A/N: The inspiration for this story comes from a true account I read on a forum many years ago about someone's experience staying alone in a cabin in the woods.

It terrified the absolute crap out of me and totally enthralled me... I could never let it go. So I reworked it and built on it and it turned into this story. You see the beginnings of it in this chapter.

Chapter 4: Things That Go Bump In The Night

Like I had most nights since arriving, I found myself wide awake and staring at the wooden ceiling beams in the early hours before dawn. I managed to sleep soundly for the most of the night until I didn't. At about four or five am every morning, I'd find myself unable to settle back to sleep until the sky began lightening again. I hadn't had a problem with this in Shreveport, but I was working myself so hard that I practically collapsed into bed exhausted every night.

Tonight I'd woken earlier than usual. My digital alarm clock read 2:37 am. Bonnie was softly snoring in her doggy bed across the room from me. On our first night here she had dragged the large round cushion she slept on from beside my bed and across the bedroom floor, finally positioning it next to the heating vent. I knew she would have preferred to sleep on my bed, but I couldn't really deal with the dog hair. Plus, she was freaking huge. I doubt she'd leave me enough room.

It was deathly quiet outside, the stillness only punctuated by the occasional owl hoot and rustle of leaves whispering in the wind. I hated this time of night. I was never fearful living in Shreveport, not scared of being alone, not scared of the dark. But living in isolation in this cabin in the woods… It played havoc with my imagination. Shadows would loom menacingly from the corners of the room and every strange noise seemed to confirm something lurking of a sinister origin. I refused to sleep with the light on, though. I drew the line there. Doing that was conceding defeat.

I focused on my breathing, counting out slow measured breaths and utilizing the mindfulness skills my therapist insisted I practice. It did help a bit. I let the anxious feeling pass over me, trying to remain aware yet unattached to the emotions and concentrated on the physical sensations I was experiencing. The warmth and heaviness of the duck down quilt I slept under. The comfortable tightness of the elastic around the waist of my thermal pajamas. The smoothness of the cotton sheets under my fingers.

A loud snapping sound jolted me from my meditation. It was the sound of a large branch snapping in half, somewhere out in the clearing in front of the house. My fingers squeezed the sheets and I held my breath. An animal, I reasoned. A perfectly normal sound to hear in the woods at night.

Or, a darker voice in my mind whispered, it could be someone standing out there. Watching the cabin.

My mind raced over the multiple instances over the last week and a half since arriving, the unpleasant sensation of being watched, the goose bumps that would rise along my arms and the back of my neck. Looking out into the forest at night through the wide windows in the living area, the sensation of something looking back. I forced my hands to loosen their grip. I was being ridiculous.

I gasped as a heavy thump resounded followed by the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the snow. The freezing temperatures overnight left the snow hard and icy, so it was impossible to miss the crunch and grind of someone or something walking over it. I couldn't tell if it was human, but whatever it was had a strange gait. It was limping or dragging itself. Fear rippled through me like a large stone thrown into a still pond. My fingers tingled and burned. My breathing came to a halt as whatever it was began pulling itself up the steps leading up to the front deck on the bottom floor.

Thump, drag… Thump, drag… Thump, drag…

It definitely didn't sound human. Too heavy and too hulking. I couldn't even begin to think what kind of animal it was. My mind began conjuring strange dark beasts and shadow creatures. The kind that haunts your dreams on your worst nights. I sat up and pulled the covers around me.

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap," I whispered. My heart raced, I was simultaneously hot and cold all over.

Bonnie remained clueless and fast asleep. I made a point the lock the house up tight every night, so there was no chance it was getting in. I quietly pulled the covers back and crept quickly down the staircase, avoiding the creaky step third from the bottom. I grabbed my Benelli from the coat closet and the box of slugs that sat on the top shelf. No sane person lived alone in the woods and didn't own a firearm. I ran back up the steps, two at a time like my life depended on it and jumped back onto my bed, switching on my reading lamp as I went.

With trembling fingers, I pointed the gun away from me, checking the safety was still on and that the gun was still unloaded. I pulled the bolt back, loaded a shell and closed the bolt. It let off a satisfying clunk. I loaded two more rounds into the magazine underneath. Jason had given the shotgun a proper clean for me before I left for Lake Douglas, but it had been years since I had loaded the weapon. Funny how muscle-memory worked.

All had gone quiet since I'd made my mad dash downstairs, but a few nervous minutes later the noises resumed, this time sounding like it was pacing back in the snowy yard again. I kneeled on the bed, clutching the barrel tightly in hand as it rested across my lap. There was zero chance I'd be sleeping anymore tonight. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest I was sure if I pulled my pajamas back I'd see it beating through my chest.

