Better Fred than Dead.

Survival
('Better Fred than Dead')
By Brian Kelly.
Short Story 3,057 words.

Genre Horror.

Plot Two hunters in the Yukon, get caught up in unseasonally early, heavy snowfalls. The death of one of them leads to cannibalism by the other.

Narrative Short paragraphs and chapters. Written in plain English with a flowing style. Easy reading.

'Better Fred Than Dead.'

Joe and Fred had arrived at the cabin in plenty of time to set traps and catch a good haul of bear and other animals before they expected any change for the worse in the weather. They had pooled their spare cash and bought a log cabin twelve years previously. The cabin had been standing for fifty years before they bought it, but was still as good as new. It stood on a low level plateau just twenty feet above a point where two creeks converged into the Pelly River.
“OK, so we know that we ain’t s’possed to trap, shoot or do any other crap to the nice liddle teddy bears, but we sure as hell ain’t going ta bring one back to life if it just happens to get caught in one of our traps, or if it just happens to dash in between an elk or deer that we got in our sights and gets itself shot.” Said Fred, with a smile and a knowing wink, to the whizzened old trapper who they were taking a drink with in a bar in Skagway, before setting out on their annual Fall hunting trip: a trip which saw them working through the winter to get a stockpile of prime winter furs and pelts. The sale of their endeavours each year gave them enough cash to have an easy time all through Spring and Summer.
Within the first three days after being dropped off by the floatplane and canoeing the last eleven miles, they had restocked the woodpile with enough sawn timber logs to see them comfortable before winter set in. The meat from their ‘kills’ would feed them through the winter, and the pelts and skins would fetch good prices next spring.
They had brought with them plenty of dried vegetables, fruits, and vitamin supplements. On the first day of their arrival Joe had shot a small Mule deer. The deer, one of that year’s calves, had virtually given itself up. Its curiosity at standing still, with wide eyes, looking towards its first sighting of humans had been like leading a lamb to the slaughter.
They had spent the next three days sawing up timber for the winter stocks, and doing small maintenance jobs on the cabin.
The radio forecast had said that there would be heavy rain, and it would turn colder, but snow was not mentioned. Nor did they expect any so early into the Fall.
On the evening of the third day, they sat around the table and planned the trap layout for the southern section. The advent of the lightweight plastic traps meant that they could carry more on each foray into the forest. They decided that would take ten traps each. Joe would go directly East for a mile, and set his first trap. Fred would go West, and do the same, they would then both work Southerly, setting traps at intervals, and working in a horseshoe, to meet at Mc'Gills old, disused cabin, by the convergence of the rivers, seven miles from their cabin.
They had been partners for many years, and had complete faith in each others ability to work alone. Because they were confident of plenty more fresh meat, they had only taken the heart, liver, and thighs of the Mule deer, and left the rest to scavengers. They diced up the last of the thigh meat , and put it in a pot, with a heap of dried vegetables, to soak overnight. A quick boiling in the morning would give them breakfast, and leave enough for a ready meal when they returned.
There was a colder feel about the air as they got out of their bunks that morning and looking outside they saw that the rain had started to turn sleety, but they didn't think for one minute that there would be any significant snow.

2
Fred set his first trap on a long, plastic sheathed, steel wire line. He climbed back up the steep banking to fix a marker. It had rained hard overnight and as he had neared the point where he intended to lay his first trap the precipitation had turned to pure snow. Big soft flakes of snow that soon put a covering over the ground.
Fred stepped on a patch of mossy green and in a flash is feet went from under him and sliding feet first, with an unlucky, million to one chance, pushed his leg straight through the powerful trap, all the way to the upper thigh, before the latch tripped.
He screamed, in unbelievable searing pain, as blood started to ooze from the crushed bone and ripped muscular flesh. Fred knew that he was in serious trouble; his pack with the rifle strapped to it was well out of reach of the wire length, hanging on a tree, so he wouldn't be able hutch his way to the tree and fire their prearranged, three rapid shots distress signal, to attract the distant Joe to his aid. In between periods of unconsciousness and pain soaked awareness of his plight, he tried to put together some co-errant thoughts. He agonisingly twisted his body and was able to withdraw his long skinning knife, just in time to meet the snarling horror that was any man's worst fears in this kind of situation.

