Grace watches as a light quickly moves toward her and then feels a rush of heat as the door is opened and she collapses forward into the house. She's shivering violently and is having trouble forming coherent thoughts. All she knows is that after banging on the doors to four other houses and getting no response, she's finally found a home with somebody in it.

"Come on," a woman's voice says as she feels something pulling on her arm, "you need to come all the way inside." Barely processing the words, Grace weakly pulls herself forward until she hears the sound of a door sliding shut and the click of a lock.

"Grace? Jesus Christ, Grace is that you?" She hears the voice say, followed by barking and then "Charlie, goddamnit, come here and knock it off!"

Unable to do much more, Grace turns her head and sees a short woman kneeling over her. "Linda?" she whispers through chattering teeth.

"Yes," Linda replies as calmly as she can while holding Charlie back, and looking over the woman lying in front of her. This is bad, she thinks as she sets her lantern down and reaches out to feel Grace's cold, bright red hand. "We'd better go into the kitchen where it's warmer, " she says, "can you walk?"

"I don't know," Grace replies. She's exhausted and all of her limbs are numb, but her thoughts feel less scattered now.

"Come on," Linda says, gently rolling Grace over and helping her into a sitting position. "It's right over here"

With Grace's arm draped around Linda's shoulder, both women gradually rise to their feet, and begin to move across the dark house toward the kitchen. Charlie, curious as to who this strange visitor is and why she's here, follows closely behind.

With the lantern left on the floor behind them, Linda can barely see where she's going. Thankfully, the path to the kitchen is both short and clear of obstacles, so the two make it there without much trouble. After she helps Grace sit down in front of the roaring wood-burning stove, Linda leaves her with Charlie and makes her way back to where she left the lantern. She retrieves it, and heads to the linen closet at the edge of the living room.

There she grabs as many blankets as she can, takes them back to the kitchen and sets them on the floor next to Grace . "You need to get out of your wet clothes," Linda instructs as she walks over to a second lantern on the counter and turns it on. "I'll go get you something to change into." Grace nods, and, still shivering, but gradually regaining feeling in her fingers, begins to remove one of her moccasin slippers.

Back in her bedroom, Linda opens one of her husband's dresser drawers and takes from it a pair of socks, then opens another and takes a grey sweater and matching sweatpants. The clothes will probably be a little bit baggy, but Grace is too big for any of Linda's clothes, so they'll have to do.

Moments later, Linda is sitting at her kitchen island, a cigarette hanging from her mouth and Charlie in her lap. Grace, who has changed out of her wet clothes, is huddled on the floor, wrapped in several blankets. The numbness that had engulfed her body has given way to pain, especially in her fingers and ears. She worries that she might have frostbite, but she can't think of anything to do about it except to sit here and get warm.

"What happened?" Linda's voice startles her and she turns to look up at her host's shadowy face.

It takes Grace a minute to respond, she doesn't know how she's supposed to describe the events that led her here.

"Something attacked me," she finally says looking back at the wood burning stove, "tore the door off its hinges and attacked me."

"What attacked you?" Linda asks, taking a drag from her cigarette and trying to hide the incredulity in her voice. She's known Grace for as long as she's lived in Story, and she's well aware that she's been trying to drink herself to death ever since her husband died. Grace probably did something stupid while on a drunk, got spooked and ran here. That would explain why she was so underdressed for the weather, and depending on what she did, it might also explain the shotgun shells that Linda had found in the pocket of Grace's wet sweatpants when she hung them in the laundry room to dry.

"I don't know, but it was big." Grace can feel tears running down her cheeks as she thinks back to her house, back to the monster. "Almost had the body of a bear, but-but it wasn't. . ." she trails off, unsure of how to describe the creature without sounding completely crazy.

"Was it a mountain lion? Or a Moose?" Linda asks. She doesn't know if a mountain lion would be strong enough to rip a door off its hinges and she's never seen a moose in Story, but if it wasn't a bear, then there weren't many other options for what it could be. Assuming something actually did beat the door down and Grace hadn't just imagined everything.

"No," Grace swallows and pulls the blanket wrapped around her shoulders tighter before turning back to face Linda, "it wasn't quite like anything I've ever seen before and too big to be any regular animal. I know I sound crazy, but I'm telling the truth. Something destroyed my house and tried to kill me. I shot it point blank with a shotgun and it barely slowed it down," Grace is becoming frantic, tears are flowing from her eyes while snot runs from her nose. She can't stop herself from talking, "We need to get out of here, go to Sheridan where they've probably still got power. Call the forest service, get someone to come deal with it," she says, rising and staring at Linda with wild eyes "before it finds us."

"Gracie," Linda says, unfazed, "you were just outside in waist deep snow, you know we're not going anywhere tonight." She stamps her cigarette out and continues before Grace can interrupt her, "You're going to stay here, and tomorrow when the snow has stopped and plows have come through, we'll go back to your house, see how much damage has been caused and then, if you still want to go into town, I'll drive you."

