I sat up, my eyes widening. “Go outside in this? Are you crazy?”
“Aw, come on. You said it yourself that these woods are teeming with deer. How hard can it be?” She sat too, her legs beneath her, bouncing slightly in excitement.
For a second, I thought she was joking, but no; her expression was steady and hopeful. I sighed. “You want me to freeze to death so you can have all the baked beans to yourself.” I smirked mischievously. “By the way, you stink, kid. I may have to ration them.”
“Bite me!” This time her slap connected. “That’ll teach you. But seriously, Jaz. It’s Christmas. We need to make it special, and what would be more special than some fresh meat?”
I groaned, looking out over the frozen lake. The wind was blowing hard, whipping the deep snow into drifts, and I knew from experience how miserable it would be to step foot outside the lodge.
“Hmm, maybe. Tell you what; when this storm breaks I’ll give it a go. Half an hour a day, ok? Any more than that, I risk frostbite. Good thing is I won’t have to go far. This place is so remote the deer haven’t learned to avoid us.”
Jennifer clapped her hands together in glee and threw her arms around me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Urgh! Need air,” I gasped, grinning. I returned the hug and felt her warmth and happiness soak into me. I paused before saying, “Look, about what just happened...” My words were cut off as she kissed me gently on the lips, before drawing away slightly. My heart threatened to jump from my chest and do a cha-cha around the room.
“Jaz, what we have, what’s happening between us? It could change everything.” She reached up to cup my face in her palm, a gesture I was growing to treasure as much as air. “It’s not that I don’t want something more. It’s just…I don’t know if you’re ready for it yet.”
I wilted. The face my mind had seen as Jennifer had lain below me moments earlier; the face of my dead wife. She was right. I wasn’t ready. In fact, I didn’t know if I ever would be. How could she be so much wiser and more mature than I was?
“I do want you, Jennifer,” I said. “I want you more than anything. It’s just...”
“You see her, don’t you? Your wife? You see her when we get...close.”
I nodded, and the guilt of seeing my dead wife’s face was nothing compared to the guilt I felt when I looked at the hurt on Jennifer’s face. “I’m sorry.”
She took my hand and squeezed it. “Don’t be sorry. We have time. Let’s face it, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
I chuckled, and Tray chose this moment to jump off the chair she’d been sleeping on to shower a little dog-fashioned affection upon us both.
It was the perfect thing to happen. It put just the right amount of emotional distance between us. I didn’t want to let it go completely, though, so I brushed the back of my hand over her cheek. “You are far too wise for your young body, Jennifer.”
I gently untangled myself from her embrace and stood up. “C’mon, Tray, dinner time.”
***
Jennifer
Well, that went swimmingly. Nice job, Jennifer, I thought.
Why had I pushed it? Dammit, I knew why. Of course I knew. I was falling for Jaz, big time, but I’d pushed too hard, too soon. Was I even sure he felt the same about me? Was I lying to myself, seeing something that didn’t exist?
I looked at the door, the thick wood seeming to form a barrier between us. His words rang in my mind. ‘You are far too wise for your young body.’ Was that it? Did he still consider me a kid – a little girl?
I drew my knees up to my chest. No, that wasn’t it, I was certain. Maybe he thought I was a virgin. Could that be it? Was that a line he wasn’t willing to cross? There was no way for him to know I’d split from Glen, my boyfriend of four years, a few weeks ago. He’d gone to college, I’d stayed at home – the usual drill. He came home one time and said things had changed, that he’d changed. It wasn’t me, it was him. God, I cringed when I thought back to all the clichés he’d crammed into one conversation.
We’d had sex a few times, but nothing in the final few months. I was pretty sure the “not me, him” thing was him – and another girl. Maybe I should explain that to Jaz. Oh, yeah. Great idea, doofus. Hey, it’s okay, Jaz. I’ve already been deflowered. I’m a slut. It’s fine, just take me.
I put my palms to my eyes, pressing hard. God, I was a mess. An immature, sexually frustrated mess, but a mess all the same.
