Talons in the Whiteout

Story two: The Whiteout. Last year was hard. After a messy divorce, I fled the holiday cheer to spend Christmas

alone at my late grandfather's isolated mountain cabin. A once-in-a-decade blizzard was in

the forecast, but being snowed in was appealing. I drove up on December 23rd.

The first flakes began to fall on Christmas Eve afternoon, and by dusk, it was a total whiteout.

Around 7:00 PM, I saw a shape at the edge of the treeline. It was tall and

unnaturally thin. I told myself it was just a tree, but its stillness felt deeply wrong.

When I glanced back, it was closer, at the edge of the clearing. It hadn't walked.

It was just there. Then the lights went out. The cabin plunged into darkness.