HYBRID KILLERS

by Will Decker

  Thinking back to the early dawn of a cold morning, while I was waiting outside by the snow tractor, Fred took a small paper package to one of the equipment sheds. At the time, I hadn’t put any significance to the package. For all I knew or cared, it might have been the morning’s garbage. But the shed had been padlocked like Fort Knox. Even then, that had struck me as odd. That and the way Fred had reacted when he saw me watching him return from the shed. His reaction had been out of character. If he was doing something as innocent as taking out the garbage, why did he react the way he had? The minute he saw me watching him, his whole demeanor changed. Immediately, he grew perturbed and angry with me, yet I’d done nothing wrong. In fact, thinking back on it now, I’d almost have to say that he’d acted paranoid. Just what the hell was in that package, I began to wonder anew. And even more importantly, what was he hiding in the shed?

  It came to me like a bolt of lightning. Sure, why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? The shed was his secret kennel. That’s where he raises and trains his hybrid killers. And that little white package he took to the shed before we left that morning didn’t contain raw meat like I first suspected; it contained something of mine! The blood was only to reintegrate their savage desires. The main item had my scent on it.

  The blood may have been left from the meat the package originally contained. Or it might have been human. I don’t think it really mattered. What did matter was that it intermingled with my scent, working the beasts into a killing frenzy, a frenzy that will only be satisfied with my blood and flesh. The wolves out there were trained just like police canines, to do a certain thing regarding a specific scent. And I had no doubt just whose scent they were hunting this time!

  “Sandy, I think I figured it out,” I said softly, speaking into the darkness. “You’re not asleep, are you?”

  “No, I’m not,” she quickly replied, speaking with a voice that didn’t even sound sleepy. Tired, maybe, but not sleepy.

  She moved ever so slightly against me, as she made herself ever more comfortable within the confines of my arms.

  “What have you figured out?” she asked, trying not to give in to her growing excitement until she heard more.

  “I haven’t been able to devise a plan yet that will implement what I think I know. But let me tell you what I’ve come up so far. I have a theory about how he has trained the wolves. Maybe together, we can figure something out of it,” I said confidently, trying to comfort her in my embrace.

  After pulling the blankets tighter up around us, I proceeded to tell her everything that I’d been thinking. When I finished, she didn’t say anything for a long minute, though I knew she hadn’t fallen asleep.

  Then, from a very close place to my heart, she said, “Now tell me how knowing that is going to get us out of here.”

  Although I didn’t want to alarm or frighten her anymore than she already was, I started, “If I’m correct in my hunch, they’re tuned to your specific scent, not mine. If I could walk, I could probably strut right past them and they wouldn’t as much as snarl at me.”

  “That may very well be,” she started, her voice increasing ever so slightly in pitch, as she realized what I was getting at. “But where does that leave us, exactly. In case you don’t remember, that itch in your feet should be telling you something about their ability to carry you. And unless you brought a good supply of bleach with you, I don’t think we’re going to be changing my scent anytime soon.”

  “First off, even if I could, I’m not sure that I’d want to change your scent. And second, I told you that you’d have to wait until morning, so don’t get impatient on me.”

  “I love you, John. No matter what happens to us, I want you to know that I love you,” she said softly.

  “Just remember that I love you too, and I’m not about to let anything happen to you. We’ll get out of this, Sandy. Believe in that, if nothing else.”

  “I believe in you, John. Without you, there is nothing else.”

  What I expected to be a restless night, turned into a peaceful and relaxing one, even though neither of us was able to sleep but for short snatches. Sandy got up and stoked the fire to keep the cabin warm several times during the night. There didn’t seem any point in conserving the firewood, since we weren’t going to need any more after tonight. Long before the sun broke over the horizon, Sandy got up and put a pot of coffee on the stove, and then fried up a huge pan of spuds. Over the top of the potatoes, she broke the remaining eggs, and then put the lid over the whole thing.