A whimper and a scratch came from the other side of the closed door, so I got up to let Tray back in. The dog seemed to have an uncanny ability to be there when I needed her, and when I sat down on the sofa, she jumped up beside me. She propped her two front paws on my shoulder and sniffed around the side of my head until I obliged her by pushing my hair back to reveal my ear. She began the ritual right away, licking furiously.
I had no idea what it meant, but at least once a day, Tray insisted on licking Jaz’s ears and mine. Maybe she loved earwax. Maybe it was some initiation into an elite dog club. I didn’t have a clue, but after the first couple of eww! moments and trying to push her away, I found it strangely settling, almost like a good friend washing my hair.
She eventually settled down and snuggled into a hollow on the sofa left by Jaz, turning onto her back for a belly rub. When I didn’t immediately oblige her, she kicked my thigh with her back leg.
“Okay, you slave-driving mutt.” I stroked her belly and she settled down, her eyes closing. I knew if I stopped, she’d kick me again. It was a little game we played. “What am I going to do about Jaz, Tray?” I asked rhetorically.
I was shocked when Tray rolled back onto all fours and fixed me with an uncannily intelligent stare. She cocked her head to one side. I could have sworn I was going stir crazy, listening for a dog’s advice on my love life. Then Tray stepped up on my chest and licked my cheek. It wasn’t like her normal, slobbery kisses, but a single, gentle caress. Then she sat back down, staring at me again.
“Really, Tray? That’s your best shot? Lick Jaz’s cheek?”
Tray cocked her head again and yipped once, impatiently, as if to say, “Well, what did you expect, silly human? It always works for me!”
I grabbed her up into an embrace, ruffling her fur. “What are we gonna do with the old guy, eh?” Tray licked my face again, wriggling wildly in my arms. “We both love him, but...” Oh...shit. I’d said it. I had finally admitted it to myself.
I squeezed the dog tight, grimacing internally. “Oh, Tray. We are so screwed.”
Chapter Nine
The Hunt
Jaz
The next morning, I lay with my rifle rested against a fallen tree, bundled up in my parka and winter gear. I had double-bagged my wool socks before squeezing into the waterproof boots, so my feet were warm enough. I was covered from head to toe in USMC Extreme Cold Weather Clothing, the fabric lightweight, water resistant, and quick-wicking. The stark whites, blacks, and grays of the ECWC, designed to make me look like part of the frozen forestland of North Dakota – or the Siberian tundra – was perfect camouflage for my position, and I was virtually invisible. Parts of me were still bitter cold; I kept having to bite my right mitten off in order to shift my balaclava and sight through the scope of the Weatherby. My fingers were beginning to go blue and, despite the woolen face covering, I'd stopped feeling my cheeks several minutes ago. Another ten minutes, and I’d head back. Damned kid and her Christmas dinner. I loved canned salmon.
A rustle across the clearing snapped me back to full alertness. I watched, my breath steaming before my face, as one of the largest elks I’d ever seen entered the clearing. The animal was breathtakingly majestic. I was upwind, as still as the dead and invisible, so I took a long moment to study the beast and appreciate its grandeur. It was old, judging by the points on its antlers, but not too many seasons past its prime. It probably came in at eight hundred pounds. Stunning.
My first thought was, when I killed it, how the hell would I get it back t
o the lodge? The damned animal was huge, and I’d always had at least two other guys to help dress and haul in the past. I put that thought to the back of my head, however. Jennifer was going to love this. Moving with exquisite slowness, I bit off the mitten and took aim. The animal remained still, sniffing the air.
I hesitated, releasing the pressure on the trigger. Who was I to kill another living being, one of the few left on the Earth? The thought lasted less than a second as I imagined returning to Jennifer, empty-handed except for my lofty morals and sentimentality. I'd never had qualms about hunting in the past; I hunted responsibly and always used every part of the animal I could … but something about life was now more precious than it had been. Maybe that was the biggest shame of all.
We would eventually starve if I didn’t step up and start hunting. Maybe not now; maybe we could even make it until the spring thaw…but eventually, I’d have to begin hunting regularly to keep us in fresh meat. We couldn’t live on canned salmon – well, Jennifer couldn’t, at least.
