HYBRID KILLERS Page 8

  While I waited for my breathing to normalize, I listened intently for any sound of pursuit by the wolf pack. After several moments of silence in which I hadn’t heard anything but the slew of a slight breeze along the top of the snow, I cautiously clawed my way to the surface. When my head broke above the crust of the snow, I slowly, and with a great degree of care, studied the flat expanse surrounding me.

  To my relief and delight, there wasn’t any sign of the wolves. However, my delight was short-lived. To my alarm and dismay, the sun had traveled far into the western sky. It would be but mere hours before it once again fell behind the horizon. In my frozen cocoon, I hadn’t been aware of the passing of time, and now it was getting into late afternoon.

  With flagging spirits and a growing sense of hunger, I realized that I would not be reaching Sandy’s cabin anytime soon. But I couldn’t spare the time worrying about it. Right now, I needed to reach the tree line before dark. And then, I needed to find a safe place to spend the night. The ideal shelter would not only protect me from the bitter cold of the night that was coming, but also from the wolf pack that was surely still in the area. Although I didn’t know enough about wolves to know how large of an area they considered their territory, I could only assume that it was a larger area than I was capable of escaping from in a single day, especially now that I no longer had the snowshoes.

  Though I struggled feverishly through the snow, it was easy to see that it would be well past dark by the time I reached the tree line, and with that realization, all hopes of finding shelter for the night were banished. Fortunately, my snowsuit was still intact after the tumble through the avalanche, and keeping my body dry. My feet, however, had gone from soggy to frozen, feeling like little more than blocks of ice. Yet, I wasn’t worried about them at this point, since I was sure that with the onset of frostbite, they would lose all feeling and sensation. When they stopped hurting, that would be the time to start worrying about them.

  What had my immediate attention was the fact that I didn’t have anything on my head. It’s common knowledge that more body heat is lost through the top of one’s head than anywhere else. Between sweat and melted snow, my hair had frozen into spikes of ice.

  With a sudden spurt of inspiration, I undid the top of my snowsuit, removed my flannel shirt, and then quickly redid my snowsuit before losing too much body heat. Taking the flannel shirt, I rolled the body, and then wrapped it around my head in the fashion of a turban, leaving the sleeves dangling downward over each ear. These I used to secure the makeshift contraption in place by tying them together beneath my chin. With that done, I set off once more for the trees.

  It was extremely slow going through the deep snow. I attempted crawling on my hands and knees and even rolling at times to keep from sinking. Each attempt to stand and plow my way ahead with brute force only ended with me sinking deeper and getting shorter of breath. Each attempt also drained my body of vital strength and calories that I knew I could ill afford to waste.

  The sun had long since disappeared behind the snow covered mountain and I had barely covered a little more than half the distance to the trees. With a sinking feeling, I strongly suspected that I was going to be spending the bulk of the night working my way just to the trees. But there was no lack of motivation; to be out here in the open come morning would mean certain death by the wolves. If I didn’t make it to the trees and find shelter by morning, I had to face that certain death.

  Even if I reached the trees before daybreak, I had no idea how I would find suitable shelter in the dark. Yet, I couldn’t stay here. There was nothing to do but wait until I reached that bridge and had to cross.

  Like an old friend, the dark settled in around me, blocking out the view of the trees and everything else. But just because I couldn’t see them, didn’t mean they weren’t there. With dogged determination, I continued struggling toward them. Sometime during the late afternoon, I took the time to put my mittens back on. At another point, I felt I had swerved away from them when I became dizzy after rolling a short distance. By lying flat on my back and waiting until the dizziness passed, I could study the night sky. But it didn’t help. I was still a city-boy, and I had no idea what the different patterns of stars meant.

  After a minute, in which I caught my breath, I rolled over onto my stomach and strained my eyes to see into the distance. To my good fortune, the moon broke through, briefly giving me a fleeting glimpse, and re-affirming that I was still moving, however slowly, in the right direction. My spirits rose when at the same time, I could see their shadows distinctly, hovering high above my head. I was almost there.

  Feeling acute pangs of hunger, my body aching from fatigue, and stiff from the penetrating cold, I struggled forward on my hands and knees. When my arms grew numb from the cold and exertion, I leaned backwards, forcing my feet downward through the snow until I could stand upright again; I felt like a small child learning to walk. To my surprise and gratitude, my feet hit down on something solid. With rising spirits, I quickly propelled myself forward, moving faster with each forward step. Within minutes, I was among the trees. Even though it was still deep snow, almost to my thighs, with some difficulty, I was now able to walk upright. It would be tiring and slow going, but it would be considerably faster than crawling on my belly.

  Reaching the trunk of a tree, I stood in silence, leaning against it while catching my breath. It was time to decide what to do next. To my good fortune, I’d made it over the first of what was sure to be many more hurdles yet to come. Hurdles that I was afraid would make this first one seem like a fond memory. It was time to formulate a plan of action.

