Previous Volumes
Volume 1 No. 1
The Last Winter by Sam Sawnick
She approached the icy shoreline. The lake was thoroughly frozen now, for a half mile at least. The morning sun was tucked away behind dusty gray clouds and if not for the slow-moving white ice along the horizon, there would be no distinguishing water from sky. She pulled her arms around her middle and braced against the wind.
The man waiting at the water was no friend. He was grotesque in every way she’d always thought mattered. His skin was wrinkled and his eyes were hollowed out, hollow from the type of life he’d lived more than the duration he’d lived it. He was unkind and spoke from the bottom of his throat, always muffled and strange. But no one could afford to be very picky about people anymore.
Under the unforgiving white winter sun the exposure was a constant now, and endless gray skies allowed for no shadows. Every morning they would meet at the shoreline, knowing they needed one another.
She made her way through the snow and sand. Cupping her hands to her mouth she asked, “Did you see it last night?”
He nodded and looked down.
She followed his gaze and saw the set of impossible looking tracks, starting from nowhere and going somewhere only more frozen. The creature had come for another visit.
Initially he’d laughed at her when she spoke to him about a fast shadow running along the icy shore. It was only after a week of telling him what she’d seen that he’d finally relented and admitted he’d seen it as well. The appearance of tracks was a kind of confirmation but it was far from comforting.
If it were not for the strange talon-like toes, the prints looked nearly human.
The man coughed and spoke through phlegm, “What do you make of it?”
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“This is, what? A foot of solid ice?” She took a step onto the lake and crouched down. “And there are splinters in the ice around each step, so it’s heavy. The toes look like they dig in every few steps, maybe part of how it maneuvers so quickly through the sharp ice?”
He nodded, staring out into the gray before them and coughed his reply. “It’s no bear. No wolf.”
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She stood upright and followed his gaze. “It can’t be human?”
He shook his head. “I reckon not.”
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Quiet settled between them. Maybe he was thinking what she was: That the unknowing was all getting to be a little too much. Would one of them suggest going out after it? If the ice could stand the weight of the beast, surely it could hold for them.