It took the combined efforts of Graham, Mike and Scarlet to hold Brian back from the door while some of the others worked to barricade it. What good that would do none of them could say. Still, they drew all the curtains and raced from room to room locking windows and checking closets.The cabin was given an all clear but it didn't stop any of them from jumping as every little noise.

Phoebe learned at an awkward angle to look out the window without moving the curtain. There was only a small sliver of space left on the right side. The angle gave her a partial view of the front yard and the lake beyond. They were gone, but not really. The edge of an antler could still occasionally be seen dipping in and out of the trees. Maya was gone completely. All that was left to mark she'd ever been there was a heavily trampled area of dirt.

"Is anyone going to try explaining what the hell just happened?" Cass finally asked. He'd settled into the couch with Nora tucked safely in his arms. An ice pack rested on his left knee. In all these years he'd never truly recovered from the injury in his freshman year of college. No one wanted to mention the possibility of another sprinting session.

Footsteps thudded down the stairs as Spencer and Amy returned. "Upstairs is clear. It doesn't look like they've tried to get in at all," Spencer announced. "We need to find a way out of here, or call someone, or something."

Brian shook his head, hugging his knees to his chest in the corner of the room where they'd shoved him. His path to the door was blocked by Mike who hadn't moved except to mirror Brian's escape attempts. "We have to go get Maya," he muttered. It was the fifth time he'd insisted on it.

Something thudded against the kitchen wall that stood between them and the field they'd picniced in the day before. The plates in the cabinets rattled together from the force. The room went dead quiet aside from a few scattered gasping breaths. There were three more impacts against the same wall at different places.

"Can they get through the wall?" Phoebe whispered. The curtain she'd been peeking out of lay flat against the window. Only a sliver of light snuck its way through to illuminate the living room. A tremor raced up her hands the rest of her body until she was shaking so bad her teeth rattled.

Spencer grabbed her hands tightly. When she didn't stop shaking he pulled her into his chest and held her tightly. The shaking turned into quiet sobbing, and she wasn't the only one. The bangs moved around the cabin, hitting each wall in turn until the front door was slammed. It rattled in its frame but held steady.

"We should move the table against the door, so they can't get in," Nora whispered from the couch. Her eyes were locked on the door with an unwavering gaze.

The noises continued for over ten minutes after they'd successfully moved the table against the door. By then they'd stopped jumping at every noise. Gio had started counting down time between impacts. Two more happened one after the other and he nodded. "I don't think they're actually trying to get in,' Gio whispered. He shuffled over to the window Phoebe had abandoned and carefully peeked out the window. "There's something going on."

"What do you mean?" Graham asked. After some frantic whispering back and forth he moved to join Gio at the window.

Outside, a single antlered man was standing at the edge of the lake facing the cabin. His arms were hanging at his sides, hands relaxed. The long fingers drummed against his thigh. He didn't move besides that the entire time they watched him.

The bangs against the walls and door continued. Graham was able to spot one of them as they hurled themselves forward. They had no antlers, though they were painted head to toe in a similar way. Fur cloaks hung down some of their backs but it was much easier to tell that these were both men and women. They took turns slamming against the walls and pacing side to side.

"There are windows everywhere and they must know how to open them, or at least break them. If they wanted in they would be in," Gio explained. He nudged Graham so they could both move away from the window.

"We have to call for help before they change their mind," Amy insisted.

"The landline is upstairs in the master bedroom," Nora told them, pointing at the stairs helpfully.

Graham, Amy, and Spencer took them slowly, trying to limit their noise. The wall slamming hadn't moved to the upper levels. For a moment they felt they could take a full breath. The phone was easy enough to find. It sat on the dresser by the door blinking a steady green light. A steady busy tone came from the phone when they lifted it. No amount of button pressing changed it.

"What does that mean?" Graham asked in a low tone. From downstairs he could hear the others digging in kitchen drawers and the gentle swish of kitchen knives being drawn from their places.

"Do you think they could have messed with it somehow?" Amy asked. The curtains upstairs had been drawn as well but she moved one of them aside to look out. "Can they do that? They look human enough to know how."

"Those things aren't human," Spencer argued.

Graham agreed but shushed them to stop any escalating arguments. He pulled his phone out and held it up searching desperately for a signal. Devynn had said the roof had a decent signal. If he could get close enough to the ceiling maybe he could reach someone or at the very least fire off a text. The bars stayed at a steady nonexistent.

The other two hadn't moved from the window where they were whispering in quick hurried words. A dreadful thought crawled its way to the front of Graham's mind. They hadn't made their way up to the second floor. It was possible they couldn't get up there at all. Graham tucked his phone into his back pocket and cleared his throat.

They jumped at the sudden noise and faced him. "I'm going to the roof," Graham told them. He didn't give them time to stop him and he wondered if they would.

The window in the room Devynn had used slid open easily. It was clear Devynn had taken care in ensuring his escape route was easy to get out of. Graham looked back to see Spencer waiting anxiously at the door. "Relax, it's not the first time I've snuck out of a house," Graham joked. The answering chuckled, though absent of any real humor, it did ease his mind somewhat.

Outside the wind whistled through the trees like an otherworldly alarm. Was it telling them where they were, keeping tabs on them? The cold sank into his fingers making them stiff. There were few handholds along the wall and he had to rely on his height to boost him to the edge of the roof. His fingers grasped at the tiles until he could move his elbows into their place.

Drops of sweat cooled against his skin like freezing rain. Graham could hear them throwing themselves at the walls below him. Any moment he feared they would look up and spot him as he crawled to the center of the roof to the chimney. Its cold stone reminded him of the cold night that awaited them. Would they be gone before they had to worry about it or would they be running through the night to safety?

Shaking those thoughts away, Graham pressed his back into the chimney and held his phone up. His heart shattered when he saw the signal remain unchanged. No matter which way he twisted it stayed the same. Devynn would have known the exact spot to use.

Graham glanced around and spotted the edge of something blue on the other side of the roof. He shimied to it as carefully as he could. Every time he heard a noise below he tensed, wondering if they would finally make the effort to reach the upper floor.

It seemed to take ages to reach the abandoned blue sneaker. The laces were snapped on one side and stuck to a tile on the other. There was thankfully no foot hanging out of the shoe. Graham lifted it and his breath caught in his throat. While there was no foot, the blood that had soaked into the canvas of Devynn's right shoe was more than enough to unnerve him. They may have had no interest in reaching the roof but it would seem that something out there did.