The Ice Wolf by Cody Bruns

SECOND PLACE

The Ice Wolf by Cody Bruns

The harsh, icy winds blew in his face as Nathaniel London climbed out of the car. He glanced around, taking in the almost untouched beauty of Chione. Chione was a beautiful town which was rapidly becoming popular for its prime location and views. The town had a view of three snowy mountains rising up like some sort of great trident overlooking the land, as well as amazing hiking trails winding through hills and forests. In the summer, Chione was still a nice place to visit, but winter was when it truly came alive. Come Christmastime, the town was full of tourists who came to see the Northern Lights, take in the view, and maybe see a little bit of the surrounding nature.

Nathaniel, or Nate, as he was known to everybody except his parents, had come to Chione for the holiday season, along with a few of his friends. The four of them had rented a cabin not too far from the town, out in the forest, which was currently covered in a blanket of fresh snow.

“This looks incredible!” Nate’s close friend, Ben, exclaimed. Nate had to admit that Ben had a point. The cabin looked even better in person than on their computer screens, with large windows facing the forest, a cozy feel to it, and a roof covered in snow. Nate was of the opinion that covering a building in snow made it much nicer to look at.

“Can we get out of the cold now?” Nate’s other close friend, Alex, grumbled. Alex’s brother, John, chuckled at his sister’s obvious distaste for the snow.

“Yeah, let’s go inside,” John said, “Dibs on the room with the big window, though.”

Nate shook his head in amusement as Alex led the way to the cabin’s front door, while Nate and John grabbed the bags and Ben stared in awe at the three mountains looming in the distance, easily visible above the trees.

“Enjoying the view of the pitchfork mountains?” John called over to Ben.“It’s not called that,” Ben corrected, then glanced at Nate, “Is it?”“No,” Nate shook his head, “The mountains are called the Chione Peaks.”“I like Mount Pitchfork better,” John said stubbornly.

Nate and John, laden with bags, headed towards the front door, and after a moment more of enjoying the view, Ben hurried after his friends. None of the boys saw the wolf standing in the shade of the trees, its azure eyes glowing bright.

The interior of the cabin was no less welcoming than the exterior, with a warm hearth crackling in the large brick fireplace over by the wall, a couple of soft leather couches placed in a semi-circle around the hearth, and a dining area over by the small kitchenette in the corner.

“Hope we’re not doing any cooking,” John noted, “The oven looks like it’s in need of repair.”Nate looked over at the oven and saw that it was definitely not operational. There were two

strips of yellow caution tape forming an X on the oven door.

“I’m just glad the fireplace was already lit,” Alex sighed from her spot crouched down in front of the warm flames.

“It’s not that cold,” Ben said to Alex.“Seriously? There’s snow on the ground!” Alex reminded Ben.

“I like snow,” Nate said peaceably. Alex scoffed. She opened her mouth, probably to respond to Nate’s comment, but her brother unknowingly cut her off.

“Whoa! Check out the view!” John shouted. Nate looked over curiously to see that John had climbed up the flight of log steps set against the wall of the cabin opposite the fireplace, and Ben was already moving towards it, so Nate followed. Footsteps behind him confirmed that Alex was following as well.

When Nate reached the top of the stairs, he saw what John had been excited to see. The stairs led up to a loft with a huge circular window giving an amazing view of the Chione Peaks, rising up above the forest like a… well, like a pitchfork. Nate had to admit John might have had a point about the trio of mountains that cast their shadow on Chione. The sun was just setting, casting a rosy hue across the snow-covered ground and trees.

“See? This place is awesome,” Ben said, elbowing Alex.“The view’s not bad,” she admitted. Ben flashed a triumphant grin at his friend.

The moon was high in the night sky when the four finally left the living room after a night of board games and went to their own rooms. Nate wound up with the room facing away from the Peaks, which was a bit of a letdown, but the forest was still plenty exciting enough to be classified as a good view.