I drew a shaky breath and closed my eyes. The metal of the gun was cold and I focused on the feeling of it in my hand. It was a reminder that I still had control in this situation. I was safe inside and armed. Whatever it was out there was just that – out there. I wondered what Dr. Ludwig would think of my mindfulness techniques now. Pretty sure they never included a loaded weapon.

I awoke some hours later to Bonnie licking my face. Daylight was casting a thin shaft of light through the crack between the curtains and I was laying slumped to my side on top of the bed, the gun beside me. I shooed Bonnie off the bed and rubbed my eyes tiredly. I didn't know when I finally fell asleep. Sometime closer to dawn. Whatever it was stayed outside for nearly an hour before moving on, I guess sleep had claimed me a couple of hours after that.

I stood up, grabbing the gun and parted the curtains, looking out cautiously. It was gray and dreary, with more snow on the way judging by the color of the clouds. I couldn't see anything suspicious lingering in the yard.

I dressed quickly for outside, long underwear, jeans, and a warm maroon-colored cashmere sweater with a chunky cowl neck. In the bathroom, I ran a brush through my hair, cleaned my teeth and washed my face. My eyes were red ringed and held a wild look I couldn't ever remember seeing before. After rugging up in my boots, coat, and extras, I brought Bonnie and my Benelli outside with me. Soft flakes of snow were beginning to fall already and Bonnie raced off toward the tree line excitedly running back and forth between me and all the favorite locations she'd marked her territory on. As I walked around to the back yard, I realized I hadn't brought her leash with me. Oh well, she seemed to be managing well enough.

The set of tracks left by last night's animal were immediately apparent. They weren't mine, they weren't Bonnie's. A fine layer of powder had softened their appearance. I crouched by the ones closest to me, tracing the contours of the print with my fingertip. It was deep, heavy, big, and whatever it was had dragged itself up the three steps that lead onto the area of decking that looked out onto the lake. I shivered. There was nothing there now, just the deep gouges of its path in the snow. I followed it along before it petered out near the kitchen window. Into nothing. It was like it completely disappeared.

Bonnie came up behind me and nuzzled her wet nose into the crook of my elbow. I crouched down and gave her bony frame a hug, willing my thudding heart to slow. My eyes scanned the tree line, looking for anything that might give me a clue about my night time visitor. Maybe it was that fox I'd heard that first night? Maybe it was injured and looking for shelter. Although, that didn't explain the distinctly bipedal sounding footsteps I'd heard.

I pushed down the sob that was threatening to rise from my chest. I was exhausted, mentally from the huge adrenaline dump I experienced the night before and physically from lack of sleep. The pines surrounding the house seemed to loom towards me. I was completely alone and utterly vulnerable for the first time in my life.

Maybe I was just losing it? Living alone in the woods and dealing with some heavy emotional baggage, my brain was coming unraveled. I stared at the misshapen footprints until their odd shape burned its way into my memory. Was I just imagining this? How could that be possible?

I made my way quickly across the clearing, stepping carefully over the prints. Bonnie trailed closely behind, probably sensing my distress. I snorted quietly, she'd managed to sleep through most of the drama last night, so who was I kidding? She was just excited to go for a walk. The hard snow made my fast pace easier work than usual and I was practically jogging by the time I reached Eric's. There was no sign of waking life or smoke coming from the chimney. I knocked for nearly a full minute before the door was yanked open by Eric, sleepy and pissed off.

"Do you realize how early it is? I've only been asleep for-" His words faltered as he took in my appearance and he drew back a step. "Whoa… What are you doing with that gun?"

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." I gasped, quickly placing the gun against the wall and lifting up my hands. I could only imagine how I must have looked to him. "I, uh, I had a weird night last night." My voice cracked and I hurried to clear my throat.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" His brow furrowed in concern and I finally took notice of his appearance. Plaid pajama pants. He was only wearing plaid pajama pants. His upper half looked amazing, all hard ridges and defined muscles, a trail blond hair making its way down his abdomen and further south. He clearly worked out. He'd shaved his face since I'd seen him yesterday too. "Susannah…?" he prompted. I blinked at his use of my formal name.

I cleared my throat again and hugged my arms around me. I wasn't even sure what I was going to say. 'Oh hi, as you can see by me knocking on your door at 7 am brandishing a weapon, I've clearly lost my marbles. Some weird ass creature stalked me last night and I need you to come and look and make sure I'm actually seeing what is really there and not just hallucinating the footprints of some beast from hell.' Instead, I took the tried and true Sookie Stackhouse approach and jumped right on the offensive.

