I stared at the empty deck.
The snow where it had stood was disturbed, trampled flat. There was a crater where the heavy base had rested. A trail of black ink led away from the door, disappearing around the corner of the house.
"Where did he go?" Lily whispered from the dark.
"I don't know," I said.
The temperature in the cabin was dropping fast. I could feel the cold radiating from the glass, reaching for us with invisible fingers. Without the heater, this place was little more than a wooden box in a freezer.
I moved the flashlight beam, tracing the path of the ink outside. It went left. Toward the side of the house. toward the kitchen window? The basement bulkhead?
"He's hiding," Lily said. She didn't sound scared anymore. She sounded like she was narrating a game of hide-and-seek. "He wants you to find him."
"I am not playing his game," I muttered.
But as I stood there in the dark, clutching a paring knife in one hand and a dying phone in the other, I realized I didn't have a choice. The game had already started.
And I was losing.
"Lily," I said, trying to keep my voice level. "We need to find the flashlights. The big ones. And we need to get blankets."
"Okay," she said. I heard the rustle of her getting off the couch.
"Wait!" I snapped. "Don't walk around. I'll come to you."
I swept the light back toward her. She was standing in the middle of the room, clutching her sketchbook.
"Daddy," she said, looking past me, her eyes wide. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"The scratching," she said. "It sounds like he's trying to come in the chimney."
I froze. I listened.
At first, there was only the wind howling against the eaves. But then, I heard it.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
It wasn't the chimney. It was lower. Heavier.
It was coming from beneath the floorboards.
I looked down at the rug under my feet. The basement.
The only entrance to the basement was outside, around the side of the house. Where the tracks led.
But there was a vent. A heating vent right there in the floor, connecting the crawlspace to the living room.
I shone the light on the vent.
A single drop of black ink oozed up through the metal grate and bubbled onto the hardwood floor.
He's inside.
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.