HYBRID KILLERS

by Will Decker

  At the time that I decided to lease a wilderness cabin, I was in a deep depression, and rapidly spiraling downward. But all that changed the day I met Sandy. For the first time since the tragedy, I felt a growing desire to live again. And now that I knew there was still hope for me, I was determined not to let some wild animals take it away.

  Nursing a black cup of cold java, I stared at the ceiling until the first rays of the false dawn signaling the start of a new day started creeping through the dirty glass of the cabin windows. It was time to get moving. I needed all the daylight possible. The days were short enough as it was, and to be caught trekking through the wilderness come nightfall and subzero temperatures, was not a very enticing thought. Gulping down the last dregs from my cup, I carefully refastened the snaps on my snowsuit and checked the laces of the boots. Although I wasn’t hungry, nerves had seen to that, I forced down several of the cold, syrup-laden pancakes that I’d planned to leave behind for bait.

  I snapped my gloves to the sleeves of the snowsuit so that I wouldn’t lose them, and then threw the heavily laden ditty bag over my shoulder. Holding both the gun and the handle to the lantern in my left hand, I tucked the snowshoes under my left arm, and then took a deep breath and held it. Expecting the worst, with my right hand, I flung the door inward and stepped out.

  There was nothing there, and I hurriedly ran forward, not stopping until I’d put more than twenty feet between the front of the cabin and myself. If the wolves were going to pounce down on me from the roof when I came out, they would have to catch me before I was out from under them.

  But now, spinning around with the gun leveled and ready to fire, there wasn’t any sign of them. I was far enough back from the edge of the cabin to see the rooftop clearly in the growing dawn light. Yet, there wasn’t a trace of anything on the roof except for snow. Snow, splintered and broken shingles, and one large gaping hole near the fireplace chimney.

  Mesmerized by the extent of the damage, I was still gazing upward when the first beast suddenly charged out the front door, coming directly at me. All I could see were long yellow teeth and foam flying madly from its mouth. Its eyes were zeroed in on my silhouette against the backdrop of virgin snow. Without thinking of my next set of actions, nor realizing that they would form the start of this new day, I dropped the lantern and drew a bead on the creature’s head. In two bounding strides, the beast would be on me, driving me backwards, its teeth searching skillfully for the vein of life in my throat. Almost too calmly, I squeezed the trigger.

  The gun kicked and bucked in my hand with a deafening roar. The swiftly advancing creature recoiled crazily on its hind legs, pawing wildly at the dark sky before flopping lifelessly on its side. Emanating from its head was a solid dark stain that spattered wildly outward, reaching almost to the open door.

  In the growing light, the stain looked almost black against the brighter white of snow. I was frozen in time, the gun suddenly feeling warm to the touch; though I knew I was only imagining that part of it. Slowly, almost too slowly, time started moving again. Should I go to it? Should I make sure that it’s dead, and not suffering? Or should I turn and leave while I still could? But where were the others? Were there still more of the bloodthirsty beasts hunkering inside the cabin, suddenly too intimidated by the sound of the gun, or the sight of their dead comrade to come out? And how long will it take for them to get their courage back?

  While I contemplated these indecisions, I was suddenly aware of movement. However, it wasn’t the kind of movement you glimpsed from the corner of your eye; it was more of a vibration-type movement. The very earth beneath my feet was starting to move and shake.

  Understanding quickly replaced incomprehension as a movement high up behind the cabin caught my attention. To my ultimate dismay and horror, the shockwave from the gunshot had set off an avalanche, and it was coming straight down the face of the mountain, straight toward me. This was even worse than the sight of the wolf charging toward me just moments earlier. There was nowhere to run, and the gun couldn’t protect me.

  As if warned by some deep, inbred instinct, the rest of the wolves in the cabin quickly abandoned their search for food. Unlike the first beast that charged toward me from the open doorway, these didn’t even see me. With a speed and grace that I could only look at longingly, they ran for the shelter of the trees at the far end of the clearing. If the smell of fresh blood did anything for them, it spurred them to even greater speed. They never even paused as they shot past their fallen comrade and then me.

