Page 39 of Winter’s Teeth

As soon as he left, I exploded into action. Racing back to the living room, I threw on my coat with stuffed pockets and met Ben at the front of the cabin where he waited with his loaded rifle. “Come on, let’s go!” I whisper-yelled.

***

THE WIND WHIRLED AND whistled around my frame, picking up my hair to plaster it to my face, then to whip it behind me while cold air shot down my collar.

My nose was a spicket, dripping down my lips and chin while I wiped away the snot with trembling hands. Surely, my shivers would stop soon. Surely, I would grow accustomed to the cold if I kept going and stayed focused.

Don’t think about the cold don’t think about the cold don’t think about the cold.

We followed Fox’s footprints across the field and toward a swath of woods that I guessed led to where the Winters lived, perhaps a cabin obscured on Riss’s aerial maps by the density of the trees.

The evenly spaced footprints we’d been trailing vanished a hundred yards away from the cabin. I looked around, shining the flashlight this way and that while Ben hunted just as vigorously. Fox’s final visible footprints came together like he stopped to contemplate the sky, but they didn’t continue.

A befuddled curse slipped from Ben’s lips, echoing my thoughts. Fox couldn’t have vanished into thin air. He couldn’t just fly away and not leave a single trace. No other tracks or marks marred the windswept bluffs of snow. Not even that of a rabbit.

“You think we would have heard a helicopter,” Ben murmured.

My nose wrinkled. At first, I wasn’t sure what he meant, but as my sluggish, cold-addled thoughts caught up, it made sense that something airborne would have had to pick Fox up, and even if a helicopter with a dangling rope ladder had come through swiftly and silently, we still ought to have seen or heard something.

“I’m so confused,” I breathed, pressing my gloved hand beneath my nose to stop the stream.

We didn’t have time to ponder what happened for more than a minute, for an echoing scream rent the air.

Ben and I snapped our heads towards the distressed call. Back towards the cabin. Back towards Riss, Angie, and Maple, who we had abandoned without a weapon of their own.

Neither of us needed further prompting to abandon Fox’s trail. We turned tail and sprinted back to the cabin at breakneck speeds, tripping over hidden roots and brush beneath the deep snow.

When we reached the base of the porch steps, I paused to catch my breath and listen hard for more screams, but only Maple’s agitated whines behind the front door answered.

“Where are they?” I voiced breathlessly.

Footsteps crunched around the corner of the cabin, and Ben gripped his rifle tighter while I fumbled in my pocket for the handgun.

Before any shots were fired, Riss stumbled around the corner wearing her coat, knitted scarf, and beanie. Angie clung to her, feet dragging while her knees knocked together violently.

“Is she hurt?” I ran forward, shoving the gun back in my pocket. Getting up under Angie’s other arm, I took most of her weight to help carry her under the shelter of the porch.

“I don’t think so.” Riss strained to get Angie up the steps, leaving more for me to carry. “Move your legs, Ange, come on!”

Inside, while Riss and I got Angie to the couch, Ben rushed around with Maple at his heels to double check every door and window, making sure we were locked in and protected. He didn’t loosen his grip on the rifle for a second.

I scrambled to get Angie’s coat off. Then her gloves. I looked her up and down while the girl shook like the last autumn leaf of a quaking aspen tree.

There wasn’t a scratch on her that I could find.

Riss and I shared a knowing look, loaded with concern and fear of the unknown, then we turned our gazes on Angie, joining her on the sofa to flank both sides of her.

Riss took Angie’s hand in her own, rubbing it fiercely to bring back warmth. At the same time, she explained to me, “We wanted to help, so we decided to look around the property. We stuck close. Right on the perimeter, and we didn’t go into the woods, but I walked ahead a few yards, and... That was when she screamed. When I turned around, she had fallen over backwards and kept scrambling to get away from the woods.”

“You saw something?” I asked Angie, who was clearly in shock. She kept shaking her head, eyes shut as whimpers issued from her throat continuously. I gave her knee a squeeze and a little shake. “What? What did you see?”

Angie parted her lips, the whimpers more audible. “I—I don’t—I can’t describe it.” Then she burst into weeping tears, turning to bury her face in Riss’s shoulder.

Whipping my head around, I met Ben’s frightened stare, hoping for some sort of comforting reason from him. Any bit of infuriating logic would be welcome right about now.

Yet, he was just as blanched and fearful as the rest of us.

Angie’s last words before she gave up speaking for the night were muffled against Riss’s sleeve.