He’d scoffed at the gypsy’s warning, that such nights were not for mortals.

It howled again, closer. He shivered. The fire had long since surrendered to the smothering fog, dead.

A scrape. “Who’s there?”  The fog held his words prisoner. As it did him.

He strained, hand on gun. Moonshine shimmered through mist, a conspiracy of quicksilver and lead.

Colorless, except the crimson pooled around the bodies. He hadn’t dreamed them. Faces pale as the moon. And every one, from his past.

They were coming. He’d always known they would. Looming toward him now, haloed by the moonlight.