The Dead of Winter
A trail of footsteps traced a line from brutality to brutality, extending beneath the watch-less gaze of Zoe Hadler. Her body slumped against the interior wall of a log cabin. A matte of blood and gore had frozen in long trails that caught her hair. Above her, a bullet hole matched the size and shape of the tunnel carved through Zoe’s cheek and cranium. To her right lay shattered picture frames beneath an extinguished fireplace. And in front, an open door let in initial flecks of snow.
Beyond the threshold stood a forest. The dense pine and birch trees stretched for miles: a canopy of deep green and white, interrupted only by the occasional bluff, and pocked with frozen lakes. Clouds weighed down on the afternoon sky. Shadows blurred, and the daylight took on a grey affect. The world was asleep, except for the foxes and wolves and hunters who stalked the snowy landscape.
Far away from the cabin and Mrs. Hadler’s corpse, a murder of crows leapt, screeching, into the air. Beneath them, Jeremy Hadler trudged through the snow. He panted and gasped. His breath emerged from beneath a scarf that enwrapped his face. A twig snapped behind him, and he whipped to face the sound. He clutched a revolver, and pointed it slowly around him.
There was nobody. A fresh pile of snow had fallen from one of the boughs overhead.
Jeremy clenched his teeth, and waited. He breathed through his nostrils. Each time he sucked in, he felt the hairs in his nose stick together. It felt like something clogging a chimney.
After an eternity of silence, Jeremy lowered the gun. He shoved it into his pocket, and hurried away.
Another twenty minutes of walking, slow and exhausting, carried Jeremy past a thicket of blueberry bushes, through a nest of cattails, and to a low hill where rounded cliff-faces arced down to the surface of a lake. He stopped and sat. The cold bit his nose and ears, but he felt sweat soaking into his undershirt and the sleeves of his coat.
He pulled a worn packet of paper from his pocket, and surveyed the landscape. He scolded himself for not bringing a compass. For not packing enough food. For not thinking.
A light dizziness swept over Jeremy. A prickling sensation started in his forehead and cheeks, and he felt it slowly melt down his neck and into his body. He felt drained. Jeremy slid forward, then lay down atop the cliffside. The coolness he felt was relaxing, and he felt his dizziness fading.
The light was fading. A light blue color was overtaking the grey. He needed to hurry.
Jeremy sat up. He took out a canteen, and gulped down a mouthful of water. Then another mouthful. He screwed the cap back on, and replaced the canteen. The map lay on the ground next to him, and he picked it up again. There was still enough light to read by, and he had only one choice to make now: which direction to head.
The bent and torn pages were scattered with blotches of blue and green. Grey lines swerved and curled, tracing the rises and dips of the land making up the wilderness. This lake was oblong, and there was a small island at the end he could see. He tried to match it to any of the shapes on the map.
Jeremey peered at the sky again. He’d started walking east, but didn’t know how true he’d kept to that heading. It was hard to tell which direction the sun was setting. The clouds made it difficult, and the trees obscured the differences in light further. He took a guess at how far he’d travelled, and traced an arc of area he could have covered from the cabin.
There were multiple lakes with islands. One of them led out into a small river that wound north. He would need to walk along the edge of the lake to discover if there was an outlet for a river. And if it wasn’t this lake, he’d have to consult the map again, and under worse light.
Jeremy sat for another five minutes, eyeing potential landmarks: an outcropping with a wrangled tree, a tree that had been split in half by lightning. He thought that yes, this should be the lake with the river. And if it was, he could follow the river to an old campsite he’d used several times. He usually travelled there by canoe, along a longer, lazier route. But he had stashed some food rations there, along with a tent, and some firewood.
It was that or head south.
Jeremy exhaled deeply, and his heart pounded at the idea. He folded up the map and stuck it back into one of his coat pockets, and marched on.