  Leaving the lantern lay where I dropped it, and with the snowshoes still tucked beneath my left arm, I turned and ran after the retreating wolves. Something told me to drop the ditty bag, to drop the snowshoes, that they would do a dead man no good. But I was too busy running, trying vainly to outrun the impending doom that was crashing thunderously down behind me.

  With the wolves rapidly outpacing me, I followed their path through the snow; there wasn’t time to stop and fasten on the snowshoes. Everything was happening much too fast, and I was moving way too slow. Already I could tell that I’d be lucky to make it a fourth of the way to the protection of the trees before the avalanche caught up to me. Despite my strongest efforts, I was about to be buried alive. Yet, my will to survive had never been stronger, and I pushed my legs to go faster, drawing on the adrenaline of the moment to speed me through the snow.

  But it wouldn’t be enough.

  With the roar of cascading snow growing louder with each passing second, I was suddenly lifted off my feet and thrust forward, rolling head over heels. The snowshoes were torn wickedly from my grasp, while I held even tighter to the handle on my ditty bag. It had developed a life force of its own and was pulling me witlessly through the ever-increasing weight of snow. My body was being battered from all directions and yet there was no sense of direction. There was no telling if I were up, down, dead, or alive. The forces of nature rolled me and buffeted me mercilessly. Yet, despite the crushing forces slamming against me, I didn’t believe anything had broken. My ribs were still tender from striking the floor earlier, and now they were screaming in agony, making it almost impossible to breathe, but I was rolling with the punches.

  Suddenly everything stopped. I was trapped in an immense silence. The only sound was coming from inside my head. My ears were echoing with the roar amidst the pounding of my blood as it hammered in my chest. But through it all, I was alive!

  Out of fear, I lay motionless for the longest moment. If I tried to move, would I be disappointed? I’d seen enough avalanches in the movies to know that I was probably buried beneath tons of snow and ice. I was alive, but for how long? There was a pocket of air surrounding my head, but how long will it last before I suffocate on my own carbon dioxide? Or will I succumb to the cold and freeze to death first? As long as I was breathing, there was still a chance of surviving. I mustn’t give up.

  Slowly, gradually preparing myself for the worst, I mustered the courage to try moving. My right arm jerked free, surprising me by how little resistance I felt. Arching my back while bringing my arms around to where I believed them to be under me, I slowly forced myself to my hands and knees. With immense relief, I discovered that I wasn’t buried at all!

  Swinging around, I started kicking and tossing, ecstatic over my good fortune. In no time, I’d squirmed through the few inches of snow that had dusted over me, and I was lying on my back, the morning sun streaming down in my eyes. Slowly, almost gingerly, I rose to my feet, and then quickly sank to my waist in the churned snow. Furtively, I glanced around for the snowshoes, or anything else that I might be able to use. But all I could see was snow. Everything was gone, even the cabin had been carried away by the onslaught of snow.

  Turning around in a complete circle, my eyes hesitate on the trees, which appear considerably closer than I remembered them being. In addition, the snow has buried their lower limbs. Sitting back against the snow, I take a moment to contemplate my situation. Things aren’t looking very bright for m
e at the moment. Without the snowshoes, it will be impossible to hike to Sandy’s cabin, much less that of the landlord’s. All of my provisions, including anything that might have been left in the cabin, are gone. I’ve lost everything except the gun and the five remaining rounds in the cylinder.

  My hat is gone, but I still have my mittens, thanks to the endurance of the snaps on the ends of the snowsuit’s sleeves. But it doesn’t matter. Without the snowshoes, I’ll be lucky to make two miles a day in this deep stuff. I’ll die from exhaustion and hypothermia long before I reach Sandy’s cabin, if I can even find her cabin. I was a dead man, and I was fooling myself if I thought otherwise.

