The Fall - Ch 3

         Mike was jerked out of his memory as he heard the barking grunt of a deer. He saw the doe move slowly into the clearing about 20 yards from where he sat. The brown head slowly dipped toward the water at the top of the deer’s majestic head. As the doe started to drink Mike took careful aim at the center of the chest. He slowly took out the slack in the triggers and took a deep breath and in the space of the natural pause at the end of his inhale he pulled the triggers carefully, making sure not to jerk them. Under his breath he apologized for what he was about to do to the majestic looking creature. The side by side kicked back against his shoulder and he knew instinctively that it was a clear hit.

         The doe took a step or 2 before it realized that it was hit, and then crumpled to the ground. Most of the chest was blown open and there was no further movement. Mike quickly moved away from the location that he took the shot from, so that his location would no longer be marked by where he took the shot from. He waited a few minutes to see if there was anyone looking for him, or for his kill. He needed the meat, but not at the risk of his own life.

         After about 5 minutes of kneeling in the snow and keeping perfectly still to allow his ears to pick out any unusual sounds in the forest, Mike moved slowly towards the downed deer. In the time before the blasts he would have field dressed the animal to make the hauling easier. Now, in the time “After the Fall” as he thought of it, he couldn’t leave anything behind. There were a few reasons for this. For one, he did not want to attract any predators that would be competing for his food source. Also, food was so scarce that he needed to make use of every part of the deer that he could. He would make soup from the liver, and use the bladder, after an extreme washing, as a water skin when he finally needed to leave the cabin. Most of the meat would be turned into jerky, but given the size of the deer Mike was pretty sure that a few steaks would be in order.


         After dragging the deer back to the cabin, Mike walked back to the point where it had fallen and used a tree branch to cover his tracks. The cabin was very remote, so Mike didn’t like the idea of giving someone the equivalent of a billboard saying “Here I am, come rob me!” Mike tried to cover everything as best he could. After he got back into the clearing he stopped, figuring that anyone who found the clearing would easily be able to spot the cabin. He trudged through the snow that was now at mid-shin and reached the deer that he had dropped at the corner of the cabin.

         Mounted just under the eave of the roof there was a pulley with a rope that went to 2 hooks. These hooks Mike ran through the deer’s hind legs, just in front of the tendon at its ankle. He then pulled the deer up until it was completely off the ground, far enough that he could slip the battered metal bucket underneath. Once there he slit the throat of the deer, allowing the crimson blood to flow down over the head and off the end of the nose, draining into the bucket. This was another way for Mike to control the predators. He didn’t want them in the general area, but he most definitely doesn’t want them in the immediate area of the cabin.

         Once the deer was drained, Mike would walk to the closest point of the stream and dump the blood into the water. This should carry it far downstream and make sure that any predators that caught the scent of the blood would be searching in the wrong area. That was also the reason for the metal bucket. Any type of wooden bucket would start to absorb the smell of the blood over time and possibly lead the predators back to the cabin. The metal could just be dunked in the stream and all traces of the blood would disappear.

         When the flow from the end of the deer’s nose slowed to just a trickle, Mike again picked up his knife and cut completely around the neck of the deer. He then started to saw through the gristle and tendons until he had completely decapitated the deer. This made the flow of blood slightly heavier, but made sure that the meat would not be tainted by anything that was left behind. While the last of the blood was draining Mike made a cut down the belly area of the deer and methodically removed the liver, bladder, and kidneys. These he quickly took inside the cabin and put the liver and kidneys into the freezer section of the propane refrigerator, and the bladder into the sink to soak in order to clean it out.

         “That should set me on soup and water skins” Mike said to on one in particular. He knew it would be the better part of the day until the skinning, carving, and curing was done. While Mike was skinning and butchering the deer his mind started to wander back to the day that he always referred to as “the Fall”.


         As he had gotten got back to the cabin, he switched on the TV and was amazed when he realized that most of the channels that his satellite dish could pull were offline. He was finally able to pull in a local news channel from Wilkes-barre Pennsylvania. Within the first 5 minutes he understood why most other channels were not available. It was because they didn’t exist anymore. New York, well, he saw what happened there. Just in the northeast part of the United States there were reported blasts in Boston, Albany, Buffalo, Philly, Pittsburgh, and Washington DC. No reports of Baltimore surprisingly.

         Mike ran to the phone and tried to call Alexis’s house. There was a crackling silence on the line, then he heard an automated voice say into his left ear, “We’re sorry. All circuits are busy now. Please hang up and try your call again later. Message NJ…” and Mike slammed the phone down.
“I bet that message is going to play for people all over the country. All the major hubs are gone.” Mike thought.

         He went back to the TV and as he got ready to sit down, he heard a faint scratching at the front door. Not sure what to expect, Mike grabbed his Desert Eagle on his way to the door. Since this was a cabin with a solid wooden door he couldn’t see who was there without opening the door, so he decided to again fall back on his training. He swung the door wide and instead of rolling the same direction it opened he swung behind the wall so the gun was now pointing out the open door, directly at the head of the white wolf from earlier, still with his slightly amused expression on his face, asking without words if he was done with the theatrics.

         Mike stepped to the side, amazed that the wolf had tracked him here, not sure what was going to happen next. As he stared at the wolf, he realized that this wasn’t what most people describe as a white wolf. Most would call anything that is an ivory color or off-white as a “white wolf”. This one was truly white. There was no discoloring to his coat anywhere, not even on his nose. The eyes of the wolf were the deepest, coldest blue Mike had ever seen, not unlike Mike’s own eyes. The wolf moved with a grace and silence that was almost eerie. Mike could barely hear the pads of his paws on the polished hardwood of the entry way and into the dining room.

         The wolf slowly walked in looking around, walked to the fireplace and lay down. His head lay on his enormous front paws and his cold eyes flicked towards Mike, asking if he was just going to stand there with the door open, or if he was going to come in and sit down.


         Mike finished with the dressing of the deer, and moved most of the meat to the smoke shed. He kept a few of the fattier cuts of meats and as he walked towards the door he threw them to the wolf that was lying by the door.