Just Creepy: Scary Stories - SCARY WENDIGO ENCOUNTER | Winter Cabin Trip Gone Wrong

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

SCARY WENDIGO ENCOUNTER | Winter Cabin Trip Gone WrongLinktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepyStory Credits:►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/Music by:►'Decoherence' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.auBusiness inquiries: ►[e-mail]#scarystories #horrorstories #wendigo 💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

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Hilton for the stay. I still don't know if what we saw up there was an actual Wendigo, or just something that wanted us to believe that's what it was. I only know that I can't hear the sound of wind in trees anymore without tasting metal in the back of my throat and feeling that same old cold crawl up my spine. There were three of us on that trip. Me, my cousin Tyler, and our friend Jess. We're all from downstate Michigan, but my mom's side of the family has this old hunting cabin way up in northern Michigan, near the top of the mitten, almost to the bridge. I'd only been there once as a kid in the summer. My uncle used it

every winter, though, for deer season and ice fishing, until he disappeared in a storm up near Marquette when I was 16. They never found his body. This was years later. I'd inherited partial ownership of the cabin after my grandfather died, and the three of us thought a week-long winter escape sounded like a good idea. No work, no bosses, no schedules, just snow, a wood stove and too much whiskey. That was the plan. We left early on a Sunday in January. The kind of morning where the world looks washed out, like someone turned down the saturation. The highway was mostly clear, just that fine powder blowing across the road in streaks. We had my SUV loaded with groceries, way too much gear and one of those plastic tubs full of firewood to get us started until we could dig out the

woodpile at the cabin. Feels like we're driving into a horror movie, Jess said, leaning between the front seats as we headed north. She always said stuff like that. She's the true crime addict of the group, the one who falls asleep to podcasts about unsolved murders. Tyler grinned. Yeah, but we're the idiots who don't turn around when the creepy local warns us about the curse. I laughed and said, We're literally going to my family's cabin. The only curse is probably black mold and bad insulation. I said that, and I swear within a couple hours it felt less like a joke. By the time we got off the main highway, the snow was heavier.

Those last few towns blur together up there, one gas station, a bar with a name like the North Trail or the Timberline, a church, and then just trees again. Endless, dark, snow-laden trees. We stopped at this last gas station. station before the Forest Road, the kind of place that looks like it's been there since the 70s. Fluorescent lights humming, shelves of snacks, motor oil, and dusty snow globes with black bears inside. While Jess grabbed snacks, I went to pay for gas. The man behind the counter looked like

he'd grown out of the pine boards. Old, thin, cheeks hollowed in that way that has nothing to do with diet and everything to do with the cold in a lifetime of hard work. Heading up count. County 14, he asked, nodding toward the direction we were going. Yeah, family cabin off that old logging road, past, a Birch Lake, I think, I said. It had been years. I was going mostly off memory and some scribbled directions from my mom. His eyes sharpened on me. Your people the hails? I blinked. Yeah, my grandfather was Mark Hale. He stared at me a second too long. There was something like recognition and something like pity there.

He nodded once, slow. Used to see your uncle come through. He's the one went missing in that storm. Yeah, I said, feeling that old familiar tug in my chest. That's him. Cabin's still standing? He asked. As far as I know, he glanced out the window.

The snow had started coming down harder, big fat flakes swirling under the gas station can, canopy lights. You folks packing enough food? He asked. Yeah, I said. We've got groceries for a week. He hesitated, then said quietly. You make sure you eat your own, from your own bags, nothing left behind, nothing from the woods. You understand me. That prickled the back of my neck. I laughed it off. Yeah, we're not planning on eating tree bark. He didn't smile. After dark, if you hear anything that sounds like your uncle or your granddad or anyone you miss. He met my eyes. You don't open the door. I felt my mouth go dry. What? He slid my receipt across the counter, voice flat. Some things like

to borrow voices. That's all. I walked back to the SUV feeling like someone had poured ice water down the back of my coat. When I told Tyler and Jess what he'd said, they both laughed, but it was forced. That guy probably tells everyone. that, Tyler said as he buckled in, probably bored out of his mind. Jess shrugged. It's kind of on-brand for where we're going, though. Creepy forest legend quota checked off. Now we just need a missing poster in a cabin that doesn't have cell service. Pretty sure that last one is guaranteed, I said, putting the SUV in drive. I wish we'd taken him more seriously. The turnoff from the county road was half buried, just a battered green sign with the number

and a narrow track of churned snow from snowmobiles and maybe one truck. Trees crowded in, tall black pines and bare-limbed maples, their branches heavy with snow, forming a tunnel over the road that immediately cut the light. The tires crunched and squealed over-packed snow, and every little slide made Jess grab the door handle and swear. It's farther than I remember, I muttered after 20 minutes of winding deeper and deeper.

The odometer said we'd gone less than 10 miles, but it felt like a lot more. Everything looks the same out there. Snow. Trees. Occasional glimpse of a frozen swamp under the trees. Cat tails trapped in ice. The first odd thing we saw was about five miles in.

Tyler said, What the hell is that? And leaned forward pointing through the windshield. Out between the trees, maybe 30 yards off the right side of the road, something pale was hanging from a low branch. At first, I thought it was just snow, clumped in an odd way. But then the wind shifted and it slowly rotated. It was a deer skull,

stripped clean, empty sockets staring toward the road. It dangled from a length of rope twisting gently. Below it, half buried in the snow, were shapes that looked like more bones, arranged in a circle around the base of the tree. The snow had drifted into them so they looked like pale fingers reaching up. Please tell me that's not some backwoods deliverance crap. Jess said. Probably just hunters being edgy, Tyler said, but his voice lacked conviction. Hunters don't usually decorate trees, I said. They just take the antlers. The SUV slid a little as I slowed to stare. For a split second, just long enough to make me doubt my own eyes, I thought I saw boot prints around the base of that tree. Not recent ones, more like shallow

depressions half filled with snow, just enough to suggest someone had stood there looking out at the road. The road's getting worse, Jess said, maybe on purpose. Let's just get there. We're going to get stuck if we keep stopping. She was right. I pressed the gas and we kept going. Another mile or so, and the trees changed. Taller, closer.