A trail led down from the top of the cliff to the water’s edge. Normally, he would have to weave between the trees at the forest's edge to follow the lakeside. The ice was thick enough to walk on, though; it had been for a month and a half. He could follow the shore without trudging through trees and underbrush.
Jeremy walked out onto the lake. The snow was thinner here. The wind had blown it into small dunes, and in some places had cleared the ice of any snow. He walked across the bay he was currently standing in, turning around the point, and continued until he reached a wedge-shaped corner in the tree line. Brown tips of tall grass jutted out from beneath the snow. A clearing banked by saplings on either side cut through the forest.
Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief. He had guessed correctly about the river. And now he knew where he was.
But now that he knew, that left one choice for him to make, and no more time to put it off. He could follow the river, continue north, and escape. Or, he could turn away from the river, south, to civilization.
There was a chance he could live peacefully if he went south, not attracting attention. He could slip by unnoticed, and invent a new name. Not getting caught, that was the risky part.
Or, he could keep walking. He’d come this far, and shelter wasn’t too far away. If he survived the night, he could survive another. And another after that. As a boy, he’d dreamed of disappearing into the wilderness, living out his life as a hermit. He could find his place in harmony with nature.
All he had to do was choose. Right or left?
The light was nearly gone. Somewhere behind the veil of clouds, a sunset was hidden.
Jeremy had fallen in love with this land when he was young. He used to explore the lakes and forests with his father, then on his own. Modern standards had intervened in his life -- he found a job, a wife, an apartment in the city. But moving out here, to a patch of land miles from the next human, had been a homecoming. He’d forgotten the quiet, the stars, the howling duet of the wolves and the loons.
As he thought back on the last two years, Jeremy knew that he couldn’t give it up. This land was a part of him, and he a part of it. He couldn’t extricate himself without losing a part of what made him him.
With a grim smile, Jeremy started tracing his way between the frozen weeds and the cattails and the trees, following the river wherever it took him, and to whatever came next.
Jeremy felt the first flakes of snow catching in his eyelashes, and realized he had been staring at the ground in front of him as he walked. He peered up and around at his surroundings. A breeze was beginning to flow around him. The snow fell at a slight horizontal. Large clumps of flakes broke apart when they collided with his jacket.
A line of trees was barely visible against the evening sky, now almost black. Their silhouettes loomed about a hundred feet away, forming the spine of a small island. The lake was wide and long. The shoreline faded into the distance, and disappeared before it reached the horizon.
Jeremy reached the island in a couple of minutes. His foot dropped through a thick snowbank, and he felt small rocks pressing against the sole of his boot. He smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours, and felt his dry lips splitting in the center. His nose and cheeks felt raw, and his fingers were numb. He scoped the edge of the lake.
Tracks led back from where he stood to the shoreline, visible only by their shadows. From here, Jeremy could see the unsteady zigzag he’d cut across the ice. He waited, and watched. Far away, he heard a howl, and it echoed back from the opposite shore a moment later.
The trees swayed, but as far as he could see, there was no other movement.
“Hmphh,” he grumbled, and stepped farther inland. From his pack, he drew a box of matches and a lantern. The match caught, but his trembling fingers dropped it in the snow before he could like the lantern.
“Shit.”
Jeremy swallowed, and took off his gloves. His fingers took deliberate effort to uncurl, but he could move each of them. Kneeling down, he clenched the matchbox along the top of the lantern, and struck another match against it.
The flame sputtered to life, and then blew out. He lit another one, and held it closer to his body, before stuffing it beneath the glass. The wick started to glow, and a steady flame took shape. Jeremy removed the match and tossed it into the snow. He replaced his gloves.
Holding the lantern in front of him, he searched the trees. Their trunks were covered with snow on one side, and he began wiping away sections of it around eye-level. It took him several minutes to locate a birch tree near the center of the island with an “X” carved into its truck. The bark was peeling and curled at its edges, but the scar he’d left was still visible.
