Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 201(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 201(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Thank goodness there’s enough dried wood inside to start up the potbelly stove and drive some of the chill from the air. There’s twenty-five long matches on the shelf. Not enough for the whole winter but I’ll need to find enough wood to keep the fire burning anyway. I strike one and wait; thank God, it fires to life in the dim light.
I hold the sizzling match in one hand while I stuff the belly of the stove with some twisted paper and tinder from a box on the floor. When it crackles to life, I lay two smaller split logs on top, waiting for them to catch before adding two more larger ones, then step back.
The air warms quickly as the fire crackles and the scent of the burning wood cheers me up. I decide to celebrate the fire-starting victory with a pack of red beans and rice I saw in the MRE’s. Tugging open the silver wrapper, I squeeze the contents into a cast iron pan next to the pump sink that looks amazingly clean, then lower the heavy metal down onto the top of the stove with a clunk and wait.
The food chases away the last of my shivers, but I can’t bear the idea of changing my clothes, so I huddle under every musty old blanket in the shack as well as the two red ones Grandpa brought with me.
Bundled up with food in my belly and silence in the air, the weight of it all feels like boulders on my chest.
I take a break from the gridiron bravery I’ve mustered so far and let the tears fall until a headache worms itself behind my eyes and into my forehead. My head falls back to the lumpy log wall as wind whistles through cracks and flaps the plastic back and forth on the front window. My eyelids droop, too heavy to hold open.
I’m floating in an uneasy sleep, hoping to wake to a sunshiny North Carolina day with Grandpa at the door holding a bag of Shipley’s Donuts and a whole bushel full of I’m sorry.
My fantasy and tenuous sleep don’t last, however as a howl rips through my slumber.
Wolves. Oh, Sweet Jesus, be merciful, wolves. The sound is unmistakable.
As if that’s not bad enough, there’s the click, click, click of claws on the rickety wooden porch and I suck in a breath and hold.
Then, it’s the sound of sniffing under the door frame. Deep, wheezing inhalations, a low, terrible growl, and then, oh God, then the sound of scratching on the door.
It’s the smell of my rice and beans, it has to be.
Or else, it’s the smell of me. Tasty little human me. With my meat and my blood and my body and my fear sweat.
Yips in the distance, and more howls.
My heart races. I clutch my blankets around me, wishing they were woven from chainmail and look up at the cobwebs in the dark ceiling. The howls grow closer, louder, calling across the valley and up to the peaks.
There is no way I’ll make it through winter here alone. There’s no way in hell.
chapter two
Davis
I haven’t slept in three nights and the needle on my cranky meter is well into the red.
If you ask my little brother, he’d say I’m always fucking cranky, but this no sleeping shit is not helping. I feel fucking old.
I’m twenty-five going on forty.
Fifty even.
It’s insomnia, but with nightmares as a cherry on top. They’d gotten better over the last few years. They’d come maybe a few times a month, but then, well, something happened and now, they’re back. Every fucking night, reliving the worst fucking day of my life like it’s all happening right now. Over and over and over.
Tension knots in my shoulders as I stuff the coffee pot back into the new Mr. Coffee I bought at Guthrie’s Hardware in town yesterday. We needed a new one because I slammed the old one onto the kitchen floor because it wasn’t working fast enough.
My business, Davis Mountain Electric, has been getting busier every year and the money has been great, but the stress of juggling the work and the house and taking care of Stevie is wearing me thin.
But it’s more than that. It’s the looming shadow of what I did a month and a half ago that’s got me bound up like I’ve been feasting on cheddar cheese three meals a day.
I run my hand down my face as I swallow the glory of the scalding black coffee, praying to the caffeine gods to get me through another day. I took this weekend off because I’m waiting for some parts for two of my jobs. The third one is stalled, because old Mr. Callahan, who owns the lumberyard in town and forty more across the country, has been dragging his feet on paying me my last two draws.