"Did you come poking around my yard in the middle of the night last night? Because that is an asshole move if you did. Just because we don't get along doesn't mean you have to harrass-"

"What are you talking about?" he interrupted, his concern morphing into exasperation. I wanted to be mad, I really did. But somehow I knew it wasn't him. To be honest, the thought that it might be him hadn't even occurred to me until I'd started speaking. My eyes filled with tears.

"I was kept up half the night last night by someone or something pacing and thumping around my yard and front deck." I brushed the back of my hand against the corner of my eyes, quickly swiping away the tear that was threatening to fall. I leaned into Bonnie's comforting weight, as she settled herself against my legs.

"Really? What was it? An animal?"

I shook my head in response. "I don't think many animals get around solely on two legs." His eyes widened at that.

"Give me a minute," he said.

He left me standing at the doorway as he disappeared up the set of stairs adjacent to the kitchen. The kitchen was in much tidier shape than the day before. He returned a few minutes later looking more awake and dressed in hiking pants, boots and a forest green woolen sweater. He shrugged on an expensive looking black and terracotta orange waterproof jacket that was hanging behind the front door and then pulled a beanie down over his hair.

"Let's go take a look, then." He grabbed his keys from where they sat on a minimalist-style entry table and pulled the door shut behind him. I slung the shotgun back over my shoulder and fell into step beside him. Free of the confines of the leash, Bonnie galloped ahead in big bounding leaps.

"Thank you," I said quietly. "I shouldn't have accused you. I didn't really think it was you."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you did think it was me. I wasn't very nice to you yesterday."

I shrugged. I didn't really care anymore. After spending one night practically peeing myself in fright, it put our silly squabbles into perspective. He was helping me now.

"Did you get a look at what or who it was?" he asked. Bonnie came running back towards us with a stick and Eric wrestled it from her jaws before throwing it for her.

"No. I was too terrified to look out the window. I have a partially obscured view of my yard from my bedroom due to the upstairs balcony, anyway."

"What time was it?"

"About 2:30 am, but it didn't leave until nearly an hour later."

"You should have called the police."

"Maybe." I chewed on my bottom lip. "I was worried that maybe I was just overreacting. It's a long way for a deputy or the sheriff to come in the middle of the night." My pride also didn't want Tara thinking I was going batshit insane up here on my own. "At least if you take a look you can tell me if I'm really going crazy or not."

"And does that happen often?" he asked, shooting me a sideways glance. Snowflakes had settled along his brows and eyelashes like little white, crystalline crowns.

"Does what happen often?"

"You going crazy."

"Ha-ha. No, it doesn't. At least not this level of crazy. Not unless I'm engaged in a conversation with you."

We shared a short but awkward laugh. It served to break a little of the tension. The anxiety which had been resting like a shroud on my shoulders slowly started lifting. Being around human company added a sense of realism to my situation. The last few hours felt dreamlike. Well, more like nightmare-ish.

Eric spent nearly ten minutes slowly walking around my yard, following the tracks and examining them closely. His tall form looked unnatural hunched down over the snow, like Gulliver observing the people of Lilliput. He took a few photos on his cell phone before coming back to me.

"They're almost like hoof prints, but not. I have no explanation for why they completely stop and disappear on the deck, but maybe whatever it was jumped over the railing."

I nodded mutely, cupping my hands over my mouth, hoping to warm up my frozen nose with my breath.

"I'm friendly with the ranger at the park. If you like I can send the pics to him and see what he thinks?" Eric's hands were jutted back in the pockets of his trousers, his expression thoughtful.

"Sure. Who knows, maybe it's that elusive wolverine my Grandpa swore up and down he saw hunting once." The idea that some bipedal creature or even just a person was responsible for my night time visit seemed ridiculous now that I'd talked it out with Eric in the bright light of daytime.

We stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure how to proceed. Bonnie barked and drew our attention to the living room windows, she was locked inside and licking the window, her collar tag clicking against the glass.

"Would you like to come in for some breakfast?" I asked. "Seeing how I woke you and all."

"As long as you promise to put that thing away," he pointed to the Benelli on my shoulder, the corners of his lips twitching upwards. I rolled my eyes at him and we walked around to the main entrance.