Nate changed out of the warmer clothes he’d been in for traveling, and pulled on some pajama pants and a soft T-shirt that was comfortable for sleeping in. He crossed to the window and was about to pull the curtains shut, when he caught a glimpse of something out in the forest. He squinted hard, and managed to see two small pinpricks of sky-blue light. Had they been gleaming yellow like a cat’s eyes, Nate might have thought an animal of some kind was watching him, but what kind of animal had glowing blue eyes?

Nate pulled the curtains shut feeling indescribably on edge, but he put it aside as he climbed into bed, and pulled the string of his lamp, which sent the room into total darkness.

* * *

The next morning found Nate, John, Ben, and Alex hiking along a trail through the snowy forest. After a breakfast of waffles and delectable maple syrup in Chione, the four friends had headed out into the forest along Trail 6, which lead towards the base of the westernmost Chione Peak, but they had no plans to climb the mountain. None of them were rock-climbers, and so that was not an appealing activity to any of them. Currently, the four were in a very dense part of the forest, where the trail was barely noticeable, and hills and slopes were frequent. Snow crunched under their feet, but there wasn’t much to look at beyond the thin trail winding between the trunks of trees, and the falling snow which only served to further their inability to see the beauty of Chione.

“I wish I could see anything other than leaves,” John bemoaned.

“According to the trail guide, after this part, we’ll be up on a hill with a great view of a pond. It’s frozen this time of year, of course, but it’ll still look nice,” Ben said, patting his jacket where the trail guide pamphlet was tucked away.

“Do you think it’s safe for ice skating?” Alex asked hopefully.“Do you have ice skates?” John challenged. Alex glared at her brother.“How far to that hill with a view?” Nate asked Ben, quickly defusing the impending argument.“Just a few more minutes, I think,” Ben answered.

As the four continued walking, Nate felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and goosebumps spread along his skin. He glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of something big and black on all fours. The animal darted behind a tree and away too quickly for Nate to identify it, but it was unmistakably large.

“What was that?” Nate exclaimed.“Was it a bear?” Alex asked worriedly.

“No, it wasn’t big enough to be a bear. It was black and moved on all fours,” Nate recalled, “Maybe it was a wolf.”

“A wolf?” Ben asked skeptically, looking around the forest.“Where did you see it?” John asked Nate.

Nate pointed at the patch of trees where he’d seen the animal, and the other three strained their eyes to try to catch a glimpse of any creature matching Nate’s description through the dense foliage.

“I swear it was right there,” Nate said after a moment passed and nobody saw anything.“How big was it?” John asked, looking to Nate.

“Uh, I’m not exactly sure. Definitely not bear size, but it was a wolf, it was a large one.” Nate said.

“Great. So there’s a giant wolf out there?” Alex asked nervously.“Could be a snow leopard. They’re big and gray,” Ben suggested.“Are wolves or leopards even in this area?” Nate asked.“Only the Ice Wolf,” John said like it was an inside joke, but Nate had never heard of an ice wolf.“What’s an ice wolf?” Nate asked. John and Alex shot him incredulous glances.

“The Ice Wolf. It’s an urban legend around here. How have you not heard about it? Basically, a lot of people have reported seeing a wolf with these weird glowing blue eyes trotting around at night. Especially these last six months. Several people even claim they saw it running down Main Street back in town,” John explained.

Nate felt suddenly wary. Last night, he’d seen two glowing blue lights and had suspected it was an animal of some kind, but what if it was this Ice Wolf?

“Is the Ice Wolf real?” Nate asked.

“There’s been a few pictures that were allegedly taken of the Ice Wolf. The weirdest thing is that there’s no wolf in any of them. Just two glowing blue lights the size of eyes. It sparked some kind of theory that it’s a ghost or something,” Alex put in.

“I heard that the Ice Wolf likes to prey on people it finds wandering the woods alone.” John said, grinning.

“That’s not true. Ignore him.” Alex rolled her eyes.“Well, people-eating wolf or not, I’ve never even heard of this story.” Nate shrugged.“I’ve never heard of this thing, either,” Ben agreed

Considering their current topic of conversation, it was a bit unsettling that a wolf’s howl suddenly pierced the late morning, seemingly not that far from the four.

