by David Haynes
She stared straight ahead.
Jonesy held Lisa’s face, looking into her eyes. The welt on her cheek was a blueish color. “You okay?” he whispered.
She bit down on her lip but tears came anyway.
He looked back to Olin. “You want us in the shed, we’ll go to the shed. You want me to chop wood, fetch water, I can do that too. We won’t cause any problems, I promise.” To cede was all he could think of doing to keep them safe. At least for the time being.
“That’s all I want to hear.”
The door was still open behind him. He held Lisa close and took a backward step. There was wood in the shed. They would at least be warm in there. He heard Lad bound off the porch into the snow.
Olin took a step forward. “I’m going to need the key.”
“What key?”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
Jonesy shook his head. “I wasn’t.”
Olin raised the Glock and aimed it at the back of Lisa’s head. “The cache key, you stupid fuck.” He took another step.
The guy had climbed through the anger spectrum in one leap. He looked ready to pull the trigger. “Hold on!” Jonesy shouted. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the small silver key. He held it out. “Here.”
Olin took it, stuffing it into his pocket. “And don’t get any ideas, I’ve got the spare. She told me where it was.” He raised the pistol to hit Lisa on the back of the head. Jonesy pulled her toward him and Olin stopped the motion. He winked. Rage boiled in Jonesy’s guts but he simply backed away another couple of steps.
“Sleep well,” Olin sneered, closing the cabin door. The sound of the bolt sliding into place echoed across the clearing.
He led Lisa to the shed. The ever-present glow of the fire had diminished to a guttering candle flame. Lad ran inside, jumping behind the makeshift screen Lauren had erected.
“You’re injured,” Lisa said as he led her toward the fire.
“It’s nothing, just a twinge. We need to get this going.” He looked at the stockpile they had spent so long raising. It had been decimated over the last few weeks.
“We don’t need to do anything,” she said. “Lie down, I’ll get the wood.” She grabbed two small logs knelt beside the fire and pushed them toward the pathetic flame. They took a while to catch but eventually they did.
“You went there,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
“I had to.”
She nodded but said nothing, just stared into the flames.
He lurched toward her. “We will get out of this. You know that, don’t you?”
She stared at him, tried to smile and then the tears started to flow.
“I promise you, I’ll...” he started.
“Don’t make any more promises, Jonesy.” She wiped her eyes. They were red and swollen.
Her words stung but he let it go. His back was screaming. The adrenaline that kept him functioning all the way back here, kept him standing upright in the cabin’s doorway, was quickly leaking out of his body. Maybe she didn’t want him making promises to her but he was making one to himself. They would survive this. They would live through it and come out the other side. When they were drinking coffee and eating pastry in some downtown deli, this would be nothing more than a scar, a memory. Nothing more.
29
Jonesy shook his head. “A month. Six weeks maybe. But that was on the rations we were eating when we had control. Who knows how much he’s getting through in there.”
Lisa squeezed her temples. They both had bad headaches and they both recognized the sensations wriggling through their bodies. The same depressing pain had been with them all last winter.
They had spent the last six nights in the shed. The thought that someone else was sleeping in his bed, eating the food they had hunted and prepared all year, ate away at Jonesy worse than the hunger pains in his belly. He could hear Olin laughing; the cabin door open, heat pouring out like some kind of sauna. He was rubbing their noses in it, letting them know who was boss.
Each morning Jonesy had to chop wood under his direction, and under the glare of the Glock’s barrel. He had to stack it neatly beside the stove. The first couple of days he could hardly stand let alone chop wood, but Olin had kicked him, told him he was lazy and held the gun to his temple until Lisa screamed and pleaded.
The amount of wood he used was ridiculous. He wasn’t just heating the cabin, he was warming half the forest too. Jonesy tried to reason, to explain, but Olin just waved the Glock at him and spat on the rug. He tried to make Lisa empty the bucket but Jonesy stepped in and did it. He didn’t like being demeaned, but he’d take it if it got them out the other side. He wouldn’t allow Lisa to suffer that ignominy. Olin kept the axes, the tools, and anything else he considered a threat inside the cabin, handing one over only when he needed something to make him more comfortable.
They hadn’t seen Lauren since the day he’d assumed control. They had heard her though. The whimpering cries usually followed one of Olin’s prolonged laughter fits. Even with the cabin door closed and bolted, her sobs could be heard across the clearing. Jonesy assumed she was upstairs in their bed being used in whatever way Olin saw fit.
Lad knew the balance had altered. The camp wasn’t safe anymore. His place in the order was under threat and the only thing his instincts told him to do was go on the offensive. They were all going to make it through to the other side, including Lad, and this meant the dog had to be prevented from leaving the shed alone. Olin wouldn’t think twice about shooting Lad if he charged through the open door. He always kept the Glock and at least one of the rifles with him at all times.
“Who do you think he is?” Lisa asked. “He said the name Stone to me when he woke up but who knows if that’s his real name. He could be anyone.”
Jonesy stoked the fire. He had started making a small stockpile of wood behind the makeshift bed. It was only enough for a couple of days when the supply ran out but it might do some good.
