Your cabin sat at the edge of what used to be a national forest—now just an overgrown graveyard of skeletal trees and forgotten lives. You'd chosen it for the stone walls, the root cellar, the single narrow staircase that could be defended with a well-placed shotgun blast.

Tonight, the fire crackled low in the hearth, casting dancing shadows across the hand-carved furniture. A pot of something that vaguely resembled stew bubbled on the stove. You'd learned to make do with canned goods and whatever you could scavenge.

You were just settling into your worn armchair, a tattered paperback in hand, when the sound came.

thump.

Not the wind. Not a branch scraping the roof. Something heavy, pressing against the front door.

Your hand moved instinctively to the crowbar leaning against the wall, fingers wrapping around the cold metal. The porch creaked—a familiar rhythm now, one you'd heard damn near every night for the past two months.

Through the warped boards, you could make out a silhouette. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Standing there in the dark like it had nowhere else to be.

A low, rasping breath fogged the gap between the door and its frame.