The Christmas Wolf

by W. D. Gagliani

  “Well, it’s not the freakin’ lodge, but hopefully we can take shelter here.”

  “It looks empty,” she said uncertainly.

  “I bet it is,” he said. “Probably closed up for the winter. But it’s better than freezing to death in the car when the gas is done. We can wait out the storm.”

  “Break in?” She wanted to ignore the shadows in the woods, which seemed to be circling around behind them. Rabbits playing, she thought. Right.

  4

  He grabbed two of their bags and they muffled up, pulled up hoods, slipped into gloves and mittens, checked their boots, then they opened the doors and the cold wind and snow drove into their faces like tiny blades.

  They closed up and met at the front of the car. Carl handed her the keys, then grabbed one of her bags so Lynn would have a free hand. Then, wordlessly because the wind would have driven the sounds away from their lips, they sank into the deepening snow, booted legs disappearing to the knees. They fought their way to the porch, where only by trial and error he was able to find the steps and clambered upward until he was standing in front of the door. He turned and gave Lynn his hand, pulling her up carefully. They stood, resting, their breath billowing around their hoods.

  Good thing we have pro-level gear, he thought.

  This wasn’t turning out quite the way he had intended. He could almost feel the whole magical ring fantasy he had built up in his head go flying out the window with the wind and icy snow.

  The door really was crusted. Almost as if it had been warm recently, the snow had melted on its outside surface, and then it had iced over again. The windows were the same. Trying to see inside was useless. They sank into the uneven snow drifts on either side, then met at the door again.

  “I’m breaking in,” he shouted over the wind.

  She nodded. He couldn’t see her face, but he figured the cold and the wind had convinced her there was really no choice at this point.

  He put a shoulder to the door, but it wouldn’t budge. He had tools in the car, but he wasn’t keen on making the hundred-foot crossing back to get them. Idiot, should have thought of this.

  He put his hands on Lynn’s shoulders and felt her body shivering underneath the blue jacket. They had to get inside soon. The temperature was plummeting. The snow was turning into fine, icy particles, more like a true whiteout than a snow storm. Probably the snowfall was mostly over, but now the winds would pick up and drive the fine granules like sand, creating dunes that would eventually dwarf whatever trapped them.

  Christ, nothing else to do.

  He put his elbow through the nearest window.

  He was getting nervous about those shadows. The rabbits.

  He was no longer nervous about the ring and what he’d hoped to be doing in the warm lodge, after a fine meal and a warming brandy.

  Damn it.

  He climbed awkwardly inside after reaching through the jagged hole and finding the latch. He could barely hear her tiny voice, carried by the wind, telling him to be careful. What he wanted to do was be quick.

  He hadn’t told her about the tracks he had seen off to the side of their approach, tracks that disappeared around the side of the cottage.

  Carl had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that had nothing at all to do with the cold air driven deep into his lungs.

  He wrestled the door open after throwing a couple dead-bolts and turning an old knob. The ice crust sounded like glass as it cracked, then shattered, releasing the door. He swung it open and pulled Lynn into the dark house, trying to close the door again, quick, to keep out as much cold and snow as possible. And whatever…

  Lynn came into his arms and he held her as they shivered for a full five minutes, suddenly aware how close they had come to freezing. And how close they still might be, if the storm didn’t abate.

  He patted her back in encouragement, his voice missing still due to the cold he had swallowed. She clung to him, her hooded head on his shoulder. She was shivering uncontrollably now, and he knew they needed to find warmth.

  He made sure the dead-bolts were engaged. The wind howled through the broken window and screamed through the room. Have to do something about that. Damn soon.

  They stamped their feet and ankles of excess snow, then for the first time looked around the interior of the cottage. It was one large room, with dusty furniture in the center, faded threadbare rugs covering parts of the plank flooring, a few sagging bookcases, a rack of fishing gear, an ancient television on a table, and in the rear a small dining nook with a tight diner-style booth built in next to a tiny stove from the last century and bare, open cabinets above. A rusted sink nearby in the corner, next to a vintage refrigerator that was clearly unplugged. In the center, a rocking chair and an armchair faced a tired old sofa. Carl thought that was it, but then he noticed a door that presumably led to a bedroom and a bathroom – unless the facilities were an outhouse.

  The room’s one and only great feature was a wide fieldstone fireplace that dominated one side wall all the way to the ceiling. The charred firewall and wood remains indicated it was well-used.

  Christ, a fire would be great.

  But first… He spotted a battered toolbox on the floor of the so-called kitchen. While Lynn huddled into her coat and shivered still, he snatched a faded woolen blanket off the sofa and spread it over her shoulders. She gave him a grateful smile, marred only by her shivering. He realized how close they’d come to disaster. The wind still howled through the room, flinging ice particles about into tiny arctic clouds. Then he made his way over, opened the toolbox, and smiled. There was an old hammer, and a box of nails. Armed with those, he then grabbed some planks from the firewood box near the fireplace, making sure they were long enough. In a few minutes, he was hammering them across the window, not quite blocking the wind, but at least slowing it down so it bled into the room rather than roared.

