Free The Wild by Christopher Golden

wonder.
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    There were whispers in the dark. Voices. Since one of them sounded much more like Merritt Sloper than Saint Peter,Jack decided he must still be among the living. He tried to open his eyes but could not. His lips were parted slightly, and he could feel a muzzle of ice coating long weeks’ worth of beard. Only by probing with his tongue could he find the small opening that his own breath had managed to maintain in that icy mask.
    â€œHe’s breathing. I told you he was breathing,” said one of the voices.
    Jim , Jack thought. Goodman. Good man, Jim . Inside, he smiled, but his facial muscles did not seem to respond.
    â€œHe’ll have frostbite for sure,” Merritt replied. “If he lives.”
    â€œHe’ll live,” Jim retorted. “Look at him. Someone wanted him kept alive. Maybe a mountain man or Indians.”
    â€œLook around. Do you see any footprints at all?”
    â€œJust wolf tracks. Wait…you think a wolf did this? Caught all these animals and just left the meat here? With all due respect, Merritt, such behavior is far beyond the norm for the lupine species. It isn’t in their nature—”
    The sound of their bickering warmed Jack. One of them dropped onto his knees in the snow beside him, and a moment later, when he heard the voice, he knew it was Merritt.
    â€œThere isn’t anything natural about this,” the big man said. “Now help me, Jim. We’ve got to get him back to thecabin and in front of a fire, or even the angels won’t be able to save him.”
    Jack felt his head rocking slightly, but it took him a moment before he could feel Merritt’s fingers probing his face. The man cupped his hands on Jack’s cheeks, trying to warm them. The heat of his friend’s flesh brought needles of prickling pain into his cheeks as a trace of feeling returned.
    He could hear Merritt blowing onto his own hands before he repeated the process.
    â€œJim! Come on, man!” Merritt urged.
    But still Jim hesitated. “It’s like…some sort of massacre. Whatever’s watching over him, I don’t think it’s angels.”
    â€œDamn it, Jim!” Merritt barked.
    Jack blinked, the ice crust on his eyelids melting thanks to the heat of Merritt’s hands. He tried to speak. Bickering like a couple of old hens, he wanted to say. But his voice wouldn’t come. Instead, he managed only a moan. Now, at last, he could see them, although his vision remained blurry.
    â€œAll right,” Jim said. “Help me snap off some of these branches. We’ll need some kind of makeshift stretcher—”
    Merritt scoffed. “Don’t be daft. He’s been out here long enough.”
    The big man scraped ice from his red beard and thenput his mittens back on. He bent down and began to pry Jack away from the snow beneath, working his hands and arms underneath Jack’s frozen, blood-stiffened clothes.
    â€œMerritt. His eyes are open,” Jim said.
    Looming above Jack, Merritt looked down and smiled beatifically, a young Father Christmas. “Well, well. So they are. Hang on, young Master London. We’ll have you warm soon enough.”
    â€œOr as warm as it ever gets out here,” Jim added, but despite the resignation in his words, his tone was far from defeatist. “Don’t worry, Jack. You’re not alone.”
    No , Jack thought as Merritt hoisted him up from the ground, snow and dead things—the wolf’s offerings of life—sliding off him. Not alone at all .
    Merritt slung Jack over his shoulder and began to trudge through the snow. Every step jolted Jack so it felt as if his bones were grinding together. His mind grew vaguer, thoughts flickering like a candle flame until they guttered out. The voices of his friends became a comforting drone that accompanied him down into the darkness, and he thought he heard a lonely howl off in the distance. But perhaps it was only