The snow seemed thicker here, the light dimmer even though we were still hours from sunset. When we finally reached the narrow turnoff to the cabin, my hands ached from gripping the wheel. The cabin sat back from the end of the road. road, huddled in a clearing surrounded by pines. It wasn't big, single-story, steep roof under a thick coat of snow, a short stack of a chimney with just a hint of smoke staining the snow around it from winter's long past. The porch sagged a little, but the structure itself looked intact. I felt a weird mix of nostalgia and disquiet. The last time I'd been there, the sun had been shining, and my grandfather had stood on that porch with a beer in his hand, laughing as my uncle cleaned fish

on a board set across two sawhorses. Now the porch was empty. The windows were dark. We unloaded the SUV in several trips, our boots sinking into knee-high drifts. It was that dry, squeaky kind of snow that sprays out around your boots and gets into everything. The cold burned my nostrils when I breathed in. The key my mom had mailed me worked in the front door, but I had to put my shoulder into it to get it open. The door scraped over snow and something else just inside. The smell hit us first. It wasn't wrought exactly. More like old ashes, mouse droppings, and stale air that hadn't been moved in months. Dust and cold and something faintly metallic underneath. Jess wrinkled her nose. Cozy, she muttered stepping in. The inside was almost exactly how I remembered

it, just dustier and darker. Single big room with a sleeping loft above the far end, wood-burning stove on one side, a battered couch and recliner facing a stone fireplace that probably hadn't been used in years. Kitchenette along the back wall, old gas stove, sink, a hand pump next to it for drawing water from the well. Tyler set the plastic tub of firewood down by the stove and clapped his gloved hands.

All right, first order of business. Heat. Second, liquor. We got the stove going first, using kindling and newspaper that had been left in a crate beside it. Once the fire caught and the stove began to tick and hum, the cabin started to feel less like a tomb. Our breath stopped fogging in front of our faces, fingers thawed enough to ache,

and the shadows retreated a little. It was while we were unpacking that I noticed the marks on the inside of the door. They were faint, almost lost in the grain of the wood, but once I saw them I couldn't unsee them. scratches at about shoulder height not random like a dog trying to get out but long vertical gouges clustered around the latch four parallel lines then another cluster then another hey i said quietly you guys see this jess came over holding a bag of pasta she frowned and traced the grooves with one gloved finger what the hell did that tyler looked too

bear maybe he said black bears aren't really around in winter i said they'd be hibernating maybe raccoons he said or something trying to get in for heat raccoons don't have claws that big jess said i looked closer the cuts were deep deeper than i'd thought at first glance whatever had made them had put force into it had kept at it long enough to leave a pattern the metal latch itself was slightly bent We're in the middle of the woods, Tyler said finally, stepping back. Weird scratches on an old cabin door are like, standard. Let's not freak out on day one. He wasn't wrong, and I didn't want to be the one to ruin the vibe, so I let it go.

We unpacked, claimed bunks in the sleeping loft, and made a pot of chili on the stove. By the time the sun started to drop behind the trees, the cabin felt, if not exactly homey, at least survivable. The first night was when the woods started talking. It was sometime after midnight when I woke up. The loft was just dark shapes. The beam overhead, the railing, Jess's sleeping bag across from mine. Tyler's slow, heavy breathing from the bunk below me. The fire had burned down to coals.

I could see the faint red glow through the stove's little glass window. I lay there for a second, wondering what had woken me. Then I heard it. At first I thought it was wind in the trees. A low moan, rising and falling. It sounded distant, filtered, the way sound gets muffled by snow and walls. But there was something off about it.

It wasn't constant the way wind is. It came in bursts, rising and then cutting off too sharply. Almost like calls. I prop myself up on one elbow, straining to hear. It came again, faint but clear enough to separate from the creeks of the cabin and Tyler's breathing. It was a voice, far away. way, out in the trees, someone was calling. The sound bled through the walls, distorted by distance and cold. It could have been anything. My brain filled in the missing syllables. Hello? I swallowed hard.

Maybe a snowmobiler, lost, or broken down. Maybe some other cabin nearby. We weren't the only ones dumb enough to be up here in winter. I slid carefully out of my sleeping bag, trying not to wake the others. My socks hit the cold floor and I hissed under my breath. I crept to the loft railing and peered down. The cabin glowed faintly from the coals in the stove, enough to make out the outline of the couch in the front door. The sound came again, a little closer. Lou! This time, the hairs on my arms stood up. There was something wrong about the way it stretched, like whoever was calling didn't know how words were supposed to work, like they'd heard it once and were trying to reproduce it with the wrong shape of mouth. I held my breath, waiting for it to come again. Instead,

there was a new sound, a soft, deliberate crunch of snow right outside the door. My heart hammered. Slowly, barely daring to breathe, I crept down the ladder. Tyler stirred, but didn't wake. Jess snorted softly in her sleep. I reached the bottom of the ladder and crossed to the front door, every step feeling incredibly loud. I stood there in my socks and t-shirt, staring at the wood, remembering the scratches. The crunch came again, closer this time, right up against the wall. And then, clear as if it had been standing in the room with me, a voice said, Evan, my name, drawn out in that same wrong way, the vowels stretched too long,

the consonants almost popping at the end. It sounded like my uncle. I hadn't heard his voice in years, not in anything but old home movies. But the tone, the half-question, the lilt, was him. Or close enough that my stomach dropped out, I didn't move. My body felt nailed to the floor. The voice came again, coaxing, closer. Something scratched along the door.

Not claws this time, but something trying to find the latch. It rattled. The wood creaked. Whatever was on the other side pressed against it, making the hinges grown. I couldn't have moved if I wanted to. My legs shook. teeth chattered, not from cold, but from a terror so deep it felt animal. The latch jiggled again. And then, as if whoever, or whatever, was out there had suddenly lost interest, it stopped.

The pressure on the door lifted. The crunch of snow moved away, slow and measured. It didn't fade like footsteps. It went from right there to gone. I stood there for a long time, ears straining, but the only sounds were the tick of cooling metal and Tyler shifting in his sleep. I didn't sleep again that night. I sat in the recliner with a blanket around my shoulders, staring at the door until the windows started to pale with dawn. When Jess came down the ladder, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, she looked at me and frowned.

You look like hell. Did either of you wake up last night? I asked. Tyler yawned behind her. No, why? I told them, trying to keep my voice even. The footsteps. The voice. My name and my uncle's voice. Tyler frowned.

Maybe you were dreaming, man. First night in a new place you were already freaked out. Brains do weird stuff. I was sitting in that chair, I said, for hours, until the sun came up. I didn't go back to sleep. Jess hesitated. Could it have been some hunter or something? Maybe someone who knew your uncle?

