“Damn it, Anne,” Henry said slamming the brakes. “Where’s the map.”
“Why are you snapping at me?”
“Because the truck’s low on gas and the road’s turned into a trail. Give me the map.”
“Here.”
“I can’t believe you brought us to this bum shit mountain forest. This place is a hole”, Henry said before throwing the map in the back seat.
“That’s not a nice thing to say, Henry.”
“I’ve got to piss.”
Henry stepped out of the truck and shut the door.
They were alone deep in the mountains of the southwest Yukon with no cell service, his wife’s idea of a honeymoon. Henry had hoped for tent sex tonight, but that fragile dream burst an hour ago when he’d blamed her for getting them lost. Even if they found their way clear of this fight, he knew Anne would only want to cuddle.
It was nightfall but Henry could just make out a clearing in the trees. He felt Anne’s eyes on his back and thorny bushes clawing his pants as he walked away from the road.
The thick forest quickly took him out of her sight. Henry had done this to women before: left them alone in a scary place after a fight. He smiled just before he stumbled over a tree root and fell to his knees. Eye level with a giant huckleberry, he stood up and drove his foot into the stalk snapping the plants woody stem. It felt good to hurt something. The gap left by the snapped bush allowed him to see the base of the next plant, and he stomped it down with his heel, followed by the next, and the next. It reminded him of breaking corn stalks as a kid. A light wind began to push through the trees causing Henry to look up into the wall of spruce surrounding the clearing. An owl called out, “WHOOO?” And Henry spun around before turning back and seeing the heart of the clearing: a giant churning pool of water.
He walked over and unzipped his fly at the edge of the spring; its teal water seemed to glow in the rising light of the moon.
“WHOOOO?” the owl called louder as Henry’s urine bubbles disappeared in the churn. The water was flush with the surface of the ground, but the spring’s basin went far below his feet. A light emanated from the pool allowing Henry to see fish treading below. Henry never saw water like this back in Kansas, where silt and farm runoff made swimming holes the color of chocolate milk. This looked like a great blue eye peering from the Earth out to the stars. He stared down into it for several minutes after he finished wondering what made the pool glow. He also wanted to make sure his wife got a little nervous.
On his way back, Henry gave some of the plants he had bent over a kick in the opposite direction before he got to the truck, opened the door, and discovered Anne was gone.
“Anne. You out here?” He said and started looking up and down the road.
Henry circled the truck and called her again from the opposite side. A ghostly moan pushed through the trees. Anne told him once that a sharp wind hitting pinecones can make these types of sounds. She was full of knowledge of this sort, and it annoyed him to have his quiet and plain wife know things he didn’t. Because if a quiet, plain woman knew more than him, what was he? But right now, he thought, the noise just kept his voice from finding his wife’s ears.
“Anne!” He said louder, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Anne!”
His heart began to beat in his ears. He heard his therapist’s voice say, calm down in that Bob Ross tone of his.
“ANNE!!!”
Henry opened the truck door and started throwing things out of his bag in search of a flashlight. After he dumped everything out of his bag he reached across to the other side of the cab and opened Anne’s leather bag. On the very top he found a map with handwritten notes he’d never seen. The yellowed map with symbols he didn’t recognize felt like tissue paper. While looking it over he heard a man’s voice say, “Hello.” The voice startled Henry who turned around quickly, only to find nobody there. “Hello?” He yelped searching the woods.
“I’m over here,” the voice said. “I didn’t want to scare you; people get shot that way.”
“Where are you?!”
“I found your woman walking the path. I thought she might need help. I’m coming out now. Do not be afraid.”
“You’re with Anne? Where is she?”
Henry saw movement. The darkness under a tree took form and a dark-skinned, long-haired man wearing jeans and a flannel stepped out.
“I’m John,” the man said. He was big, with wide shoulders, and had a deer’s alert eyes. “Come. We should not linger here in the dark.”
“Is Anne with you?” Henry looked over at the tree where John came from.
“She is at my cabin. It’s not far.”
“Should I bring the truck?”
“The truck will be fine, but we should hurry.” John scanned the treetops quickly.
“Why?”
“The forest is…mischievous. Come, your wife is waiting.”