  Nevertheless, I have to try. To stay here is certain death. Before long, the wolves will be back. The avalanche wouldn’t have caught them; they were too fast for it. They would have known instinctively where to run, where it would be safe for them. They had survived, of that I was sure, and now there wasn’t anywhere for them to go; they’ll come looking for easy prey. Soon, much too soon, they’ll come looking for me.

  No longer was there any bait to draw them away. And even if there were, I would eat it myself. It was time to get going. Already, the sun was halfway to the midway point, and I had a long way to go.

  **5**

  Because I had no recollection of the passing of time, I could only assume that I had been unconscious for a while. When the wolf charged out of the cabin, the sun was nothing more than a lighter horizon. Now, in what seemed like only a matter of minutes, it was shining brightly, less than two hours’ time before it would be high noon.

  Only because I counted on the snow being shallower in the trees than it was out here in the open, I slowly struggled toward the tree line. My breath sounded harsh to my ears, and ice crystals quickly formed around my nose. After ten minutes of struggling through waist-deep snow, I glanced back and discovered to my dismay that I’d barely moved twenty-feet from where I’d started. There was no way that I was going to make ten miles before nightfall. I could only hope that once I reached the lighter snow beneath the trees, I would make better time.

  Sometimes crawling, sometimes rolling, I worked my way doggedly toward the shelter of the trees. The going was slow and tedious, and by high noon, I was still quite a distance from the edge of the clearing. The sun was burning brightly, glistening off the snow, and penetrating my exposed eyes like a spray of salt. Spots were blurring my vision, forcing me to squeeze my lids shut against the stinging glare.

  When I first noticed the darker shadows moving swiftly through the trees, sometimes disappearing, and then quickly reappearing, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But when I glanced away, looking through the corners of my eyes, I could see the shapes more clearly.

  It was the wolf pack!

  I wasn’t really surprised. If anything, I expected them to return. It was inevitable. But I wasn’t ready for them yet. Neither physically, nor mentally, was I prepared for them. My body was fatigued, and it was taking all of my newfound desire to live just to continue fighting my way across the snow. Their ominous presence immediately dashed any remaining hopes of surviving. A heavy blanket of depression settled over me, my struggles momentarily ceasing.

  For just the briefest of moments, I lay down and gave up the fight. I let the depression cover me, envelope me. It was warm and encouraging, making it extremely easy to give up, to lie back against the cold snow, and feel it take over. It was in charge, and suddenly nothing mattered any longer, I was free to go.

  But then thoughts of Sandy standing alone outside her cabin flooded into the forefront of my mind. It was the way I’d last seen her, looking longingly after the snow-tractor as Fred took me away from her. She was alone in her cabin right now, and if I just kept fighting, I could be there with her. I couldn’t die! For Sandy’s sake, I couldn’t give up.

  Through the burning glare, I counted nine of them, and they were coming fast; or at least as fast as was practical considering the depth of the snow. It was almost comical watching them come at a beeline towards me as they leaped above the snow, and then momentarily disappeared beneath the surface, only to come bounding back up above it. Yet, as comical as it appeared, I wasn’t laughing. There were five rounds in the magnum with which to deal with this coming terror, and when those five bullets were gone, I had my bare hands and nothing more.

  Planting my feet in the loose powder, I rose to my full height, openly defying the approaching menace. They may have the strength and the numbers to overwhelm me, but they didn’t possess my determination to live. If I hadn’t just recently rediscovered it myself, I never would have known that such a driving force existed within me.

  “But I have something more than you!” I shouted loudly at them, trying to bolster my confidence. “I have the ability to think and to reason!” And then silently, I added to myself, “And that’s what separates us. That is why you must die, and I must live.”

  “So use your brain and think!” I scolded myself, vaguely aware that my fingers had grown stiff around the butt of the gun.

