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I found Sally Henry lying in the woods with all her limbs bent the wrong way. Splintered bones caked in dried crimson jutted from her torn flesh at impossible angles. The snow beside her body had already turned dark. As I got closer, I noticed her eyes were missing, too, the bloody sockets crisscrossed with scratches like a haphazard stitch. My boot sank into the red snow with a nauseating squelch as I took another fearful step. Her jaw hung open too far to the left, dislocated, revealing blood-splattered teeth in her eternal frozen scream.

The woods lined the bottom of the hill that dropped off from the edge of my backyard. I’d played in them many times in my youth, built fairy houses from pinecones and twigs and fallen acorns. My brothers always thought this childish, teased me for wasting my time playing with sticks. But I felt that something else dwelled between the trees, something beyond the squirrels and rabbits and deer. I always knew.

As I backed away from her body, watching the steam rise from the pools of fresh blood as it turned the snow to sludge, I sensed that same feeling as a chill against my skin, like something was running its fingers along my back with a light touch.

This was the farthest I’d ever ventured into the woods; my dad never let me or my brothers go passed where he could see us from atop the hill. Sally and I had been playing hide and seek. I was working my way up to ten when I heard the familiar sound of the front door squeaking open. When I opened my eyes I bee-lined for the backyard, following her boot prints down toward the tree line. I figured she wouldn’t have gone too far, but the trail kept going on and on until I had completely lost sight of my backyard. Until it led me to her.

The wounds were fresh, the scratches across her eyes still spilling droplets of blood that slowly trickled down her face, so she couldn’t have been lying there for long—how did I not hear her scream? I whipped my head back and forth, scanning through the trees for some sign that I was not alone. The woods were still. Even the usual bird song was hushed and the pine needles ceased to rustle in the winter wind.

Between the distant tree trunks, silhouetted against the seasonal frost hanging in the air, a distant figure stood. It looked to only be a few feet tall, vaguely human-shaped with spindly arms hanging almost to the floor. Two deer-like antlers sprouted from its white forehead. The thing had no hair and no features, or so I thought until it grinned a razor-toothed smile that spanned across the width of its face. A scream caught in my throat and I fell backwards onto the ground. I wanted to lift myself up and run but my hands and feet felt rooted to the spot. I stared at the creature in horror as it raised a gangly arm—its needle-like fingers caked in vibrant crimson—and waved at me like we were old friends.

I managed to scurry to my feet and race home, following the trail of footsteps back the opposite way until I saw my house through the trees. My dad called the police when I sobbed and told him what I saw. They sent a team to investigate, but they never reported finding a body, only the reddened snow. They chalked it up to a wolf attack and went home.

My dad forbade me and my brothers from going into those woods ever again. Her family moved away shortly after the funeral. Years passed without new incident, and soon the town forgot about the mysterious death of young Sally Henry.

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I didn’t see the creature again until I was an adult, after my brothers and I moved back into that little house on the hill to attend to our dad as his body began to wear down from age. Everything was as I remembered it, with the addition of a German Shephard my dad had bought to fill the void of our company before we decided to return.

The air was crisp and biting, promising an unforgiving winter ahead. My dad wanted to go fishing before the first snowfall meant autumn would come to a close. I’d never been one for fishing, never mind that being anywhere near water in those temperatures sounded particularly unpleasant, so I bade the boys a good trip as they headed out at first light to the lake. I busied myself by tending to the household chores, ambling downtown to the market to shop for wool and knitting needles and a new book to read by the fireplace. Anything to keep me from staring out the window at the woods all day.

I’d fallen asleep by the hearth in the afternoon. I awoke after the sun had already set to the dog nudging me with its wet nose. She ran to the front door as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, pawing at the wood and whimpering. I figured she needed to go out, so I grabbed her leash from the hook by the door. She hopped around on her paws, whining and pawing at the door in antsy motions.

I’m surprised Dad isn’t home yet I thought as I hooked the leash to her collar. He should at least be on his way by now.

I unlocked the front door and pulled it open. Immediately, the dog yanked herself forward with all her might, causing the leash to slip from my hands as she bounded ahead. I screamed after her, snatching the flashlight from the shelf as I followed her around the side of the house to the backyard. I watched her race down the hill at full speed and make her way toward the woods. I gave chase, crying desperately for her to come back. She disappeared into the trees before I even made it down the hill.

It was only as I approached the edge of the woods that I realized it was snowing. The dog’s pawprints were barely visible in the thin blanket of fresh powder, disappearing quickly as snowflakes raced toward the ground in frenzied flurries. I stopped before the first tree, heart beating wildly in my chest. I hadn’t entered the woods since that day when I followed her boot prints to her mangled corpse. The image of her crooked bones and empty eye sockets flashed in my mind. I saw the creature’s devilish smile, its hands coated in her blood as it waggled its thin fingers at me. My chest rose and fell like mad with each labored breath. The flashlight beam teetered against the white trunks in my shaking hand.

The dog barked somewhere in the distance. It felt like a call, like she was beckoning me to her. I sucked in a deep breath, steadying my heart, and ran toward the noise. Her pawprints were nearly gone so I picked up speed, keeping my eyes trained on her each step. I called out her name again and again. She wasn’t barking anymore.

Suddenly, I felt it—that familiar chill like someone had brushed their finger against my bones. I stopped running, blood roaring in my ears, breath coming out in fitful coughs. I whipped the flashlight around through each tree trying to find it. It was nearby. I knew it was.

I took a tentative step forward, still following the pawprints. My heart felt like it would beat itself right out of my ribcage. The snow seemed to fall heavier, so I began running again. Get the dog and get out I thought as I picked up speed.

The pawprints disappeared suddenly. No sharp turn or even another set of animal tracks to indicate that she ran into something. Instead, a trail of red dots freckled the snow in a scattered line passed her trace. I stopped again, shaking like a leaf, and pointed the beam ahead, following the line of blood. My skin prickled with goosebumps, that unmistakable presence slithering up my spine.

I expected to see the dog a gnarled mess, its flesh torn open and fur matted with blood. Instead, what I saw a few paces ahead of me looked like a hut. It sported a façade made from twigs with an open archway as the front door, a canopy of sticks and brown leaves stretching from the makeshift wall upward to the tree branches where it was mounted against the bark. I made my way toward it with uncertain steps, curiosity temporarily overtaking my fear.

As I stepped inside the shelter, a scream caught in my throat. The inner walls weren’t made up of tree branches but bones, bent and splintered to shape and coated in crimson. Against the wall hung a pair of kids boots. Sally’s boots. Woven between the walls were three fishing rods that I recognized from that morning, and I gathered with sickening realization that the sudden snowfall would have caused my dad and brothers to need to take the shortest route from the lake—through the woods. The dog’s collar was mounted to the wall opposite Sally’s boots, still dripping with fresh blood. A fearful glance up revealed that the canopy roof was actually a tarp of old, leathery skin stitched together, and dangling from the ceiling like ornaments were ten round eyeballs strung up by fishing wire.

Tears welled in my eyes as the scream finally tore itself loose. The eyes stared back at me as I cried out until my throat felt raw. I turned around to flee but there it was in the doorway, smiling at me wide with its razorlike teeth. It had grown considerably taller since the last time, towering above me by a head. Its antlers had grown, too, branching up and outward into multiple fragments like a full-grown buck. It raised its hand and waved at me, just like last time.

When it spoke, its mouth never moved:

Thank you for all those little houses you used to build for me, it said, its voice like nails on a chalkboard. I always hoped one day I’d get to return the favor. Its smile grew wider.

It’s made from all things I know you love, so you’ll feel right at home.