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“Whoever’s back there,” she said, proud of herself for sounding somewhat threatening, “I have a gun.”

And I know how to use it.

It sounded like a stupid movie line, but she said it anyway, “And I know how to use it.” She doubted the fictitious gun would send the intruder running even if he believed she had it, but it might at least scare him a bit, give her some sort of momentary advantage.

Still no response from the bedroom. Bub looked at her again, turned back to the hallway, growled, barked. Tess hefted the poker and moved beside him.

Wait. If there is someone back there to fight, you’re going to need to see to do it.

Yes, true, but Warren had taken the flashlight, and she wasn’t going to be able to hold on to a candle during any kind of altercation.

She hadn’t heard any more footsteps, although she could hear gusts of whistling wind and the hissing crackle of falling snow and ice outside, a sound that, for just a second, sounded almost identical to the crackling fire.

It’s got to be a candle. What other choice do you have? Even if you end up dropping it, some light at first is better than none at all.

The candles were on the other side of the living room, on an end table beside the sofa. She got one, but she didn’t have anything to put it in, so she looked for something to wrap around the bottom. There was a pile of magazines on the arm of the sofa; she picked one up, ripped out a page, and wadded it up around the base of the candle. It was a makeshift holder if ever there had been one, but it would keep most of the wax from dripping on her hand. She lit the candle. The flickering flame rose, died down, settled, and Tess padded back to Bub.

“Follow me,” she whispered and stepped past him.

He didn’t follow but limped at her side instead, brushing against her leg. They entered the hallway and crept toward the bedroom. Tess had eased the door most of the way shut after she took the mattress to the living room, hoping to contain the heat in the part of the house they were using. Now she wished she’d left it open. An intruder in the room at the end of the hall was scary enough, but an intruder in a room behind a closed door was scarier. Almost unbearably frightening. Her heart fluttered. Her hands shook. Not that it was easy to tell. This far away from the fire, most of her was shaking.

She stopped at the threshold and held up the poker to her chest. Bub stopped beside her, stiff looking, growling, his teeth bared. Wax dripped down the candle and onto the crumpled wad of magazine paper. A few drips rolled from there to Tess’s wrist, but she hardly noticed.

She imagined the intruder in there sifting through her underwear drawer, looking for valuables, a hairy, wild-eyed, homeless-looking man with snow in his beard. Or maybe not looking for valuables, maybe just looking for the undies, wanting to sniff them. Then she imagined the psycho standing just inside the door, imagined running in and stabbing the poker into his gut, imagined him looking up at her with confused, accusatory eyes.

Quit it. You’re going to drive yourself crazy.

She looked down at Bub once more, took a long, shaky breath, and slid her foot toward the door. Her next movement was actually a series of movements all carried out almost simultaneously: she kicked open the door, angled the poker in front of herself like a lance, and rushed into the room, trying to keep low in case the loonie had a gun and started firing. Bub stayed right at her side, hurrying despite his limp. She watched him from the corner of her eye, careful not to step on him or trip over him. He growled, and saliva dripped from his exposed gums and teeth.

Tess got two steps into the room and stopped dead. She screamed and tried to stop her forward momentum. What she found by the window was so utterly different from anything she’d imagined that her mind couldn’t quite register it. It was like a blur, or an empty space in reality.

Except it wasn’t a blur. And it wasn’t empty space. She had no idea what in the world it was.

She fell back on her ass and dropped the poker on the floor. Although it probably should have been the first thing she let go of, she managed to hold on to the candle.

The bedroom was as cold as a walk-in freezer. Colder maybe. The floor felt like steel instead of wood. Tess’s teeth chattered, and her nipples hardened.

Bub stopped just beside her. He didn’t seem as surprised as she felt. Maybe he’d been able to smell this…this thing. Or maybe his instincts had taken over. Or maybe he was just a hell of a lot gutsier than she was. He scurried in front of Tess, crouched there, and barked at the monstrosity standing just inside the broken window.

Monstrosity. That was the word. Tess had never seen anything like it, not in real life, not on TV, not even in her nightmares.

The creature looked like a mound of frozen snakes, some of which crawled around the body, seemingly unattached, while others whipped around the bedroom like octopi tentacles. Most of the limbs had clumps of finger-like protrusions sticking out of the ends, which clicked together as it moved. It had a stubby head with a jagged fissure of a mouth, which it opened, revealing a whole mess of icy, wickedly sharp-looking teeth. It stood in a puddle. Ice and snow blew in through the window and beat against its back, but it didn’t seem to notice or care. Candle light reflected off its frozen, faceted body, making it look like the ugliest piece-of-shit jewel that had ever been pulled from the ground. It leaned forward and roared at her.

Except it wasn’t a roar. Not like a lion’s roar or a bear’s. It was more like a long crack and crunch, like someone breaking through a thick sheet of ice. And although she never would have guessed such a sound might scare her, it did. Goosebumps broke out on her already-cold arms, and her lungs burned. She realized she’d been holding her breath but couldn’t seem to do anything about it. Trying to breathe in felt like trying to inhale a bowling ball.

This isn’t real. Not even a little bit. Remember the icicle you thought you saw earlier? This is the same thing. Only times a billion. You have brain damage and you’re hallucinating this whole thing. Close your eyes. Close them, and when you open them again, this will all be gone.

She closed her eyes and counted to five. But when she looked toward the window again, nothing had changed. The creature was still there. One of its appendages detached from its body and joined a smaller tendril to form a single, enormous tentacle. It opened its jagged maw and roared at her again.

Bub widened his stance, lowering himself, and let out a series of deep, reverberating barks. The creature unfurled one of its upper tentacles and swung it at the dog. It did this slowly, almost lazily, the way you might shoo a fly, but the tentacle was as thick as a baseball bat and hit Bub with a solid thunk. Bub lost his footing and slid across the cold floor with a single, short yelp. He hit the wall beside the dresser and lay there motionless.

“Bub!” The word came out with a puff of white breath.

She started to get up, to hurry across the room after her dog, but before she could get to her feet, the creature swung another tentacle at her. This time, the swing had more umph to it. Tess just barely ducked beneath the attack; the glistening appendage sailed over her head with a whooshing sound and dripped freezing water across her head and shoulders.