Out here? I said. In the middle of the middle of the same. the night, walking right up to the door and saying my name like that. She didn't answer. I got up and opened the door. The cold slammed into the cabin. Fresh snow had fallen during the night, soft powder on top of the older packed stuff. Right outside the door, there was a depression in the drift that looked like something had leaned against it, but there were no footprints. Not one. Just wind-scoured snow, curling and drifting. Tyler stared over my shuddered.

shoulder. Maybe the snow filled him in. Since it walked away, I said, there'd be something, tracks, drags, something. Jess closed her arms around herself, hugging her sweatshirt tight. Maybe the guy at the gas station was just trying to get in your head, she said. You were primed to hear something. Maybe it really was the wind and your brain turned it into your uncle. I didn't argue with her. It was easier to believe that than the alternative. We tried to shake it off. We made coffee on the stove, got the stove, got the stove, roaring again and planned out our day. The idea was to hike down to the frozen lake my grandfather used to fish on, just to see if the old ice shack was still standing. By midday, with the sun

blazing through a thin gap in the clouds, it almost felt normal. We strapped on snow shoes and took turns breaking trail, laughing when Tyler wiped out on a buried log. Jess kept stopping to take pictures of bare birch branches against the sky, and for a couple hours, it was just winter in the woods. The cabin looked almost friendly when we saw it from the rise above the lake on our way back. Smoke from the stove chimney smeared into the cold air. Our tracks criss-crossed the clearing. That's when Jess stopped and said very quietly, we didn't make those. About 20 yards from the cabin, something had walked across our earlier tracks. The snowshoe impressions were still there, clean and crisp. But there was another set of prints cutting across them. They weren't

animal. I knew that right away. They were too long, too narrow, almost like bare feet, if bare feet had toes that ended in points. Each impression was deep, like whatever had made them weighed a lot more than its footprint suggested. They came in pairs like strides, each one three, maybe four feet apart. They went from the tree line, straight across the path we'd taken that morning, over to the side of the cabin. And then they stopped, right. under the window to the loft. Tyler let out a low whistle that steamed in the air. Probably some weird melting pattern, he said, but he didn't sound convinced. Jess shook her head. Those are footprints. I walked beside them, looking down. The size of them bothered me. They were long, yeah, but not

huge, not like monster movie tracks, longer than my boot by a few inches maybe. They'd have fit a tall, thin man, but no one walks barefoot out here in January. I followed the line of them to where they ended, directly under the loft window. The snow there was punched down hard, as if whoever it was had stood there a long time, just looking up. You said you heard it last night, Jess said quietly. At the door. I nodded, throat tight. But these aren't at the door. They're under the window, she said. I looked up at the loft window. The glass was crusted with a little. The glass was crusted with frost on the inside, a milky film that turned the world outside into vague shadows. From the inside, I realized, you wouldn't have been able to see someone standing right below it. But they would have

been able to see our silhouettes in the dim cabin light if they were close enough. That night, nobody slept easily. We double-bolted the door and dragged the heavy dresser from the wall to wedge in front of it. We closed the curtains on every window, building the illusion that if we couldn't see out, nothing could see in. Just tried to make it normal by cooking something elaborate, a big pan of cheesy potatoes and sausage, on the stove. It helped a little. The cabin smelled like food instead of dust and old mice. We drank wine out of mismatched mugs. Tyler started telling an exaggerated story about getting lost in Detroit one time, and for a few minutes we even laughed. But every so often, one of us would fall quiet and glance at the window, that thin rectangle

of frost and glass between us and the dark. Around 10, the wind picked up. It made the trees outside grown and creak, the branches scraping each other. Snow hissed against the walls. Inside, the fire popped and settled. Shadows jittered across the ceiling. We tried to watch an old DVD on the battery-powered portable player I'd brought,

the one concession to technology. But after 20 minutes, the sound of the wind kept drowning out the dialogue and we shut it off. You ever actually hear a Wendigo story? Jess asked suddenly, staring into the fire. Tyler snorted. Here we go. I'm serious, she said.

They're from around here, right? Ojibway or something? People who turned cannibal in the winter and turned into monsters with deer heads and stuff. That's not really accurate, I said slowly. I didn't know much, and what I did know came secondhand from books, and that vague sense of don't mess with that,

that my grandfather had when it came to certain stories. From what I remember, it's more like a spirit that gets into people, makes them hungry, like, unnaturally hungry. People who break taboos, cannibalism, greed. The thing with antlers is kind of a Hollywood mashup. Jess raised an eyebrow. So it's not a 10-foot skeleton deer man? Probably not, I said,

though the idea didn't make me feel any better. More like, something that used to be a person, stretched thin by starving and other things. So basically what we're saying, Tyler said, is that if one of us starts having cravings for long pig, we push them out in the snow. Jess threw a balled-up napkin at him, but her smile didn't reach her eyes.

Later, when we were getting ready to go up to the loft, Jess lingered by the door. Do you think we should, I don't know. Leave something out, she asked quietly. Like an offering. In case it's just something that wants food. We've got extra sausage.

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No, I said maybe a little too sharply. We're not feeding anything. She swallowed and nodded. Yeah, okay. Bad horror movie move anyway. I slept in fits that night. Every time I drifted off, I jolt awake at some sound. A branch cracking, a gust of wind, the stove shifting,

with my heart racing, convinced something was in the room. Sometime in the deepest part of the night, I woke to the sound of someone climbing down the ladder from the loft. The wood creaked, the rungs squeaked. I rolled over in my sleeping bag and squinted across the dim loft. Jess's bunk was empty. Tyler's was occupied, his shape a solid lump under the blankets. I pushed myself up on my elbows.

Jess, I whispered. No answer. The latter let out a tiny groan as she stepped off. I heard soft footfalls on the floor below. Jess, I hissed. Still nothing. I crawled over to the loft railing and peered down. The cabin was darker than the night before.

We'd let the stove burn down too far. Only a faint red glow glimmered behind the glass. It was enough to outline the door, and Jess standing in front of it. Or at least that's who I assumed it was at first. A slender figure in a sweatshirt. bare feet pale on the wooden planks. Her head was tilted to one side like she was listening to something.

I squinted. Jess, what are you doing? I whispered down. Her head turned slightly, just enough that I could see the edge of her cheek in the red light. He's... Hungry, she said. Her voice sounded wrong, sluggish, like her tongue was thick in her mouth. Every muscle in my body went tight.

Who? She didn't answer me. She turned back to the door and reached for the latch. Just don't, I said louder this time. Her hand stopped, fingers hovering over the metal. For a long moment she stood like that, frozen. Then, slowly, she dropped her arm to her side. Without a word, she patted over to the couch and sat down.

Not curled up, not lying back. Just sat, upright. Hands folded in her lap, staring at the door. She stayed like that, the rest of the night. I know because I watched her, on and off, every time I woke up. In the morning, she didn't remember any of it. You were sleepwalking, I said as we stood by the stove, heating water for coffee. Her eyes widened. I haven't slept walked since I was 12. Maybe up here is bringing it back, Tyler said, trying to sound light and failing. Thin air, evil spirits, whatever.

Do you remember saying anything, I asked. She frowned, searching. her memory. I had a weird dream, I think, something about someone standing outside, asking to come in. I couldn't see them, just where their breath was fogging on the glass. They said they were freezing, over and over. I remember feeling she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. I remember feeling really guilty, like it was my fault. Your fault they were out there? I asked. Her eyes flick to mind. my fault they were hungry. We all went quiet after that. We decided to stick closer to the cabin that day.