Jeremy stooped down, fetched a spade from his pack, and started scooping the snow away from the base of the tree. He cleared a space the size of a child’s coffin away, and started chipping at the frozen soil.
He dug for a while before he heard the distinct thud of metal striking wood. Jeremy cleared away more of the dirt, and eventually knelt before a wooden box that had been latched shut. When he opened it, Jeremy didn’t think he would ever be so happy to see folded canvas and tent spikes. Beneath those, several cans and a bundle of rope lay.
Jeremy got to work making a camp. He selected a spot sheltered by pine trees, and relatively flat, once the snow was packed down. By lantern light, he erected the tent, then set up a campfire from a stash of firewood that he hadn’t felt the need to hide.
As he sat beside the crackling fire, he massaged his fingers, extending them towards the fire. They prickled, blood slowly reviving them. Dried meat thawed on a stone beside the fire.
Once again, Jeremy looked around. He couldn’t see the edge of the trees or the lake from here. The snow was falling heavier, but at a gentle pace. Snowflakes disappeared into the flames licking the darkness.
It was still beautiful. The fire cast the nearby snow and trees in shades of gold that faded to blue and, eventually, black. Shadows danced out from the fire like spokes on a wheel; they flicked back and forth in a blur.
Jeremy was chewing a piece of jerky when his eyes landed on a glowing disk several feet away from him, no larger than a coin. He froze, and his heart leapt. But he calmed himself after the initial shock.
The disk blinked, and soon bobbed away. It was just a rabbit, Jeremy thought. He smiled at his own foolishness. He also smiled because it felt good to be in the wild again. Out on his own without anyone else to rely on. Without her.
At that thought, his stomach felt lighter, and he stopped chewing.
Zoe loved it out here, but hated the isolation of it all. She was the better hunter. From the day Jeremy met her, he’d known Zoe to be an expert shot. And yet, it was her corpse that lay freezing against a wall, miles away.
They were inseparable at the start. The two of them fished, hunted, cooked as a pair. They drank over-strong coffee in the mornings, and at night they’d drink beer and make love.
Zoe loved to draw, and her notebooks were filled with sketches of the plants and animals that lived around them. More than a few lewd drawings of Jeremy were tucked away in those pages. Her proudest drawings were displayed on the walls, in the hopes that one day a visitor would be able to enjoy their artistry.
Jeremy diverted his thoughts from the last days. He tried to think on the splendorous corner of the world he was encamped in, but it didn’t work.
What had started the fight? He couldn’t remember. Something stupid. Something stupid ran in the family, he told himself.
A wolf howled in the distance. It sounded like it was mourning.
Jeremy’s eyes stung, but he couldn’t tell if it was smoke from the fire or his own thoughts. He lay down facing the fire, and let his eyes drift into the middle-distance, somewhere past the flames. He was tired, but he wasn’t ready to sleep.
So instead, he waited. And watched. And let his thoughts drift like so many embers.
Jeremy stood up, and walked slowly away from the dying fire. The snow crunched beneath his feet. His legs groaned from sitting still for so long.
It wasn’t clear how much time had passed. He had thrown extra logs on the fire twice, but had decided to let it burn itself out now. As soon as he stepped away, he felt colder than before he started the fire.
Jeremy shuffled a few paces away from his camp. He picked a tree, undid his buckle, and felt a sensation of relief wash over him as he peed.
Once he finished, he re-did his pants, hugged his coat tighter, and started walking back to the fire.
There was a loud click directly in front of him, and Jeremy saw the gleam of metal from the other side of the campfire. He reached for his pistol and jerked his hand forward, aiming it into the darkness.
“Not another step, Mr. Hadler,” creaked a low voice. Jeremy didn’t recognize it. “Don’t even think about pulling that trigger, or it’ll be the last thing you do.”
Jeremy breathed rapidly. He kept his gun pointed straight ahead.
