by Will Decker
Because my feet were feeling wooden and inanimate at the ends of my distraught legs, I repeatedly stumbled over them. With each lurch forward, my hands shot out reflexively to break my fall, just as they’d done a thousand times prior. It was a reflex that seemed ingrain to the human species. Nine times out of ten, the reflex betrayed our bodies, generally causing more physical harm than if we’d just let ourselves fall, landing flat on our faces. This time though, my hands didn’t break my fall, they never had a chance.
Unforeseen earlier in the fading dusk with the sun shining brightly into my frost-blurred eyes, was a shallow rift running across the meadow. It was nothing more than a shallow dip in the landscape that rose back up to the trees on the far side. It was into this snow-filled rift that I plummeted, first tripping over my feet when they failed to adjust to the increased momentum, and then falling and rolling several feet farther before coming to a stop at the bottom. Under normal circumstances, I might not have noticed it. But because I wasn’t expecting it in the dark, it caught me by surprise.
Lying unmoving in the bottom of the dip, I faced skyward, my heart pounding. Although I was aware that the wolves were closing in on me, I couldn’t move. The trees were still nearly one hundred feet from the dip. From here to there, the ground sloped upward. It was a shallow angle, but it was more than I could mentally reckon with. In my present condition, I didn’t think I could make it.
From where I lay in the bottom of the dip, the sound of the wolves seemed distant. Too tired to move, I lay still, quietly listening to them, waiting for them to come charging over the top of the rise. After a long moment, I realize that the sound of their barking has changed. Instead of growing closer, they’re sounding farther and more distant. It seems too good to be true, and I listen intently, convinced that my ears are playing tricks on my mind.
I don’t have to listen long though, before I realize that it’s true, the animals are indeed moving away from me. Overcome with gratitude, I listen for a moment longer, unable to believe what I am actually hearing. But the longer I listen, the fainter the barking and yapping becomes.
For some unknown reason, I have been given a respite. Yet, I don’t need anyone to tell me that if I don’t act quickly, I will lose it.
Forcing my begrudging body up, I plant my frozen feet beneath me. By leaning forward against the resistance of the rise, I place one foot in front of the next, and start the trek to Sandy. The excruciating pain is almost more than I can stand, and for a long moment, I teeter on the verge of consciousness. The snow is knee-deep, and the little resistance it offers is more than made up for by the assistance it lends in keeping me upright. After a while, the moon is showing on the horizon, and I can see the trees ahead. They loom upward, appearing closer than they are.
My progress is slow. By leaning forward and using my hands to assist my legs, I lurch forward one step at a time. Each step feels like my last, but I keep moving, drawing strength from the fact that I’ve been given one more chance; I can’t waste it.
As my body falls forward, I barely catch myself by quickly dragging the other foot forward with my hands, and then planting it in front of me. In this manner, I slowly work my way toward the darker outline of the trees. Somehow, if I can just make it that far, I will find shelter.
It is that belief that I cling to, even when my mind interjects the thought that the wolves have left the trees because their prey has left the trees. I can’t consider that possibility at any cost, because if I do, it means that I won’t find anything there either. It means I’m too late!
My determination was faltering; I couldn’t afford to entertain the thought that I might only find Sandy’s remains. If I let that penetrate too deeply, I would certainly give up. And if it does turn out to be Sandy’s body beneath the trees, I will surely die from a complete mental breakdown before the cruel elements of Mother Nature can finish what they’ve already started.
Using all of my strength and resolve just to continue up the shallow incline, all other thoughts went from my mind. If I can just make it to the top, I will be near the edge of the meadow, if not directly under the trees. For the moment, I couldn’t allow myself to think about anything else.