The narrow unfamiliar path forced Henry to walk behind John whose braided black hair swung down nearly to his belt. Henry found he took two steps to John’s one and that he was falling behind and losing his breath. As they walked, Henry’s mind began calculating the timing of events from when he left the truck to now, and the length of time that had passed. He felt a wrongness to all of this, like a piece of the equation was missing. Before he could come to a conclusion, the path curved, and the trees pushed back into an opening. The light from a large window cast a yellow glow and the moonlight glistened off smoke that curled out of a round stone chimney.
“This is where you live?” Henry said.
“Sometimes,” John said opening the door. “Tonight, you and your wife may stay here as well.”
“We appreciate the offer, but if you’d give us directions we can head back. We don’t want to be a bother.”
“You can’t leave here. It’s dangerous to traverse these mountains at night.”
As the door opened, Henry saw Anne stand up from a rocking chair by the fireplace. Her hair was down; Henry couldn’t remember if it had been down before, she seldom wore it that way. Next to the fire her chestnut curls reflected the flames, and her edges glowed. Except for the light of the fire, the cabin was dark and smelled like it’d been closed up a long time. A bed sat in the corner with a blanket pulled tight and a small pantry next to it.
Henry felt pressured to break the sudden silence between the three as John closed the door, but before he could, something small growled and toddled out of the dark on four legs. Then another followed. Then another, until he saw five of the creatures. In the dim lighting of the cabin, they looked like little furry balls with legs.
“Oh Henry, aren’t they precious?”
Anne sat down cross legged on the floor. The balls with pointy ears mobbed her, snuggling in close and filling up the space around her legs with their furry bodies.
“What are they?” Henry asked, turning to John, who was studying Anne closely.
“Wolf pups,” John answered without averting his eyes. Anne met John’s gaze, and he quickly turned his face towards Henry and motioned towards the other chair with his hand. “Come. Sit down. Take off your coat. We can visit awhile before bed. Then I’ll tell you how you can get back to the highway in the morning.”
“They’re wolves?”, Henry asked. “Is it legal to own wolves?”
John laughed and sat down. “I don’t own them. I don’t even think they like me. Whenever I’m here they stay in that corner. They won’t even eat while I’m in the room. I found them a few weeks ago in the woods, half starved.”
Anne sat silently with her palms on the floor; the wolf pups laying all around her. It added to Henry’s troubled thoughts to see how comfortable she appeared. A piece of wood exploded in the fireplace causing Henry and John to jump, a hot coal flew onto the hearth but quickly turned dark. Henry reluctantly sat down. His rural midwestern values made him too polite to ask the questions pounding in his mind.
John broke the silence. “So, my friends, what brings you here?”
“We’re on our honeymoon,” Henry answered.
“Newlyweds. How long have you been married?”
“Oh, just a week.” Henry said, noticing Anne’s lips tighten over her teeth as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The pups all looked at him now with their ears perked.
“And how long was the courtship?” John continued. He started to rock the wooden chair in short twitchy jerks.
“Courtship?” The word struck Henry as odd. “Um, right…we met last spring. I took a few days to enjoy the mountains after an AG conference in Washington. I met Anne while we were both camping.”
John’s eyes moved to Anne who met his stare and leaned his way. He began rocking the chair in longer strokes now, gaining momentum. The pups stared at John now, their eyes reflecting the flames from the crackling fire.
“Anne, where were you born?”
“I think you know, John.”
“How would he know, Anne?” Henry asked, now looking visibly puzzled. “How would he know where you’re from?”
The big man twisted his neck briefly to eye the corner of the room behind him before turning back to Anne. The chair rocked back and forth now, fast and hard. One of the pups stood up followed by the rest. Anne leaned forward and looked like a coiled spring sitting on the floor.
“I’ve only heard old stories,” John said. “I never thought they were true.”
“I love old stories. Which one have you heard?” Anne said as her and John’s eyes locked.
Something outside howled and John planted his boots on the floor and pushed off, launching the rocking chair onto its back and stretching his arm toward the dark corner. Anne sprang from her butt to all fours and leapt at the same moment in one continuous motion. An axe flashed in the firelight and Henry screamed. John yelled a single word in a strange tongue. Then there was a sickening scream and Anne’s upper back swelled under her shirt with muscles Henry had never seen, just before the sound of bone severing under a heavy blade brought silence. The pups’ nails scratched on the floor as they scrambled towards the two; Anne stood up separating herself from John who just laid there.
“Oh my God Henry, thank God you found me,” Anne began to cry. “He was going to kill us both. He made me come here and said if I screamed or tried to leave, he’d kill you too.”