“I don’t know and it’s better we don’t ask. He calls himself Olin, that’s all we need to know.”
“I’d like to know his real name.”
He sat back. The pain had lessened now. Part of his leg was still numb, but his thigh had feeling again. The dull pain was akin to toothache.
“Why?” he asked. “If we don’t know who he is, the best we can do is give a description to the cops. He’ll be long gone by then. It keeps us safe, no reason to kill us if we don’t know who he is.”
They sat in silence for a while. Finally Lisa spoke. “I don’t think he needs a reason. I think if it suited him, if it meant he could survive a little longer, he’d kill us.”
Jonesy bit his lip. Maybe she was right, maybe she wasn’t. He didn’t know how someone like Olin, or whatever the hell his name was, operated. He was impossible to predict. He stared toward the shed’s opening. Outside, the air was a swarming, buzzing white cloud.
“The more we can stay out of his way, the better,” he said.
“What about her? Lauren?”
He looked at Lisa. “What about her?”
“She must be going through hell in there.”
His patience with Lauren ran out a while before he found out what he did at the other cabin. Part of him blamed her for the position they were in.
“One word,” he said. “One word from her and we wouldn’t be sitting here now. We’d be in there, warm with full bellies.”
“You ever wonder why she didn’t tell us?”
“What? Of course I do. All the time. She’s scared to death of him. I saw what was left of the real Olin. The guy shot him, then...”
“It’s not what he did. That’s not the reason she never spoke about it.”
“What?” Jonesy was growing impatient. He didn’t want to waste any more time thinking or talking about Lauren.
“I said, it’s not what that animal did to her husband that stopped her talking. It’s what she did.”
He just st
ared back at her.
“Come on, Jonesy, we can’t even talk to each other about what we did up there last winter. You think I could talk to a complete stranger about it? Tell them I ate another human being just so I could live?”
“Lisa...” He reached out to her but she pulled away.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t feel the pain of what I did. Sometimes I think it’s just a bad dream and that it didn’t really happen. I mean, how could it be real? Just think about it? How?”
He shook his head.
“We never even went back there. We never even went back to give...to give the guy a proper burial. Hell, we don’t even know his name.”
“McMahon,” Jonesy said. “His name was Paul McMahon.”
Lisa wiped her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Wilkes. He told me. Asked if I’d seen him in the summer.”
“What did you tell him.”
“I told him we hadn’t seen anyone.”
She looked away. “Jesus.”
They sat in silence. The fire crackled and the wind howled but neither were as raucous as the thoughts banging around in Jonesy’s head.
“She’s lost,” Lisa finally said. “I don’t think she’ll make it. Even if he doesn’t shoot her before the spring, she’ll find a way to end it herself. She can’t come to terms with what she did.”
“If it’s true.”
“How else could she have made it?”
The question didn’t need answering.
Lisa continued, “She’s not so different from us. She did what she had to.”
Jonesy shook his head. “And is that what he’s doing too? Does that make us the same?” His tone was filled with sarcasm. He hated the sound of it but it was out before he could alter it.
Lisa didn’t appear to notice.
“No. No, we’re not the same. He murdered someone. He chose to kill someone for his own preservation, his own selfish means, and that’s what he’s doing now. Nobody matters to him as much as his own greedy self. Pathological narcissism on a grand and vicious scale.”
The crack of a rifle shot made them both jump. They both looked to the opening and then back at each other.
“Stay there,” Jonesy said.
Lad was already on his feet, shoulders hunched. He sniffed at the air and growled.
“And hold onto him.” Jonesy stood in front of Lad so Lisa could grab him.
“Remember what you said. Stay out of his way!” Lisa grabbed his arm with her free hand.
“I won’t go out there. I just want to see what he’s shooting at. I can see from the doorway.”
She released him with a reluctant shake of her head.
He walked to the opening, feeling the full strength of the wind punch him in the guts. His legs felt like they were made of rubber and the power of the gust nearly knocked him on his ass. He grabbed the door frame to steady himself.
A second shot rang out before he had time to focus.
“What’s going on?” Lisa asked.
Jonesy peered through the snow toward the cabin. Through the interference, he could see the flickering glow of the cabin’s interior. Olin stood in the doorway with the orange glow behind him, as if he’d just walked out of hell. He was holding one of their rifles, the barrel resting on his stump, pointing out into the forest in the direction of the Tanana.
“Come out you bastard!” he bawled.
Jonesy thought he was being summoned. He felt his heart rate climb through the roof. Olin wasn’t going to let him live.
But then Olin raised the rifle sight to his eye and fired another shot into the forest. Jonesy followed the line of sight. It was difficult to see much farther than a couple of feet but there didn’t appear to be anything close.
“Come on!” he yelled. “I see you out there, you big grizzly motherfucker!” He fired again. The rifle held three rounds. He was out. For a second Jonesy thought about sprinting across the gap to get to the cabin. His back hadn’t entirely forgiven him but it was better than it had been six days ago. A sprint though? A shambling, zombie-like lurch more like.
He took a step.
“Jonesy,” Lisa whispered from beside him. She grabbed his arm. “No,” she said. She knew what he was about to do.