  When she saw me watching her, she asked, feigning sarcasm, “Haven’t you ever had a potato omelet before?”

  “No, I can’t say as I have.”

  “Trust me, you’ll like it,” she quipped, almost cheerily. “Especially when you get a taste of this gravy that I’m making to go over the top.”

  “Let me guess,” I said facetiously. “The gravy wouldn’t happen to be based around a small brown cube that if I were to look around, I’d probably find a case or more of.”

  “Smart ass,” she responded tartly. “Do you always get so smart after you’ve shared a table with someone?”

  “Oh, lady!” I cried out. “You just wait until I’m able to do more than share a table! We’ll have to find somewhere much more appropriate for the main course.”

  Unable to hold back, a loud laugh erupted from her, as she began to reprimand me for raising my voice, and possibly waking up the neighbors. We laughed for a minute before the seriousness of our situation reasserted itself and the moment had passed.

  “Someday soon, we’ll have us real neighbors, love,” I said solemnly, before adding, “Not the four-legged kind that wants to eat you.”

  But my attempt at levity flopped, and we ate in silence, neither asking the other if any ideas had come to them during the early morning hours. We both knew the other would already know, if either had come up with anything, even something farfetched and reckless. I was bitterly disappointed with myself after arriving at a plausible scheme for training the wolves, and then drawing a complete blank with regard to a solution for our dilemma. A plan of action seemed within reach the night before, and now an answer seemed miles away. I had truly believed that with morning, would come the answer that I was looking for. I could almost feel it, yet it stayed just out of reach.

  We knew what we were facing. We even thought we knew what the wolves honed in on and why. Nevertheless, for some reason, we just couldn’t seem to figure out how to get them to focus on something else. And there in lay the solution.

  Unless!

  “Sandy!” I suddenly cried out excitedly. “I think I know how to distract them!”

  She was in the middle of cleaning the dishes and my sudden outburst startled her, causing her to drop one of the tin plates on the floor. It struck the floor with a hollow clang, as she whirled to face me, oblivious of the plate.

  “How?” she anxiously fired back, immediately forgetting all the troubling thoughts that were occupying her mind just a moment earlier.

  “It’s not going to be easy. And it’ll be very dangerous, for both of us. But there’s a chance that it just might work!”

  She waited patiently as I grew silent, the plan continuing to formulate within my mind. The main obstacle I kept encountering, and also the one around which the entire idea was based, was my immobility. If we could just figure out a way to make me even temporarily mobile, the plan just might work. It was still a long shot, but it was better than sitting here in this cabin with our dwindling food supplies while waiting for the inevitable.

  “The one problem that I’m having is trying to figure out how I’m going to get about. I need mobility if we’re going to make my plan work,” I said to her, hoping beyond hope that she might see a remedy that I was overlooking.

  Unfortunately, she was only able to tell me what was already blaringly obvious, and that boiled down to the fact that if I put any weight on my feet, the newly forming scabs will break open and leave me lying helpless within a few
short steps. And that didn’t take into account just how horrific the pain would become.

  We sat deep in thought for a moment when Sandy suddenly said, “I can make you crutches to keep the weight off your feet.”

  Thinking in harmony with her, I excitedly asked, “You mean by securing them to my thighs and leaving them extend beyond the bottom of my feet?”

  “Yes, exactly,” she replied, her excitement growing in proportion with mine. “They’ll be awfully awkward, painful, and difficult to get used to, and you won’t be able to move very fast. But they’ll allow you a degree of mobility that you wouldn’t otherwise have.”

  As she talked, she scurried about the cabin, hastily grabbing items from here and there until she had the materials necessary to fabricate a crude pair of crutches. Next, she grabbed the axe from where it was leaning against the doorjamb.

  “I’ll need the table legs, John. We need to get you into the chair,” she continued animatedly, as she set the axe down, and proceeded to drag the one and only chair over next to the table.