Henry’s stomach clenched before he vomited on the floor. One of the pups walked over and began eating it. Anne made a sharp clicking sound with her tongue and the pup went back to stand by the others.
Henry didn’t notice the pup as he wiped his mouth. “Oh my God. Is he dead?”
John’s eyes were wide open, the axe buried to the shaft in his flannel shirt.
“I think so. Oh, what do we do Henry?”
She seemed different now, almost helpless. Henry’s mind started working to try and make these warped parts fit together. A psychopath in the woods. Everybody would recognize that story.
“We have to backtrack until we get cell service and call the police. I hope we don’t run out of gas.”
“Oh Henry, this wasn’t our fault. We’re victims here.”
“Exactly. We’ll tell them what happened and-”
“A local killed in his home by outsiders. Henry, you know what that will mean for us. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Things die here all the time. Why would you put us at risk? Why would you put me and our baby at risk?” She gently held her stomach for a second. “Didn’t you promise to take care of me? You know I’ve never had anybody take care of me.”
Anne started to cry. Henry clenched his hands together, his heart raced. He slowed his breathing before making up his mind.
“I found a pool in the woods by the truck. We can take the body there.”
She pulled her hands away from her face. “Is that what you think would be best?”
Another howl rattled the old windows. A few of the pups tried to howl but what they managed was weaker and broken with a higher pitch. The hairs on the back of Henry’s neck raised. Anne stood up. Henry realized she was barefoot.
“Where are your shoes?”
“You’re kidding me, right? We just killed a man, and you’re going to ask about my shoes? We need to take care of this, Henry?”
Henry could still taste the vomit in his mouth. He felt sick again but willed it back.
“Maybe we should wait until morning,” Henry said looking out the window, thinking about what lay outside hidden in the forest. “John said this place is trouble at night.”
“He just wanted to trap us here, Henry. He forced me to come here and then came to get you.”
“But why didn’t he kill us on the spot.”
“Maybe he wanted to take his time and rape me. Who knows, maybe you too.”
Henry’s mind felt mushy, pliable. They could probably get away with it out here, he thought. Out here where things die all the time. “All right, Anne.”
Henry found a kerosene lantern and matches by the bed on a book of Scandinavian folklore. The lantern illuminated a large pool of blood, and the pups ran over and began lapping it up. Anne went outside and came to the front door with a wheelbarrow. Even together they couldn’t pick up John’s large limp frame. Anne extricated the axe from John’s chest and went back outside. She came back with a pole and a piece of rope. They tied the body’s legs and arms together, slid the pole under the rope, and, with one on each end, shouldered the man up enough to get him into the barrow.
The woods were silent. The pups fell in behind Anne as Henry squared up to the handles and began pushing the way they had come. He could hear Anne and the pups walking behind him. He noticed John had pissed himself.
After pushing uphill for a few minutes, he had to stop to catch his breath. Anne stood back with the pups who stopped when she did.
“These puppies,” Henry said panting. “They follow you…like you’re their mother…I didn’t know you were a dog person.”
“They’re not dogs, Henry.”
Something loud crashed in the brush in front of them.
“It’s probably just a scared moose,” Anne said. “Are you ready? We need to move.”
The light from the stars and moon let Henry see the pups better now than he could in the cabin. They were all white with big feet and square heads. Their eyes looked cold, like steel ball bearings.
“What kind of wolves are these?”
“I don’t know, Henry. We need to move.”
“This whole thing…something’s not right, Anne.”
“You mean like the dead guy we’re pushing in a wheelbarrow?”
“Yes. I mean, no. It’s more than that. I wasn’t gone that long, Anne. I was only a few hundred yards away. I should’ve heard something when you left…a door slam. Something.”
“Henry, let’s get this over with while it’s still dark.”
Henry shook his head, choked back more vomit, and grabbed the wheelbarrow handles. He was determined not to stop until they made it to the truck. The arms and long legs dangling over the side walls made it difficult to balance, but Henry managed. The last stretch to the truck was downhill. Henry started jogging to keep up with the momentum of the rolling dead man, leaving Anne and the pups behind. As he got close to the truck the wheel hit a large rock and Henry lost the handles toppling the wheelbarrow over into the woods. Henry groaned as he reached down and tripped over another tree root. Cursing, he gave it a kick. Then he froze. It was a hand sticking out of the ground. A hand wearing his wife’s wedding ring.
The End?