He turned and stumbled through the trees towards the thicker growth that ringed the yard, not knowing why he ran and not caring. Branches whipped at his face and he struck at them with his hand, wincing as his injured palm was slapped again and again. They clutched at him as if they were alive, catching his jacket, his pants, his hair, slowing him down and he could swear he heard something coming through the brush close behind him, an echo of his thumping footsteps and harsh gasps.

Then he burst through the last of the thick needles, almost tripping as branches grasped at his legs. He pulled violently loose and kicked away the twigs and needles sticking to his clothing, feeling himself sinking into the snow as he struggled to the center of the wide lawn. In the middle he paused, and fought the urge to keep going. He turned and stood facing the woods, breath rasping painfully in his throat, watching and waiting for his pursuer to burst through the brush.

The woods were silent and still.

He waited there for a long minute as his heartbeat slowed and his breathing returned to normal, and the trees did not move.

It was nothing you stupid shit nothing at all you just lost it you CHICKENSHIT!

“Shut up, Chuckie, goddamn it,” he muttered, and let himself sink down until he was sitting on the snow. He tried to think. What had gotten to him back there? Nothing had actually happened at all; he had allowed the isolation and the silence to rattle him until he had fled in terror from his own shadow.

But what about those marks?

Those he couldn’t explain.

The sun was painting gold and orange highlights on the tops of the trees as he finally struggled back to his feet. He felt defeated, physically drained, his limbs heavy and sluggish. The air had cooled perceptibly. It was time to get inside; night was coming on fast.

His shadow stretched grotesquely before him, and the shadow cast by the house was creeping closer across the snow. As he turned to go, something on the edge of the trees caught his eye, a tiny hump half covered with snow. He hadn’t seen it before, but now the angle of the sun created a shadow that highlighted the lump against the darkness beyond. Like a partially hidden tree stump or rock, and nothing more, but he found himself drawn towards it almost against his will.

By the time he reached the lump, his nerves were singing again like high-tension wires. The part of the mound exposed looked like fur. He scraped at the snow with his hand. It was sticking to something hard and cold. He brushed back a bit more, and something stared up at him with cloudy eyes.

It was a cat.