  It was a solid wood chair, but the legs were too short for what Sandy had in mind. With her help, we managed to slide me off the table while I remained upright in a sitting position, and plunked my butt down into the seat of the chair. She quickly rolled the table over and, with the use of the axe, knocked the legs free from their moorings at the outward corners on the underside of the tabletop.

  “We should be able to use these just the length they are,” she said absently, as she positioned everything within easy reach of where she was going to be assembling the crutches to my legs.

  “I don’t suppose that you’re going to let me in on the plan while I affix these to you?” she finally asked, when she realized that I wasn’t going to offer it up for her scrutiny without a struggle.

  “I’m afraid if I tell you now, before you get me up and walking, you won’t continue. In fact, you may even refuse to help me altogether,” I said half-jokingly even though I was well aware of the truth that I’d just spoken.

  “Now you realize, these are going to be painfully crude, and you won’t be able to wear them for any length of time. Because in order for them to work, they’ll need to be so tightly secured to your legs, they’re going to shut off the flow of blood, much like a tourniquet.”

  “If my plan works like I hope it does, I won’t need to go very far, or for long,” I said encouragingly. “Let’s get the sled together before you fasten them on me, so we’re ready to go.”

  “Don’t you think you should practice on them first?”

  “No. The difference between a rough plank floor and the snow-covered meadow outside the door tells me I’d just be wasting valuable time and energy,” I said firmly, so as not to invite any argument from her.

  The odds of my plan working were slim enough already. In addition, my strength was far from what it used to be, and I couldn’t risk wasting any of it on practice runs. We were only going to get one chance to make it work.

  Sandy quickly put the final touches on the sled. I was immensely impressed with the harness that she’d fashioned for herself by weaving ropes together. With the sled ready, and all the supplies secured beneath it, she turned to me and said, “It was supposed to have you on top before I secured the supplies underneath so that the net would hold you in place too. But since we don’t have that option, we’ll have to tie you on later.” And then, after a long moment’s hesitation, she added, “Or you may just have to hold on until we can stop and take the time to secure you properly.”

  “Then let’s get those crutches on me and get this show on the road,” I said as enthusiastically as I could under the circumstances.

  While Sandy busied herself wrapping my feet with extra bandages, I busied myself by checking the condition and readiness of the gun, and telling Sandy about my plan. Specifically, I empathized what part of it she was going to be instrumental in playing.

  With the extra bandages applied, she turned her attention to the crutches. While she worked, she interrupted me occasionally to ask questions, and even volunteered a suggestion here and there. When I was finished, I asked her what she thought of it.

  Stopping what she was doing, she looked up at me before responding. Without a hint of sarcasm in her voice, she said, “I think I’m nuts to let you go ahead with such a hair-brained idea. If I weren’t half as desperate as I am, I’d be taking these off of you, not putting them on.”

  “It’s going to be extremely dangerous for you, too. If I could come up with anything else, believe me, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “What happens if you’re wrong, and they attack you?” she softly asked, unable to keep the tension from her voice. “What then?”

  “Then, my love, you don’t have the burden of me to worry about, and you escape.” Her gaze met mine, and I reiterated with emphasis, “For me, you must escape!”

  Turning away, she quickly finished fastening the crutches to my legs. They were extremely tight and painful, and I knew the pain would only get worse when I got up on them. Fortunately, the distance that I’d have to go with them on wasn’t very far.

  Sandy got to her feet, fighting back a flush of tears growing in the corners of her eyes. “Give me your arms. When I stand, you rise with me,” she said, leaning forward and locking her arms behind my back.

  Together, we straightened up. As my weight settled into the straps binding the crutches to my legs, I winced at the pain. Although Sandy had generously padded my legs to protect them against the narrow straps, they quickly cut through it, digging cruelly into my tender flesh beneath. Yet, the bottoms of my feet were suspended more than two inches above the floor.

  However, because it had been such a long time since I’d been upright, I wobbled for a minute as the blood rushed to my head. But with Sandy’s support, I managed to maintain my balance.

