Previous Volumes
Volume 1 No. 2
The Last Winter by Sam Sawnick
He put his hand to his brow and stared out as far as he could.
“Keep your eyes out tonight for the return. If you’re good on supplies, then we’ll meet here tomorrow.”
She replied without thinking. “I have supplies. But maybe we should stay together for the day. And the evening. We could keep watch together. We don’t know what this thing is.”
He was quiet for a long time and she figured the suggestion had crossed some kind of line. But he nodded to her and gestured for her to lead the way.
Once inside the cabin, they silently shed their extra layers of clothing. She stoked the embers in the fireplace and started a kettle of tea. He stood vigilant near the window, scanning the lake’s horizon and quietly assuming the first watch.
He was still until the late afternoon when he grunted out for her. She raced to the window, but saw nothing.
“First time I’ve seen it in daylight,” he gurgled out.
Her heart thudded in her chest. What sort of beast was circling them, both night and day?
“Should we go after it?” she asked.
He shook his head and snarled his lip. “Maybe it’s trying to draw us out.”
The sun set into the woods behind them. He grunted in her direction, and she relieved him of his watch at the window. The sky was clear and the moon was high. Winter darkness had a way of not looking quite as dark on such a night. She could see out across the lake. He dozed off and hideous garbled sounds came from his throat. She kept her eyes on the lake ahead for the remainder of the night.
He was startled awake and grabbed at this shoulder. She’d thrown a book at him.
“Good morning,” she hissed at him.
He scrambled towards the window, grabbing his long johns to keep them from falling down.
“Did you see it?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep.
“No.”
They stood watchful as the sun rose, neither wanting to address the other. She put her layers back on and he put on his. They walked to their usual spot at the shoreline. A new set of tracks led out into the frozen lake. She crouched down and put a gloved hand into the heel groove of the beast. She dusted snow away searching for some sort of origin, but could find none.
He grunted in expectation of her opinion.
“It started here,” she stood up and placed her foot in the beast’s, “and it went there.”
She squinted and pointed into the distance. She lunged for the next step and the next, trying to imagine what type of creature could cloak its tracks. What type of animal would run like this? Something wide. Something tall.
She looked over her shoulder at him.
“Where’d you say you saw it?” she asked.
He pointed right at her.
“You saw it here? What direction did it come from?”
His words rattled in his throat. “Couldn’t say really. It was there and then it wasn’t.”
She looked around, half-expecting a beast to materialize next to her.