The wind had picked up in thick, low clouds promised more snow. We tromped around the clearing, dug out more firewood from the stack my grandfather had left under a tarp, and took turns shooting at cans with the rady old 22 rifle that had been hanging on hooks above the fireplace. The more time we spent outside, the more I noticed little things that didn't fit. faint tracks at the edge of the clearing, half filled with snow. Not dear, those I recognized easily,

the delicate double marks and the specific way they moved in sets. These were more like the prints we'd seen the day before. Long, narrow, deep. They came close enough to get a good view of the cabin, then veered off into the trees. Once, when I bent down to study a set of them, just put a hand on my shoulder and said quietly, We should go in. My toes are numb. I glanced at her boots. They didn't look like they should be cold, but I nodded and let it go.

That afternoon, while Tyler tried and failed to get the old generator working, I dug through one of the cupboards looking for more matches. Instead, behind a stack of chipped plates, I found a leather-bound journal. The cover was cracked, the leather gone gray with age. When I opened it, the first few pages were full of my grandfather's neat printing. Dates, notes about deer sightings, weather observations. Then, slowly, the handwriting got shakier. The entries farther apart.

And then, about halfway through, the handwriting changed. It got tighter, more jagged. My uncle's hand. I knew it from old birthday cards. Most of his entries were like my grandfathers. What he'd seen on the trails. How thick the ice was. What ammunition he was running low on.

But near the end, there was a sudden shift. December 12th. Hurted again by the tree line. Not a coyote. Not a man. Something that wants to sound like both. December 14th. Found bones by the lake.

Not deer. Not coyote. Teeth marks wrong. Snow over most of the pile. Not fresh, but not old enough. December 15th. Ed went home. Said the storm's going to blow in hard this weekend.

Can't shake. the feeling that if I stay, I'll see it. Can't shake the feeling that if I leave, it'll follow me anyway. My heart thudded. My uncle's final trip had been in mid-December. He and a buddy had gone up north to hunt. His buddy Ed had turned back before the storm. My uncle hadn't. December 16th. Thought I saw it on the ridge near the birches. Tall, too thin. The snow didn't touch it right, like it was there and not there. heard Ma's voice after dark, asking to come inside. She's been dead four years now.

I didn't open the door. December 17th. Tracked it this morning. It's testing the walls, claw marks around the windows. I think it likes the smell of the stove, or the food, or me. Feet don't match any animal I know. Almost human, but wrong. Toes too long.

Nails like ice picks. My skin crawled. I turned the page. December 18th. I get why they tell those stories now. Something out here eats hunger or makes it. Dreamed about opening the door and letting it in, just so it would stop pacing, woke up standing by the latch. It knows my name now.

Heard it say it last night. Sounds like Dad. Sounds like you, Mark. Sometimes sounds like myself, calling from outside. The last entry was shorter, squeezed into the bottom of the page. December 19th. Can't stop thinking about how easy it would be to last the winter if I didn't have to carry so much meat. If I wore it instead.

If I grew the teeth to match. If I gave in and stopped pretending I'm not curious. There were no more pages. I closed the journal with shaking hands. That night, the thing outside stopped pretending it wasn't there. It started just after ten. We were sitting around the stove, all three of us kind of half spaced out from the heat and the days unease. The wind was loud, driving snow hard against the walls. The cabin creaked and settled.

I had the journal tucked under my bunk, like a weight on my mind. The first sound was a dull thump on the roof, then another, then a scrabbling, like something trying to find traction on the sloped metal. What the hell is that, Tyler said, sitting up straighter. Snow sliding, Jess suggested, but her voice was strained. Then something walked across the roof. It was unmistakable. Slow, heavy steps, each one making the beams above us vibrate. Not the scatter of squirrels or the quick patter of small animals. These were deliberate. One, two, three.

Each one slightly creaky like a person walking on old floorboards. We stared up at the ceiling, not moving, hardly breathing. The steps moved from above the stove, past the loft to directly over the front door. door. They paused there, a long heavy silence, and then something started to scratch. Not blindly, like an animal trying random spots. It went right for the areas around the windows, the edges of the doorframe, long, slow drags of something hard over wood, the sound of nails, no, claws, testing the grain, feeling for weakness, just pressed her hands over her ears. Tyler grabbed the poker from beside the stove and stood up, his face white. Don't, I hissed. If it wants in,

that's not going to stop it. He shot me a look, but after a second he slowly set the poker back down. The scratching moved along the front wall, then up, as if climbing. Then, abruptly, it stopped. For a minute, all we could hear was the wild thud of our own hearts in our ears. Then a new sound began, softer, more insidious, tapping. On the loft window, we all looked up at the same time. We couldn't see the window itself from down here, only the faint glow of lighter darkness above the loft railing, but the sound was unmistakable. A slow, steady, tap, tap, tap, tap like a fingernail against glass. Jess whispered, no, under her breath, over and over. The tapping stopped. A moment later a voice floated down, muffled by glass and snow and wrongness.

It sing-songed. Open up! She slapped her hands over her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears. It sounded like her mom. Jess's mom had died of cancer three years before. I'd met her once, when we were still in college. Gentle, soft-spoken woman.

Her voice had a little laugh in it, even when she was saying something serious. The voice at the window had that laugh, but the words came out warped, like they were being forced through a throat, built for them. It's cold, honey, the voice said. Let me in. The thing about terror that I don't think movies get right is how much of it is about restraint. It's not always screaming and flailing. Sometimes it's your body wanting to move so badly it hurts, and you making yourself stay still

because every instinct says that if you acknowledge it, if you react, it'll get worse. We sat there, frozen in our chairs, while the thing outside mimicked Jess's mother. It cried different inflections, different sentences, like it was testing the shape of them. At least it's on the roof, Tyler whispered. The voice stopped mid-word. The tapping moved. It started again, this time lower. On the front window, by the couch.

A shadow passed in front of the frosted glass, just enough to make a gray smear of movement. The voice came again. Tyler, it crooned. This time it sounded like his dad, the one who, bailed when he was a kid, and resurfaced only when he needed money. I knew that tone, that hard-edged fake sweetness, because I'd heard it on speakerphone once. It made Tyler flinch like he'd been slapped. Open the door, son, don't be rude. The latch rattled. I grabbed the journal from under the bunk and clutched it like a talisman. It knows us, I whispered. It knows what

we're afraid of. You think, Tyler snapped, then winced as the voice repeated his name again, warping it into a snarl at the end. The worst part was that, eventually, it got to me. The tapping slid along the wall, circling the cabin. Every so often it would stop at a window and try a new voice, a teacher long dead, a friend, someone from a childhood memory. Sometimes we'd recognize them, sometimes we didn't. But there was always that uncanny sense that it did, that it was plucking through our minds like strings on an instrument, testing which ones vibrated the loudest. When it reached the back wall, near where the head of my bunk was against the loft, it went quiet. I held my breath, waiting. A long, slow scrape slid across the boards above my head.