While I trudged single-mindedly forward, the moon was slowly rising on a clear, star-studded night. As it came over the horizon behind me, its reflection highlighted a murky glow over the snow-covered ground. With all the elegance and splendor of a special-effects show, the powdery covering of dust quickly crystallized, illuminating a mist of pixie sparkles over the frozen landscape. The multi-colored reflections glinting off the snow with all the colors in the rainbow, lent to an eerie atmosphere of surrealism, not quite daylight, and not quite night. It brought to mind a miniature version of the Aurora Borealis for my own viewing pleasure.
Irrelevant of what it reminded me however, it lit up the area sufficiently to make out the top half of the trees, their outline appearing black against the night sky, directly ahead of me.
The nearer I got to the top of the rise, the more visible the trees became. In what was in all probability less than ten minutes, but seemed to be dragging on for all eternity, I found myself at the top of the rise and back on an even keel with the rest of the meadow. My body pleaded with me to stop as I gasped raggedly for air. But I was too close to stop now.
My heart was pounding against my ribcage, the hammering sound audible in the cold night air. But I couldn’t hear it over the sound of my blood roaring in my ears. Except for my eyes and nose, I was oblivious of anything that might be approaching. Determined to reach Sandy before the wolves returned, I strained to see into the darker shadows where the moonlight didn’t quite penetrate beneath the trees.
On level ground, I pushed forward, suddenly sure that the wolves were quickly gaining on me from behind. The trees were just yards ahead of me, and then I saw what I was looking for.
In the deeper shadows of the trees, I finally made out the outline of a building. But it didn’t look right!
The wind went out of my sails, and I froze in my tracks, suddenly feeling all the fatigue and pain that I’d been fighting to ignore. Somehow, I must have gotten turned, and I came to the wrong cabin. All that effort and sacrifice for naught, and I was no closer to Sandy.
I collapsed to my knees as they folded under the weight of the disappointment. There wasn’t any need or reason to go on. I’d reached the end of my rope.
But that couldn’t be right! Staring into the night, studying the cabin, I suddenly realized my folly. Because I’d approached it from a different direction, the sloping angle of the roof presented a different pitch, making me believe that I was looking at a different structure. If I weren’t so exhausted and mentally fatigued, I never would have made such a mistake, but now I recognized it for sure; I was looking at the cabin leased to Sandy.
The other day, when I came by here with Fred, we’d come up on it from more off to the left. When we left, heading toward my cabin, we had departed at a sharper angle to my right.
Having sorted that out in my mind, I studied the gloomy outline in the shadows. Suddenly a fist closed on my heart, gripping it in an icy grasp. If Sandy was inside the cabin, why hadn’t she lit a lantern? Even if the windows were boarded over, a small glimmer of light would seep through. Something was terribly wrong.
Just a short time earlier, I would have thought it to be physically impossible to increase my pace. But with each trembling step that brought me closer to the cabin, I was picking up speed. And keeping pace with my mounting anxiety, my heart beat increasingly faster as the adrenalin started flowing through my veins once more. From a hidden reserve buried deep within my soul near the bottom of my heart, it was pouring its last little bit of juice into my bloodstream, forcing my heart to pound harder and my legs faster.
Almost before I knew it, I was standing in the middle of what might be called the front yard to the cabin. What was once thigh-deep snow had been trampled down by many feet, and not all of them human. Focusing on the dar
k silhouette of the cabin, my feet began pounding unevenly across the hard packed snow, quickly closing the distance between us.
When I was less than ten feet from the darkened doorway, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a low, threatening growl. It was coming down to me from a point in space just above me.
Although I’d been fine while I was moving, standing still was another matter entirely. My momentum drew me forward, and I almost fell on my face. But at the last moment, I caught my balance somehow, and turned my head up toward the source of the menacing sound. To my surprise and amazement, I wasn’t afraid. Without knowing how I knew it, I sensed that I was being warned off, and not attacked.
Studying the outline of the roof against the breaks in the trees, I could just make out the silhouette of the largest wolf that I’d ever laid eyes on. The pack had left a guard behind to keep their prey confined. That could only mean that Sandy was still alive!