Thirty seconds later, my ears still reverberating from the shot, I was confronted again by my initial thought. How the hell was I going to get this beast back home? It took a second, but I realized I didn’t need to bring it all, of course. Jennifer wanted Christmas dinner, so I’d bring back enough for that; the carcass would freeze solid out here, and as long as I dressed it now, I could find a way over the next day or two to hack out some additional chunks the scavengers would leave before it got freezer burned. Not that freezer burned elk was inedible, of course, but if it came to it, I'd rather eat the canned salmon.
It took close to an hour to gut the carcass and set it up into a reasonable position for most of the blood to drain before freezing. I'd had to make multiple cuts, and I still expected much of the reserved meat to have a gamey taste when we came back for more. I had filled my backpack with all the tenderloins and backstraps I could slice off. I was freezing and overheated and well past exhausted. Worse, I had had to stop work twice to piss, an indication my body was losing energy way too fast. I knew better than to stand still long enough for the sweat to cool, so I got a move on. Through my bone-deep exhaustion, I felt incredibly self-satisfied. I couldn’t wait to see Jennifer’s expression!
The first howl popped my euphoria like a floating soap bubble in a room full of five-year-olds. The second had me putting on a burst of speed. The howls were close, too damned close for comfort. The lodge was over the next rise, just a few minutes away in these drifts, but I slogged through the snow as fast as I could, adrenaline coursing through my veins and forcing my burning thigh muscles to keep going. It was slow. I'd taken John's snow shoes, which helped tremendously since he had a good thirty pounds on me, but the overloaded pack still unbalanced me and made me swing my legs wide and forward with every step I took.
Finally, I crested the rise and breathed a sigh of relief. The lodge sat less than two hundred yards away, on the banks of the frozen lake. Smoke curled from the chimney of the Last Homely House, as Jennifer sometimes called it.
It was hardly the mystical fantasy home of Elrond, the half-elven from The Lord of the Rings, but it was home.
Even as I plodded down the incline, I thought, Home; is that what the lodge had become? The last vestige of humanity; three lost souls, eking out our existence in the wilderness.
Just as I thought I was safe, I pitched face down in the snow as a weight hit me from behind. Rolling over, I spat snow out of my mouth and snorted it out of my nose. From the corner of my eye, I saw the huge gray wolf circling around.
Shit! My rifle had fallen on impact and lay half buried in a snow drift over four feet away. I staggered to my feet, the heavy pack unbalancing me. The wolf bared its teeth and snarled.
“Easy boy.” I held my palms outward as we assessed each other.
My blood chilled when I caught the other shapes holding back in the shadows. He wasn't a loner, as I had hoped. He was a pack leader. I was surrounded. Fuck, I hadn't brought the Glock!
Moving in as pacifying a manner as possible, I took the pack off my back. Maybe they’d leave me alone if I let them have it. Why the hell were they trailing me anyway, when there was nine-tenths of a still-warm elk less than five hundred yards away? There was an abundance of prey in these woods – oh. Shit. Of course. I almost groaned. Prey was more than plentiful; the wolves were surplus killing, as they sometimes did. I was a snack for later.
Without much hope, I threw the heavy pack as far as I could, about six feet, then began backing slowly toward my weapon. I breathed a sigh of relief as the lower-ranked pack members went for the bag, snarling and struggling to rip into the tough fabric and reach the warm, bloody meat inside. If the game could keep them occupied long enough …
A low, warning growl stopped me. The alpha’s eyes remained on me, his yellow irises glowing with intense malevolence. By now, I’d closed to within a foot of my rifle, but the alpha continued to snarl at me. Its jaw dropped in an unnatural manner, and its fangs dripped with frothy drool. For the first time, genuine fear settled in my stomach like lead. This animal was rabid. I sensed the others in the pack, and my heart hammered in my chest. How many of the pack was infected? Fuck, was this how it was going to end? Jennifer was going to have a lonely Christmas.
I don’t know why – probably the absurdity of the situation – but I chuckled. The song, “Lonely this Christmas,” was playing in my head.
I lunged for the rifle at the same time the wolf leapt. It passed through the air I’d occupied only instants before, and I fell forward. For once, fortune was with me and I grabbed the rifle with my finger millimeters from the trigger. I rolled and squeezed.
