"In from the Cold" - by Jacob W. Brannan

The snow had been coming down hard for the past two miles when Beth Kelly’s Ford Explorer ran off the road and into a ditch.

She had just passed a turnoff onto a private road when the vehicle began to lose control. Lucky for her, she hadn’t been going fast enough for her to have sustained any injury. Unlucky for her, the car was stuck and wasn’t going anywhere. Even worse, there was a blizzard coming. The weather she had seen thus far was the least of it.

I should have left earlier, she thought to herself.

Cell service was shit to nothing, so there was no calling a tow truck. And from how quickly the snow was starting to come down, the storm was coming in fast.

She uttered some expletives as she exited her vehicle and made her way out of the ditch. Just as she was thinking of how screwed she likely was, she remembered the turnoff onto the private road.

Private road means private property, she thought. That meant the possibility of shelter, and in this situation, there was no discussing alternatives.

After grabbing one of her bags from the backseat, she began marching through the shin-high snow, and eventually got to the sign that read PRIVATE ROAD and started down it. There were trees on both sides of her. All dead from the looks of it. Nothing but sticks branching off more sticks, all covered in white.

The wind continued to pick up and visibility was becoming more and more a problem. It had been maybe fifteen minutes since she left her car. Beth began to worry she’d screwed up — even more than crashing her car right as a blizzard was coming. She began to entertain the thought of turning back when she saw the outline of what appeared to be a house. Walking further, she saw that the trees ceased and it was in fact a two-story cabin sitting in the middle of a clearing.

Out loud she expressed gratitude to God and walked at a faster pace to the front porch of the cabin. The cold wind stung against her red cheeks, and it felt as if the snow was almost sticking to her.

The closer she got, the more she began to realize that this cabin looked as if no one had used or lived in it for quite some time. She stepped on the porch steps and felt as if the wood beneath her would break. To her relief the steps held and she went to the door and knocked a few times. The place may have looked abandoned, but courtesy was still dictated.

She stood at the door for maybe a minute, knocking and waiting for any kind of response. When she got none she reached for the door knob, and to her surprise — and relief — it was unlocked. She might have thought that strange if this wasn’t a dire situation.

It was cold and dark inside. Almost no light entered in from the windows, which looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned in ages. The place certainly looked like it hadn’t been lived in for a while. It was nearly empty. There was a den to the left of the front door, and all it contained was a dusty, leather couch. To the right of the door was a kitchen and dining room area, with only a poker table and two chairs standing in it. In the kitchen the cabinets were empty, and there wasn’t a refrigerator in sight. She walked to the den and laid her bag on the couch, which was cold to the touch. She looked around and realized that with every step she made there was a creak in the floor.

If anyone was here, they’d have heard me by now.

Beth walked up the stairs, with a creak from each step, and found herself looking into a hallway. The upstairs appeared to be just as dark and cold as the downstairs. There were four doors, two on each side of the hall. She looked in the first room on her right and found it empty. Inside there was a closet, and on a shelf there were some blankets. They appeared to have been handmade and very old, and she recognized that they would of course be useful. She grabbed them and held them under one arm and made her way to the adjacent room. Again, she found this one empty, but immediately headed for the closet, where on a shelf she found another blanket — also old and also handmade in appearance — and a pillow. She grabbed both with her free hand and took them downstairs.

Back upstairs and she moved down the hall towards the final two rooms. She opted for the one on the right. Turning the door knob she found for the first time since entering the cabin that she had come across a locked door. This stopped her and she held onto the door knob for a few seconds more before stepping back. She wondered why this door was locked. It didn’t make sense, especially if this place really was abandoned. A thought entered her mind that perhaps this cabin wasn’t abandoned, and while the notion of her breaking and entering did concern her, she recognized the necessity of the situation and hoped that whoever owned the place would too. She knocked on the lock door and announced herself, and her reasoning for being there. 

No reply.

She waited a few seconds more before breathing a sigh of relief and turned her attention from the locked door. The door on the left, and the final one to be checked, wasn’t locked, but like the first two was also empty, save for the closet which again held on a shelf a blanket. The more the merrier, she thought and then exited the room. She took one more look at the locked door and tried another attempt at opening it, but with no success. Walking down the stairs she tried to put the locked door — and what it could possibly mean — out of her mind.

Downstairs again and she used her many blankets to make up a bed of sorts on the couch, using one of them to cover the dusty leather surface. Wondering what time it was, she looked at her phone, but it didn’t turn on. “Not like I can call anyone anyways.” She opened the front door to see if it was still light outside, but she was only met with poor visibility and cold wind, and she immediately shut it. Right as the door closed is when she heard a creak somewhere in the house.

Surely it was just from the door shutting. But then it happened again. Another creak somewhere inside. Beth stood still and listened. There was nothing. She heard nothing but the wind outside. Without knowing it, she stepped forward slightly and scared herself when the floor creaked beneath her. She jumped and then she laughed. “You’re just freaking yourself out.”