  Suddenly, like an epiphany, and with no thought of what I was doing, I stashed the gun safely in a zippered pocket, and started burrowing frantically into the snow. It had suddenly occurred to me that the beasts would need a scent trail to find me if they couldn’t see me. The avalanche had done away with any scent trail that I would otherwise have left, so if I can just stay out of their sight, they shouldn’t be able to find me. Although they’d seen me from the distance of the trees, in their chaotic effort to cross the clearing through the snow, I was willing to gamble that they wouldn’t remember exactly where they’d seen me. It was a long shot, but I couldn’t think of anything more promising, at the moment.

  Digging deeply into the snow, I suddenly slid my hands free of the encumbering mittens, and with my bare hands, created a burrow that closed in behind me. In no time, my body was exhausted from the effort, and I was struggling to breathe. The sheer weight of the snow felt crushing and inhibiting. On the verge of panic, I curled into the fetal position and waited. If the wolves discovered me, they would tear me from limb to limb before I could even maneuver into position to use the gun.

  The dead weight of the snow pressing down on top of me was more than just suffocating; it was utterly and completely depressing. Reaching deep into myself, I was surprised at the strength of my resolve, easily finding the determination to remain buried for as long as needed. But with-in minutes, the air had grown stale, taking on a bad taste. My lungs were pumping it in and out faster than it could filter through the snow. As the carbon dioxide level rose in the stagnant air, I began to feel groggy and tired. It was as if I hadn’t slept for many hours. But if I dozed, there was a very good chance that I wasn’t going to wake.

  My thoughts turned to Amy, and I found myself reliving her ordeal as the coroner had recited it to me. It was so vivid, almost as though I were there, part of the frustrated and confused mob that caused such unspeakable mayhem. Was it possible that she too felt a sleepiness come over her, much as the one that was coming over me?

  I found myself struggling to believe that she didn’t feel the tremendous pressure being exerted upon her frail little body as the crowd crushed her against the chain-link fence. She had died under extreme force; her lungs unable to expand and draw in the precious air that she so desperately needed to survive while looking through the chain link fence and seeing freedom just beyond her grasp. The pressure of the heavy snow that lies so densely over my own body, could it have been much different for my Amy, as the air was literally forced from her lungs? Or, God forbid was she acutely conscious of what was happening to her as her fragile bones broke and buckled under the pressure of all those bodies pressing against her?

  “GOD!” I screamed into the snow, my anguished cries turning to sobs. “Make the dreams go away! Please, God, make them stop. I can’t take any more of this.”

  My sobs slowly died, yet, my breathing didn’t slow. At some point in time, my mind had drifted off, and I doz
ed. The air tasted funny, almost coppery, with a hint of sulfur; I desperately needed fresh air. If I dozed again, I might not be so lucky as to wake up again. My breath was coming in gasps as my lungs were having a harder and harder time extracting the necessary oxygen from the stale air surrounding my face. If I didn’t do something soon, I would not have the strength for it shortly. Yet, I didn’t know what I could do.

  Slowly, I scraped at the snow in front of my face with my bare, frozen hands. However, since my body heat had warmed it earlier, causing it to thaw and then refreeze, my nails barely scratched the surface.

  On the verge of panic, I kept clawing at the frozen snow. Within minutes that dragged like hours, I finally succeeded in scratching my way through the layer of ice, breaking into the drier, softer fluff that hadn’t been affected by my body’s heat. My head was pounding from the cold and exertion and lack of oxygen. But I kept digging, tearing at the snow directly in front of my face while squirming and dragging my body along behind. It was tough going, but I was spurred on by the fresher taste of the air, and a sharpening of my senses; the snow covering was thin enough that it was filtering air through it.

  With renewed hope and energy, I worked feverishly with my frozen hands, slowly dragging my body along behind me, when suddenly my hand broke through the surface, grasping wildly at the fresh air.

  This was as far as I could go until I knew where the wolves were. Despite my thunderous headache, I hadn’t forgotten the reason for being under the surface of the snow. Pausing, I took deep breath after deep breath, pushing myself to the verge of hyperventilating until the headache subsided, and the ringing in my ears diminished.