“Go away,” he said. His voice quivered. “I’ll shoot. Don’t think I won’t. Go away now, okay?”
“I hear,” said the man. “But I’m not leaving, because I know what you did.”
The rifled moved closer to the fire, and Jeremy saw a man with a fur coat and hat emerge from the shadows. Dark, bushy eyebrows and a rusty beard encrusted with snow and ice framed a set of baggy, reddened eyes.
“I don’t even know who you are,” said Jeremy.
“That’s alright. Name’s Albert Mason. Did Zoe ever mention me?”
Jeremy blinked, then shook his head.
“No, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about! I- I’m not… How do you know Zoe?” his face twitched as he held the gun steady. Albert Mason didn’t move, didn’t blink.
“I’m a friend of you wife’s,” said Mason. Jeremy pursed his lips, and blinked rapidly. “Oh, no, nothing like that, Mr. Hadler. I’m a friend from Chicago. Zoe and I grew up, even went to school together.”
The branches above them shook, and Jeremy’s grip on the pistol tightened. He licked his chapped lips. He tasted blood.
“I can prove it to you, Mr. Hadler, but I need to reach into my pocket to show you.” Jeremy shook his head, but it was closer to a shiver. Mason continued, “And if I reach into my pocket, I will need to lower my rifle, and if I do that, I need to know that you won’t shoot me. Do you understand?”
Jeremy leaned his head to the side, lining up his eye with the sight.
“Don’t you move!” Jeremy shouted. “I said don’t!”
“Mr. Hadler, I could shoot you dead with the slightest twitch of this little finger. If I reach into my pocket, it won’t be a trick. But before I can, I need you to say the words, ‘I will not shoot you.’ So?”
Jeremy breathed deeply. His legs were shaking, and if he hadn’t just emptied his bladder, he might have wet himself on the spot. His thoughts raced, but after a moment, he nodded his head.
“That’s not good enough; I need to hear the words.” Mason’s voice was louder this time, but his face remained as stern as an iron statue.
Jeremy kept nodding, and said, “I… I will not shoot you.”
“Good.”
Mason lowered the rifle slowly. His eyes didn’t move from Jeremy’s, and he kept his right finger on the trigger. With his left, Mason reached into a pocket inside his jacket. He pulled out a packet of three or four pages of paper, folded into thirds. There was writing on the pages scrawled in black ink.
“I believe,” said Albert Mason, holding the pages in front of him, “that you will recognize your wife’s handwriting.”
Mason tossed the pages on the ground away from the campfire, but still between them. They landed in the snow, and the edges started to dance in the breeze. Jeremy’s eyes flicked back and forth between them and Mason. He shuffled one foot at a time towards the paper. Jeremy’s hands still shook.
Mason motioned to the stack of logs nearby, and said “May I?”
Jeremy huffed, and eventually nodded. Mason leaned toward the logs, and Jeremy took the opportunity to snatch the papers from the ground. He kept his gun trained on Mason, but his eyes scanned the lines of cursive script.
“Those are letters I received from your late wife.” said Mason as he set one of the large logs upright beside him. Next, he reached for a similar-sized log, and rolled it towards Jeremy’s feet. Mason sat down on the log next to himself, and continued. “We kept quite the correspondence. She told me all about you and her. Zoe even invited me to visit once or twice.”
Jeremy scanned through the lines of writing. It was Zoe’s handwriting; he knew it just as he could recognize one of her drawings. And signed at the bottom of each page or two, her signature.
“Where did you get these?” Jeremy asked. His mind was still reeling.
“From Zoe, of course,” Mason chuffed. “Weren’t you listening? Here, take a seat.”
Mason’s free hand extended towards the log he had rolled to Jeremy. Jeremy tilted his head.
“I won’t hurt you. I don’t know if you know, but there’s a storm blowing in tonight. Neither of us is leaving anytime soon. In the meantime, we might as well keep each other company.” Mason shrugged and shook his head.