Then right next to my ear, a whisper floated through the wood. Evan. This time it was my grandfather's voice, every cadence, every little hitch. If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell his old flannel and pipe tobacco. Let me in, boy, it whispered. It's so damned cold out here. I bit down so hard on my tongue I tasted blood. Tears burned the corners of my eyes. I didn't move. The journal dug into my ribs where I held it, the edge of the leather cutting into my skin. After what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes. The sound stopped. No more tapping, no more voices, no more shifting weight on the roof. The wind went on howling, the cabin went on creaking, but the focused, attentive pressure of that

presence faded. We sat there in a kind of stunned silence. Jess finally whispered, we should leave in the morning, we should go home. No one argued. The problem was, in the morning the storm hit. I've seen snowstorms before. I grew up in Michigan. I thought I knew what whiteout meant. I didn't, not really, until that day. We woke to a world reduced to about 10 feet of visibility and a screaming wind that made the cabin shudder. Snow lashed the window so hard it sounded like someone throwing handfuls of sand.

When I cracked the door open to look outside, the wind tried to rip it from my hands, and a wall of snow shoved in, swirling and blinding. No way we're driving in that, Tyler said, shouting over the roar as I forced the door shut again. How long is it supposed to last? Jess asked. She caught herself and laughed weakly.

Right, no weather app. Storm like this could blow hard for a day or two, I said. Maybe more. We've got food. We'll just wait it out. It sounded reasonable, logical. But all three of us kept glancing at the walls like they might start breathing. By noon, the snow was piled half.

halfway up the windows. The light outside was a flat, oppressive gray. Inside, the air felt tight, like there wasn't enough oxygen. The thing outside didn't tap or scratch that day. It didn't have to. Its absence was almost worse. It gave us too much room to think. That was when the hunger started. Not normal, missed lunch hunger. This was different. It came in waves rolling through my gut like cramps, but without the relief that came from eating. No matter how much I ate, it didn't go away. It was a restless, gnawing emptiness that made my hands shake and my thoughts flicker. I tried to ignore it, to chalk it up to stress. We'd been on edge for two days. We were stuck. Our sleep was shot. Of course our bodies were freaking out. But as the

afternoon wore on, I noticed that Jess and Tyler were both eating more too. Tyler went back for third helpings of the stew we'd made, scraping the pot. Jess chewed jerky like she was trying to tamp something down. This is good, Tyler said between mouthfuls, not sounding entirely connected to his own voice. We've got enough food. We're good. It wasn't reassuring that he felt the need to say it. By evening, the wind had gotten worse.

The cabin groaned under the weight of snow and pressure. We had to go out twice to clear the drift from around the front door so we wouldn't get completely buried. Each time the cold hit like a fist and the world beyond the porch was a few. featureless blur. We clung to the railing to keep from being blown off our feet, scooping snow away and frantic armfuls. The second time we went out, Tyler paused on the porch and turned his head toward the tree line. What are you doing? I shouted. He didn't answer. His eyes were unfocused, squinting into the white. Tyler, I grabbed his arm. His jacket felt loose like it didn't sit right

on his shoulders anymore. Come on. He blinked and jerked his head to look at me. For a flash of a Second, his eyes looked wrong. The pupils were, off somehow. Too big maybe, or too dark. There were faint shadows under his cheekbones that I hadn't noticed before. You hear that? He shouted back. Hear what? The only sound was the wind screaming through the trees. He shook his head like he was trying to clear it. Never mind. That night was the worst. We barricaded the door again, though it felt more symbolic than useful now. The stove roared, the only friendly thing in the world. We huddled close to it, our skin prickling from the heat.

The hunger got worse. My stomach clenched and twisted so hard I broke out in a sweat. My hands trembled. How are we this hungry? Jess whispered at one point, staring at her shaking fingers. We've been eating all day. It's nerves, Tyler said, but his voice was tight. His knuckles were white where he gripped his mug.

I remember looking at his hands and thinking the bones looked too close to the skin. His face seemed sharper too, his nose more prominent, his jaw more angular, like he'd lost 10 pounds in the span of a day. I didn't realize until later that I was noticing those things, because the same thing was happening to me. Sometime after midnight, the storm hit a different pitch. The winds howl shifted into something almost like a voice, a low, constant moan that seemed to crawl through the walls.

I must have drifted off at some point, because the next thing I remember clearly is waking up to the sound of someone crying. It was soft, strangled, coming from the corner where Jess's sleeping bag was. I sat up, my neck aching from sleeping in the chair and blinked. Jess was curled up on her side on the floor facing the wall. Her shoulders shook. The light from the stove outlined her in flickering orange. Jess, I croaked, my mouth dry. She didn't answer. The crying hitched, turned into something like a stifled

laugh, then back into sobs. I pushed the blanket off and went to her, kneeling beside her sleeping bag. Hey, you okay? As my hand touched her shoulder, she rolled over. For a moment I didn't understand what I was seeing. Her face was streaked with tears. Her eyes huge and dark. Her mouth was wet. There was a smell in the air that didn't belong, iron and salt and something animal. Then I saw what she was holding to her chest. It was a piece of meat, raw, dark, marbled with fat. Her fingers dug into it, nails sinking in. There were tooth marks along one edge. My stomach lurched. Jess, what is that? I whispered. She stared up at me, eyes unfocused, and then abruptly seemed to snap into herself. She looked down at her hands. For a split second,

A look of pure, raw horror crossed her face. Then she dropped the meat like it had burned her. It landed on the sleeping bag with a wet thud. Oh my God, she whispered. Oh my God. Oh my God. Where did you get that? I asked, already knowing that the answer was nowhere good. I don't.

She pressed the heel of her hand against her mouth like she was trying not to vomit. I was dreaming. I was in the woods and there was this, this thing. and it was telling me I was starving, that my friends were starving, that if I just took a little bit, it wouldn't hurt anyone. I woke up and, she gagged, I can taste it. Tyler was awake now, pushing himself up on his elbows. His eyes darted between us, and the bloody hunk on the floor. Please tell me that's from the stew meat, he said weekly. It's not, I said. The stew meat was in the cooler, cooked, wrapped, organized. This piece looked wrong. The grain wasn't like beef, the color was off. The smell made my gorge rise in a way that had nothing to do with normal disgust and everything to do with some deep, hardwired revulsion. I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around the meat, and carried it to the stove.

I opened the door and threw it onto the coals. It hissed and smoked, the smell intensifying for a moment, before the flames licked over it. Just curled into herself, sobbing. I didn't go outside, she whispered. I swear, I just woke up, and it was there. It didn't make sense. But in that moment, I believed her completely. I believed her because I knew that if something like that had slipped into my own hands,

into my own mouth, without me remembering how it got there, I would have reacted the same way. Tyler watched the smoke curl up the stovepipe, his face expressionless. Maybe we should ration the food better, he said quietly. make sure we know where everything is. He was trying to be practical, but there was something in his voice that made me look at him twice. An edge, a strain.

