He lit the second one and, after letting it burn for a second, placed it in an opening in the meticulously piled wood in front of him. The burning spruce and pine smelled familiar and comforting. As the orange flames emerged from the heart of the pile, a grey plume rippled upwards through the opening in the green canvas tarp above him, blending with the overcast sky that peeked through.
Evan sunk back to sitting on the old brown sleeping bag and savoured the peace as the fire crackled to life in front of him. The ground around him was clear of snow: he had shovelled out as much as he could on his last trip here, and the fire he’d lit during that visit had warmed the interior enough to melt away the remnants.
This was Evan’s secret project: a shelter in the bush that he had begun the day after the food brawl. A backup, in case he and his family needed refuge from whatever turmoil might eventually consume his community. He had begun by chopping the long, straight narrow spruce trees that would be the pillars and stripping their bark. A few days later, he had sledded out the three thick canvases, one at a time. Each trip took a full morning. He came back a few days after that to dig out a firepit and drape the tarps over the tipi frame. Here he was, weeks later, beginning to outfit the safe haven.
A pile of neatly folded wool blankets lay on the ground on the far side of the structure. Two boxes of assorted canned goods were stacked on the right. He planned to wrap the boxes with some of the blankets to insulate them from the freezing temperatures that would last another couple of months. He would have to rebuild the structure in the spring to let the poles cure properly, but for now, this experiment seemed to be working.
Evan looked over the dancing flames at the load he had just dragged over the snow. He slid his right hand into the pocket of his parka and pulled out a small purple drawstring cloth bag that had once held a stubby heavy bottle of whiskey. Its contents rattled as he bounced the satchel lightly in his cracked palm.
The bag held a simple can opener and ten small boxes of matches; an emergency supply to open the food and start a fire should he and his family have to escape to this tent in the bush. He surveyed the ground around him for a place to bury the bag. He felt about under the decomposing leaves that had been crushed into the yellow grass by the snow. The vegetation felt damp, and below the ground was frozen. He slammed the heel of his boot into the earth and a shock reverberated through his foot. The ground was still too frozen to dig.
But the fire had warmed the inside of the tent. Evan stood up to take off his heavy parka. The tipi stood almost three times his height, and he easily stepped around the fire to throw the bag overtop the boxes and blankets. As he leaned over to pick up one of the blankets, a drop of sweat fell from his long black bangs. He wiped the perspiration from his brow with the tattered sleeve of his black hoodie. How long was I sitting in front of the fire? he thought.
He pulled the top blanket off the pile and shook it open. It reeked of mustiness, like the corner of the basement from which he’d grabbed it. It was one of a few old blankets put aside for emergency situations. He couldn’t remember when he had stashed this one away but it clearly hadn’t been used in a very long time.
Evan shook it out one more time and let it fall gently on the ground. He turned back to the pile and picked up an orange blanket the same size and make as the first. He flapped it open, making the flames dance and grow. He laid it over the grey one and sat down on the insulated ground.
Sitting cross-legged, he stared into the fire, then leaned on one elbow so he could stretch out his legs. His people didn’t make tipis. They weren’t characteristic of the Anishinaabeg. But he learned how to build one from a how-to guide in a hunting magazine of all places. He and Isaiah experimented with different sizes on random excursions into the bush over the years. Right now, it was the easiest, most reliable thing he could build in the middle of the winter in a power crisis.
The warmth relaxed him, and the stillness inside the tipi soothed him. He felt the stiffness in his upper back ease. The peaceful winter day outside left the tarps undisturbed on the poles. Evan rested his head on the inside of his arm, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
A blizzard howled as he opened the high garage door, the whiteout obscuring his line of sight. He looked up to see a crimson sun pulsing through the winter storm, washing the snow around him in a bright red glow like the flashing lights of an ambulance. It seemed to flash in sync with the beat of his heart, which sped up as he stepped into the building to escape the storm. He pulled back the hood of his parka and his eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. The pulsating flares from the sun outside did nothing to illuminate the interior of the morgue.
He couldn’t make out the neatly arranged lines of bodies. His hands trembled under his thick snowmobile mitts. He panicked and bit on the end of the right mitt to pull his hand out and thrust it into his pocket to grab his flashlight. His hands shook as he cradled the light close to his chest and struggled to find the switch. The red light from the outside intensified and his breath grew shorter. His chest was tight and he struggled for air. To his relief, he located the button and the blueish light shot upward and back down to the floor as he got his panicked hands under control.
All that remained were the old, tattered blankets that had wrapped the bodies. It looked like they had decomposed into nothing.
His heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears. A fierce trembling overcame his whole body and his pupils dilated. A deep, guttural growl boomed behind him and drowned out the howl of the wind. Whatever stood in the snow just outside the garage door wheezed as it drew in a breath, and let out a harsh, threatening snarl at a pitch just higher than a bear’s. Evan stiffened, momentarily paralyzed, before he summoned the courage to turn and face it.
A feral odor, like a rotting heap of moose innards, wafted briskly into the garage. A tall, gaunt silhouette stood in the doorway, outlined by the scarlet blizzard behind it. The smell made him gag. The creature hunched forward. The hair on its broad shoulders and long arms blurred the lines of its figure. Its legs appeared disfigured, almost backwards. But its large, round head scared him the most. It breathed out another savage rumble.
Evan slowly raised the flashlight, illuminating the figure’s pale, heaving emaciated torso under sparse brown body hair. He brought the beam up to its face. It was disfigured yet oddly familiar. Scott. His cheeks and lips were pulled tight against his skull. He breathed heavily through his mouth, with long incisors jutting upward and downward from rows of brown teeth. His eyes were blacked out. If it weren’t for the large, bald scalp and the long, pointy noise, this monster would have been largely unrecognizable.
The beast Scott had become lunged forward.
Twenty-Eight
The water bubbled in the big black pot on top of the wood stove in the basement. Wearing thick oven mitts, Nicole grabbed the handles and turned to walk it carefully back up the stairs. The morning sunshine outside was bright enough to light the basement so she didn’t need to juggle a flashlight as well.
Her hands ached and her arms trembled by the time she made it upstairs. She trudged across the kitchen floor and grimaced as she hoisted the pot of hot water onto the useless electric stove. She turned to the sink to arrange the clothes she was about to wash. Underwear, socks, and T-shirts always got priority, with jeans and sweaters going through only if they began to stink. She scooped a small amount of powdered detergent out of the bottom of the box and sprinkled the grains sparingly over the laundry.