Winter

The knocking stopped and was followed by eerie silence and the howling of the wind.

Eve grabbed the fire poker and escaped to her bedroom.

She closed and locked that door, then his in the closet.

Whatever it was, it was still out there.

And she was certain it was looking for her.

Eve didn’t know or care what was out there, she was not answering the door.

She was not going to become another statistic.

And as soon as this storm was over, she was reinstalling the land line.

If she made it through the storm.

This was the North Woods.

Nothing ever happened here.

A kid’s missing bike made the local paper.

Hell, an accord cracking Mrs. Maybury’s windshield made the paper.

The knock came again.

Louder. More insistent.

Eve grabbed her cell phone.

No signal.

But there had been one to call for pizza. What was going on?

No one was there.

No car in the driveway.

No tire tracks in the fresh snow.

Eve frowned.

It had only been one glass of wine.

A knock on the front door yanked her attention from the missing photo.

She didn’t move to answer it.

Then remembered the pizza.

She grabbed cash from her wallet and went to the door.

Peering through the peephole, she frowned.