Karen Winters pressed the gas again and the rear tires whined in the snow. The sedan didn't move. She was forty, alone, halfway up a logging trail she hadn't driven in years, trying to reach the family cabin before the blizzard swallowed the road. She had told no one she was coming. Her husband was somewhere she didn't know. Her stepdaughter had stopped answering her texts three days ago. The wipers slapped at snow that came down faster than they could clear it. Karen eased off the pedal and stared at the white wall past the hood. The last time she drove in snow was twenty years ago, in college, in a car that had front-wheel drive and a boyfriend in the passenger seat telling her what to do. This car was long, low, and rear-wheel. Wrong for everything outside her garage. She checked her phone. One bar, then none. She opened the door and cold hit her legs through her jeans. She had packed wine. She had packed her good boots and a phone charger. She had not packed a coat. The rear wheels sat in a rut deeper than her knee. Snow packed under the chassis held the car up like a cradle. She kicked at it with her boot and the snow barely moved. She got back in and tried reverse. The tires spun. She tried drive. The tires spun. The engine noise was the only sound for miles. She popped the trunk and waded around. Inside, under the wine box, was a black rubber mat with a ridged surface. Devon had put it there in October. Her stepson, home from college for Thanksgiving, had spent a Saturday loading the trunk with things she would have laughed at a year ago. He hadn't explained the mat. He had said, "For the tires. If you get stuck." Then he'd closed the trunk and gone back to fixing the porch step. She pulled the mat out. It was heavier than it looked. She dropped to her knees behind the rear driver-side tire and jammed the ridged edge under the rubber, hard as she could. Snow packed into her sleeves. Her fingers went numb before she finished. She got back in, put the car in drive, and eased onto the gas. The tire caught the mat. The sedan lurched forward six inches. Then the mat shot out behind her like a kicked shingle, and the wheel dropped back into the rut. She heard it happen before she saw it in the mirror. She tried again with the passenger-side tire. Same result. The mat spat out. The car sank deeper. Karen sat with her hands on the wheel. Snow covered the windshield in the time it took to breathe twice. The engine idled. She was not getting out of this rut. She reached for her phone and held it up to the window, watching for one bar to come back.

Karen held the phone against the window and waited for a bar that didn't come. The screen dimmed. She pressed the button and it lit again. No signal. No service. She set the phone in the cup holder and put her hands on the wheel to stop them shaking. Then the car moved. Not forward. Sideways. A small push against the driver's side, like something big had leaned on the fender. The sedan rocked once and settled. Karen held her breath. The wipers scraped. Snow slid off the windshield in a sheet and she saw nothing past the hood but white. Something thumped near the rear tire. Slow. Heavy. Then a scrape along the door, low, at the level of her hip. She turned her head toward the sound. The window was fogged. She wiped it with her sleeve and only made it worse. A shape passed the passenger side. Tall. Upright. It moved wrong for a person, and wrong for a bear. She thought of Devon first, which made no sense — Devon was three hours away at school. But she wanted him in the seat beside her so badly her chest hurt. He would have said something plain. He would have said, Lock the doors, Karen. He would have said it once and then done it himself. She hit the lock button. The clunk was loud in the cab. The shape came back around the front. It stopped in the wedge of light between her headlights and the snow. Karen leaned forward. She saw the antlers first. Then the skull. Then the ribs under skin pulled tight as canvas. It stood on legs that bent the wrong way at the knee. One eye caught the headlight and threw it back yellow. The jaw hung open. Long teeth. It was looking at her through the windshield. Karen made a sound she didn't recognize. Her hand went to the gear shift on its own. She threw the car into reverse and stamped the gas. The tires screamed in the rut. The sedan didn't move. She threw it into drive. Same scream. Same nothing. The thing outside tilted its head. She let go of the wheel and scrambled across the console into the passenger seat, then into the back. She pulled the wine box over her lap like it would help. Her good boots kicked the door. She yanked the charger cable out of the dash and held it in her fist for no reason she could name. The thing walked around the hood. She heard its claws tick on the metal. It passed her window without looking in this time, as if it already knew she was there and had decided when to come back. Karen pressed herself flat against the back seat and did not move. The engine idled. The heat blew. Outside, the snow kept falling, and the shape kept circling.

The heat cut out. Karen heard the change before she felt it. The fan slowed, coughed, and stopped. The dash lights held for another second, then dropped to the faint green of the clock. The engine had been idling for hours. The tank was empty. She sat up in the back seat. Her breath already showed. The windows were furred with ice on the inside. Outside, the shape moved past the rear bumper again, slow, patient. The creature had not left. It had only waited. Karen pressed her hands between her knees. Her fingers were stiff. She was wearing a thin sweater and her good boots. No coat. The wine box sat on the floor like a joke. She thought, plainly, I am going to die in this car. Then she thought of Devon. Not the shape of him, the sound. Her stepson at the kitchen table last month, tightening the strap on a traction mat and saying, You put it under the drive wheels, Karen. Rear ones. Not the front. He had said it twice because she wasn't listening the first time. He had packed the mat in the trunk himself. She had already tried the mat. It hadn't worked because she'd put it under the wrong tires. Karen looked at the door. The creature was at the front of the car now. She could see its antlers past the hood, tipped down, sniffing at the grille. If she opened the rear door on the far side, it would be a straight ten steps to the trunk. She would freeze if she stayed. She would die faster if it caught her. Both were true. She eased the far door open. Cold hit her face like water. She slid out on her knees into the snow and pushed the door shut with her hip. The creature's head snapped up on the other side of the car. She heard it, didn't see it. She crawled. The trunk release was inside. She had the key fob in her fist. She pressed it. The trunk clicked open an inch. She pulled the mat free. Rubber, ridged, stiff with cold. She dragged it around to the rear driver's side wheel. Her hands would not close all the way. She jammed the mat under the tire and packed snow against it with her palm. Claws ticked on metal. Close. Karen threw herself into the driver's seat and turned the key. The starter caught on fumes. She put it in drive and fed the gas gentle, the way Devon had said. The rear tire bit the mat. The sedan lurched forward six inches. Then a foot. Then it rolled. She did not stop. She did not look in the mirror. The car crawled up the rut and onto flatter track, coasting on almost nothing, and behind her the antlered shape stood in the road and did not follow. The fuel light blinked. The cabin was still two miles up.