I didn't sleep again that night. The morning brought a lull in the storm. Not a full break. The wind was still strong, the snow still coming. But the visibility improved from nothing to barely something. We could see the tree line again, fainter, ghostly shapes in the white. We should go, Jess said. said. Her voice was hoarse from crying. Her eyes were shadowed. We have to try. I can't stay in here

another night. Tyler and I looked at each other. The road would be bad, maybe impassable, but staying felt worse. We'll pack the essentials, I said. If we get stuck, we come back, but we try. It took us an hour to dig the SUV out. The drift on the side facing the wind had half buried it. The cold was knife sharp. My fingers went numb in minutes. Then started to burn as they tried to warm back up. My breath turned to ice on my scarf. While we scraped snow from the windshield, Jess stood on the porch watching the tree line. Do you see that? she called suddenly.

I straightened and followed her gaze. Out between the trees, beyond the swirling snow, something stood. At first I thought it was just a dark patch of bark. Then it moved. It was tall, much taller than a person. Thin, to the point of wrongness, like someone had taken a nose. normal human shape and stretched it vertically without changing the width. Its arms hung too low. The legs were impossibly long, bending in ways that made my knees ache just looking at them.

Even from that distance, I could see its skin was all the wrong colors, patches of gray and sickly white like frostbitten flesh. Something like hair hung from its head in stringy clumps, but I couldn't make out a face. The snow and distance blurred the features. It stood perfectly, still, watching. My heart slammed against my ribs. A sound like static rose in my ears. Just grabbed my arm. We're going back inside, she said. Get in the cabin. Now. Tyler stood by the front of the SUV, shovel dangling from his hand. He was staring at the thing in the trees, his mouth slightly open. His lips moved like he was talking to himself. Tyler, I shouted. He flinched and tore his gaze away. blinking like someone waking from a trance.

Yeah, yeah, okay. We backed toward the cabin, not taking our eyes off the thing. It didn't move, didn't take a step. But as we reached the porch, something about it shifted, like it had grown taller without changing position, like it was pulling itself up from beneath the snow, inches or feet at a time. I slammed the door behind us and dropped the bar into place.

My hands shook so hard I fumbled the latch. For a long time we just stood there, listening. The wind howled, the walls creaked. After a while, Jess whispered, Did you see its feet? I hadn't. I'd been too fixated on the height, the arms. They were wrong, she said.

They bent backwards, like a deer's hind legs. But the toes were, I don't know, it looked like it was standing in its own shadow. Tyler laughed once, short and brittle. Well, there's your ten-foot skeleton deer man, Jess. She didn't smile. From that point on, time stopped feeling linear. The storm came and went in waves.

Sometimes the wind would drop, and the silence outside would be so total it felt like the world had ended. Other times it would roar so hard the cabin shivered and the walls seemed to bow inward. We ate because our bodies screamed for it, but the food didn't help. It was like dropping pebbles into a bottomless well. I caught Tyler staring at Jess's hands once, his eyes following the time. tendons that stood out under her skin. When he noticed me watching him, he looked away quickly, shame flashing across his face. Jess, for her part, started sleeping as little as possible. She'd jerk awake every time she dozed, breathing hard, gagging. It keeps trying to feed me,

she whispered once, when we were sitting by the stove pretending to play cards. In my dreams, it offers me things, says my friends won't survive the winter unless I help. What does it want you to do? I asked, even though I already knew. Her eyes glistened. You know, the fourth night, we counted by how many times we'd lit and tended the stove, how many times we'd cycled through our food. I woke up to silence. Not normal silence, a heavy smothering kind, the kind that presses on your ears. The wind had stopped. The cabin wasn't creaking. The stove had burned low, its glow faint. I sat up slowly, my muscle, aching. The hunger was a constant companion now, a low throb that never faded. The first thing I noticed

was that Tyler's bunk was empty. Tie? I whispered. No answer. Jess was on her sleeping bag on the floor, curled up. Her breathing was shallow but regular. I climbed down the ladder, every joint protesting and scanned the cabin. The door was closed. The bar in place. Tyler's boots were gone. So was the 22 from its hooks on the wall. Panic cut through the fog in my head. I grabbed my coat and shoved my feet into my boots without lacing them. The air outside would kill me if I stayed out long, but I couldn't just let him wander off alone.

I hesitated for half a second at the door, hearing the gas station guy's voice in my head, don't open the door if you hear someone you miss. But there was no voice calling. Just that strange, suffocating quiet. it. I lifted the bar and cracked the door open. The world outside was eerie in its stillness. The snow had stopped. The sky was a low, overcast ceiling, reflecting what little light there was. The trees stood motionless, their branches heavy with snow. I stepped out onto the porch.

The cold hit like a physical blow, but the air was so still it felt almost gentle compared to the howling of the previous days. My breath plumed in front of me. At first, I didn't see anything. Then I looked down. Footprints led away from the cabin. Not the long, narrow ones from before. These were boot prints, Tyler's boots. I recognized the tread. They went straight out into the clearing, then veered toward the tree line, and a second set joined them halfway. The second set were those same long, narrow, deeply punched tracks, side by side with his, as if whoever, or whatever, made them, had fallen into step with him. I saw him. I saw him. I saw, swallowed hard. Every instinct screamed at me to go back inside, to bar the door and pretend I'd

never seen. But some other part of me, the part that still believed you didn't leave your friends to face things alone, pushed me forward. I followed the tracks. The snow squeaked under my boots. The air burned my throat. The cabin receded behind me. The line of trees loomed closer. As I approached the tree line, the footprints stopped, not faded, not filled in. They just, Ended. Tyler's boot prints went maybe five feet into the shadow of the trees and then vanished. No sign of struggle, no disturbed snow, no drag marks. The long, narrow prince ended a step before that, like whoever made them had stopped to watch.

My skin crawled. Tyler, I shouted. My voice sounded weird in the stillness, swallowed by the trees. For a moment, nothing. Then faintly from deeper in the woods I heard him. Evan? His voice was thin but clear. It sounded like it was coming from my left where the trees were denser.

Where are you? I called. Over here, he said. I think I'm hurt. Can you come help? Every part of me knew this was wrong. This was textbook wrong. This was the exact thing we'd been warned about from day one. I turned back to look at the cabin. It sat there, small and fragile looking against the white, smoke trailing weakly from the chimney.