“I don’t like that at all,” Alex decided, shaking her head.“Should we go back to town?” Ben asked worriedly.“No, I want to see the mountain,” John said stubbornly.“But you heard that howl, it’s gotta be a wolf, whether it’s the Ice Wolf or not,” Nate said.

Another howl went up, and this one sounded much, much closer. The four friends made an unspoken agreement to run. John, the most athletic of the bunch, quickly took the lead as the four scrambled down slopes and up hills, avoiding tree roots and rocks as they ran.

But Nate wound up avoiding a large boulder by dodging around it and right over a tree root while on the crest of a hill. He fell forwards, barely managing to catch himself on his hands as he sprawled sideways down the hill, rolling through the snow. Nate didn’t fall far, but the disorientation of falling and then rolling at a high speed down a rather large hill left him breathless and dazed.

His left leg was throbbing and his vision was unfocused, so Nate didn’t move for a few minutes, trying to recollect himself. When his vision finally sharpened, he used his elbows to push himself up into a seated position, looking around.

In this dense forest, Nate was just glad to have not smacked into a tree as he fell. As it was, Nate couldn’t see much through the thick forest and the snow falling through the sky. He wasn’t even that sure where he’d come from. There were quite a few hills rising and falling all around him, and Nate couldn’t see an obvious trail from where he had rolled down the snow-covered hill.

Fear began to creep in. He was in an unfamiliar forest which he knew went on for miles. He wanted to call out to his friends, but if there really was something chasing them, it would be bad to draw attention to himself, right? Wolves had a keen sense of hearing, so it would definitely hear Nate’s cry for help, but his friends might not. Feeling terribly alone, Nate sighed.

He used the trunk of a nearby tree to haul himself up onto his feet. Gingerly, he took a step with his left leg, and felt a sharp pain in the calf of it. Nate crouched down and discovered that something had torn open his pants and left a jagged cut down his calf, a cut that was dripping scarlet blood down his calf and to his foot. Nate unzipped his puffy winter jacket and then unzipped his light cotton hoodie to reveal the soft green T-shirt underneath. Using his teeth to pull the glove off of his right hand, Nate ripped off a significant chunk of his shirt, and then hastily rezipped his hoodie and his winter jacket so he didn’t let the cold in. With the unevenly torn piece of shirt in

hand, Nate wiped the blood off his calf, and then did his best to wrap it around the wound, but he was by no means an expert in treating wounds. At the very least, it would plug the hole that had been made in his pants.

Nate pulled his glove back onto his right hand, then set off into the forest. He was, of course, unsure about which direction to head to arrive back at the cabin, but he did know that they had headed west away from the cabin, so surely, if Nate just walked in the direction of the morning sun, he’d arrive somewhere he recognized. Probably.

So, Nate walked. He traversed several snowy hills, staggering down their slopes. Several times he would step down on the snow wrong, and the white powder would give, sending Nate sprawling down the hill. After the first three falls and consequent tumbles down the hills, Nate began anticipating the snow dislodging, and was able to keep himself upright from then on.

Eventually, the forest turned less dense, and Nate could finally move freely without having to move out of the way of tall, thick trees every other step. He limped across the snowy ground, his left leg throbbing more and more. Eventually, with the sun beginning its slow decline, Nate had to stop. With a grunt, Nate lowered himself down at the base of a tree, and leaned against it heavily. Nate was exhausted from the day’s laborious walk on his injured leg, and it wasn’t long before he ended up falling asleep in the snow.

* * *

When Nate jerked awake, it was nighttime in the forest, and he was absolutely freezing. He shivered profusely as Nate tried to tug his jacket down tighter around him, but there was no hope of that working. Jackets worked by storing body heat and after hours walking out in the snow and then sleeping in it during the icy night, Nate was lacking body heat for the jacket to store. It hadn’t been too bad with the sun out, but now the forests of Chione were icy graves. Nate, for the first time, began to worry about hypothermia. Prior to this, his sole worry had been being unable to find the cabin, but now things were getting dangerous. Nate might not just be unable to find his friends again, he might be unable to survive his exposure to the wilds.