He braced against the door to give himself a flying start but stopped. Olin brought the other rifle from inside and raised it. There were enough rounds inside the cabin to last a year. Even if he shot two boxes, there were another ten inside. Then there was the Glock.
He slumped and heard Lisa release a long breath. “There’s nothing out there,” she said.
Olin fired one last shot at nothing. He scanned the treeline for a few seconds and then brought the rifle around until it pointed at Jonesy and Lisa. They both jumped out of view and listened to Olin laughing. A second later the cabin door slammed shut, and the sound of the bolt sliding into place finished the routine.
They slumped onto the furs, too weary to do anything except stare at the fire.
Jonesy smiled. “He thinks that bear’s got something over him and he doesn’t like it. He can’t stand the thought that he’s not the big man out here.”
“You think it’s the same one that ate all our food last year?”
“I don’t know. Could be,” Jonesy replied.
Lisa almost smiled. “Then I hope they kill each other.”
30
Over the next few days, Olin did his best to work his way through their ammunition. As soon as it got light enough to see the outline of the trees, he was out on the porch with both Winchesters. He shot at things nobody but he could see. He shot at a bear that, as far as Jonesy knew, had not been near their camp for weeks.
And when the last of the afternoon’s wan sunlight left the clearing and dripped behind the mountains, he cursed and hurled abuse toward the forest, his words as impotent as the shots he fired. It didn’t stop him though and he continued shooting, laughing and cursing at the bear each and every day.
Jonesy and Lisa grew hungrier by the hour. Olin gave them rations half the size of his own and that was between two of them. They took to eating Lad’s dry biscuits to stop their guts aching. It didn’t work completely but it allayed the pain for a while longer.
The day after the shooting started, all four of them trudged up to the spring. Jonesy had barely enough strength to lift the ancient auger let alone drill through the ice, but he managed it and they were able to fill the containers and load them on the sled for Lad to pull. Apart from Olin, Lad was the only one who looked happy to be out there.
Olin kept his eyes on the dog, even when he was harnessed pulling the sled. Lad worried him, it was obvious. He’d told them the only reason the dog wasn’t dead was his early warning system. Maybe he thought the dog had some sort of animal-powered direct line to the grizzly; he knew something that Olin didn’t. Whatever it was, he didn’t trust the dog but he did need him. It was also clear that Lad enjoyed making Olin uncomfortable. Jonesy just hoped Lad’s usefulness outweighed any other consideration.
Lauren’s face was puffy and swollen. A spidery cut ran from under her right eye all the way down her cheek to her lips and then continued down her chin. Jonesy hadn’t looked in a mirror for a while and probably didn’t look too good himself, but Lauren looked like a zombie. Her brain was probably just as dead as one too. He felt bad for disliking her as much as he did. Maybe, as Lisa said, she did what she needed to do to survive. But the fact remained – her silence had damned them all to Olin’s deepening madness.
Olin’s right eye bulged like some horrific cartoon character’s. But it wasn’t the eye that was pushing out, it was the rotting part of his face that was sinking deeper. He was difficult to look at without feeling nauseous. He didn’t notice. Or perhaps he knew and he didn’t care. He probably reveled in it.
However hellish their situation, a kind of equilibrium fell with the snow. Olin shot at his imaginary foe, Jonesy chopped wood and emptied the bucket. As with the water, Olin took them a
ll to the cache to collect the food, making Lauren climb the ladder. It was existence. It was survival.
“We should count the supplies,” Jonesy offered one morning. “We need to ration.”
“Why?” Olin replied. “There’s plenty of food around.”
“Where?” Lisa asked.
Olin winked in response. It was a sickening gesture designed to make them feel uneasy.
“Say, honey? How many sacks are left up there?” he called up.
Lauren climbed slowly back down. In her hands were two sacks of caribou. Jonesy knew it was stewing meat.
Olin hooked the rifle’s barrel under one, lifting it toward him. “Tenderloin?”
She looked at her feet, shaking her head.
“I told you I wanted tenderloin tonight. What are you? Deaf?” He slapped her around the back of the head. “Now get back up there and fetch what I asked for. Dumb bitch.” He slapped her again.
“That’s enough!” Jonesy shouted.
Quick as a flash, Olin brought the rifle around, pointing it at Jonesy’s gut. “Got something to say?”
He felt Lisa squeeze his forearm.
“That’s right, cowboy, listen to your wife, the one with the balls.”
“Fuck you,” Lisa said.
Olin raised his eyebrows, contorting his face even further. “Maybe I will yet, honey.” He winked at her again.
Jonesy felt her squeeze his forearm again. Olin looked at them both for a few seconds.
“I’m still waiting for that delicious tenderloin.” He lifted his hand to strike Lauren again. She made no move to duck or sway out the way, but she said something. It was barely audible above the wind. He stopped the blow, lifting her chin instead.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I said there’s no more.”
“Tenderloin?”
“Of anything,” she replied. “Just these.” She held the two sacks out.
Olin ignored her, turning to Lisa and Jonesy. “Well you two are going to get awful hungry very soon.”