I thought about Jess. Sleeping inside, trusting me to keep things sane. I thought about the journal, my uncle's last entries. I thought about the way the thing outside had tried on our loved ones' voices like clothes. Tyler, I shouted, choosing each word carefully. If you can walk, come to the cabin, follow my voice. There was a pause. Then more urgently. I can't. I think my leg's broken. Please, man, I need help. It's so cold. The guilt hit me like a wave. I pictured him lying in the snow, blood soaking into the white, the cold leaching the life from him. Another voice floated through my memory, echoing from the pages of the journal. I get why they tell those stories now. Something out here eats hunger, or makes it. There was a rustle from the trees like something big shifting its weight.

Please, Tyler's voice called again. You're just going to leave me? My teeth chattered, not from cold. but from the effort of holding myself in place. My nails dug into my palms through my gloves. If you're really Tyler, I shouted, heart pounding. Tell me what you said to me the night before we left, when I called you about the supplies.

Silence, the trees loomed. Then after a moment, the voice came back, calm and coaxing. You said we'd be fine, it replied. You said we had enough food for a week. You said it would be fun to get away. It was close, but not right. The details were off. That conversation had actually been about me worrying we didn't have enough firewood.

Tyler had joked we'd burn the furniture if we had to. He sounded like someone repeating lines they'd overheard through a wall. My stomach turned. I'm not coming out there, I shouted. Throat raw. If you're Tyler, come to me. The silence that followed was different, heavy, watchful. When the voice came again, it had shifted.

It was my own voice. Evan, it called from the trees. Hearing my own tone, my own pitch, echo out from the shadows made my vision swim. Stop being ridiculous. Just come help. You know you want to. I backed away, one step at a time, my boots sinking into the snow. The air felt thick in my lungs.

The thing in the trees started to laugh. It was not a human sound. It started high and thin, like wind whistling through a broken window. then dropped into something guttural. The trees shook with it, snow sifting from their branches. I turned and ran. My boots slipped, my toes went numb, my lungs burned, but I didn't stop until I was back on the porch.

I slammed the door behind me and dropped the bar, my hands shaking so badly I nearly missed the brackets. Jess was sitting up in her sleeping bag, eyes wide. Where's Tyler? she demanded. I didn't answer right away. I couldn't. my throat had closed. Instead, I went to the wall and took down the hunting knife my grandfather had kept there, its blade still sharp despite the years. Where is he? She asked again, voice rising.

I sank onto the chair by the stove and stared at the journal, at the knife, at the door. I don't know, I said finally. For the rest of that day, the thing outside didn't scratch or tap or call. It didn't need to. It had found a new way in. Tyler came back at dusk. The sky had gone from flat gray to that bruised purple that comes right before night in winter. Jess and I sat by the stove, not speaking, jumping at every little sound. The hunger had taken on a new edge, less like emptiness now, more like a tuning fork vibrating under my skin. When the first knock came, it was almost a relief, just because it broke the waiting. It was not the scratch or tap of claws.

It was a normal knock, three firm wraps on the door. Jess and I stared at each other. Evan? Tyler's voice came through the wood. Jess, open up guys. I'm freezing my ass off out here. My heart lurched. It sounded like him.

Tired, annoyed, a little shaky, but him. Jess scrambled to her feet, eyes bright with sudden hope. She grabbed for the bar. Wait, I said hoarsely. She stopped, fingers on the wood. We can't leave him out there. She whispered. If it's him, I'm.

I said. If it's not, then it already knows everything about us, she said. What difference does the door make? The logic of that hit me in a way I didn't want to examine too closely, because it did make a difference. It felt like the only thing we had left. Tyler, I called. My voice cracked. Do you remember the first time we came up here in the summer when my grandpa made us clean fish on the sawhorses? ultra-slim precision concealer from Sephora Collection. It's full coverage

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There was a pause. Then Tyler laughed on the other side of the door. Yeah, man, you almost puked because of the smell. Jess wouldn't even come near the guts. That was accurate, but it was also the kind of detail someone could have pulled from watching us, listening to us reminisce. I swallowed hard. You went outside this morning, I said. Why? Another pause. When he answered, there was a tremor in his voice. I, I thought I heard someone out there, he said. A woman. I thought maybe somebody else got stuck in the storm. I went to help and I got turned around. I don't know how long I was wandering. It's all trees out there. Trees and other things. I closed my eyes. The story fit too well.

Please, he said, and now the edge of panic in his voice was unmistakable. My hands are numb. I can't feel my feet. Open the door, man. You're not seriously going to leave me out here, are you? Just looked at me, tears gathering in her eyes. We can't, she whispered. If it was the thing outside, it was good. It had learned our rhythms, our guilt, our fear. It knew exactly how to pluck those strings. I thought of my uncle's last entry. I thought of him standing in this exact cabin,

hearing his father's voice, his mother's voice, maybe his own, begging to be let in. Had he opened the door? Maybe that was the whole point. Maybe that was how whatever this was spread, like a disease, something you invited, over the threshold. Back away from the door, I said, my voice shaking. Both of you. Jess stared at me, then stepped aside closer to the stove. I went to the window instead, to the narrow pane beside the

door. The frost on the inside made everything blurry, but if I wiped a small patch with my sleeve, I pressed my face close and peered out. At first, all I saw was my own reflection, warped by the ice. Then, slowly, a shape resolved beyond the glass. Tyler stood on the porch, coat zipped, hat pulled down low. Snow dusted his shoulders. His face was pale with cold, nose red, lips cracked. He was shivering. His eyes met mine through the glass.

Evan, he said, relief pouring out of him. His breath fogged the air. Then he smiled. The smile was wrong. It was too wide, stretching just a hair farther than it should have. The skin at the corners of his mouth didn't crease the way it should. It was like his face was catching up with the expression a split second too late. Worse than that was his eyes.

They were Tyler's eyes in color and shape. But there was a depth behind them that didn't belong. Something ancient and hungry had set up residence there. I flinched back from the window. My heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to escape. Is it him? Jess whispered. I couldn't answer.

The thing that wore my friend's face, knocked again, more urgently. Come on, man, it called. I'm freezing. My hands are turning black out here. You're going to let me in, or what? I looked at the bar, one piece of wood across two brackets. That was all that separated us from whatever had taken root in Tyler's skin.

You have to decide, Jess whispered. I can't. I'll open it if you tell me to. I'll leave it if you tell me to. But I can't choose. I thought about the guy. gas station guy. I thought about my grandfather's journal. I thought about the thing mimicking my uncle's voice, my grandfather's voice, my own. Tyler, I called, forcing my voice not to shake. If I let you in,

what's the first thing you're going to do? Sit by the stove, he said immediately. Maybe punch you for taking so long. Why? If I don't let you in, I said slowly, what are you going to do? There was a long pause, the kind of silence that isn't empty, but full, then, very softly, he said, You'll starve. The word sank into my bones like ice. It wasn't a threat. It was a promise, a statement of fact. The hunger inside me surged at the same time, like something had synced up. My stomach cramped so hard I doubled over, pressing a hand to it. Let me in, Tyler said, or whatever was wearing him said. The warmth had gone out of his voice now.

