Winter Visitors

During the long winters of Makon, people can stay home for days, trapped inside by snow, wind, and the killing frost. But the implacable weather is not the only menace nor the worst.
The dead come out when people are desperate. Zombies move in small groups through the countryside, one slow, rotting step after another. They look for farmhouses and villages, attracted by lit-up windows and smoking chimneys.
Those who live know the dead are coming: they have covered their walls in blessed glyphs and sigils, and now they burn the holy herbs in the fireplace, singing the song of comfort and warding.
The zombies keep watching from the windows, unable to enter but unwilling to leave. Some may recognize those unsettling visitors: the family that died when their roof collapsed last winter, the hunter that never returned from a trip, the young maid afflicted by consumption.
They all smile. Or at least their decaying faces and hanging mandible make them look as they are.
People know they must no go outside, even if they are scared and want to chase the dead away, or if they see someone, their husband, their sister, peeking inside and they want to see if they are really them.
The dead are patient. For every diligent household, there is another that didn’t store enough food or logs. Soon there will be hunger and cold.
One of the dead is not crumbling but beautiful. She walks with grace, unbothered by the winds, and she leans to the door. Her whispers sneak inside the house like cold through a draft. She says she can end the shivers and the cramps, she can end the suffering. Just open the door and come to us. Maybe these dark days will pass, but then there will be others this winter, and other winters after this. Could you endure them all? She promises a world with no pain and pure bliss, just beyond the door. Just open it. Come to us.
And some do.
One or two days after the sun comes up people will wander around evaluating damages and contemplating losses. They will see that the house down the road is now empty. The door is open, the snow reaches in, and it is like the family that lived there disappeared. They were taken by the winter visitors.