by Saul, Jonas
He lifted the axe. It seemed heavy in his left hand. If the opportunity came to use it, he would have to guide it with his sore hand.
Although, I’m not really going to use the axe, am I?
Something thumped the roof. He looked up, staring at the wooden underside, not really seeing it in the dark.
I have to get that last candle working.
He moved away from the dead fireplace, his attention riveted on the other parts of the cabin. She would show herself again and this time he would be ready.
If someone was really in the cabin, then they had to have spent the weekend with him, because the snow hadn’t stopped in thirty-six hours and he hadn’t noticed any prints around the property when he got the last bit of wood yesterday. He hadn’t heard any skidoos approaching either.
So who was here?
“Well then, where did the voices come from?” he asked out loud. He looked around the cabin, more slowly this time, scanning the already black corners slowly. Someone could stand in any one of them, watching him, and he wouldn’t be able to tell.
He thought of his parents. He remembered how they had died of hypothermia on a stormy winter night, just like this one. They had been lost in snowy conditions as they wandered. Twenty degrees below zero that night. The police had organized a group of volunteers. John had hurt his leg in a car accident on the way to look for his parents. He hadn’t got there in time to help.
John moved along the wall to the kitchen, the axe dragging behind him. The drawer to the right of the sink held the wooden matches. He pulled the box out, walked back to the front door, and tried to light the candle.
The small amount of light did nothing. He looked at the wax remaining and guessed no more than an hour was left before this last candle would blow out.
The satellite phone rang. Startled, he yanked it from his jacket pocket, stumbled on his bad leg, and lost his balance. He hit the floor hard, trying to save the phone. The pain in his hand went from a dull throb to an instant pounding.
Even though he could see his breath in the chilly cabin, his forehead was clammy with sweat. It felt like his eyes were bulging from their sockets.
What a mess I’ve become.
He lifted the phone as it rang again.
“Hello,” he said through breaths.
“Hello. Is this John?” a male voice asked.
“Yes, who’s this?”
“It’s Brian, Tera’s brother.”
John attempted to get to his feet, but was met with difficulty. The phone had slipped below his ear when he’d cupped it between his shoulder and jaw.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
“Brian, you know, your wife’s brother.”
“Right, Brian. What’s up?”
“Liberty Memorial just called me. They said there had been an accident.”
“They called me, too. I’m trying to make my way there now.”
“As you know, I’m in Britain. It’ll take me until at least tomorrow to get a flight out. Do you think you could handle Suzy on your own?”
“Of course I can.” John paused and stared vacantly at the front door of the cabin, the flickering candle drawing his eye. “Wait, what do you mean by, handle her?” As he asked the question, it came to him. The doctor had said his daughter would pull through. The doctor had not said, daughters.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“The doctor told me my daughter would be okay and to hurry to the hospital because the police needed my help. That was it.” John struggled to his feet and made it to the sofa where he dropped hard and leaned heavily on the knapsack that still clung to his back.
“Tera had an emergency telephone card in her purse. Your name was first on the list, mine second. Doctor Morganson just called me five minutes ago to see if I had a picture of Suzy.”
“Why would they want her picture?”
“Officers at the hospital were notified there was another daughter and when they called the officers still at the scene of the accident they saw small footprints leaving the area. The prints walked straight into a clump of trees and then, they were lost. They’re organizing a search party as we speak. John, I’m sorry, but Suzy is out there somewhere, alone, and cold. Her jacket was found in Tera’s car. John, she could be hurt and it’s below freezing. You have to hurry.”
John’s head spun. How could things get any worse? His wife and one daughter were in the hospital, and his other daughter was alone in the dark somewhere, freezing.
Just like my parents ten years ago—alone and freezing.
He realized he would have to tell Brian of his predicament. Somehow, Brian was going to have to get someone up here so he could get to the hospital and join in the search for Suzy.
He moved the phone from his left ear and switched it to his right. In his shock at the news, he had forgotten how bad his hand was. When he opened his fingers to take the satellite phone, the pain flared, causing him to fumble the handset. The phone fell from his grasp, hit the wooden floor, and split into pieces.
John stared at his salvation, scattered in at least five plastic chunks at his feet. He was now a prisoner in his own cabin. No means of transportation out. No way to communicate with the outside world. He was on his last candle and didn’t have enough wood to sustain any kind of warmth overnight. His hand was likely broken and his daughter was wandering in a snowstorm somewhere miles away, lost in the dark.