We were staring at each other in the darkness, when a sliver of moonlight glistened off a strand of saliva hanging from its mouth. It was anticipating its next meal. But I didn’t believe it was looking upon me as that meal.
The silhouette was developing more substance as the moon rose higher in the sky, casting more light on the structure. The increasing moon glow suddenly glanced off a set of long white fangs. This in itself would have been enough to scare a normal man or woman out of their wits. But its long white fangs paled next to the blood-red light that emanated from its eyes, adding an otherworldly feeling to its presence. It didn’t appear to be merely a reflection from the moon or any other natural light source. Rather, it seemed to be radiating from an evil source living deep within the creature’s bowels. It was a source that could only find an outlet through the eyes of the beast.
I felt as though a twin laser had been turned on me with enough power to penetrate and freeze the blood in my veins. Mesmerized by its eyes, I was unable to look away. At any moment, it was going to bound off the roof and strike out at its new prey. In the dark, I sensed more than saw its shoulder muscles flexing with anticipation and expectation of the coming leap. Soon, it will pounce down on its prey. And although I knew this just as surely as if it could talk and had told me so, I couldn’t force my body to move. It was as though I’d lost all control of myself, including my will to resist.
As I stood like a sheep before the slaughterer’s knife, my hands dropped uselessly to my sides. Because I’d failed to put the dangling mittens back on, my hands were stiff and inoperable. Yet, even if they weren’t, the beady red eyes transfixed me, as it stood crouched and ready on the roof of the cabin, directly over the darker shadow of the closed front door.
Of course, in the dark, I could only assume that the front door was closed, as it was too dark to see anything but a darker shadow. Moreover, there was no reason for Sandy to have left it open, or to open it. She had no way of knowing that I was standing just outside of it, or so I thought.
Out of the peripheral vision of my sight, the focus of which was on the beady red eyes glowing down at me, I sensed movement in the denser part of this shadow. A soft brushing sound followed it.
Something was happening in the shadows directly in front of me, and the beast on the roof was not aware of it. Yet, though I wanted to badly, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from those two red pencil beams as they bored into my soul, opening it up for the world to see. Never before in my life had I felt so vulnerable, or so helpless, as I did right then.
Without anymore warning than I’d already had, the beast sprang from the roof, sailing gracefully outward, powered by its strong hind legs. With all the fury and passion of Satan coming to claim my soul, it descended toward me. Unable to move, or even take my eyes from those two red orbs as they came at me, I stood.
The pull came so fast and suddenly and with such force, my head snapped back, and my body shot forward. It all happened so fast, I wasn’t even aware that I was falling forward into the darker shadows, and not being knocked backwards by the impetus of the wolf. Something, or someone, had reached out of the shadows, and at the last instant before the wolf’s front nails raked me to the ground, grabbed the front material of the snow suit and pulled me forward with such force that I landed sprawled out flat on top of them.
Hot breath blasted my face from the impact of my weight landing on their chest. But it didn’t smell rank or foul, only hot and coppery; it smelled of fear!
Before I could begin to comprehend the situation, I was roughly pushed to the side as a body squirmed out from beneath me. Lying confused and bewildered on the hard wood floor, I was blindly aware of a body moving quickly past me in the dark, and then the door being slammed shut against my feet. There was no pain, only a dull thudding sensation that rocked my body. I wanted to move them, to accommodate my rescuer in any manner that I could, but they refused to obey.
Something struck against the side of my calf, which was quickly followed by a sharp breath and a curse. He/she was trying to clear my feet from the doorway in order to close the door. They have to come in farther, or the door will never close, and my rescuer is too close to the door to retreat and pull me in before the wolf reaches the door.
Doing the only thing left for me to do, I grab the backs of my thighs with my frozen hands, and pull my legs up as far as I can while rolling onto my side and assuming the fetal position.
The door slams shut with a bang and a clang as the latch lands home. Almost immediately, there’s a loud thud as the wolf throws its weight against it, testing its strength, and probably not for the first time today.