It was flat, icy. You're not going to make it without me. Jess gagged, one hand over her mouth. What does that mean? she whispered. I knew, in a way that bypassed words entirely. The thing outside understood hunger because it was hunger. It ate it, amplified it, fed on the desperation it created. My uncle had written about being curious about wearing meat.

instead of carrying it, about growing the teeth to match. We were three people in a cabin in the woods, with a dwindling supply of food and an unnatural hunger that no amount of stew could touch. One of us was already being tempted in dreams to bring in meat that didn't belong. If we let that thing in, if we gave it space at our fire, in our walls, in our heads, it wouldn't just eat us, it would make us like it. I thought about what kind of twist a story like this usually had. someone turning slowly into the monster they fear. Go away, I croaked. You're not him.

Silence. Then, so soft I almost thought I imagined it, a voice whispered right against the wood. Not yet. Heavy footsteps moved away from the porch. The boards creaked, and then the sound faded into the snow. We didn't breathe for a long time. That night the thing came back, not to knock, not to mimic. It circled the cabin all night long.

scraping its claws along the walls, not testing now, but marking. The sound dug into my teeth, set my nerves on fire. Every so often it would stop below a window and whisper in a dozen different voices about how hungry it was. How much easier it would be if we just let it in, how it could show us a better way to survive. It talked about the woods full of frozen, easy meat, about how soft the skin between ribs was when it was cold, about how low the long a human thigh could keep three people from starving if they just committed. I covered my ears until they hurt. It didn't help. The words crawled under my skin, burrowed deep. Beside me, Jess rocked back and forth slightly, whispering to herself. I caught snatches, not real, don't listen,

we're not animals, over the tide of its promises. At some point, delirious from fatigue and fear, I grabbed the journal and flipped through it again, looking for something. anything my uncle might have written about stopping it. Near the back, in the margin beside his entry about tracking the thing, I found a note I'd missed before. The pencil marks were faint, almost erased. Fire hurts it, so does denying it. It needs you to invite it.

It needs you to want. Under that, in a different, shakier hand, one sentence. I don't know how long I can say no. That was the twist, I realized, sitting there in the flickering light of the stove, while something ancient tried to talk us into cannibalism through the walls. The Wendigo wasn't just some creature that haunted the woods. It was an equation. Winter, plus isolation, plus hunger, plus a human mind with just enough imagination to envision salvation in the worst form. It showed up wherever those conditions

lined up, wearing whatever face fit the story best. Sometimes it ate you. Sometimes it made you eat each other. Either way, it fed. We almost didn't make it. I'm not going to give you a heroic escape where we burned it down or stabbed it in the heart. That's not how it went. What happened in the end was weather. On what I think was the sixth day, I'd lost count by then, measuring time only in stove fillings and episodes of terror. The wind shifted. The pressure in the air changed. The snow clouds tore open just enough to let a watery slice of sun through. By midday we could see the road again. It was choked with drifts, but they didn't look insurmountable.

We go now, Jess said. Her voice was a rasp. Her cheeks had hollowed into sharp planes. I knew I didn't look much better. If we wait, it'll start again. She was right. I could feel it, a thrumming in the ground, in the air. The thing outside was waiting for something.

something, a misstep, a surrender, a crack in the resolve it could slip through. We moved like sleepwalkers, stuffing what little we needed into bags. We left most of the food. The idea of eating anything from that cabin ever again made my stomach twist. When we opened the door, the cold hit, but it felt cleaner somehow. The air smelled less of old blood and more of pine. The footprints from the nights before were gone, wiped clean by snow and wind. If not for the gouges in the walls and the scratches around the windows, you might have thought we'd imagine the whole thing.

The drive-out was a blur of white-knuckled terror. The SUV fish-tailed and lurched. Twice I thought we'd slide into a ditch and never get out. But the engine held. The tires bit when we needed them to. And eventually, after what felt like ours, the trees began to thin. When we passed the tree with the hanging deer skull, I glanced out at it and felt my stomach drop.

Beneath the skull, half buried in the drift around the base of the tree, something pale jutted from the snow. At first I thought it was just another bone. Then I realized it was a hand. Human. The skin gray and stretched. The fingers too long. The wind kicked up just then, blowing snow over it.

In seconds it vanished under white. I didn't tell Jess. I don't know if she saw it and decided not to tell me either. We didn't stop at the gas station on the way back. I couldn't have stood to see that old man's eyes, and know he'd probably seen this play out before, over and over. It wasn't until I was back in my apartment a week later that I realized the worst part. I was standing in my kitchen, staring at a fridge full of food,

trying to force myself to eat something. My doctor had already told me I'd lost nearly 15 pounds in a week, that it was a miracle I hadn't gone into some kind of shock. My body needed fuel desperately. I picked up a piece of chicken from the takeout container on the counter. My hand shook as I lifted it. And for a split second, as the meat touched my tongue, as my teeth sank in, I felt a rush of something that was not hunger, not exactly.

It was recognition. Like some part of me expected it to taste different. Richer, denser, like it was disappointed. I dropped the chicken into the sink and backed away, heart pounding. I haven't eaten meat since. Jess moved out of state, said she needed to be somewhere with no real winters. We still text sometimes,

but we don't talk about the cabin. We barely talk about anything, really. It's like that weak dug a trench between us that we can't climb out of. And Tyler... Well... No one's found him. His parents filed a missing person report.

There were searches, interviews, all the things that happen when someone disappears. The official story was. is that he got lost in the storm and never made it back. The woods are big up there. People vanish all the time. Sometimes I think about going back, about burning that cabin to the ground,

salting the earth, hanging my own warnings in the trees. But then I remember what my uncle wrote, that fire heard it, but denial heard it more, that it needed you to invite it in, to want. Maybe the cabin isn't the problem. Maybe it never was. Maybe the real cabin is the one we all carry around in our heads, the place where we store our hunger and our loneliness,

and those quiet, shameful thoughts about what we do to survive if things ever really got bad. Maybe the thing in the woods doesn't live in one place at all. Maybe it just listens. For storm warnings and empty cupboards and the sound of someone saying, We'll be fine, we've got enough, when they know deep down that they don't.

All I know is this. Sometimes, late at night. When the wind picks up and rattles the windows of my apartment, I hear something under it. A voice. It doesn't sound like my grandfather anymore, or my uncle, or any of the people I lost. It sounds like me. It stands just on the other side of my neatly painted drywall and the thin, double-pained glass, and says, in a voice that matches mine perfectly,

You're still hungry, aren't you? Let me in. I can help. And I lie there in the dark, staring at me. at the ceiling, my stomach nodded, and I think about the cabin in the woods and the tracks that ended in snow. I think about how easy it would be to open the door.