  We held each other tightly, not only for the physical support that I needed, but also for the emotional support that we both needed.

  Even without the benefit of the crutches, she was several inches shorter than I was. With the crutches on, her head barely reached my chest, as I straightened up for the first time in more than three weeks. Leaning down, I kissed her on the top of the head, and then suggested that we needed to get started. She quickly helped me into my snowsuit before climbing into her own.

  After taking one last look around the cabin to be sure everything of necessity was packed and ready, she turned to face me and said, “I love you, John. You be careful out there.”

  “Me too, and I will be,” I replied, holding back my emotions.

  Stepping back, she let me stand on my own. Cautiously, I stepped forward, and was instantly wracked with sharp, biting pains, as the straps cut deeper into my tender flesh. Yet, despite the pain, I was surprised at how balanced they felt. Not having been on my feet for so long must have made it easier to adjust to the crutches as I took several more, equally painful steps, and then started toward the door. Sandy quickly ran to it and undid the latch for me. She stood to the side, looking at me with desperation and worry in her eyes, and all I could do was smile weakly back at her.

  When I reached her, I stopped. Using the doorjamb for a crutch, I leaned over and kissed her. Straightening up, I winked down at her. She opened the door, and I stepped out into the awakening dawn.

  My plan was simple. It required me to get as far from the cabin as possible before the wolves realized that I’d left. Then, by deceiving them with Sandy’s scent, they’ll mistakenly come after me, abandoning the cabin. Sandy, meanwhile, will watch my progress from a crack in the door until I draw the wolves as far as I’m capable. When she deems that I’ve done the best I can, or the wolves overtake me, she’ll head away from the cabin on a forty-five degree tangent from my trail. While I’m working my way up the gradual slope that lies east of the cabin, Sandy will be riding the sled down the southern slope toward the bottom of the meadow. When she can’t slide any farther, she’ll don the snowshoes, and slip into the wov
en harness, before doubling back in a large circle to pick me up.

  After the wolf pack is away from the cabin, and I have sent them away, I’ll continue working my way around the outer edge of the meadow until I rendezvous with Sandy, if I’m able. There’s no guarantee that the wolves won’t kill me when they discover that I’m not Sandy. Frustrated and hungry, anything is possible. And after killing me, they may go directly back to the cabin in search of Sandy. Even with a head start, they can easily overtake her.

  Furthermore, there’s the real risk that we might get lost in the woods, and not be able to find each other. Or, Heaven forbid, the wolves find Sandy before I do.

  Any of these are real possibilities, and if any of them happen, they may prove to be disastrous for one or both of us. I couldn’t let that happen.

  Having passed through the door and into the cold early morning, committed us on this journey for better or worse. Yet, I had to put such thoughts out of my head, and concentrated on the chore at hand, walking on the crutches. Without the hardness of the wood floor beneath me, the straps were much easier on my flesh. Between the small amount of weight that my well-wrapped and padded feet absorbed from the compaction of the snow, and the softness of the planting of the crutch in the snow, I found it easier to negotiate than I’d anticipated. Before I knew it, I’d almost reached the far side of the meadow, and I hadn’t seen a sign of the wolves.

  Just when I let myself start to believe that Fred had come back and collected his pack of hybrid killers, a loud chorus of yapping and howling erupted directly ahead of me in the woods. The sounds were coming from less than a quarter of a mile away; they would be on me within minutes.

  Gasping loudly for breath, a cold film of sweat plastering my forehead, I forced myself to move faster. If there was any chance of it, I wanted to draw them into the woods, and out of sight of the cabin, before they figured out that I wasn’t their prey.

  My heart was hammering thunderously in my chest, and I felt a sharp pain in my side from lack of oxygen. I was sick and out of shape, and the altitude only made matters worse. Yet, I was drawing closer to the trees and the undergrowth, and the wolves still hadn’t broken into view.