Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20181001043025

This is an unpublished story I wrote a couple of years ago. Considering maybe rewriting it in a kind of gothic style.

The Wolves of Saskatchewan

 

I can hear the wolves. Howling… howling incessantly outside the cabin. Those howls… they’re long and mournful…. But hungry, too, almost begging this cold, unforgiving world for sustenance of any kind. And it’s cold. So cold that, despite having on layer upon layer of clothes, I can still feel the air creeping in and gnawing at my bones. And it’s been like this for the past four nights: me sitting in cold solitude while I listen as the wolves slowly move in closer from the black skeletal forests that surround this place for miles in every hopeless direction.

We’d come here—Pranav, Clayton, and I—from a small college town in Manitoba called Andary, where we attended the college there. Pranav was my roommate on campus, and also my childhood friend. It was almost winter break, and as neither of us could afford taking on the day-long drive into the US to see our families in our hometown of Maysville, Tennessee, we decided instead to rent a rural cabin in Saskatchewan from an old man who occasionally summered there with his wife. A few days before we left, Pranav asked his friend Clayton if he wanted to come as well, since he wasn’t doing anything for the break, either. I didn’t really know Clayton all that well, but I didn’t see any harm in it. Besides, Clayton had a rifle that we could use to hunt with. And so, when the day came, we packed our things and left, driving about five hours into the woods until we reached the cabin.

It was old-fashioned, just like the old man had said, with no electricity or phone service. It was cozy, though, and it was a pleasant break from the stress of college life. That was ten days ago.

After our first day, which was mostly spent with us getting settled in, we spent the days and shooting various small game. About six days ago, Clayton found some wolf tracks, and for the next two days we spent our time tracking them down and hunting them using Clayton’s rifle as well as one we found in the bedroom closet. We killed a fair number of them, too, probably about seven or eight of them.

I’d come with two of my friends, Paul and Kareem, from a city in Manitoba called Andary, where we attended college. It was Christmas vacation, and as all of our families were at least a few days south into the US, we decided to instead spend our two weeks of freedom away from the city and. So, we rented a cabin up in Saskatchewan from an old man who occasionally summered there with his wife. We packed our things and left, driving about five hours into the woods until we reached the old cabin. It was old fashioned, just as the old man had said, with no electricity or modern technology of any kind and out of reach of any Wi-Fi. It was cozy, though, and it was a pleasant break from the normal hustle and bustle of life back home in Andary. That was eleven days ago that we arrived.

Due to the fact that the cabin had no electricity, much less any modern system of heating, we had to rely on firewood to keep warm. When we arrived, we had enough firewood to use comfortably for a few days. When we started to get low on wood, Paul went out to get some firewood one morning. That was four days ago. After Paul never came back that day, Kareem went searching for him that afternoon, but he never came back, either.

That night was the first night that I heard the wolves. They wailed and howled mournfully the whole night far in the distance. I tried to ignore it, but their mornings chilled me to the core. There was something foreboding about it; unnatural, even. I can't quite pinpoint what it is that’s so chilling about the howling, but it is not like the normal bemoaning of wolves. I’ve heard wolves plenty of times before, I’m no stranger to hiking and camping. Like I said, I don't know what it is about them, but there's something wrong about these creatures.

The morning after Kareem left and never came back, I set out to look for him, grabbing an extra rifle I found in one of the cabin’s many closets (Kareem had taken the one we brought). It hadn't been long after dawn when I’d first set out, but it wasn't until about midday that I came across a pile of human bones in a hollow several miles away from the cabin. I immediately hurried back, alternating between running and jogging the entire way, sometimes even flat-out sprinting. When I finally made it back in one piece, I ran inside and packed all of my things as quickly as I could, not even stopping to rest or catch my breath. I knew that those bones had to be my two friends, because I saw two sets of skeletons, and we’re at least a hundred miles from any known civilization, so they couldn't possibly have been anybody else. But when I ran out to the car, I found it completely ripped to shreds, as if it had been through a can-opener.

It hadn't been that way when I first came back.

With night soon approaching, I quickly locked and barricaded all the doors and windows. I’ve been in here for three days now, not daring to go out for firewood, even though I’m completely out and it's well below zero. Currently I’m trapped in this constricted cabin with a raging blizzard outside and those damned wolves only a few dozen yards away from the cabin, snarling and howling incessantly. I peeked through a window a few minutes ago, but all I could see was darkness and snow. The wind is rattling the shutters, and every now and then I’ll hear a particularly loud thump against the walls, and I’m not sure that it's the wind making that noise.

•• • ••

Every now and then I’ll take a quick glance outside, just to see what these monsters of the snow are up to. They're getting closer, now, and I can just barely make out enormous black shapes the size of minivans, some bigger, prowling around in the snow. It's the first time I've been able to get a look at them since they started their hunt against us, and now I know for sure that there is something seriously wrong with these wolves. It's hard to be sure, but they seem to be talking to each other in some way. It's not like human speech, but there's a quality in their snarled and howls that suggests intelligence far beyond that of normal wolves… like some sort of language. Their movements are eerily synchronized, even more so than you usually see with pack animals. It's not like the individual cooperation that you usually see, it's as if they wove with a single mind… as if they moved like a river… choreographed perfectly with one another as they race back and forth around the house in slowly but steadily tighter circles as they close in for the kill.

•• • ••

I’ve tried shooting at them, and I’ve hit every time because they're so close, but these bullets seem to have no effect on them whatsoever. It's as if I’m shooting air. But to conserve ammunition for when they do make it inside, I’ve stopped shooting and am now holed up in my bedroom. As I write this, I can hear them just outside these dry wooden walls, scratching and bellowing. I don't know why they don't just break their way through, I know they easily could after seeing what they did to the car in the few minutes it took me to pack. It's as if they're waiting for something. Or maybe they're just toying with me before they come to finish me off. I have my gun pointed at the barricaded bedroom door, waiting for that inevitable moment they finally break through my feeble attempts to keep them out. But I don't think this gun will help me very much. 