He kicked a couple of pieces of phone away and walked over to the window, leaving the axe leaning against the sofa. The light was fading for another day. In a short time, his world would be absolutely black.
He cursed the snow for taking his parents from him. He cursed it for hurting his wife who now lay in a hospital bed without him by her side. But most of all, he cursed it because it stopped him from doing his job as a father, as a husband.
Maybe I could bundle up and start walking.
The ache in his bad leg told him he wouldn’t get very far.
He counted three whole days since he had taken his pills. Usually when he came up to the cabin to lock down and write uninterrupted, he chose not to take the pills. Some of his best work was done when he felt closer to his schizophrenia.
John smacked his left hand against the window pane.
Why the hell didn’t I get that reserve snowmobile?
He had always talked about it. Even after the gas leak on the machine outside was fixed a month ago, he’d told his wife he would get a reserve one, just in case.
He walked away from the window and turned on the radio. White noise came out of the speakers. He adjusted the dial left and right until a station came in. The sound was laden with static. After a little more fiddling, he turned it off and stood back to his full height.
“Don’t.”
He ignored the voice. It had to be in his head. Just to be sure, he scanned the room anyway.
Something loud banged outside, making him jump.
That’s how they’re doing this. They slipped out of the cabin as I entered it. Bastards. I’ll show them not to fuck with me.
He hobbled over to the couch to retrieve the axe. When he got to the front door, he eased out of the knapsack and placed it on the floor. With both gloves back on, he hefted the axe up to rest on his shoulder.
Then he opened the cabin door. The snow had already begun the task of covering his previous tracks. The little light he had left was just enough to look around for other prints, but the snow was undisturbed.
Wind buffeted his face, feeling colder than before.
He eased out and stepped into the thickest part. The soft, powdery snow covered his knee, rising to mid thigh.
Another bang sounded to his right and he turned, gripping the axe, ready to take on the intruders. The shed door sat ajar a few inches, moving back and forth in the wind. It slammed shut before drifting open once more.
The shed. The shed has spare gas.
Why he didn’t think of it before baffled him. He took large strides to wade through
the snow, limping and stomping until he got to the shed’s door. He laid the axe against the outer wall and examined the situation.
The door opened outward, but the snow was too high to allow it much movement. John leaned down and pulled the drifted snow out of the way, digging a small path so he could open the door enough to squeeze inside the shed. Only his left hand was of any use now. The cold seeped through his glove with ease. All feeling disappeared within minutes. He stood and balanced on his good leg, leaned against the side of the shed and waited until he got his breathing under control.
A quick glance at the cabin’s window and the woman was back. Her features were drawn, pale and frightened.
“You should come out and help me instead of just watching all the time,” he yelled at her.
He turned back to the shed’s door, grabbed the edge, and swung it back and forth, trying to get enough room to squeeze through.
The cabin had no electricity. He used candles and a generator for light, wood for heat. There was always enough gas and wood to get through a weekend, but extra gas was stored in the shed for exactly this sort of situation. He chastised himself for not remembering.
Finally, he got the door open enough to squeeze through. The only flashlight John had was back at the cabin in the kitchen. He would have to make his way around the shed by feel. He remembered the spare gas would be under the work table.
He welcomed the reprieve from the wind as he felt his way along the walls. Objects bumped his hand—it was still too numb to feel anything—so he had no idea what most of them were.
He located the table by bumping into it with his thigh. Carefully, so as not to knock his head, he leaned over and felt around under the table. The cold seared his legs as his pants rode up and clung to his skin.
Someone moaned behind him. He jumped and smacked the back of his head on the underside of the table.
“Who’s there?”
Someone was in the shed with him. He was sure of it. But they didn’t make any more noise.
Get the gas. Fill the snowmobile. Then get the fuck out of here. That’s what I’m going to do.
He reached back down to where the spare gas container should be and clamped his left hand onto the handle. When he lifted it, the weight was off. It should be heavier. He brought it close to his ear and shook it, listening to the contents.
Empty.
A month ago, when the snowmobile’s gas tank had leaked, he’d used the last of the reserve to get him down to the mechanic.
He hadn’t replaced the missing fuel.
Damn it.
He turned in the dark and listened as he thought he heard the sound of distant engines. It seemed far off, but the sound was there just the same. He hustled in the dark to where he thought the shed’s door would be, but missed it. In his hurry to leave the shed, he collided with the wall that held tools on a peg board. To make matters worse, his aching hand hit a sharp tool, his nose the wall. His eyes watered and his hand doubled its throbbing.