Eric watched on curiously as I sat at the dining table and unloaded the shotgun, placing the shells back into their box. After I returned from storing the gun and slugs upstairs in my wardrobe, I made myself busy fixing a fresh pot of coffee for us and pulling out everything I'd need to make eggs and bacon.

"My name is Sookie, by the way," I said when I handed him his mug of coffee. He was standing at the mantle examining an oil landscape of the Rockies during fall. It was a beautiful piece, the oil paint thick and textured. Gran once told me Grandpa won the painting during a poker game after the cabin was first built. I was never really sure if that was true or not.

"Sookie?" Eric repeated it like he was giving the name a test drive with his mouth. "Not Susannah?"

"Well, my birth certificate says Susannah and that's the name I go by when I'm at work, but to everyone else it's Sookie."

"Unusual name, don't think I've ever heard it before."

"I'm from the south, it's an uncommon but traditional nickname for Susannah there."

He followed me into the kitchen and sat on the bar stool across from where I was working at the island bench. I passed him a knife and chopping board instructing him to slice the mushrooms while I began halving the tomatoes ready for the broiler.

"So what brings you to Lake Douglas?" I asked, sneaking a glance at him through my eyelashes. He was focused on his task, his lips thinned in concentration. He looked good without a beard, the definition of his jaw more apparent. It set off the strong line of his nose in an attractive way. I cracked some salt and pepper over the tomatoes and placed the tray under the broiler.

"I'm an author," he said passing the board of chopped mushrooms over to my outstretched hand. "My agent rented the house to make sure I had no distractions finishing the current manuscript I'm working on. The publishing company I'm contracted to were breathing down her neck. She told me, and I quote, 'Get your shit together Eric, if you even consider missing your deadline I'll drive all the way to the middle of bumfuck nowhere and pull your head out of your ass myself.'"

"She really said that?" I choked on my mouthful of coffee at the words and the British falsetto he affected. He smirked, leaning back in his seat.

"Yes, she really said that. If you met her you'd realize it's not that unusual for her."

"So what kind of stuff do you write?" I began frying breakfast and arranging our plates and cutlery.

"Fiction. You might know of some of my work. I've hit the best seller list a bunch of times and one book was number one for a few months about ten years back. It was really big that year. The Peace Receiver. Eric Northman is my full name."

"The only thing I was reading ten years ago was case law and legal textbooks," I said smiling over my shoulder to him. "I barely had a spare minute to even consider anything as wild as reading for pleasure." I turned back to the stove, flipping the bacon. "I'll have to look it up. Free time's all I got these days. So what about your newer stuff? Have you written much since?"

"Yeah, all moderately successful. After The Peace Receiver, I picked up a five book contract with one of the big publishers and moved to the US. It was the biggest market for my first novel. But I haven't been the most… dedicated writers." He shrugged and popped a slice of mushroom that had fallen off the board into his mouth. "I started feeling like a book mill, pumping them out on demand. My last novel was the least successful and I missed my deadline by a wide margin. The reviews were fairly positive, average at best really, but the money lost due to missing the deadline and holding up production and marketing meant it was a failure from the publisher's perspective. They only really care about the bottom dollar."

Eric got the fire going while I finished up cooking and we sat on opposite ends of my couch digging into our meals, letting the flames warm us up as we ate.

"So, what's your deal?" he asked, between mouthfuls of food.

"My deal? I'm not really sure I have a 'deal'". I forked a slice of sautéed mushroom into my mouth. It was buttery and delicious.

"Sure you do," he said, gesturing to the room in a small circular motion with his fork. "High powered lawyer giving up the city life for one of solitude."

"I'm an associate working in estates and probate administration in a small city in Louisiana. I'd hardly call that high powered." I placed my fork down on the plate I was balancing on my lap. Bonnie was staring at me from beside the fire with the most woeful of expressions so I tore off a tiny corner of bacon and tossed it to her. She nipped it out of the air. "It's a long story. Long and messy."

"Long and messy? You're talking to the right person." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, a distinct leer in his eyes and I felt the beginnings of a blush prickle my cheeks. "Let me hear it," he pressed.

"Well… Okay. I'll warn you, it's grim. My husband died about 18 months ago. I threw myself into my work and basically lost myself. I had a breakdown of sorts at work, that was about six months ago. My boss, who is a family friend and I guess you could also call him my mentor, basically told me unless I take some significant time off he would fire me."

"I'm sorry about your husband. How did that happen?" he was leaning back against the corner of the couch, one elbow propped on the back of it, his food forgotten.

