to the window.
Nothing.
A field of white. Lazy flakes floating past her field of vision. And beyond that the trees, skeletal and quivering under the weight of so much snow.
She looked down, making out a disturbance in the snow. Tracks. But looking left and right she couldn’t see what had made them. She went to the door, pulled it open, and looked out. There was her own trail from earlier, but she couldn't see any tracks on this side of the house. She quickly pulled on her boots and went out onto the porch. She went around the corner to the side the kitchen was on. There they were, deep imprints set about two feet apart, staggered slightly. Further up she could see where the snow had fallen from the roof, piled up against the side of the house like a tiny avalanche. She looked up at the roof and saw a deep trough, as if something had slid from it.
No, she thought, It's just from where the slow slid and fell. Except the bottom of the trough looked packed down, as if something had been sitting there before sliding off the roof and onto the deck. She shook her head. That was stupid, and paranoid. Nothing had been on the roof, nothing that big, anyway. She would have heard it.
She looked back at the tracks. They started at the avalanche and ended right at the far corner of the house. They were evenly spaced and each indent stood alone, perfectly clear. There were no drag marks between the indents. Whatever it was it had been lifting its legs high as it ran.
Charlotte looked around. The tracks ended abruptly. There were none behind her. She looked at the flat, undisturbed yard. There were no tracks there either. She looked up. From where she stood she saw nothing amiss. Whatever had made the tracks was gone. But what had made them?
She shivered. She was only in her sweatshirt and jeans, and snow had crept up over her boots and was melting against her legs. She followed her own tracks back to the front door, pausing at the threshold to take one last look around. There was nothing, and she was struck again by how quiet it was.
Several hours went by. The snow stopped falling, but the electricity remained stubbornly off. Charlotte topped off the fuel in the generator and then eyed the pile of firewood stacked up beside the house. She carried several pieces inside and set them up in the wood stove, just in case. Underneath the kitchen sink was a lamp and some kerosene for it. She filled the lamp and left it on the kitchen counter for later. After a quick lunch eaten over the kitchen sink, she dressed again and went outside to start digging out the truck. By the time she had finished a trail from the truck to the front of the house, the sun still hidden behind low, gray clouds, had dropped below the tree line.
She lit the kerosene lamp and ate cold ravioli straight from the can. When Jumper began to whine again, she hustled him out the back door and watched as he hunched, shivering, in the spot she had cleared for him. Then he sniffed around for a few minutes before finally trotting back up to the house. It had started snowing again, and Charlotte watched the drifting flakes with dismay.
She went back to the living room, and put the lamp on the table beside the sofa. She lifted a hand and made a shadow bunny dance across the yellow light reflected on the ceiling, then a dog opening and closing its mouth. “Woof, woof,” she said, making Jumper stand and lick her face.
“Ew.” She pushed him away. “Lie down. Wasn't talking to you anyway.” Jumper yawned, groaned, and lay down on the floor next to her.
She dangled her hand over the lamp again, moving it up and down, watching the shadow of her hand advance and retreat across the ceiling and walls. She flexed her fingers, then waggled them and giggled at the way the shadows undulated around the room. Finally, she pulled her hand back and tucked it under the blanket where it was warm. She thought again about the tracks in the snow, and the sliding, thudding sound. She had tried not to think about it earlier, and when it did come to her she dismissed it as some sort of animal. But what kind of animal could walk through snow that deep without leaving drag marks? And there was the indent in the snow on the roof. And the way the tracks ended.
She rubbed her eyes and sighed. Nothing else had happened since. She was being paranoid and jumpy. Being in the dark with shadows that jumped at her every movement was just making her uneasy. Nothing was going to happen, and if she just laid here thinking about it things were only going to get worse. Sleep. She needed to sleep. When she woke up it would be morning, then it would be light. Maybe the electricity would be back on. Maybe the road would be clear. Then she could stay with her mom. Take a hot shower. That sounded wonderful.
