I didn't scream. Screaming burns calories, and right now, I needed every ounce of energy to figure out how not to die.
Instead, I raided the utility drawer next to the sink. You know the one—the junk drawer where batteries go to die and twist-ties multiply like rabbits. I dug past a graveyard of dead AA’s and a hardened superglue tube until my fingers closed around the rubber grip of a claw hammer.
"Daddy?" Lily called from the couch. She had wrapped herself in the afghan like a fleece burrito. "Are you fixing the door?"
"Yeah, bug," I said, my voice tight. "Just a little draft. Don't worry about it."
I grabbed a handful of three-inch drywall screws from a plastic baggie. I didn't have any spare lumber, but I didn't need it. I jammed a screw into the track of the sliding door at a forty-five-degree angle and hammered it home.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The sound was obscenely loud in the quiet cabin. The screw bit into the aluminum and the wood beneath, jamming the door mechanism tight. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't carpentry. It was desperation.
I did it three more times. Top. Middle. Bottom.
My hands were trembling so bad I missed the nail head twice, leaving crescent-moon dents in the doorframe. I kept glancing at the glass, expecting the snowman to shatter it, expecting a fist of ice to come punching through to grab my throat.
But the thing just stood there. Watching.
The ink continued to weep from its eyes, running down the glass now, pooling on the metal track. It was thick, darker than the night sky.
"Okay," I panted, stepping back. The door looked like Frankenstein’s monster had tried to repair it, but it was solid. Nothing was sliding that thing open without a battering ram.
I turned to Lily. She was drawing in her sketchbook, seemingly unbothered by the fact that her father was violently vandalizing a rental property at 6:15 AM.
"Lily," I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. "I need you to stay right there. I'm going to check the front door."
"Okay," she murmured, not looking up. "Draw the snowman, Daddy. He has a knife."
My stomach did a somersault. "I know, honey. I saw."
I walked into the hallway, away from the glass door, and leaned against the wall for a second. I closed my eyes.
Breathe. Analyze. Execute.
My therapist, Dr. Aris, always told me to check the facts when the panic set in. So, let’s check the facts.
Fact one: There is a snowman.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxxjJOWlEDp
Fact two: It has my knife.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwRMGHn0Eqj
Fact three: It moved its head.
That third fact was the sticky one. Snow doesn't have muscles. Ice doesn't have tendons. If that head moved, there was something inside it. Or someone.
"A prank," I whispered to the empty hallway. "It's a sick, twisted prank."
Maybe it was some local teenagers. Maybe they saw the terrified city guy and decided to have a laugh. They probably built the snowman over a remote-controlled armature. Like an animatronic. Yeah. That made sense. High-tech rednecks with a budget for practical effects.
I clung to that theory like a life raft. It was better than the alternative.
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.