Seventeen-year-old Jenny Ford was home alone one evening early in the month of December. Her parents were out at a Christmas themed ball and Mary, Jenny's eleven-year-old sister, was having a sleepover at a neighbours house just down the street.

The evening darkness had come quite some time ago and it had also been snowing for more than a little while. Jenny sat by the living room window with a book in her hand. When she wasn't reading, she was staring out at the blanket of white outside, which went on for as far as she could see. The continuing snowfall had a magical feel to it, a definite seasonal feel to it.

With the lack of anything electrical being in operation such as a television or radio, this moment was most definitely a pleasant one made all the more magical by the numerous candles she so happened to have burning away and scattered all around the living room. The pleasantness would not last very long for it would soon be disrupted, disrupted by a knock coming to a door at the rear of the detached house. The three loud raps caught Jenny by surprise for she was not expecting any visitors and her parents were not due home for hours.

Jenny got up from where she was sitting and began to move slowly. The only illumination at this point was that from the outside porch shining in and from a lamp next to where Jenny had been sitting, so as she did make her way slowly to the back of the house and she was doing so in a fair amount of darkness. She had been tempted to take one of the candles with her, but she left them be right where she had set them up.

Being wary of the effect a moving candle might have, she was also wary as to if she should turn on a light or two along the way between the living room and the back door, further wariness existed as to whether or not she should call out a hello. She decided against adding lighting or calling out.

Approaching the kitchen Jenny tried to see out the windows while also trying to keep her distance but she could not see anyone or anything at all. If someone she knew, or a family member she knew was coming over then why didn't Jenny know about it and why would such a person come to the rear door?

Three loud knocks now and all of a sudden came to the front door which at this point was behind Jenny, right close by where she had started moving from. The knock startled her so, that it made her jump and gasp. Three more knocks to the front door were soon followed by a female voice calling out from outside.

'Hello, hello, is there, someone, in there, please?'

More knocking followed. Jenny didn't know whether to answer or stay where she was and remain quiet. The voice too was one she did not recognize.

'Someone please, I've been attacked and there is a man after me, I need help, please,' continued the voice from outside.

After being frozen still where she stood for a moment or two, Jenny managed to move again, and she did move closer to the window that she had been staring out of only a little while earlier. Two trails of footsteps were outside in the snow that hadn’t been there previously. If indeed this woman outside has been attacked, is being attacked, then where is her attacker? Is he with her? Or is he somewhere else nearby? Is someone else nearby? Is there even an attacker at all? Are both sets of footsteps hers?

'Someone… Anyone… Please,' that female voice continued to call out while once again knocking at the door.

Jenny got closer to that living room window. Her lamp still shone at a low level. She thought about turning it off completely but before she could make a decision, she would have reason to once again be startled. That woman rushed the window almost as if she had been thrown against it and at that she caught sight of Jenny.

Her face was bloodied, her hair messed, and her clothing ripped and torn.

'Young miss, young miss, you got to help me, please let me in.'

Jenny was taken aback; she almost completely fell backwards with what had just happened.

'I... I...'

With her heart pounding and her hands shaking Jenny began to move back into the darkness within her home paying almost no attention to the burning candles. Someone at this point began trying to get into the house via the back door. Jenny herself backed up towards the front door and then opened it fearing some kind of madman was trying to get in through that other door.

She instantly came under attack from that crazy lady who had been outside. A thin cord was wrapped around her neck from behind her. Jenny struggled and soon lost consciousness.

Jenny awoke the next morning in hospital. Someone had noticed suspicious activity around her home and had called the police and that is who had come to her rescue. A man and a woman were arrested, a duo working together. The woman was not a victim as she had suggested she was. Jenny's home had not been the first home that the duo had visited on that particular evening.

On another night, an outcome could have been ever so different…