Through glazed eyes, he glimpsed the luminescence of the new snow outside. He quickly slipped out of the shed and stopped to listen for the engines again.
Nothing. No sound at all. He began to wonder if being off his meds was a good idea after all. His wife needed him. His daughters needed him. He needed to get out of there. But how? He couldn’t think properly, anymore.
Am I going to die up here?
He trudged through the snow, using the tracks left by his previous steps, and entered the cabin again. The cold had seeped in when he left the door open, and there wasn’t a fire in the fireplace to counter it. Shivering, his hand and nose aching, he looked around for the woman who had been watching him through the window.
A crackling sound came from the radio, pulling his attention to it.
Did I leave it on?
The radio announced that there had been a multi-vehicle accident on the highway. A pileup. Seven people hurt with four succumbing to their injuries at Liberty Memorial.
The news went on but John’s world stopped. He was stuck there, a virtual prisoner of the elements. The elements that took his parents. The same elements that were stealing his family away at that very moment and there was nothing he could do about it.
The sound of engines again.
What’s going on?
He cocked his ear. The sound faded.
He wobbled over to the couch where he lie down, his head on the armrest. A case of the shivers overtook him. He wondered why he hadn’t grabbed a few pieces of wood and brushed the snow off them. He could’ve started a fire by now. Anything to stave off the hypothermia that would eventually take him.
How would he go on after this? How could he live after losing his wife and his two little girls? Where was Suzy now? Still wandering, or already freezing to death?
John cried, his tears warm, but cooling rapidly as they drifted down his face. Too many events mirrored the night his parents died. They’d been lost, wandering, people out looking for them.
Who was the woman in the window? Why am I here? Who am I?
The sound of engines again.
His mind slipped.
The sat phone rang.
Startled, he jolted his head sideways, eyes wide.
“Am I hearing things?” he asked out loud.
On the third ring he convinced himself that it wasn’t an illusion. He moved to get off the couch and fell to the floor in a heap of cold, non-functioning limbs.
The phone stopped its incessant drill.
I thought I dropped the phone. I thought it broke.
This time he was sure he could hear engines as the sounds grew louder, closer. Consciousness became harder to maintain.
John forced himself up, leaning his back against the couch. He waited. The engines stopped somewhere in front of the cabin. A moment later the door to the cabin slammed inward.
A policeman entered, followed by a paramedic. The third person was a ghost. John couldn’t believe it.
Tera, his wife. She ran to him.
“Oh, John, what have you done?”
She held his face in her hands. “I told you to take your pills. You were supposed to be home two days ago on Sunday. It’s Wednesday morning, John.”
She got moved aside as the paramedic started examining him.
John had enough strength to stay awake a little longer. He knew his hallucinations could be strong, but never like this. This one, while alone in the cabin, could’ve killed him.
The ghost woman from earlier stood by the door now. She wasn’t in the window anymore, and as far as John could tell, no one could see her. Tera turned to see what he was staring at.
He realized in a wave of lucidity that the woman by the door was a younger version of his mother.
She opened her mouth and whispered, “You’re mine. I’m waiting for you, John. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
She reared her head back and laughed a horrid, guttural cackle.
John shouted and tried to get up. The paramedic eased him back down.
“Did you hear what she just said?” he asked.
Tera looked at the cop and the paramedic, then back to him.
“John, I’m the only woman in the room. I didn’t say anything.”
“We have to stop her,” he shouted. “We have to stop her.”
He looked for the woman, but she was gone. In her place was his father, shaking his head.
“Goodbye, John.”
His father’s face evolved into something unexplainable. John screamed and arched his back as he tried to get away.
When he turned around, the sofa was drenched in blood now. It dripped off the center cushion, falling to a small puddle beside his head. The blood had pooled where the cushions were torn.
What the hell is that? What happened here?
He turned back around. The paramedic was gone. The policeman had disappeared. His parents were nowhere in sight. But Tera was there. She lay across the open doorway on her stomach, straddling th
e threshold of the cabin, her back a mess of blood and hair.
John gasped and brought a hand to his mouth.
“Baby?” he whispered. “What happened to you? Where is everybody?”
He crawled across the floor to her. The pain and the cold momentarily forgotten. When he moved the hair out of her face, he discovered Tera’s eyes open, lifeless, empty.
There was no doubt she was dead.
John looked down the length of her body and saw the axe imbedded in her back.