It jammed.
The wolves not intent on eviscerating the backpack closed in on me. I was no threat to them; easy meat, fresh and ready, lying on my back with a useless gun.
The alpha sprang at me, and I shut my eyes. This was it. Fuck! The last thing that flashed through my mind was Jennifer, waiting at the lodge for me to return. I’m so sorry, Jennifer.
The world exploded.
***
Jennifer
I checked my watch yet again. Jaz should have been back over twenty minutes ago. Shit! I had heard the shot more than an hour earlier, and I was happily envisioning venison steaks for tonight and venison stew for the next several days. How long did it take to dress a deer, anyway? My dad had always done that part, but I didn't think it should take this long.
I wanted to greet Jaz out on the porch, so I began bundling up so he wouldn't yell at me. I wouldn't bother with the entire ridiculous regimen Jaz went through before going out to hunt, but I'd put on a hat and my overlarge puffy coat. I was debating the mittens when a howl split the air, turning my blood to ice.
Shit...shit...shit! It was too close! Jaz should have been home by now … right? Shit!
I forgot the mittens and grabbed Jaz’s pistol before running out into the frigid air, my coat unzipped. Inside the lodge, Tray was going crazy. I heard her barking and scratching at the door, but I was glad I’d shut her inside. I slogged for all I was worth toward the southern ridge; the direction Jaz always took when he went hunting.
It was hard going. I hadn’t had time to grab my boots, much less fasten on any of the snow shoes Jaz kept with the sporting gear, and it was like running through mud; freezing, biting mud. By the time I was halfway up the crest, I understood why Jaz wore wool socks and plastic bags over them. I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, and I was stumbling, which was costing seconds neither of us had. Frostbite was the least of my worries, though, as yips and snarls split the snow-filled sky.
My heart leapt as I saw Jaz crest the ridge. He stumbled through the snow and I gasped, thinking he was hurt, but then I saw the backpack he carried. It was full to bursting, dark bloodstains seeping through the thick nylon fabric.
I felt an instant of pride for him before seeing the alarmed expression on his face and the clouds of jagged, frozen breath as he struggled to run instead of trudge. It wasn't ha
ppening.
I wanted to shout his name, but he turned away from me and threw the backpack behind him. What was he doing?
Then I saw them. Half a dozen ghostly grey figures loped down the incline to flank Jaz, and as I climbed higher, my heart stopped. The biggest gray wolf I’d ever seen was stalking Jaz with grim, deadly intensity. I dimly remembered a scene from Game of Thrones, and it hadn’t ended well for the human. I dragged myself, step by step, up the slope.
I reached for the pistol at the same moment Jaz lunged for his rifle and the pack leader leapt for him. Shit! It was like one of those slow-motion moments from The Matrix. I watched Jaz roll away and snatch up his rifle in one fluid movement.
Yes! I saw him raise it to shoot the wolf, but instead of a crack, I heard … nothing. Fuck! Jaz was screwed!
The wolf seemed to sense it at the same moment. It regained its feet and lunged. Time froze. My hand rose and centered the barrel on the wolf’s chest. Jaz lay with the useless rifle raised before him. The wolf’s maw full of yellow teeth widened to rip his throat out.
My finger gently squeezed the trigger. In that moment, I thanked the God I no longer believed in for Jaz’s instructions and target practice.
The gun bucked in my hand, my arm absorbing the recoil and bringing the weapon back to bear in case I needed to fire again. Turns out, I didn’t.
***
Jaz
The alpha sprang at me, and I shut my eyes. This was it. Fuck! The last thing that flashed through my mind was Jennifer, waiting at the lodge for me to return with Christmas dinner. I’m so sorry, Jennifer.
The world exploded.
He was less than a foot away when his head shattered. Hot brain matter, bits of bone, and blood splattered my face. Some of the blood splashed into my mouth. It was the most horribly wonderful thing I'd ever experienced. The body of the wolf tumbled in a steaming heap on top of me. There was a moment of confused snarling and growling, then the rest of the pack snarled and whimpered as they scattered into the trees, their tails literally between their legs.
Treaters: Book One of the Divine Conflict. Page 11