An unbidden smile crept across my lips. He had such a pragmatic and straight-forward manner. I liked it. I couldn't think of a single person who came right out and asked me how Alcide died if it was brought up in casual conversation. They always danced around the topic politely, pissing me the hell off in the process, with that look of un-ventured burning curiosity in their eyes.

"He owned a construction company with his younger brother. There was an accident on one of the sites. A wall collapsed on him, fracturing his skull. Doctors placed him in a coma for a few days while they waited for the swelling on his brain to subside, but it was already too late. There was too much swelling. He slipped away not long after that." I said slipped away… but his actual death came down to my decision to take him off life support. I picked up the glass of water I'd placed by my feet and took a sip. "I'd signed him up to a pretty comprehensive life insurance policy when we first married in case he was ever too injured to work, so between that and the payout from the construction insurance, I was able to buy back this cabin and renovate it.

"Gran sold the cabin after my granddaddy passed on when I was 18. It went to an older couple wanting to live out their retirement here. The cabin had actually been sitting back on the market for a while before I was in a position to buy it, but luckily it never sold. I think mostly because the asking price was too high for the state it was in. You should've seen how it used to look - it still had the original wiring! Money wasn't an issue though, I just wanted it back in the family. So I finished up as many of the open cases I could at work while I waited for the house to be renovated and readied for winter. Now here I am."

"The place looks great."

"All the noise violations during the renovations were worth it, then?" I shot back and he chuckled.

"Most definitely. Even just for the history of this place alone. That you can return to somewhere meaningful after dealing with so much is special." Bonnie had been slowly creeping closer to Eric during my entire monologue and was now resting her snout along his feet, giving him her best starving puppy impersonation. He leaned forward to give her a flank a good scratch. "And this one has the puppy dog eyes down pat."

"Don't mind her. She has a bowl of kibble at the back door. She's just hoping for something a bit better."

Our conversation wandered on to lighter topics: his impressions of living in America for nearly a decade, his experiences of his family cabin in Sweden compared to here and I recounted a few funny anecdotes of vacations spent at Lake Douglas. Turned out Eric was easy company... When he wasn't being an ass.

He made me save his number in my cell in case I had a return of my nighttime visitor. He promptly followed that remark up with an off-color joke about me giving him my number so he could phone me to come over for a nighttime visit too. I simply rolled my eyes and told him where to stick it.

We said our goodbyes but he paused at my front door, not opening it, his hand resting on the handle. A few seconds passed like he was thinking something over before he turned on his heel to face me.

"I have a bit of a confession to make," he said. His blue eyes were unreadable.

"Oh?"

"When you caught me hacking at your tree, I was actually taking out my frustration, rather than pruning it back for the greater good." He rubbed the back of his neck, looking abashed. "It had left a scratch on the roof of my car, and I only meant to take that one branch, but I really let that poor tree have it once I got going.

"Writing this book has been slow going, I'll be lucky to meet the deadline, if at all, and if I'm late then I've effectively burned all my bridges with my publisher. I'd been staring at a mostly blank word document for days on end. Then you arrive, stalking up your driveway, full of fire and ire - it was the probably the most exciting and infuriating conversation I've had since arriving. I went home that afternoon and banged out three new chapters. The most I've done in one go since living here. Then reading your little mailbox drop and seeing all those branches you kicked over to my driveway, the words kept flowing. So when I saw you yesterday…" he trailed off sheepishly.

"Oh my God. You were purposefully trying to piss me off yesterday!" I gasped. "There I was trying to clean the slate and you were, urgh, you were using me, making me angry just to … just to get your writing mojo rocks off!"

"Hey - writer's block is no joke. It's the equivalent of cancer to an author's career. It can kill it, but if you're lucky it goes into remission. And I've completed five chapters since meeting you."

"You really are an asshole."

"Don't think that's ever been in dispute. And I don't think you really mind either." He raised a brow at me and I scoffed.

"Did I mention arrogant?" I crossed my arms over my chest and leveled a scathing look at him, trying my hardest to keep the smile I was hiding from twisting my lips upwards. I was thankful for his help that morning, so his little confession, while surprising, didn't really bother me. It made his behavior from yesterday make sense.

"Oh please, keep going," he groaned. "At this rate, I'll be finished with this book by New Year's."

"Good grief - you really need to leave." I opened the door for him and grabbed his arms to physically shuffle him outside onto the front stoop. He shot a wink at me and set off towards the woods with a casual wave. I rolled my eyes back at him in response before shutting the front door.

A/N: Finishing up my final assessments for this semester, I don't think I'll be able to post a new chapter until about this time next week. Sorry!