The cabin went silent.<\/p>\n
Everyone stared toward the window.<\/p>\n
Outside, snow swirled around the SUV while the shadowy figure stepped into the headlights.<\/p>\n
Slowly.<\/p>\n
Deliberately.<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s face drained of color.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo…\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n
The little girl immediately buried her face against her mother’s coat.<\/p>\n
The man who owned the cabin grabbed the rifle hanging above the fireplace and moved closer to the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know him?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
The woman couldn’t answer right away.<\/p>\n
Her hands were shaking too hard.<\/p>\n
Outside, the figure continued walking through the blizzard.<\/p>\n
Closer.<\/p>\n
Closer.<\/p>\n
Then lightning flashed somewhere beyond the mountains.<\/p>\n
For a split second, the figure’s face became visible.<\/p>\n
The woman gasped.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can’t be…\u201d<\/p>\n
The cabin owner looked at her sharply.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is he?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tears filled her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe man who died last winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
A cold silence swept through the room.<\/p>\n
The wind howled against the walls.<\/p>\n
Outside, the figure stopped twenty feet from the cabin.<\/p>\n
Snow whipped around him like a living thing.<\/p>\n
Then slowly\u2014<\/p>\n
he raised one hand.<\/p>\n
And pointed directly at the little girl.<\/p>\n
The fire crackled loudly behind them.<\/p>\n
No one moved.<\/p>\n
No one spoke.<\/p>\n
Because somehow, impossibly\u2014<\/p>\n
the dead man knew exactly where she was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The cabin went silent. Everyone stared toward the window. Outside, snow swirled around the SUV while the shadowy figure stepped into the headlights. Slowly. Deliberately. The woman\u2019s face drained of color. \u201cNo…\u201d she whispered. The little girl immediately buried her face against her mother’s coat. The man who owned the cabin grabbed the rifle hanging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}