She went back to her makeshift bed and sat down. Not knowing what time it was, she didn’t know what to do with herself. Looking through her bag she found a book, but didn’t feel up to straining her eyes trying to read in the poor lighting. She found a small box of crackers and took out a pack and snacked for a few minutes. Also in her bag was a half full — or half empty — water bottle, and she took a few sips and thought it best to save the rest.

And so Beth Kelly found herself sitting alone, in a room that seemed to be getting darker and colder. I guess that means it’s getting later, she thought. She wondered what she was going to do once the storm passed. With a dead phone, she had no idea how she’d contact anyone to help with her car.

“Calm yourself,” she said. “We’ll figure something out. Someone will probably be coming down the road, they’ll probably see the car in the ditch and wonder where I am. Everything is gonna be—” and right then is when she heard another creak. It came from upstairs, and that had to have been where the earlier ones came from.

Houses do in fact creak.

Or?

Or someone’s up there.

“Or something,” she said. It could be an animal. A bird, or squirrel, or something.

That something creaked again.

It’s an animal. There’s no one up there. “There’s nobody up there,” she said under her breath, and like clockwork, upon saying it, somewhere upstairs creaked.

But now it was different. 

The creaks were accompanied by another sound. Footsteps.

Beth was frozen, both from fear and from the dropping temperature. The footsteps were soft but noticeable. The creaks in the floor followed every step. Somebody was upstairs. That couldn’t be denied.

Beth wondered what’d she do. Perhaps there was somebody in that locked room. If someone was here, that would explain the front door being unlocked. She stayed on the couch and thought that if someone was inside with her, when they came downstairs, if they did, she’d just explain her situation.

The footsteps didn’t cease. It was as if whoever was upstairs was pacing back and forth. An hour had to have passed, it was completely dark outside, and so it was inside too. Beth was feeling tired now. Sure she was still wary of what was upstairs, but she found the more she tried to keep her eyes open, the harder it became. She was soon asleep and bundled underneath her many blankets.

She didn’t know what time it was when she awoke, but there was a loud banging noise from upstairs. She began to shake, and she reached for a small flashlight in her bag. The light flickered on and off and she could see her breath in front of her. It was freezing.

Another series of banging noises erupted from upstairs. Somebody was pounding on one of the doors. At least that’s what it sounded like. The pounding continued for maybe thirty seconds before stopping. Then there was another creaking sound. But not the floorboards this time. A door was opening slowly.

Beth couldn’t move. She thought of calling out to whoever was there, but her mind wouldn’t allow her to speak.

The footsteps started again, and now Beth could hear them more clearly. They were the sound of boots walking across the floor. She recognized the sound as she herself was wearing boots, and the sound was similar to when she had walked across the cabin’s floors.

The footsteps were coming down the hall, and that meant they were likely coming down the stairs. They began to come down and Beth felt she had no choice but to speak now. She shouted out a greeting before explaining why she was there.

“My car crashed into a ditch not far down the road, and this storm was coming and I needed a place to take shelter.” She said all this, her voice becoming quiet as she reached the end. She realized the footsteps had stopped, seemingly half way down the stairs, and no one was responding to her. She called out again, this time saying she had a flashlight, turning it one and hesitating on shining it towards the stairs. The footsteps began again and the flashlight began to flicker. She hit the light a few times trying to get it working, panicking slightly as she heard the sound of the boots reach the bottom few steps.

The sound of boots hitting the ground stopped and the flashlight ceased flickering and shone bright, illuminating a figure standing at the base of the stairs.

A woman with blue skin and dark hair stood there. 

Beth’s mouth gaped and she tried to scream, but no sound came from her. The blue woman stared at her and it looked like tears began to stream down her face, which etched into a look of pure sorrow. The woman screamed and that was when Beth rose from the couch and ran out the door. She paid no mind to the freezing wind hitting her face. She paid no mind to the lack of visibility. She gave no mind to the piles of snow she was attempting to run through. She simply ran, and she ran as fast as she could, but with no idea where she was going and what she would do.

She had no idea how far she’d gone when she collapsed into the snow. A warm feeling spread throughout her body and her eyes felt heavy. She might have tried to keep herself awake, but it was futile. And it was where she fell in the snow that she slept.

Beth Kelly awoke and at first she thought she was dreaming. No more did she feel that warm sensation. Now she was numb and felt nothing.

Her eyes looked around at her surroundings and she found she was in a room. A room lit with light coming in from the window. And a dirty window at that. Her eyes adjusted to the light and she felt as if this place she was in looked familiar.

A bedroom.

An empty bedroom, with dust covering the floor. She could see clearer now and saw a closet on the other side of the room. Inside there was a shelf, and on the shelf was a pillow and blanket. She turned her head and saw the bedroom door, and walked towards it. Her unfeeling fingers wrapped around the door knob, but it didn’t turn. The door was locked.

She stood at the door and tried turning it for a while, but the locked door didn’t budge. This was all too familiar, but she didn’t know how. She began to feel tired again and decided she’d try again with the door later. She went for the pillow and the blanket and laid on the dusty floor.

I’ll try again later, she thought. And she would. She would indeed try again later.

But for now — for now at least she would sleep.