Fiction, M.R. Lehman Wiens
He pulled the shelves of canned goods away from the wall, closer to the heat. They had little enough food without ice breaking a jar open. The glass glinted in the firelight, reflections dancing over the rows of yellow peaches and red tomatoes and green pickles. Arthur lay between the jars and the fire, and Maxwell lay next to him. Maxwell’s eyes were open, golden eyebrows twitching back and forth in time with the wind’s howling. The crack of a tree branch needled the cabin, and the dog’s eyes darted towards him, a question, a concern.
Are we safe here? Is something coming in?
“Easy, boy. We’re fine.”
The golden retriever sighed, a heavy breath edged with tension, and rolled towards the fire, belly up. The wind whispered through the boards of the cabin, winter’s probing fingers digging at the mud and moss Arthur had forced into the cracks of the walls. The cabin’s only source of heat was the cast iron woodstove, tucked into the corner that doubled as a kitchen. A small drift filled the space under the front door, snow daring to float almost halfway across the single room before finally beginning to melt in the meager warmth.
Arthur got up and squeezed between the canning shelves, stepping into the darker, colder part of the cabin. An empty Mason jar sat on the kitchen table. He crossed the small room, picked it up, and turned back to the kitchen. The sink was equipped with an antique-style hand pump, one that spat cold water all summer long and tickled the tongue with a metallic coin-y flavor. Arthur chose to believe that the metal flavor was something healthy, a daily dose of nutritious iron. There were things he was sure had leached into the water table since The Collapse, and it was easier not to think about them.
He levered the long, metal handle, the familiar creak turning his mouth suddenly dry, Pavlov pressing against the roof of his mouth. But then the water pump groaned somewhere below the sink, protesting, aching through the floor. On a quiet day, he could hear the water flowing up the pipes, ascending through octaves of sound before finally bursting out of the pump with all the dulcet tones of a belch. The wind was still howling, drowning out all noise, but Arthur could feel the silence through the stillness of the metal. He winced; the pipes were frozen.
“Brace yourself, Maxie. Gotta get our water the chilly way.”
The dog glanced towards him in alarm, then flipped over and leaped to his feet, nearly
toppling a shelf of tinned fish. He stared past Arthur and whimpered, a soft, pleading sound.
What if we let something in?
“Nothing’s out there, buddy. Just the wind.”
It was a lie, and they both knew it. Arthur reached for his gun.
***
Visitors came by often in the first days after The Collapse. At first, they were mostly families. That was how Arthur had gotten Max, then a puppy that was just too much for a family on the run to manage. Before Max, people were cautious, careful, not sure about the strange man living alone in the woods, the only man who seemed to have been ready for the shit to finally hit the fan, for the sea to rise and the missiles to fly.
After Max, after that Golden Retriever energy filled his home, people were always friendlier. It’s hard to be suspicious when someone’s dog has their nose buried in your crouch, whimpering with joy while you scratch its ears. Word got around that Arthur’s cabin was safe, a place your children could spend the night by the fire with Maxwell curled protectively around them. A place of safety, a place where you could get a taste of the way things used to be.
It had been years since the last family came through. Now, it was mostly people traveling alone, cautious, and never far from fight or flight. Mostly, it was men, satisfied enough with a bit of bartering and a quick meal, their callused hands running over the dog’s back before disappearing. Once, a woman, her gun obvious and within reach on her hip. Arthur recognized the hard look in her eyes and respected it, sharing some food with her and letting her go on her way. She came back once or twice more, just to see Maxwell, and then never again.
The last ones, though. They had come by before the storm, just hours ahead of the snow, ashy and gray, covered the last oranges of autumn. Arthur had been feeding wood to the stove, keeping it at a roaring heat while the canner on top boiled merrily away. The door was open to let out the heat, and Max had spotted them before Arthur did.
He flew out the door, tongue dragging from one corner of his floppy, loose-lipped smile. Arthur took his time, knew from experience it was better to let people meet Max first, spend some time drowning in blond hair and slobbery kisses before they faced a stranger. But then he heard a thud and a yelp, a bark, men shouting.
He sprang to his feet, arm already reaching for the shotgun hanging next to the door. Maxwell bolted back inside, the laughter of the men following his tucked tail. When Arthur stepped through the doorway, the butt of the gun was already tucked into his shoulder, the barrels rapidly raising to chest height.
Standing at the edge of the clearing, his clearing, were three young men in hunting camo. The fabric hung loose over their shoulders and down their back, and their eyes shone with something ancient and unpleasant. They saw the gun, and their laughter died in their throats.
“Was that your dog, Mister?” asked the one on the left, the one that was closest to the gun.
Arthur didn’t speak. His face, twisted into a sneer, said all he needed to.
No one kicked his dog.
“It was an accident. I swear. Mike here’s just afraid of dogs.”
“You need to leave.”
“Okay, you’re right. We got off on the wrong foot. Look, we heard you’re a good guy. Can we just come in for the night? Weather the storm? We can help you out around here, maybe chop some wood.”
