The Cold Intruder

Four years have passed, yet the chill of that July night still lingers in my bones, a phantom cold that no blanket can chase away. My husband, Daniel, and I had poured our savings into a fixer-upper in the sleepy town of Redwood Bend, nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. The house was a Victorian relic, all creaking floorboards and peeling wallpaper, but we saw potential. We spent that summer gutting and renovating, stripping away layers of old paint and linoleum to reveal the raw bones of the structure. The scent of sawdust and fresh plaster became our perfume, and the constant hum of power tools was our lullaby.

The heat of July was oppressive, and our newly installed central air system had yet to be hooked up. To escape the swelter, I often retreated to the small sewing room at the back of the house, where a single south-facing window allowed a stubborn breeze to stray in from the overgrown garden. It was in that narrow bed, beneath a thin sheet, that I usually found my only respite. Our bedroom, which we had transformed into a cozy retreat, lay adjacent, separated by a flimsy wall that seemed to amplify every sound from the hallway.

One night, exhaustion pulled me into a deep, dreamless sleep. I woke with a start, my body wracked with shivers. My skin was clammy, and my breath fogged the air—an impossible phenomenon in that sweltering room. Desperate for warmth, I slid out of bed and padded toward our bedroom, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floor. As I reached the doorway, I noticed a dark silhouette emerging from the bathroom across the hall, moving toward our room. Groggy and half-asleep, I assumed it was Daniel, and I mumbled, ‘Hey, babe, where you been?’ The figure paused and turned to face me.

In the dim light filtering through the front windows, I saw him clearly. He was a man, tall and gaunt, his chest bare, wearing only a pair of tattered, knee-length shorts. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and his eyes were sunken pits of darkness. He didn’t speak. He simply leaned against the closet door, his jaw dropped unnaturally wide, as if unhinged, revealing a void where his teeth and tongue should have been. The cold emanating from him was palpable, radiating in waves that made the fine hairs on my arms stand on end.

I froze, my mind scrambling to rationalize what I was seeing. A burglar? A sleepwalker? But something about his stillness, his silent, gaping mouth, felt otherworldly. He made no move toward me, just stared with those hollow pools. After an eternity that might have been seconds, the spell broke. I backed away, trembling, and slammed the bedroom door shut, fumbling for the lock. I called out to Daniel, my voice a raspy whisper, but he was already awake, sitting up in bed, his eyes wide with alarm.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Daniel asked, reaching for me. I tried to explain, but the words tangled in my throat. I pointed toward the hallway, but when Daniel flung the door open, the corridor was empty. The closet door was closed, and the air was suffocatingly warm again. He chalked it up to a night terror or heatstroke, but I knew better. That image—the man with the mouth agape—was seared into my mind.

We never spoke of it again, but the house seemed different after that night. We finished the renovation, moved into the master bedroom, and tried to pretend it never happened. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had marked me, that the cold was not a mere anomaly but a presence. As the years passed, I began to notice a subtle change in myself. I was always cold now, even in the height of summer, and I often found myself standing before the mirror, my jaw clenching as if trying to open wide against my will. Daniel grew distant, believing I was losing my grip on reality, and eventually, he left.

I still live in that house, alone, in Redwood Bend. The renovations have made it beautiful, but the hallway remains a corridor of dread. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear the floorboards creak, and I see him standing just beyond the door to the sewing room, leaning against the frame, his mouth open in that silent, eternal yawn. I no longer sleep without a sweater, and I avoid mirrors, afraid of the reflection that might greet me—the reflection of a gaunt face, pale and hollow-eyed, with a jaw that keeps trying to unhinge.