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It’s scattered around me. I grope for it, not daring to take my eyes off the creature. I find one bullet. Pick it up with fumbling fingers. The growl rises, the wolf-dog going stock-still. Bo growls in answer.
I load the bullet as smoothly as I can with every muscle trembling. I barely learned to do it right with my dad watching and the sunlight streaming down; doing it in the dark, shaking in fear, I drop it twice. Still Bo and the wolf-dog don’t move.
Then the bullet is in. I lift the rifle. The wolf-dog stares at me. It tenses.
Bo snarls as he flings himself up the side of the hole.
I whip the barrel of the rifle up as he slams into the wolf, teeth flashing white in the dark. They whirl together in a storm of snapping and snarling.
The wolf-dog springs away, runs. Bo runs after.
“Bo!” I shout. I don’t want him to leave me. He slows to a trot and turns back to me, panting. “Please,” I say.
He comes back reluctantly. I pull myself up the side of the hole as he approaches and slide my arms around him. His fur is wet. Warm-wet, not the wet of melted snow. Blood. I hope it isn’t his.
He lets me hold on to him for a few seconds, then shakes me off and trots away. I call after him, but he ignores me. I hear him moving through the brush not far off. Circling. Keeping me safe.
I get to my feet. More scavengers will be coming. Or predators. I don’t know if the wolf-dog is after me or the body, but either way I can’t stay here.
My stomach cramps with hunger. Already the energy bar has burned through my system.
I get the shovel and start to lever myself out of the hole. And then I stop.
The crate. I should check the crate.
It isn’t a big hole. His body lies on top of the crate, covering it. I’ll have to move him to get at it. The thought makes my gut clench up, and I turn my face away.
What if I leave the crate, and whatever is in it could have saved me? What if there’s food? Weapons? A radio?
Accepting that I will die is not the same as giving up. Leaving is giving up. I can’t just leave.
I can see the edge of the crate under my dad. Under his body. Under the body, I tell myself. Just meat going bad, that’s all. I can do this.
The longer I stand, the weaker I get. I grit my teeth. “Just a body,” I whisper to myself, and grab the shovel.
I dig down beside the crate. Maybe I don’t have to move the body. I dig until I find the bottom and clear all along the side. There isn’t a lot of room to maneuver, but I get my hands around the handle of the crate and tug.
It moves. The body moves with it.
I yelp and jerk back, flattening against the side of the hole. The body moves wrong. It isn’t solid, isn’t whole. The stench of it hits me all over again, and I gag.
Just meat, I think, and press my tongue to the top of my mouth.
I take three deep breaths and yank harder, pulling up and over at the same time. This time the crate starts to slide free. Another few hard tugs and it’s on its side, wedged between the body and the wall of the hole.
I settle back, panting. Spots dance in my vision.
Now I have to lift it. It isn’t as heavy as I was expecting, and it only takes one huffing, puffing try to get it up to the lip of the hole. I scramble up after it without looking back, tossing the shovel up as I go. I lie at the edge of the hole until my heart slows down.
I sit up slowly. I’ll hurt tomorrow, but I already knew that. I let out a sharp, angry breath. The crate is locked with a fat, dirt-packed padlock. I tug at it with a moan. No way am I getting that off, not with any tools I have. Useless. I’m useless. Spending all my energy on nothing.
“I bet you’d know what to do right now,” I say to the body. The sun is coming up. It sparkles across the snow. “I bet you would have built a whole new cabin by now.”
I don’t know if I can even get back to the shelter, I’m so tired. So maybe... maybe this is a good place to be. Near my dad.
I look over at the rifle. It would be faster than starving to death, at least.
I try to pretend that I can do it. It seems so much easier than standing up. But I’m already getting to my feet, already reaching for the shovel. The wolf-dog could come back, and I don’t want my dad unburied when it does.