Outraged and frustrated that its quarry has escaped, the beast leaped at the door a second time. And even though it hit with enough impact to cause a shudder to run through the cabin, literally shaking the floor beneath my face, the latch holds. It will have to find another way in, which I have no doubt, in time it will. With the kind of force the creature had behind it coming down off the roof, it would easily have caved in my chest if it had hit its mark.
Unable to move, the side of my face pressed against the wooden floor, I remained quiet, surrounded by the dark interior of the cabin. Outside, the thrashing and snarling continued, as the wolf’s efforts to gain entrance to the cabin were thwarted by the solid wood door. For the moment, I was safe, and I wasn’t alone. Little else mattered.
Slowly, the roar in my ears subsided, and the rapid beating of my heart steadied. In the ensuing silence, I was suddenly aware of a new sound coming from outside. It was growing louder by the minute, and I recognized it immediately; the wolf pack was returning!
Something was bringing them back, and I was afraid that I knew what it was. It confirmed my suspicions of earlier, when I’d slipped past the wolf pack in the meadow. They weren’t after my scent then, and they’re not after my scent now. They were simply coming back to finish what they’d started!
Suddenly, my urgency growing with the sound of the returning pack, I needed to know where my savior was. Moreover, I need to know for sure, just who they are. After that, I’ll determine how secure the cabin is, and if it will protect us from the wolf pack.
These thoughts and more were flooding through my head, when I detected the first sounds coming from inside the cabin. Though it was faint, I recognized it immediately. My own snowsuit made the same sound all the time; it was nylon rubbing against nylon. With growing excitement, I remembered that Sandy was wearing a nylon parka over her nylon snowsuit the last time that I’d seen her.
“Sandy,” I tried calling into the darkness, but only managed to make a weak, grunting noise. Frustrated, I tried again, but couldn’t force my frozen face and jaw muscles to respond with the words that I needed so desperately to say.
Was this really her cabin, or have I stumbled on one that happens to be nearer to my own? In the cold and dark of the wilderness, I’d lost all sense of time and distance, including a mounting uncertainty about the direction that I’d traveled. Yet, I truly wanted to believe that I’d found her cabin. I had to believe it.
Out of the darkness, came a soft, reassuring voice. “Quiet. They’ll leave in a little bit, and then I’ll light a lamp. Until then, I’ve found it helps to stay quiet until they lose interest.”
Her voice, though full of tension and anxiety, was the most beautiful voice that I’d ever heard. For the first time since the tragedy, I knew profound joy tempered with relief. Drawing comfort from those few spoken syllables, I laid my head down on the wooden floor and relaxed. Within moments, I’d fallen into a deep sleep.
I dreamt pleasant dreams, not the nightmares of before. Amy was in my dreams, and so was Sandy. We played in a lush green park, Amy the innocent child, and Sandy my loving wife. We sailed the high seas on a custom catamaran. I could see Amy, now the young woman that she would have grown to become and Sandy, the beautiful woman that she already is. It was always the three of us together, moving purposefully through life. It was good, and it felt so real.
Suddenly, a cold harsh reality entered my dream, and I knew immediately that I was too late. I was suddenly sure that I’d died, and Sandy was already dead too. While I died shortly after reaching her cabin, she was overtaken by the shear ferocity and cunning of the wolf pack early the next morning.
Yet, I wasn’t upset by this knowledge, only disheartened, and extremely saddened. The knowledge didn’t seem real. Unlike Amy’s death, Sandy’s death was only a dream-state, it wasn’t reality. It couldn’t be!
But in my heart, I faced the reality of knowing that there wasn’t anything more I could have done for her, even if I’d reached her sooner. Sadly, I faced the fact that I did as little for her, as I did for my own daughter!
Yet, I refused to accept the reality where I was dead! I was merely unconscious or asleep on the wood floor in Sandy’s cabin, and I was more determined than ever that I wasn’t going to die.