Searching for the vanished path, she looked first in one direction, then in another. But everywhere she looked the snow was unbroken, as if she’d been dropped from nowhere into this dark and freezing wilderness.

Her heart pounded and she felt a wave of panic rise within her.

But why?

There was nothing to be afraid of — she’d been in the woods a hundred times and had never been frightened.

But somehow this night was different than all the others, the darkness blacker, the winter chill colder, cutting through her nightgown as if the flannel weren’t there at all.

As the wave of panic built, a cry rose in her throat. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out but a gasp so faint she herself could barely hear it, and as she tried to find her voice, her throat and chest constricted until she could barely breathe.

She tried to run then, but her feet seemed mired in the snow, as if it had turned into the thick muck of the marsh behind the house.

The cold tightened its grip, and she shivered, her whole body trembling, and once again her fingers reached toward her breast to pull the flannel of her nightgown more closely around her.

The nightgown was gone! She was naked!

And she was no longer alone…

Somewhere in the darkness, somewhere just beyond the limits of her vision, there was something.

Something that was hunting.

Hunting for her.

Another cry rose in her throat, but this time she held it back deliberately, keeping it in check by the sheer force of her own will.

And finally, though the cold was now threatening to numb her body as the snow had numbed her feet, she began to run.

Too late. Everything was closing in on her — the cold was reaching into her bones, the snow was sucking at her feet, the blackness of the night was all but complete. And the trees themselves were reaching out, scratching at her skin, lashing at her arms, her back, her thighs, her breasts.