Howl
opening excerpt
Jon’s footsteps crunched on the packed snow as he neared home. Between strides, a whimper threaded through the wind. It must be the squeak of his boots. But there it sounded again, a mournful cry. His flashlight cast a bluish tinge over the stark Yukon terrain, the shadows of spruce and pine trees stretching like sentries across the snow.
Minus 40 Celsius. The coldest day so far. The wind howled, gusting in a hundred whirling dervishes of granular snow. He swiped his face, the nylon of his Arctic mitt scratching against his beard. His stomach rumbled. The whining intensified.
He dropped to his knees beside the splintered stairs leading to his cabin and shone the stream of light into the hollow beneath the stoop. A pair of eyes gleamed a ghostly blue. Stretching farther into the cavity, he bumped a solid weight—a mass of frozen pups—all dead but the one whimpering in the middle. He tugged his mitt off with his teeth and the cold pierced his skin. Grasping the scruff of the crying pup’s neck, he yanked the still-warm body through the opening. Twig-like ribs pressed in his palm. It had to be no more than a couple of months old, weighed no more than a couple of beers. He unzipped his parka halfway and pressed the scrawny body to his chest, then stomped up the stairs and into the small cabin.
Moonlight seeped through the lone window, the interior cold, but a respite from the harsh wind. One hand cradling the pup, he ripped pages from a university text with the other, the paper tearing easily from the softened binding. He arranged them and a handful of kindling teepee-style in the woodstove. His thumb flicked the lighter and an orange flame hissed. Igniting the corner of Sedimentary Paleozoic and Mesozoic Formations, the glossy pages curled, metamorphosizing into ash snowflakes as the fire crackled and popped.
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