She wandered over to the front window and stood there, staring out into the night. The moon was full and made the snow shimmer. Light moved like glissandos over the tree tops in the distance as the wind caused them to sway side to side, sometimes forward, then backward, just once, and—

—and then she saw him.

He was so still among the trees and skirling snow that he’d looked like part of the scenery.

Mr. Hands just stood there, motionless, staring with his black-pit eyes.

Lucy moved quickly and quietly; she picked up the Mossberg, grabbed her coat, disabled the alarm, and stepped out onto the porch, pumping a round into the shotgun’s chamber.

Mr. Hands did not move, only continued staring coldly, an entomologist observing the behavior of an insect under glass.

Lucy looked behind her once—I won’t let him harm you—then stepped off the porch, down the steps, and crossed the distance between herself and the thing she’d brought into the world.

She raised the shotgun and thought about firing but that would wake Randy and the last thing she wanted right now was for him to awaken and find himself alone in the dark in a strange place.

Still, she kept her finger near the trigger.

“Leave him alone,” she said. “I’m begging you, please leave him alone.”

Mr. Hands still did not move or give her any indication that he cared.

The wind came up again, blowing snow against her face. She blinked, stopped moving, and brushed her eyes clear.

Mr. Hands began to bend down toward her. For a crazy second, she thought he was falling, the movement was that stiff, but then she didn’t think about it any longer because she knew what it meant when he started to bend down toward a person, she had no choice, so she pumped off three shots from the Mossberg in rapid succession, straight into his gut, and that must have done something because he seemed to explode from the center as he fell toward her and—

—and a moment before he hit the ground, one of his eyes dropped from his head.

Or, rather, a large black stone dug up from the shore of the river.

She snapped her head back up just as the rest of the giant snowman Mr. Hands had fashioned after himself crumpled into a white heap.

“OhGod—”

The sound of logs and wood being smashed reached her even before she was fully turned around, then the sight of Mr. Hands—pummeling the top of the cabin like some rabid-mad animal, turning the roof into kindling—and the sound of Randy’s horrified screaming grabbed hold of her and pulled her forward, running, screaming in terror and rage, firing to no avail because she was too far away and couldn’t get a decent aim while she was moving—

—Mr. Hands threw away a section of the roof, then shoved his arm down inside and began ripping out the heavy ceiling beams—

—Lucy forced herself to stop about fifteen yards from the porch, knelt on one knee, took aim with the Mossberg—