Eddie was being dragged through the snow drift by a caveman. Some knuckle-dragging somebody has got your ass for dinner fool. It’s going to be Big Shiv on the bottom bunk all over again.

As he was dragged clear of the drift by the snarling beast-man he spun on his rear-end defensively and held his broken bone shank in front of him. It was then that he realized that he had just stabbed Jay in the forearm; a forearm that was attached to a hand that did not have enough fingers on it. Jay was standing before him, a sword in his right hand, holding out his left hand toward him, as if asking for help. Blood was running out and dripping good, but it was not spurting.

Eddie did not even look around, did not want to. He just got to work, fast. He packed a handful of snow against the stub where the pinkie would be and the half of ring finger that was left. This would have to hold while he opened his laceration kit. He used an antiseptic pad to scrub the wound. He doused the stubs with iodine.

He then folded over the ragged skin and sewed the ends off nice and tight. It was dark now. He was operating on contact alone. He shot the hand up with an antibiotic, and then shoved a whole Z-PAC worth of antibiotics into the man’s mouth and stuffed in snow behind it.

Doctor London would be kicking your ass for this mess.

“Alright, swallow caveman.”

Jay swallowed and placed Eddie’s hand against his thigh, which had four puncture wounds in it. Eddie scrubbed and doused the area and applied a bandage, and shot a local antibiotic into the thigh.

Eddie rose and looked around, there was only reeking piles of meat where his friends had been. There were some hyena eyes bobbing around down slope, and the wolves were gathering above, five sets of eyes.

“What do we do Jay-Bone. Oh shit, I stabbed you. Let me clean that up while you tell me what’s up. Here’s a shot of some shit.”

The man just snarled and sniffed while Eddie worked on the puncture wound to the left forearm. “Shit, I hit bone brother. I’m sorry. Good stab huh?”

Jay hugged him, and then stopped and listened. The snowfall had lightened some. They could hear the roar of something large not far off, the confused laughter of the few remaining hyenas as they circled, and the snapping of jaws and licking of snouts on the rocks above.

“I know Brother. We have ta roll, and the ground is too hard ta dig a grave even if we had a shovel. This is horrible man. I’m glad you made it, or I’d be dog chow right now.”

Jay had lost his parka and made no attempt to find it. He stepped over to a pile of bodies and drew a sword from the body of a hyena, and tore something else away with his mangled hand and handed it to Eddie. It was Terrence’s gold rope. Eddie started to cry.

Eddie then followed Jay to another pile of bodies where he picked something up. The man then readjusted his harness and weapons, and took Eddie’s right hand in his own left, as they held hands walking down the slope toward the tree. Eddie could feel the blood oozing out and the hand swelling up.

After sometime picking their way down the slope, occasionally removing an arrow from a hyena body, they came to the tree. A pair of blazing yellow eyes glared down at them. Then, to Eddie’s shock, Jay actually said something, “Ey Eddie, tink I oughta ged my arrow outa dat carcass ole Felix ‘ere drug up inta da tree?”

“That shit’s a joke right? Right!”

Jay laughed, “We’ll be off yer turf in a few Felix. You loadin’ up wit everything Eddie, bows en all. I gotta be light. Had ta shuck dat parka as it was or I’d a been run down. Ovaestimaded ma footspeed in all dis gear. Ere ya go, Thaz ma mule. Up en ‘round ta da right. Lions commin’ from da left. Dis way we jus’ gotta deal wit da wolves.”

Felix [the big fucking man-eating machine!] growled his protest.

“Yes sir Captain Jay-Bone. Nice to have you back. Thought you lost your voice in the event.”

“The sounds jus’ so loud in ma head when I talk. Id ‘urts, en I need ta stay tuned to da wildlife. Silence ‘til dawn. We ain’t stoppin’. Later Felix.”

Felix followed them with his growl, which alone was enough to make a man shiver in the night.

By the time they were passing the battleground there were more hyenas and quite a few larger sets of golden eyes—Lions!—rumbling, snarling, laughing and tearing.

They made a half-circle around the site and then got back on course. Seven pairs of eyes followed them though. The wolves, as Jay had predicted, had taken up their trail. He could tell how large they were based on how high their eyes bobbed above the snow as they crested the final ridge and came out onto a plateau. There were two big ones, one really big; two medium sized ones, about German Shepherd size; and three small ones about the height of pit bulls, not big at all. He patted Jay on the back to get his attention but the man made no response, other than to squeeze his hand and pull him along.

After about two miles the larger wolves began to circle around on either side. That’s when Jay stopped and shoved his hand into the dense snowpack. Within minutes the wolves had them surrounded. Jay grabbed his head and shoved him down. He then shoved his sword into the ground above him. Eddie could hear the sound of the bow being drawn, the man then spoke as he loosed an arrow, “Siss” and one of the medium sized wolves yelped and the eyes blinked out.

“Bro” and a wining yelp could be heard as a set of eyes beginning spinning in circles.

A snarl from the largest wolf cut the night air as they were rushed and Jay calmly said, “Pappa” and dropped the great wolf ten yards off.

The other big wolf made it to within three paces before Jay drew another arrow and said “Mama” and sent it through the snarling, indecisive beast from end to end. The big female just lay there and struggled for breath, while Jay casually slung his bow and pulled the sword out of the ground, gathered his spent arrows from the dead and dying, and continued on, with Eddie scrambling after him.

Behind them the smaller wolves, the kids I suppose, sat around in a circle about their mother and howled.

Just as thoughts of civilization; of heating, air-conditioning and other modern symbols of higher civilization, such as hip-hop-honeys and knot-rolls of bills, began to flood his mind, Jay stopped, let go of his hand, and spread his arms, looking up at the rising moon, which was just past full, bright and luminous, rising above the now cloudless eastern horizon. The man then howled, like the very fiends of Hell must surely howl when they are brought a new soul to feast upon. There was no proper response to this totally irrational and downright terrifying behavior on the part of his “leader”.

Eddie could not make any sense of it. He was so deeply disturbed by this act that not a single smartass Tarzan comment even came to mind. It made sense to something else out their though, because the fiendish call was returned by the roar of some distant, and no doubt savage, beast.

Baby wolves howling for their mammy behind you, Mister Hide*, his murderous self, howling into the nasty night besides you, and some big hairy bastard with jaws like Godzilla is howling back. You are seriously screwed Eddie.

The howls of the wolves stopped and they continued on across the moonlit grassland. Despite the threat that they had posed there remained a pang in his heart for the slaughter of the wolf pack, which was so obviously a family, now consisting only of three orphans. He turned for one last look and saw three pair of eyes regarding them in the distance, growing smaller and ever less significant in the moonlight.

*Mister Edison is certainly evoking the image of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. However, his insistence on imagining the name spelled with an ‘i’, and in lettering composed of ape fur, led to this unfortunately faithful transliteration.

-Bysiad Helmund