  “They’re gonna hate all those holes,” Lynn pointed out, her voice less shaky now that the blanket was warming her shoulders.

  “Can’t be helped. I’ll leave a twenty or something. The way this place looks, they’d never even notice.”

  He wanted to block the window also because he had started to hear howling from outside – howling that he realized immediately was not the wind at all.

  “How about a fire?”

  He hesitated. A romantic picture of the two of them, their naked bodies entwined atop a thick, lush rug, a roaring fire blazing before them, reflecting off the drying sweat on their skin…

  A nice bottle of wine from the rear of the car, where he had stashed a case…

  An open jewelry box, the ring and its diamonds catching the flames and projecting prism-like patterns on the walls…

  Long, passionate kisses that reached down deep into their souls…

  The picture was detailed, but it lasted only seconds. First, there was the howling. And second was the practical problem – he didn’t know how to start a fire.

  How had he missed that lesson?

  Shit.

  A good friend of his, now sadly departed, had written a story once that painstakingly described how to start a fire in a cold fireplace. Carl wished he could remember it. Hell, he wished he could call up Don and ask him. But Don had been gone for years.

  “Well, I can try it, but I might end up smoking us out of this place, or burning it down,” he confessed.

  “I’m sure we can figure it out,” she said. “Let’s take a look—” Her voice faded. “What’s that?” She cocked her head.

  Howling.

  Now he heard it much more clearly, and loudly. More than one voice. Long, doleful wails. On three sides of the cabin. The howling vied with the wind, and won.

  The moving shadows.

  They hadn’t been rabbits, not that he had really believed they were.

  They were very close.

  Perhaps just outside the windows.

  “Coyotes?”

  “I think so, sure,” he said.

  Carl
quickly hammered a few more nails into the planks, ignoring Lynn’s questions, then went to the nearest other window and started to hammer planks across its width.

  “What are you doing?” Lynn could see what he was doing, but she wasn’t making connections. She was dwarfed by the blanket over her shoulders and head, and still cold.

  “Just help me,” he said, a bit more roughly than he intended. “Get more wood.”

  She started to protest, but a look at his face made her shake off her inquisitiveness.

  Carl watched the beautiful, romantic picture his mind had formed so effortlessly, fade into a realistic portrait of their predicament.

  She pulled a few planks from the wood pile and he took them with an encouraging smile, then started to nail them across the windows.

  They could still hear howling, but it seemed to be retreating. Soon they heard nothing but the wind.

  A few minutes later, Carl said: “That’s got it then,” and put down the hammer. “Let’s give the fireplace a try.”

  He tried to focus on what he remembered from his friend’s story, what he’d learned so long ago in camping outings. When it was fun, you just forgot those things. Now that it might mean their lives, he wished he’d paid more attention.

  They stacked some wood onto the metal rack after he swept off some gray ashes. Then he hunted until he found a stack of dusty newspapers, tore some sheets and rolled them into tight little tubes. Fortuitously, there was a faded box of matches on the mantel.

  “I think we have to open the flue,” Lynn said.

  “Ah, think you’re right,” he said. Romantic notions of manhood be damned, he was a city guy.

  They figured out how to do that, then he sparked a couple matches and set fire to the newspapers. The flames fought hard to grab on to the dusty fuel, but then gasped and hissed and started one of the planks’ corners. The flame seemed to be taking, and a few snaps later it was slowly traveling along the plank toward one that crossed it.

  The stood back to admire their work. And their luck, he thought.

  “By Jove,” he said. “I think…”

  “We’ve got it.”

  It wasn’t exactly warm, but they did feel warmer.

  They turned toward each other, then, and Carl’s arms went around her waist, drawing her to him. Their lips met, cold skin warming at the joining, and then they were lost in a romantic kiss of the sort he had given up for lost on this adventure. After all, they were stranded in some stranger’s cabin, possibly endangered by the wildlife, and nowhere near the lodge they had envisioned. In their embrace the stress of the drive, the conditions, and whatever else waited outside, all combined to accelerate their emotions and soon they were engaged in passionate kissing that scalded their lips, their hands wandering, entangling in their hair. Staring into each other’s eyes, they slowly began to peel clothing, feeling the fire’s increasing warmth on their skin.

  Carl thought about the ring and the possibility that everything would work out after all, as the old blanket fell to the plank floor and then their coats, forming a base for the remainder of their clothing.

  The fire’s intensity was increasing by the minute, and even though there was some smoke beginning to filter through the cabin, there was also light… and warmth.

  In a few minutes, Carl knelt and gently helped Lynn to the warming nest of their clothes. Her nakedness, so unlikely only a half hour ago, now shimmered in the slowly rising flames.

  “Carl,” she whispered into his ear while settling down beside him, “I really thought we were going to die.” Her lips on his ear were hot, and his skin sizzled where her breasts touched him.