"Please, we can't wait, we've got to go n-."

"Enough," Linda cuts Grace off with a commanding tone that she's cultivated over decades of dealing with dogs, and kids. " I'm not going anywhere. Even if I wanted to, I can't. If you want to go back out there and freeze to death, be my guest, but if I was you, Gracie, I'd stay the night here instead."

Taken aback by such an authoritative voice coming from such a small woman, Grace takes a step back and falls silent.

"So what's it gonna be? Are you staying here or going back out there?" Linda asks. There's no way she'll actually let Grace go out into the cold, but she figures she should at least give her the illusion of choice. She's found that people usually respond better to being told what to do when they think they're in control.

Grace looks at Linda and blinks back tears. She doesn't feel safe here, but she knows that Linda is right and that there's no way that they could make it into town. "Okay," she finally says after a long pause, "I'll stay here tonight."

"Good," Linda replies. "You can sleep in one of the guest bedrooms or out on the couch. I don't care which, but it might be warmer out in the living room." She can see in her face that Grace is barely keeping it together, and that it's likely taking all of her willpower not to fall to the floor in sobbing hysterics. And who can blame her? If Linda had been in her shoes, then she doubts she'd be fairing much better.

"I'll take one of the guest rooms," Grace says, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Due to its proximity to the stove, the couch in the living room probably would be warmer, but she'd feel at least a little bit safer in a bedroom. The floorplan of Linda's house is too open, with only a small entryway separating the living room from the front door and not so much as a dividing wall separating it from the sliding glass door that led to the back deck. If the monster did show up, and Grace prayed with every fiber of her being that it wouldn't, anyone in the living room would be the first thing it'd see when it busted inside.

"Suit yourself," Linda says with a shrug. She's about to turn and lead Grace to a bedroom when she feels a hand grab her gently by the arm. She looks at it and then up at Grace's red face, "Yes?"

"My gun."

"Excuse me?"

"I dropped my gun out in your yard," Grace whispers, shocked that she's just now remembering it. She can't quite recall dropping her weapon, and she's sure that she still had it when she came out of the forest into Linda's yard. But, it's not with her now, which means that she must've let go of it outside.

That explains the shotgun shells, Linda thinks. "I'll go get it," she says, figuring that that's probably why Grace brought it up in the first place. "But I'm holding onto it until morning. You're not carrying a goddamn gun around my house."

"I can go, I just-"

"No." Linda cuts her off with the same commanding tone that she'd used earlier. "You're still half froze, and, as I said,'' she places special emphasis on those words to remind Grace that a decision has already been reached, "you're not going to be carrying a goddamn gun around my house."

Grace considers protesting, but thinks better of it and nods in weak affirmation of Linda's words. She's too drained from the day's events to argue and even if she'd prefer to keep her weapon by her side, she'd still feel better knowing that someone in the house had it.

"I'd better go get dressed," Linda says with a sigh.

Once she's pulled her trusty neon purple snowsuit on, Linda leans on the dining room table and crams her left foot into a boot. Grace sits at the kitchen island several feet away and silently watches. She thinks back to all the other times she's sat in this kitchen, back to the conversations that she and Linda had, the sodas they'd drink and the political arguments that they couldn't help but get into. It all seems so distant now.

"Where did you drop it?" Linda's voice chimes in, interrupting Grace's thoughts.

"I don't know." Grace thinks she can see the look of irritation flash across Linda's dimly lit face and adds a quick "sorry," before trying to come up with a more helpful answer. "I came out onto your property by the treehouse and I remember having it in my hand then, so it might be there." She pauses, "Are you sure you don't want me to go out and get it?"

"Yes, I'm sure." Linda says, pulling a wool cap over her curly copper colored hair, before grabbing a flashlight and walking over to the sliding glass door. As she looks outside at the piles of snow that have accumulated on her back deck, she feels a chill run down her spine. What if Grace is right and something is lurking out there? It's bad enough that she's got to go rooting around through the snow for a lost gun, and the thought that some monster is going to pounce on her is just making things that much worse.

As her anxiety grows, she takes a deep breath and shakes her head. Knock it off, She thinks. If there were such a thing as monsters, don't you think you would've run into one by now? You'll go outside, get the gun and then come back in and go to bed. Come morning this whole ordeal will be nothing but a bad memory.

Energized from her little self pep talk, Linda turns back to Grace and says, "I'll be right back, keep an eye on Charlie," before opening the door.

Immediately she feels a rush of cold air and winces as it hits her skin. She wants to turn around and go back inside, but this has got to be done now before the gun ends up completely lost in a snow drift, so she pulls her scarf tighter around her neck and takes a big step onto the back deck.