Nate cast his gaze around the dark forest, completely black except for the odd shaft of gleaming silver moonlight, straining hard to see if any sort of creature was there. An angry animal would only make Nate’s situation worse. But beyond being far too cold, another worrying prospect was food and water. Nate was already ravenously hungry, and the only water he’d seen had been frozen over.

Just as Nate truly began to think he was alone in the forest, he saw two glowing blue lights, like twin spectral fires the size of eyes and the color of the midday sky, a luminous blue. Fear sank like a ghostly chill into Nate, and he couldn’t help but shiver, but not from the snow. The twin fires drew nearer, and gradually, Nate was able to discern a shape, a dark shape in the black night.

The Ice Wolf passed through a shaft of silver moonlight, and Nate couldn’t help but gasp. He was already pretty sure it was a wolf, but being able to see it and guessing at what it was were entirely different things.

The Ice Wolf was large, probably a little larger than the average wolf. It had jet black fur, looked to be incredibly muscled, and gave off a distinctly ominous feeling. Nate realized quickly why he felt so terrified. The Ice Wolf didn’t leave footprints in the snow, and didn’t have one fleck of theThe Ice Wolf | Cody Burns

white powder in its onyx coat.

Nate backed up weakly as the Wolf drew nearer, its cerulean eyes glowing in the dark. The only sound as the ghost wolf approached was Nate’s labored, terrified breathing, and the gentle rustle of leaves as the harsh winter winds blew, but they did not disturb a hair on the Ice Wolf.

The Ice Wolf did not attack Nate, but it stood, unmoving, in front of him. It felt like hours passed, but it was probably only a few minutes. The Ice Wolf still did not move. Eventually, the initial wave of terror subsided, and all Nate could feel was anticipation. Finally, the Wolf moved, but not to attack Nate. Purposefully, the black wolf turned and walked at a slow pace into the forest.

Nate stood, back still against the tree, and watched the Ice Wolf go, afraid that if he moved a muscle, the beast would attack. The Wolf paused when it realized Nate remained pressed against the tree, and it jerked its head purposefully in the direction that it had been heading.

Did… did the Wolf want Nate to follow it? Unsure what to do, Nate tentatively leaned off of the tree, standing on his own in the snow. The Ice Wolf jerked its head again, and against all of his instincts, Nate took a slow step forwards, his eyes straining to detect the Ice Wolf, hoping that he’d be able to see the wolf well enough to dodge it if it leaped for him.

But Nate knew very well that even if one of his legs wasn’t wounded, he wouldn’t be able to outrun a wolf, ghostly or otherwise. Nate slowly walked towards the Wolf, and the Wolf set out at a carefree trot through the forest, its blue eyes glowing like a car’s headlights, illuminating the forest ahead. Nate was absolutely mystified. He was following the Ice Wolf, which until tonight he thought was a mere urban legend, through the dark forest, hoping it didn’t turn on him or lead him into danger.

But frankly, Nate didn’t have long left before he would drop to the ground and never get back up. Following the Ice Wolf seemed to be the only option, and if he didn’t follow the Wolf, it might upset him, and the Wolf could attack him.

So, for now, all Nate could do was follow the Ice Wolf. The Wolf led him through the night, and moved with vastly more grace than Nate did. Unable to see, Nate kept tripping over roots, or sometimes even walking into trees. The Wolf, it seemed, was non-corporeal, and could trot through trees at will, which then blocked the blue lights from Nate’s vision, so he often wound up walking into trees.

Nate stuck out his hands and one of them caught on a tree branch, and Nate let out a surprised exclamation as it left a cut on his hand. Nate felt something brush up against his leg, and froze. He cast his gaze around for the Ice Wolf, and didn’t see it.