  “I would never let anything happen to you,” he said, though keenly aware that they weren’t quite out of winter’s killing grasp. His thoughts wandered to the howling they had heard, but only for a moment. He was sure his reinforcement of the windows was enough, and the beasts had gone elsewhere to hunt for easier game. And Lynn’s hands were now stroking and caressing him, and he found it hard to concentrate on anything but her. They writhed together for a minute, still on their knees, and then slowly sank to the rug below and entwined limbs as the fierceness of their sudden passion overtook them.

  For a while, Carl’s dream of the lush rug, and the roaring fire, and the love that flowed between them was nearly complete. He didn’t even miss the wine, and he knew the ring didn’t have to throw reflections on the walls to make its appearance – and impact – at the right moment. Indeed, time seemed to stop, and the wail of the wind outside, the blizzard itself, receded until it was barely a memory. There was only the snapping of wood a few feet away, and the sighs they made as they explored each other as if for the first time.

  Later, lying in each other’s arms, the cool air still inside the cabin contrasting the warmth of the fire nearby as it kissed their drying skin, Carl opened one eye and strained his ear…

  Lynn sighed softly beside him, lost in near-sleep, her hair fanned out around her peaceful features, her lips set in a slight, sated smile.

  He wanted to frame this moment. As poorly as their day had begun, as frightened as they had been – almost hopeless, for a while – he now wanted a snapshot to which his mind could return again and again. He now saw the ideal dream he had created fulfilled, even though they had never reached the lodge and the substitute had been less than perfect.

  Then he shivered a little, starting with the fine hairs on his neck, and those that spread down his forearms.

  Their explosive passion had warmed them, but it was spent now, and hard to deny that the cabin’s interior was still chilled, and perhaps cooling despite their fire’s valiant attempt. He could feel wind whipping through the gap between the planks and his broken window pane. He could feel wind whistling through dozens of other gaps in the cabin’s insulation.

  And now he could hear the howling again.

  5

  As Lynn slept, Carl quickly got up and dressed as quietly as he could. Then he checked the windows and door. He hadn’t checked the bedroom before, and there he found more dust and also that a bathroom had indeed been carved out of an inner corner. A quick look told him they had not cut a window into it, so it might be a barely defensible last resort refuge. The bedroom window was shuttered from the outside, so he passed on nailing planks across its frame.

  The howling outside had approached until now it seemed to come from all four corners of the building.

  And damn close…

  It was long past twilight, or perhaps even later – maybe past midnight – which meant that the inside of the cabin had slowly grown almost pitch black, except for the fireplace’s glow which was enough for him to finish his inspection. Weapons, he found none – unless you counted fishing rods.

  Suddenly he felt Lynn beside him. She’d dressed quietly, but he had heard her and pretended not to.

  “They’re back, aren’t they?” She held his arm.

  He leaned down and kissed her. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’re safe in here.”

  You’re lying, you are lying, why are you lying?

  He heard growling from the front porch. Only feet away, really, just on the other side of the door. And the window.

  “They’re wolves, aren’t they? Not coyotes.”

  “Yeah, I think they’re wolves. A pack. They must be displaced from their usual hunting land.”

  “I thought they were gone,” she said. She wrinkled her forehead. “They were endangered, weren’t they?”

  “Well, they’ve made a comeback all across Wisconsin and Minnesota. The UP, too, obviously. So much so they can be hunted again.”

  “Why did they leave before?”

  “Maybe they were after easier game. But now they’re back. Maybe because the blizzard’s dying out.” He almost added: They knew we weren’t going anywhere.

  “Can we make it out to the car?”

  “I doubt after all this cold that it’ll start quickly, and being caught outside or in the car could be a big mistake.” He
stroked his chin.

  That was when the first body crashed against the door.

  A growling, snarling body that rattled the door in its frame and knocked knickknacks off shelves and to the floor.

  “My God!” Lynn cried, grabbing Carl harder.

  And then they heard other bodies hurling themselves at the windows, at the walls. Glass broke. Growls came from all around the building, as the wolves smashed the cabin’s frail structure without abandon.

  They’re playing with us.

  They’re having fun now.

  Something shattered back by the almost-kitchen, glass and something made of metal, on the floor.

  Lynn screamed, her hand going to her mouth as if to cut herself off. Her eyes were wide now, and staring at Carl as if noticing him for the first time.

  He hated seeing her like this, quickly losing her strength, her cool. Her humanity.

  His hand caressed her arm, encouraging, comforting. His mind raced. There were only a couple choices here.

  The growling increased. Others howled outside, but several wolves smashed into the door at the same time, and he heard a loud crack, indication that the door wasn’t as solid as it looked. More glass shattered elsewhere, another planked-up window, and they heard a painful screeching as nails popped loose of the wooden frame.

  Carl swore the whole building shook on its foundation as the wolves seemingly took turns ramming their muscular bodies against the walls and the entry points, snarling the whole time.

  “I want you to go into the bathroom,” he said. “In the bedroom, it’s like a little closet. No window. Go in there! Hurry!”

  6

  “What are you going to do?” Lynn screamed, as he started to push her gently in the right direction. “Carl! Talk to me! What—”

  “Lynn, just let me handle this. Please, trust me.”