  Yet, beyond finding my way to Sandy’s cabin, I had no idea what to do next. Should I wait until daybreak to set out, or should I start now? Although I’d made it to the trees, until the moon rose, I couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of my face. It was too dark to find a shelter for the remainder of the night, and it was too dark to wander blindly in what I hoped was the right direction. I was in a quandary of which there was only one certainty; I can’t just stand here in the dark and wait for morning. My options were limited, but as long as I was alive, I still had options.

  While I contemplated my situation, I remembered the gun. With a mitten-covered hand, I felt the reassuring bulge in the front of the snowsuit. After rising from beneath my snow-cocoon, I’d secured the magnum in a zippered pocket for safekeeping. Now, I debated briefly over removing one of the mittens and carrying the gun at the ready. Just as quickly as the idea crossed my mind, I dismissed it. There was much too great a chance that my hand might freeze and I’d end up dropping it in the snow without even realizing it. In the dark, if that should happen, chances were very good that I would never see it again. The gun is the only thing with which I have left to defend myself and I can’t afford to lose it now.

  Although my breathing had finally normalized, my heart had quit hammering wildly in my chest, and I knew it was time to be moving, I didn’t know where I should move. Without shelter, there was no point in waiting for daylight. But with no clear direction to Sandy’s cabin, I might go miles out of my way without knowing it, especially in the dark.

  In the dark, there was a very serious chance that I could fall into a ravine and break a leg, or worse. Anything delay, injury, or detour, might be the difference between life and death.

  Since I didn’t know the most direct route to her cabin, but did have a general idea of what direction it lie, I set off through the trees. I was depending on my memory of where the cabin used to sit in relation to the direction that I’d arrived here with Fred in the snow tractor. My first objective was just to be gone from this area come morning before the wolf pack came back looking for more food, even if I wasn’t going in the right direction. For now, I would have to settle for that little piece of satisfaction.

  As I trudged along in the dark, trying to look out for darker shadows against the snow that might be stumps or brush or other dangerous obstacles, my mind wondered to Fred, and t
he story that him and his wife had told me about the former tenants of my extinguished cabin. There was no doubt in my mind that they hadn’t told me the whole story about the previous tenant. In fact, the more I considered it, the more I had to wonder at the truth of everything else they’d told me too. Had the prior tenant really had to leave because of a death in the family? Or was it more serious than that? Was it possibly because of his own death? Did the wolves kill him?

  This last thought made me stop in my tracks and reconsider everything anew. There was no doubt that my landlords were cold-hearted and uncaring people, but it was still hard to believe that they could be so unsympathetic toward their fellow man. Furthermore, it seemed to me that for them to lease the cabin so soon after the last tenant’s departure without taking care of the wolf problem that it might even be considered criminal, especially if you considered the nature of the beasts. And I never doubted for a minute that the landlords were aware of the wolves! I was suddenly determined that if I survived this ordeal, I was going to confront them, and force them to tell me what happened to the last tenant.

  The going was much easier through the knee-deep snow and I was making very good time. Yet, I wasted a lot of time floundering through or going around snowdrifts that I didn’t see until I was waist-deep in them. Moreover, though I was sure that I wasn’t suffering from frostbite, my feet felt like solid blocks of ice. Each step that reached a solid surface sent pin-like spikes of pain through my heels and upward into my calves. But I couldn’t let it slow me. Time was working against me. If I didn’t succumb to the cold before the wolves caught up to me, I was liable to die of hunger while wandering around in circles looking for civilization.

  **6**

  The rising sun suddenly glittered across the night’s freshly fallen snow, catching me unawares as I painstakingly worked my way along the edge of a clearing, not far from where I’d entered the tree line the night before. Tired, hungry, and cold, I paused for a moment to catch my breath and take stock of my progress, as well as to check my course. Although it was dark, and all traces of Fred’s and my passing less than forty-eight hours’ prior had been covered by fresh snow, I felt confident that I’d seen this little clearing before. There were several tall pines standing near the opening to it that formed a gateway near the lower end, and though I was seeing it from a different angle, it looked awful damn familiar. When Fred brought me to the cabin in the snow tractor, we passed through this clearing, I was almost certain of it. It had to be the same clearing; I was staking my life on it. Just knowing this, and the fact that I hadn’t wondered off in the wrong direction during my struggles through the dark of night, boosted my moral tremendously.

  Looking around the clearing, and gazing even momentarily into the rising sun just a short distance above the eastern horizon, I realized that without my sunglasses, I was bound to develop snow blindness very quickly. My only option was to stay to the denser woods that offered more shade and to avoid the wide-open clearings as much as possible. Of course, that meant I wouldn’t get the benefit of drawing warmth from the sun. And without food to replenish the calories that my body was burning just to stay warm, I would need to find suitable shelter that much sooner.

  At the moment, my chances of surviving to find Sandy’s cabin, much less any other form of shelter before it got dark, weren’t looking very good. My head was aching from the cold and I was shivering despite the suit. When I considered the amount of effort I was putting into walking, I should have been covered in sweat and overheating.

  As I worked my way beneath the heavily snow-laden limbs, always heading in the general direction from which I remembered coming up the mountain, I contemplated the idea of killing a wolf for its meat. The more I considered it, though, the more I found it a waste of time. Since I had no means of lighting a fire with which to cook it, I would have to eat it raw. And to further complicate the situation, I also didn’t have a knife with which to butcher the meat from its bones, leaving only my bare teeth.