Slowly, Nate looked down to see the Ice Wolf looking up at him from right beside him, his eyes casting a strange blue glow across Nate’s face, and up close, Nate could see that the glowing blue eyes had a pinprick of a more normal reflective yellow in the center. Maybe it was left over from the Ice Wolf’s original body, and not this spiritual reincarnation? How did ghost wolves work anyway?

The Wolf aggressively head-butted Nate’s leg, thankfully it was the uninjured one, and then stuck close to Nate’s side as Nate kept walking forwards. The Wolf dutifully kept close, and as they walked, Nate realized that he could feel the Wolf. It was suddenly solid. Maybe the Wolf could

change between non-corporeal and corporeal at will.

Nate and the Wolf walked for hours, until eventually, the moon began to subside, and Nate could walk no longer. He took one more step then fell to the ground, catching himself on his hands in the snow, then rolling onto his back. Nate’s breathing was labored, and the Wolf leaned over his face, peering down his snout at the fallen boy. Nate saw something akin to concern written on the Wolf’s face, and the Wolf nosed at Nate’s neck.

“I’ll be alright,” Nate gasped, “I just need a minute.”

Hunger and thirst were prevalent in Nate’s mind, and he knew that he needed water or food, but he had none of either. Ben had been carrying the water. Nate had, in fact, played rock paper scissors with Ben to determine who had to carry the water. If only Nate had lost, he might not be quite as water-deprived.

Nate heard an odd noise, and then snow was dropped onto his mouth. Nate coughed in surprise, spitting out the snow, and reaching up with his non-bloody hand to wipe it away. The Wolf leaned over Nate’s face and dropped more snow on Nate’s mouth.

“What are you doing?” Nate asked, coughing. The Wolf just dropped more snow, taking the opportunity to get it into Nate’s mouth instead of on it. Nate tried to spit it out, but then realized quickly that the snow was melting in his mouth. Creating… water. He was so stupid! He’d been practically dying of thirst since he’d gotten lost, and all the while he’d been walking across thick layers of snow! Nate rolled over onto his stomach, and started shoveling snow into his mouth, using the light from the Wolf’s gaze to avoid snow that had stuff in it like dirt or rocks.

Nate coughed from the snow, and sat up, wiping the snow away with the back of his hand. Not a perfect solution, but hopefully it could sustain him until he reached some kind of civilization.

Nate pushed himself up onto his feet, and so the trek continued. Nate had no idea where the Wolf was leading him, only that he had no choice but to follow if he wanted to survive. The Ice Wolf seemed to be pretty knowledgeable about survival and directions, but Nate had no idea why the walk was so long. Unless Nate had been heading the wrong way this entire time he’d been lost. In the dark, he was unsure if he was traversing already traveled ground, as his only landmarks were trees, rocks, and snow, none of which looked particularly familiar.

From what Nate could remember about hypothermia, it could set in very quickly, and Nate had spent nearly all day and most of the night out in the snow. He was dressed very warmly, but that wouldn’t protect him forever.

If they weren’t close to wherever the Wolf was bringing him, Nate might not make it there.

The Wolf paused suddenly, and Nate looked around. The forest here looked no different, did it? The Wolf pointed with its nose towards a thick shield of trees and leaves, and then it turned and around and raced off into the night. Nate gave a shiver of cold, and headed towards the trees and leaves obscuring his view of what lay beyond them, pushing forwards and staggering out into a clearing.

A clearing that contained a cabin. Nate fell to his knees in relief, taking deep, strangled breaths of utter joy. Nate scrambled back up onto his feet and limped as quickly as he could forwards. He took care that he didn’t trip over the pebbles on the winding path up to the front porch, and

knocked on the cabin’s wooden door.It opened to cast a warm glow onto Nate, and Nate gave a relieved grin.

The Ice Wolf stood on a hill, her blue eyes watching as the boy that she had saved in the forest was ushered into the cabin by his friends, and then she turned back to the forest. The Ice Wolf tilted her head, and then she let out a howl into the night, and took off through the forest, loving the thrill of racing through it without having to avoid obstacles. Now, the Ice Wolf was off in search of someone else to help. She was the guardian of this forest, after all.