"Home alone, I heard on the news a profile of a killer on the loose in town: a middle-aged man whose most distinctive feature was a burn on the left side of his face. As I assume most did, I sent messages to everyone to see if they had seen the news and I went through the house to check that the doors and windows were closed. While in the kitchen, that's when I saw him, standing there in the middle of the snow, staring at me without moving a muscle. Yes , the burn was very distinctive, but it was on his right side, not the left. Who cares? I grabbed the cell phone from my pocket and lost sight of it for a second to dial the emergency number. It hadn't disappeared, in fact. , had approached. That's when I understood that it was too late, because there were no footprints in the snow."