  My stomach knotted at the thought of ripping bloody flesh from a still-warm body with nothing more than my teeth. Not to mention the idea of eating raw flesh from a beast that so closely resembles a dog. Their meat might be considered a food source in some countries even as late in the millennium as we’ve traveled, but it will never be the main course, or any other course, on my table!

  In a sort of disconnected way, I found it halfway amusing that I could be having thoughts that were so opposite of what the creatures were probably having. Even now, there could be no doubt that they were stalking me for their own survival, probably imagining the sweet taste of my warm, bloody flesh as they ripped it frantically from my bones.

  And yet, I held no ill will for them. Tomorrow, if I survive that long, my own hunger will have grown tremendously stronger, and my thoughts on the matter, might well have changed. Like an old saying that I remember from somewhere far away and long ago about the hunted becoming the hunter.

  Even though I was having these thoughts, I hadn’t been pushed that far over the edge just yet, in order for me to physically act on them. But if I lived through this day and survived the night, tomorrow might be a whole other story.

  According to the sun, it was nearing high noon when my ears picked up the sound of barking dogs. My heart froze in my chest as a bolt of panic and terror shot up my spine. Frantically, realizing that it was the wolves hot on a scent, I scoured the immediate area around me for a place to hide. There was neither the time nor the snow to bury myself, as my eyes went longingly to the trees surrounding me. If I can find a low enough limb to grab, I could pull myself up to safety and wait for them to leave.

  The barking was growing louder by the second as I stood still, not seeing the limb that I needed. The wolf pack had picked up my scent and was coming down on me fast. It wouldn’t take but a few short minutes before they caught up to me and tore me from limb to limb. To try to outrun them would be futile.

  Turning, I nervously glanced back in the direction from which their barks were coming, expecting to see them within feet of where I stood. But due to the denseness of the trees, and the slope of the terrain, it would be impossible to see them until they were right on top of me, literally.

  While my mind raced, searching for a plan, a small thought deep in the back of my head said that the beasts had gone back to where the cabin had been in search of food, and somehow had stumbled across my scent trail. Suddenly, in the forefront of my head, an idea struck me. It dawned on me that if I can’t see them coming until the last second, then they probably can’t see me until the last second either. They were following a hot scent-trail by using their noses, not their eyesight. There was a very good chance that I would see them mere seconds before they saw me, but it might be enough.

  Moving quickly, pushing my stressed-out limbs beyond their limits, I turned and ran to the nearest tree. But instead of climbing it, I continued on past it before turning and circling around. As I circled the tree, I rubbed my bare hands on the bark, reaching upward as high as I could. Then I hurried to the next tree and did the same. Breathing hard, but determined to keep up the pace, I repeated the routine with the next closest tree, and then the next, until I had done six trees. By now, their barking and growling was coming from just over the next hill. My instincts were screaming at me to run wildly into the forest to get away, but logic prevailed, showing me the futility in such madness.

  Instead, I took advantage of the adrenalin that was pumping through my veins, and ran crazily along my own back-trail, back towards the snarling and snapping creatures as if I were going to take them on with my bare hands.

  When I was sure they were about to appear over the mound ahead of me, I launched myself to the right, diving directly at a snowdrift that had collected in the shadow of the ridge. To my good fortune, the snow wasn’t compacted, and gave in easily to my impetus, effectively burying me almost five feet from my trail. For my plan to succeed, I needed the wolves to smell me on the trees and mistakenly assume th
at I had climbed one of them. If the wolves are confused by the scent on the trees, there’s a good chance that they will grow frustrated and give up, eventually leaving the area. Although I’d been lucky when I hid from them under the snow before, my confidence level still wasn’t very high.

  Though muffled by the snow, I could still hear their growling and snarling as they passed frustrated, just feet from where I lay. Out of fear of discovery, and the certain death it would bring, I lay motionless, the light curtain of snow my only protection. Whether from fear or cold, I wasn’t sure, but I clamped my mouth tightly shut out of fear that my teeth would start chattering and give me away.

  When I was running, I’d removed the magnum from my pocket. Now, I squeezed it tightly against my chest, my bare hand quickly growing numb from the cold. I was holding it and my breath, my heart pounding frantically. It amazed me that they couldn’t hear the beating from my chest.

  The snow covering my head was melting. A fine trickle of water ran into my upturned ear, blotting out the sound of the hunting wolves. The silence should have been bliss, but it only raised the level of my panic. Suddenly, I was sure they were moving closer, getting ready to pounce on my hiding place and drag me into the open, exposing my vulnerable flesh to their massive jaws.

  Clutching the magnum tightly to my chest, my breath held bottled within my throat, I physically forced every nerve ending into submission, willing myself not to shiver.

  I had to know what was going on! Had they moved on, were they heading back toward the cabin, or were they moving back down the slope and into the heavier timber? Summoning the remainder of my wits, I slowly turned onto my back, acutely aware of the water running deeper into my ear. But I could hear for the first time, and I realized too late that I hadn’t waited long enough.