She made sure a flashlight was at hand, and put out the kerosene lamp. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, and closed her eyes. She listened to the generator and underneath that, the sound of Jumper breathing; her own breath and her heartbeat thudding in her ears.
4
She jerked awake, blinking at the blackness that surrounded her. Her heart was pounding and her breathing was labored. Something had woken her, a sound, but now all she heard was silence. She realized that the generator was off. Had it run out of fuel? No, it couldn't have. She'd filled it before it got dark.
Charlotte lay quietly, listening intently. Her breathing calmed and her heart rate slowed, and she began to relax. Maybe it wasn't a sound, but lack of sound that had awakened her. She turned her head in the direction of the wood stove. Better get that lit, I suppose.
She stood up, placing her feet carefully to avoid stepping on Jumper, before realizing he wasn't there. She reached down, and found the handle of the flashlight on the floor next to the sofa. The beam of light cut a path through the darkness, and she swept that path back and forth across the room. Jumper was nowhere to be seen.
She sat back down on the couch with flashlight in her hand. Where was that damn dog? “Jump?” Not a sound. She shined the light around the room again watching the shadows loom and retreat as the light passed objects, the lamp on the table, the tall vase filled with dried grass in the corner. No dog.
“Jump?” she called again, or rather whispered. Even that sounded too loud in the dark room. “Where are you?” She stood again and walked around the couch towards the kitchen. There he was, sitting next the sink, staring up at the window. When she approached he stood and whimpered
“What now? Please don't tell me you have to go out.” Jumper leaned against her. The weight of his body pushed her off balance. Charlotte moved away and told him to stop. The dog followed her. “Come on, let's sit back down.” She passed the light over the counter top until she found her cell phone. Swiping her finger across the screen she saw it was 4 AM exactly. Another early morning wake up.
There was a crash from outside. Charlotte dropped the phone, and the clatter of plastic on wood was lost in the loud thuds and unholy screeching that came from outside. Jumper ran to the front door, barking furiously, and then away, still barking. The thuds and thumps became more frantic, the screeching rising in intensity and pitch, until Charlotte clapped her hands over her ears. But she could still hear it. It sounded like two animals in a battle to the death out there. The fight was moved across the front porch, and she rushed to the window to try to see what was happening. All she saw was her own reflection, pale face surrounded by tousled hair, staring back at her.
She angled the flashlight away. There were shadows rolling and thrusting across the snow, and in the shadows something solid moved. It was too dark, and she was not at the right angle to get a good look. She could see better if she went to the door, but there was no way in hell she was opening the door.
Abruptly, the shrieking stopped. The thumping ceased, the shadows, and the things cloaked in them, stilled. The dead silence pressed on her ears like wet cotton. Then a soft chittering sound, like smooth pebbles rolling through a metal can, came from just below the window. The sound stopped, and another chittering
sound came, followed by a third. Charlotte realized that whatever was out there, there were a lot of them.
She pulled away from the window and instinctively turned off the flashlight, plunging herself into darkness. Without the light the sounds from the deck grew louder, filling the space the light had occupied. It was terrible, and seemed to come from all sides of the house.
Charlotte turned the light on again, and stifled a scream when shadows leapt at her from every corner of the room. Jumper had ceased barking, and was cowering beside her, too terrified to even whine now. She lunged at the window and pulled the curtains closed, as if that would block the sounds. She turned and screamed when her toe hit something solid that skidded across the floor before realizing it was her phone. Ignoring it, she hurried to the door to make sure it was locked. Then, to the back door as the sounds filled the house. Jesus, they were everywhere!
And as abruptly as it had all started it stopped. It was dead silent. Charlotte stood in the middle of the living room, clutching the flashlight, holding her breath.
Slithering, snuffling, a soft scraping along the wall. Something was prowling the deck, brushing against the walls, maybe sniffing at the doorways and under the