Ahead, trees part and the clearing rests under silvery starlight like an accolade on its knees before a powerful god. Mossy tiles on a steeped roof.
The sloped peaks lead down to a wooden structure about the size of our garage with a wide porch spanning the front like a stuck out lip. A door and two windows overlook the forest with no trails leading to the cabin.
It popped out of the earth the same as any mushroom.
“Shit.” The curse breaks free. “Can we get in?”
“Does it matter?”
We sprint in unison toward the cabin, the moon-mad wolf chasing us. My sneakers slip on the damp wooden stairs leading up to the porch, skidding on moss and slick spots.
Grayson grabs the door handle and pulls. Muscles strain when it holds firm.
“Do something!”
I whip around, pulse thundering in my ears. My throat catches and swells, the wolf plowing forward. It digs its claws into the earth to propel itself up the steps, Grayson throwing his entire weight at the door that refuses to budge.
There’s nothing on the porch to use as a weapon. Nothing to defend ourselves from the attack unless I can pry a piece of planking up from the floor.
It launches itself from the base of the stairs and my heartbeat thunders. Black claws swipe the air, cleave it.
Grayson gets the door open.
He drags me backward through the space and slams it shut as the wolf lands, cracking its skull hard enough to rattle the frame.
Panic claw at my insides. I slap a hand against my chest, the uneven pulses, the awkward skipping rhythm making the dizziness worse
“Mandi, come on, we’ve got to find something to block the door. Or maybe whoever owns this place has to have a gun stashed somewhere.”
Grayson flips the deadbolt shut and wedges his shoulder against the door to keep it shut.
“Go look.” He flashes a smile as though this is another normal day. “I’ve got this.”
His hair curls at the top, the sides shaved down. Veins pulse along his neck, red spanning across the whites of his eyes. Desperate. Frantic.
Despite his orders, my legs have decided to give up the ghost. Then I catch a glimpse of the wolf in the window.
It gusts hot breath against glass panes and fogs them, scratching the tips of its wicked curved nails in a downward swipe.
I wrap shaking arms around myself. “It won’t let us go.”
And the thin safety of the cabin will only hold for as long as it takes for the creature to find a way inside.
Grayson calls my name again and the terror in those two syllables finally sets me in motion. I keep the moon-mad wolf in sight, retreating away from Grayson.
A square, compact living room boasts an empty waiting fireplace with a pyramid of stacked logs. A chair and a sofa stretch in front of the fireplace and a stout stand holds a lamp with a brittle yellow shade, as sturdy as furniture in a doll house.
Only a small crest of moonlight makes it under the porch eaves and into the window.
An open doorway at my back leads into a kitchen where the stale scent of burned coffee and cigarette smoke clings to the walls.
“Grayson.”
I whisper his name and he straightens from the door when the pressure on the other side never comes.
“The cabinets. Look for something we can use. A knife, an ax. I don’t know.”
“I doubt they’re keeping an ax in a kitchen cabinet.”