Snow settled wetly on the windshield of the 4x4 pickup as Theresa considered what she should do. Ian had just woken up from his nap in the car seat next to her, and was fascinating himself by waving his arms around in front of his face. Driving alone in these woods always made Theresa nervous, especially with the baby along, but it was only a few miles out to the hunting cabin where her husband Rob was waiting for her, and normally she felt reasonably safe in the cab of the truck. This was a situation she hadn’t planned for, though. Just moments ago, the tires of the 4x4 had twisted a huge branch upright into the undercarriage as she rolled over it, and there had been a horrendous snapping and scraping beneath her. The engine had sputtered, then stalled, and she hadn’t been able to start it again. To make matters worse, there was a strong smell of gasoline rising. If the branch had snagged a fuel line, the heat of the engine might ignite the leakage and catch the whole truck on fire. She wasn’t sure how long she could count on the cabin of the truck as a safe haven.
Theresa didn’t have long to consider. Moments later, flames started licking out from under the hood. Her heart leapt. She cut her hand on a loose seat spring in her haste to get Ian out of his car seat. Clutching him to her breast, she jumped out the door and clambered through the thick blanket of snow. She stumbled and fell, half crawled and half ran across the road, where she dropped into a drift of snow behind a fallen log. She held Ian beneath her and waited. For a few seconds, there was only the crackle and pop of the burning truck, then the gas tank exploded in a deafening concussion. Glass and bits of burning debris fell all around. She could feel the heat from the burning truck from where she lay. Ian had been silent until the explosion. Now he was crying, upset at all the commotion.
After a minute or so of further waiting, Theresa thought it would probably be okay to sit up. She looked up the road. She was only a mile or two away from the cabin. Surely Rob had heard the explosion. He would be here shortly. She looked at the truck. It was quite thoroughly on fire. She looked at Ian, who had forgotten his tears on seeing the bright, burning truck. She remembered what the clerk at the convenience store had said when she told him she was coming up here. "Watch out for the wolves," he had said. His brother had shot a couple of them the week before in the same area. The winter had been hard on the deer population, and the wolves were getting thin and aggressive. Theresa shuddered.
As if on cue, down the road about 700 yards the way she had come, a lone wolf stepped out into the road, walked to the middle and sat, watching her. There would be more, she knew. Theresa stood and stumbled back towards the burning truck, looking for something to use for defense. She picked up a large wrench, about a foot and a half long, from the snow where it had landed after being thrown from the truck bed in the explosion. Holding Ian, and wielding the wrench, she looked back down the road where she had seen the wolf. There were three now, and they were coming her way. A fourth emerged from the underbrush to join them.
She ran. Theresa ran with everything in her up the road towards the cabin. Behind her she heard a rising howl, and another. She screamed for help at the top of her lungs as she ran. She fell on top of Ian and clambered up only to trip again. Ian wailed, terrified at his mother’s behavior. Theresa stumbled through the knee-high snow, spurred onward by a chorus of howls from behind. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the wolves were leaping through the snow, catching up quickly. It was too far to the cabin. She had to find someplace closer.
There was a steep bank on the left side of the road ahead. Theresa thought she remembered a spot coming up where the bank folded back a few feet. She might be able to get in there. She ran on, stumbling and getting up again, still shouting for help. By the time she got to the spot, she could hear the crunch of snow behind her as the wolves bounded through it. The hollow was several feet deep. If she got in there, they could only get at her from one direction. She wasted no time. She laid Ian down in the deepest part, and then turned to defend the opening, just in time to see the wolves approaching.
She shouted at them, and banged her wrench on the rocks around her. The wolves snarled back. They stalked towards the opening, hackles raised. Their heads were low to the ground, and their amber eyes watched her warily. She held the wrench at the ready with both hands, determined to kill as many as she could and die herself before they got to her baby. One of the wolves came closer, moving in from the left. She swung at it, and it hopped back, snarling.
Another sprang at her from the right. Her wrench caught the creature in the side, deflecting the attack and eliciting a yelp as it fell back towards the road. A third caught hold of her left ankle while she was swinging. She heard something snap and felt searing pain shoot up her leg. She brought the wrench crashing against the side of its head, knocking it loose and away from her. It didn’t get up again, but the others all moved in at once, excited into a howling, snarling frenzy by the smell of blood. They attacked as one.
Theresa went into something of a frenzy herself, moved by the selfless desperate instinct of a mother defending her child. She flailed the wrench in every direction at once, her blows sounding like gunshots as they struck. Wolves dropped left and right, even some that she didn’t hit. It was quickly over. Two or three escaped into the woods running at top speed. Theresa stood, breathless and trembling, not believing they were gone.
Gray shapes lay in the snow all around. Her left arm was gashed and hanging limp. There was blood on the snow. Ian was still wailing behind her. She heard footsteps approaching at a run from up the road. She looked to see Rob running towards her from where his truck was parked a few yards away, rifle in hand. She tried to take a step towards him, but when she moved to do so, her left ankle turned sharply, and she fell face-first into the snow. Moments later his arms were around her, picking her up. "Oh my Theresa! Oh my wife! I was so afraid I would shoot you!" Theresa just clung to him and wept in relief.
After a moment, Rob sat Theresa against a rock, and went into the alcove after little Ian. He put Ian in her arms, then picked them both up and carried them back to the truck, the rifle hanging by its strap from his arm and bouncing against his leg with every step. She looked up at her husband’s face and saw a tear on his cheek. He had very nearly lost all that was valuable to him. As he set them down in the cab of the truck, he spoke: "Let’s move to the city."
-J.R. Willett