The snow had gradually gotten worse as the two of them had talked. Even behind the cover of trees, Jeremy could feel the wind picking up. He heard the sound of branches rustling overhead, the occasional thump of snow knocked to the ground.
Jeremy kept his gun pointed at Mason, but eased himself down. He breathed easier, and relaxed his grip.
“Good man,” said Mason.
“And after the storm?” asked Jeremy.
“Well,” Mason nodded. “After this passes, I’ll be taking you into custody. We’ll head back to your cabin, where the police will meet us. And then you and I will go our separate ways.”
Jeremy shook his head.
“I ain’t going back there.” He swallowed. “Not ever again.”
Mason was silent for a moment. Then, he squinted his eyes, and said, “You know, Zoe told me that you and her were having… fights, shall we say? She said you were spending more time alone; you got angry sometimes.”
Jeremy remembered the fights. He remembered his fights with Zoe. He remembered his father’s fights with Jeremy’s mother. But it had never gone that far with his parents.
“That’s part of why I decided to finally pay a visit. Zoe and I were thick as thieves when we were young, and I started to get scared. Of course, she never was. That shouldn’t surprise either of us, I mean… she was Zoe. And when Zoe set her mind to something, there wasn’t a man on Earth that could stop her.
“So, when I told her to leave, even for a week, I didn’t have a chance of convincing her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Jeremy is a good man. We made a life here, and we make it work.’ And after each fight, she reassured me of one thing. That her husband loved her. And she loved him.”
Mason reached back toward the firewood, and dropped a smaller log on top of the fire. The standing logs broke apart, sending a flurry of embers into the air, and fresh flames began to lick at the bottom of the new log. Jeremy watched it start to burn.
“But do you know what I saw when I stopped by your cabin today?” Mason’s nostrils flared. “It wasn’t love.”
Jeremy’s lips quivered. His eyes looked glassy, and a trail of snot dribbled down his upper lip.
“It was an accident!” he cried. “I didn’t mean it. I-- I-- I tripped, and she was standing right there. And I didn’t--! She was yelling, and the gun was right there. Right there in her fucking face-- why? Why didn’t she? You don’t know a thing about Zoe. Not a thing. I gave her everything she ever wanted. We could have-- I would have listened. I listened to her every day. And we were perfect together. We were so in love. I loved her! I loved her more than you can ever--”
Jeremy’s speech dissolved into sobs. The snow that hit his face dissolved into drops of water that ran together with tears and spit and snot. He covered his face with his hands, still clutching Zoe’s letters in one hand and the gun in the other.
“I did. You lying bastard, I did, and I… Murdering son of a bitch-- I can’t… I can’t...”
Mason’s body tensed at Jeremy’s outbreak. Jeremy looked up from his fit, and saw Mason’s hands were both on the rifle once again. Jeremy waved the pistol at Mason’s face, and stumbled back, out of his seat.
The canvas of the tent was flapping in the wind. The noise all around them was growing louder. The fire lashed out against the air, fighting against it.
“Put down the gun, Jeremy,” said Mason. He remained seated, but held the rifle at his hip. “Put it away, and sit back down. Now, Jeremy!”
Jeremy’s breathing intensified, and he tried to swallow. He felt his throat tightening, but every breath of freezing air he inhaled seemed to make it shrivel even more. He started coughing into his shoulder.
Mason stood up.
“Stay--ack!” Jeremy tried to shout. He moved backward, away from the fire and toward the tent. He kept coughing.
Mason leveled his rifle at Jeremy’s chest.
“Slow down, Jeremy,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Jeremy just shook his head back and forth. His face was swollen and red. The snow was coming in faster now. A low moan moved through the forest, like trees bending and rubbing against one another. There was a crack, and a large branch fell nearby.
Jeremy spun, but his foot caught on one of the ropes tying down the tent. His arms pinwheeled, and he crashed into the snow on his left side. He gasped, trying desperately to regain his breath.