For a second, Arthur considered it. Three men could chop a lot of firewood between now and the storm, even if he only had the one ax. Then his eyes moved to the other two, the ones standing farther back. Their muscles were tensed, hands loose at their sides. The wind blew, rippling their shirts, and Arthur saw the nose of a leather sheath peak out from beneath a fluttering hem. Behind him, Maxwell barked.
“Y’all better get going.”
The one in front opened his mouth to protest, but the one in the middle reached out to grab his shoulder. They conferred briefly before moving off into the woods. The last one to leave stared at Arthur, eyes dark and hateful. Arthur raised the shotgun and fired over the man’s head.
He was gone before the booming echoes finished descending to the valley below. Arthur glanced back towards Maxwell, whose hackles were still raised. Arthur regretted the waste of a shell, one of only a dozen or so that still remained, but Maxwell was right. The men had stunk of hatred, and their presence lingered in front of the cabin, sinking into his bones with the cold of the coming storm.
He left the doorway and moved the heated cans to the counter, loading the canner again while Maxwell stared out at the forest. When he moved outside to cut more firewood, Maxwell sat on the porch and watched. If he set down the shotgun to swing the ax or sip some water or take a piss, the dog whimpered. Arthur waited until the first flakes of snow began to fall, and then he took the dog inside. With the gun tucked under his arm, he stepped outside and locked the door.
“Don’t worry, Max. I’ll take care of it.”
***
Alone in the cabin, Maxwell paced, nervously, whimpering. The Man had been gone for too long. He’d set out food and water, but Max couldn’t eat, not when the others were still out there.
If he stood on his hind legs he could peer out of the window, watch as the snow began to accumulate on the porch, then on the ground, and then at the edges of the glass. Gusts of wind swirled the flakes into ghostly dervishes that danced across the yard, strange things that made Max bark in surprise. If The Man was here, Max could paw at the door, and The Manwould let him out to jump through the drifts and the gusts.
But The Man wasn’t here, and all Maxwell wanted was for The Man to come back.
Max dropped down from the window and resumed his pacing. He moved from the bed to the fire to the door, restless. Bed, fire, door, again and again, his tempo increasing, The sun, already deadened by the coming blizzard, would soon be gone entirely, and Max didn’t trust that The Man could find his way back in the dark. The Man was strong, smart, and kind, but his sense of smell and his hearing were terrible. Max thought of The Man, wandering and lost in the forest, and whimpered again.
A sound like thunder buffeted the cabin, and Maxwell froze. That was The Man’s gun. He threw his head back and howled.
The snow came down harder, covering the world in a thick, dulling fog, one that swallowed time and sound and being. The world descended into night. Maxwell kept pacing.
Then, footsteps, crunching through snow that was already inches deep. Max recognized the pace, didn’t need to hear the key in the lock to know The Man was coming home.
His beard was full of icicles, little drops of winter that melted on Maxwell’s tongue and dripped down his curly chest hair. The Man rubbed his head, scratched at his ears, and Max moaned. Then, the man stood, folded the gun, and removed one of the small red tubes, now smelling of burnt and metal.
What did you do?
The Man saw him asking and shook his head.
“Saw a goose. Missed it.”
Maxwell cocked his head, unbelieving..
“I know, buddy,” The Man said, ignoring his skepticism. “More canned food tonight. You want sardines or herring?”
Laying in front of the fire, belly full and The Man breathing next to him, Maxwell decided he was just happy The Man was back.
***
What if we let something in?
“Nothing’s out there, buddy. Just the wind,” Arthur said, ignoring the dog’s whimper. Gun in one hand and empty Mason jar in the other, he reached for the doorknob. Maxwell climbed to his feet, head lowered, eyes fixed on the door.
Don’t.
“I’ll be quick, I promise. But we gotta get some water, buddy.”
Don’t go out there again, the dog said, gravely, low.
Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he had heard the dog growl. It was a foul sound, a corruption of the soft groans of joy Maxwell made when Arthur scratched him in just the right spot. He hesitated, then pressed forward.
The door scraped the ground when he opened it, snow piling in front of the sweep. His gun exited the cabin first, twin eyes black and staring. It peered suspiciously into the blizzard while Arthur bent and filled the jar with sooty snow. Maxwell took a cautious step onto the snowy porch, then yelped in surprise.
Look out!
A gnarled hand extended from a drift, fingers frozen to the edge of his porch. Arthur’s eyes followed the wrist back to the camo-clad torso, taking in the body lying facedown on the ground. The footsteps behind the body were barely visible, indentations the wind was all too happy to chew at and devour.
His gaze followed the footprints out into the blizzard, searching the swirling gray for a hint of movement. There was nothing but the wind.
“Looks like it’s just us now, Max.”
No one kicked his dog.
M.R. Lehman Wiens is a Pushcart-nominated writer and stay-at-home dad living in Kansas. His work has previously appeared, or is upcoming in, F(r)iction, Short Édition, Consequence, The Wild Umbrella Literary Journal, and others. He can be found on Threads as @lehmanwienswrites, and at lehmanwienswrites.com.
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