Freeze

When she saw the creature the second time, it had moved to her left and slid into her path. Or maybe this was a second creature. She imagined a whole pack of the things converging on her, slinking through the snow, baring their teeth and curling their tentacles, clacking their jointless fingers as they reached for her.

The creature ahead lifted two of its tentacles, punched them into the nearest drift, and pulled a sheet of snow up onto itself. When it dropped the limbs back to its sides, the snow drifted off its body and clouded around it, obscuring it momentarily. The gesture reminded her of a gorilla beating its chest, some kind of sign of aggression. She couldn’t tell for sure, but she thought it might be the same creature she’d fought off in the kitchen. If so, maybe it was saying, We’re on my turf now. It wasn’t standing directly between her and the shed, but it was close enough. There was no way she was going to get past it. The thing had every advantage over her: size, strength, speed. She guessed the only reason it hadn’t ripped her to pieces already was that it was playing with her, taunting her.

She turned back to Bub. He lifted his head, shook just enough to clear some of the piling snow off himself, and huffed out a wheezy breath.

“Bub,” she said. “Get up! Run!”

She knew he couldn’t do it, that he was probably using every last bit of his strength just to stay alive, but she repeated it one more time anyway: “Run, Bub!”

He lifted his head an inch or two, kicked one of his back legs, like maybe he might try to do it, to obey, to be a good boy. But then his leg stilled, and he lowered his head again.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

Tess turned back to the creature. It did its snow-to-chest thing again, shrieked, and then moved toward her. It moved like a skier, sliding down one drift and up another, barely making tracks in the snow despite its size. Tess couldn’t begin to imagine how such a thing was physically possible.

She widened her stance and tried to make fists, but her fingers wouldn’t bend. She supposed she looked like the most vulnerable, pathetic prey this thing had ever seen. She supposed she was. The thing slid closer, licking its teeth and the lower portion of its face with its long, watery tongue.

Part of Tess wanted to run, some instinctual part of her that didn’t care about leaving Bub behind, didn’t care about the logic or that she had no hope of outrunning the creature, a part of her that wanted only to live a few seconds longer. In the end, she ignored the instinct. If she was going to die, she wanted to do it on her feet, facing her killer with whatever shred of dignity she had left.

She sucked in deep, uneven breaths, trying to ignore the snow and the ice and the cold. The creature lifted a tentacle, grinned at her.

Tess raised her arms to block the attack and tensed, but the blow never came. She waited a second, lowered her arms.

The creature stood perfectly still. It had lowered its tentacle and seemed to be looking at/listening to/sensing/whatever something other than her.

Tess turned to see if she could tell what had drawn the thing’s attention. She saw nothing but white, heard nothing but the falling snow, the wind, and her own ragged breathing.

Except, no, there was something else. A distant buzz, like an insect.

The creature turned back to her, growled,

(oh how she hated that crunching-gravel, glass-in-a-blender sound)

and turned back toward the buzzing.

It raised one of its limbs again.

Okay, here it comes.

She fought the urge to close her eyes, worked up a mouthful of saliva and spat it at the creature.

“Fuck you.”

The thing lowered its tentacle again, not because of what she’d said (of course not), but maybe because the buzzing was getting louder and it couldn’t seem to ignore it.

What is that? A motor? Warren?

The monster turned to her one last time, then spun around and slithered away. Snow fell and seemed to close in around it, like a sheet. Then it was gone.

If it’s Warren, you’ve got to warn him.

But how was she supposed to do that? She could barely move, couldn’t scream over the storm, and had no kind of signal. All she could do now was get into the shed while she had the chance and try to warm up before she died.

She reached for the sled’s rope but couldn’t wrap her fingers around it. Her hand was a lifeless lump. Gusting wind blew sheet after sheet of snow into her, and she was sure she was going to black out again. When the wind let up for a moment and she was still standing, she used her teeth to pull the rope over her arm, clutched it with her armpit, and pulled Bub the last few yards to the shed.

Either Warren had left the door open or the wind had blown it open. She stared through the narrow gap and into the dark space beyond.

What if there are more of those things inside?

She doubted it. They couldn’t have known she’d come out here, and they seemed much more at home in the blizzard. Still, these things were more alien than anything she could have imagined, and it didn’t make sense to try to pretend she understood anything about them. She moved beside the doorway and reached over to shove it open, keeping her body protected from a direct attack if something did come bursting out.

The door swung in and banged against the wall.

Nothing came out.

She peeked around the corner and scanned the small space. As far as she could tell, there was nothing inside but a lot of wood and a few bits of old junk.

The buzzing sound in the distance got louder still, and although she still wasn’t sure what might be making the sound, she was more and more convinced it was some kind of motor, smaller than a car’s, something more like a motorcycle’s.

Please be Warren. Maybe on some kind of snowmobile. Please be him and don’t let those things get him.

She stepped into the shed, still holding the rope with her armpit, and pulled Bub inside with her.

The poor dog looked frozen, and she was sure when she reached down to touch him she’d find him finally dead. But when she brushed the snow off his body, his legs, and his snout, he moved. He breathed. He lived.

Snow and sleet angled in through the door, landing on the both of them. Tess moved to close the door and couldn’t quite get it shut. The storm had blown a small drift through the open gap. She’d have to shovel it out of the way before she could close the door.

In the storm, something moved.

Warren?

No, it was another creature, this one even bigger than the monstrosity in the kitchen. It slid through the snow, coming right for her.

She forgot about the wedge of slush and tried slamming the door. It came within inches but was nowhere close to latching. She opened the door again and reached down to scoop up some of the snow, unable to grip the stuff with her half-frozen fingers but using her hands like spades. She threw handful after handful back out into the blizzard, sure it was useless, like trying to bail out a boat with a ladle.

The monster was getting closer. It rolled up a drift, down, up, down. Tess threw out another few handfuls of snow and tried closing the door again. It almost made it, almost latched. She pressed her shoulder against the door and shoved as hard as she could.

The latch clicked into place.

A second later (no, a microsecond, a nanosecond), the thing outside hit the shed with a thunderous BANG!

The door shook. The whole shed shook.

Tess shivered and backed away. She knelt beside Bub and listened to the creature slam its tentacles against the structure. The door was holding for now, but it wouldn’t last forever.

Tess grabbed a tarp off the woodpile, curled up beside Bub, and pulled the plastic over the both of them. Like a blanket. A thin, cold barely-blanket.