He heard footsteps, and rolled over. Mason stood over Jeremy, the rifle barrel in Jeremy’s face. Jeremy looked around, bewildered. Snow clung to his face in patches. He saw a patch of metal in the snow. The pistol had landed to Jeremy’s right, just out of reach.
“Lay down, Jeremy,” said Mason. “Save your energy. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”
Jeremy raised his hands and slumped back into the snow. He gasped, and slowly recovered his breathing. Mason remained still.
“I’m sorry,” said said Jeremy. His snow-caked face quivered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Mason nodded. “I know you are.”
Jeremy lay in the snow for some time. The tears felt hot on his freezing face. He looked back up at Mason, and took a breath.
Jeremy rolled.
Twin gunshots cracked through the storm, followed by four more.
Jeremy’s ears were ringing. He felt more than heard the crash as Albert Mason collapsed through the tent. Blood drizzled out of three bullet holes in Mason’s torso.
On the ground, Jeremy lay next to a blood-splattered hole in the snow. Tiny bits of flesh were scattered around it. Jeremy dropped the pistol, and reached for his left ear, but it was gone. His fingers found nothing but a gaping hole that dripped more blood onto the snowy ground.
Jeremy gasped. He could still hear his own breath, but it was muffled and distant, and only came from his right side.
Jeremy staggered to his feet. He felt dizzy and sick.
Nonetheless, he walked over to the crumpled tent, and looked down at the body that lay on top of it. Mason wasn’t breathing. One of the bullets had travelled straight into his heart.
Jeremy felt the panic rising in his chest again. He had felt it once before, earlier that day. It echoed in his memory along with the dim sounds of his boots rushing across wooden floorboards and a door swinging wide.
The fire was still lit, but it was struggling against the growing wind. The first light was beginning to creep back into the sky. Jeremy could see without the firelight.
He moved without thinking. First, he scooped up the remains of his supplies, and shoved as many as he could into his pack. He looked inside, and found a box of spare bullets he had packed. To think, he had only intended to use them on bears or, if he got desperate, deer.
Jeremy picked up the revolver, reloaded it. Then, he replaced everything, strapped the pack on, and ran.
The wind howled, but Jeremy could only half-hear it.
His eyes were bleary, and his eyelashes kept freezing together. It was light out, but all he could see was an endless white expanse.
The lake stretched on for miles, but Jeremy could no longer tell which direction he had come from. The tracks behind him were quickly blown away or filled in by the storm.
Snow whipped past at intense speed. Each flake that managed to hit an exposed part of his face felt like a tiny bullet whizzing past.
Jeremy’s thoughts were scattered. He kept returning to the image of Zoe, then of Mason. He imagined wolves finding their bodies, and pulling them apart. At the end of it, all he could think about was the destination: the wilderness. He could still escape. He’d been caught, but he had gotten away. Something stupid. It runs in the family.
Time slipped away into the blankness of the storm.
Jeremy realized that he couldn’t feel the gun in his hand. He looked down, and tried to let go. But he couldn’t; his grip was too tight. He pulled at the gun with his other hand. Finally, the gun dropped free, but it took his right glove with it.
Jeremy saw a crumpled claw of a hand. The tips of his fingers were black, and even the snow didn’t seem to hurt it any more.
He kept walking, leaving the glove behind.
On he pushed into the snow.
Jeremy felt himself getting tired. His legs were sore. He couldn’t feel his feet either. He needed to sleep. He wanted to.
Jeremy dropped to his knees. His voice was raspy, and his lips dry. He tried to lick them, but his tongue was just another dry piece of flesh.
The snow was soft, and when he finally laid down, he could feel it blanketing him. The memories were fading, and Jeremy just wanted to rest.
When the storm cleared, a field of white betrayed no hint of Jeremy’s body. Ice extended to the horizon on all sides. There was no movement except the slow swirling of snow in the breeze. There was no sound.