3
By early afternoon Joe was at the old cabin where they had arranged to meet, and every five minutes called for Fred. The trap setting had been much harder than usual, because soon after leaving the cabin, the sleet had turned to heavy soft snow; the wind had increased to start rippling it into drifts. They had agreed that if there were delays, neither would wait more than an hour. They were very experienced woodsmen, and could cope with minor difficulties and changes in weather. Joe put a marker on Mc'Gills cabin before setting off back to their cabin, expecting to find Fred there before him. He knew that there was nothing serious to worry about or Fred would have fired the warning shots.
Joe was back at the cabin by five O'clock, and darkness would soon set in. There was no sign that Fred had been back. With practised ease Joe made up the fire and hung the stew pan along side of the kettle on the steel gibbet over the flames. He made a large pot of coffee. Whatever the cause of the delay, he knew that Fred would be exhausted, and would appreciate the food and coffee, after walking through the ever-deepening snow.
By nightfall, Fred had still not returned, and there was no let up in the snowfall that, with the increasing wind speed had become a blizzard. Joe now accepted that there must be something seriously wrong and knew that he would not be able to go out and search for Fred that evening and that he would be out first thing in the morning to look for his old partner.
4
When Joe set out, the wind had dropped, and the snow had flattened out to a fourteen-inch level, and was now falling gently.
They did not leave much to chance and having the sketch that they had drawn up when they had planned their trap setting he knew approximately where Fred would have gone to, to set his first trap, and by working closely to his compass, expected to cover all the ground that Fred should have covered. The first walking of winter with snowshoes, was always a hard pull on all the leg muscles, but Joe determined to make good time, in case the snow became heavy again. Right on target, where he expected to see the first trap marker, he saw Fred's bright orange backpack cover, from a good hundred yards away, hanging in a lightening blasted tree.
Now he knew there was something very seriously wrong. Had Fred been attacked by a bear? Had a rutting deer, or a Wapiti gored him? He took his snowshoes off, and ran stumblingly through the clinging snow. As he looked down the banking he saw the body. The snow was much shallower here, being protected under a canopy of trees, but the snow around had been trampled, and then he realised with horror that the dark furry mass that he was seeing was the back of a Wolverine, with its head deep inside Fred's chest cavity, eating away at his internal organs.
He yelled at the horror before him. The Wolverine jumped backwards and without even a glance as to who or what had made the threatening sound, ran off, still trailing a large piece of Fred's lungs from its mouth, as Joe unslung his rifle from around his shoulders and ran to the body.
Joe only then realised the full horror of what had happened, when he saw the state of Fred's cut and clawed hands.
The wolverine must have attacked Fred whilst he was lying trapped, and unable to put up a proper fight. He had got his knife out, it was lying close by the body, and had possibly slashed across his own belly whilst thrusting at the unremitting aggressive attacks that a wolverine is capable of. From the state of Freds's hands, Joe could see that Fred must have dropped the knife, and tried to fend off the brute with his bare hands, while it was trying to get at his intestines. The wolverine had started eating Fred's innards whilst he was still alive, and stayed by the body to eat at leisure, when ever it fancied some more. Nothing else, not even a bear, would contest a wolverine for its food. Fred's large carcass would have given the wolverine four weeks of good meat, even the bones would have been chomped up, only bits of ragged up clothing would be the evidence of Fred having ever been there.
Joe knew that he had to work fast, if he was to get Fred’s body away before the Wolverine returned, which it most certainly would. Wolverines feared nothing, and it had probably only run away out of sheer surprise at the shout. It was probably already sated anyway
Joe had to make an instant decision and knew just what he had to do. He laid the rifle down by the side of Fred’s body and taking out his broad bladed hunting knife, silently and very purposely severed the crushed leg at the point where the jagged stainless steel teeth were holding it fast, to release it from the trap. This did not come easy. The very thought of having to cut up the dead body of the man who had been his partner and friend for years was repulsive enough, but having cut through the flesh of the frozen cold thigh he then had to stand on the upper part of the thigh and taking hold of the boot, had to lever the leg until he broke through the bone. With the leg severed from the body he lashed it to the Fred’s left leg, knowing that he could not have the encumbrance of carrying it separately.
Retrieving his rifle, he put a rope around Fred's stiffened body and pulled the carcass of his dead friend over the snow. Joe was a hard man, who had seen many grizzly sights in his life, but the sight of the Wolverine eating his friend, had upset him deeply. The heart, lungs, stomach, and all the soft guts, had been eaten. But Joe was also a very practical man and as he struggled through the snow, slowed by the awkwardness of the snowshoes, he said aloud. "Well at least old pal, that varmint sure took a lot of weight off you. He's made sledging you a lot easier. I'll be back for your pack tomorrow."
The snow was again falling heavily as he arrived back at the cabin and even though he was exhausted he did not at first take a rest, instead he took a shovel from the tool store and dug snow away from a square yard area just outside and to the right of the door, to reveal the heavy cover on the plastic lined, fresh meat pit. Lifting the lid, he pulled the stiff carcass to the side and let what remained of Fred's body drop in. He put the lid back on and kicked home the three wooden locking wedges, then poured strong smelling disinfectant fluid around the area, to discourage bears, and the wolverine, which he knew would trail him back to the cabin, from getting to the body.

5
That evening he ate the last of the Mule deer meat, and thought that tomorrow he had to go early for Fred's backpack, then pack his own equipment, ready to move out, and report Fred's death, as soon as the weather broke.
But the weather didn't break.
Three days later, snowed into the cabin, and impossible to get to his traps, he was craving for red meat, and had been drowning his sorrows with raw rye whisky. "A man can't live without meat Joe." He said, loudly and philosophically, to himself, in a self pitying maudling voice. "Only cattle and deer live on vegetables, and I ain't no Goddamned deer. I'm still a living, kicking, fighting human man, and by gosh I've got to eat some good meat soon, or I'll start to look like a goddamn four legged skunk." He split another log and threw it on the fire, then, sitting and watching the flames leaping, and listening to the wood crackling, he said.
'That darned wolverine was only eating Fred to survive, now I've got to survive, and I've still got good old Fred." He poured some more whisky into his aluminium mug, and gazed into the crackling fire for ten minutes. Seeming to make up his mind, after an inner struggle, he lit a kerosene lantern and picked up the shovel, opening the door, he hung the lantern by the doorway, and shovelled through four feet deep snow to the meat pit. He brought in Fred's severed leg. Then he very beliberately placed two small logs under the leg, with one expert swing with his long handled tree felling axe, the frozen brittle leg broke into two pieces. He repeated this two more times until he had the leg into four short lengths. Taking a thigh section he skewered the bone and placed it on a spit over the open fire, and when it had thawed sufficiently, like a trained butcher, quickly fletched the flesh from the bone. Skewering a large piece of the thigh meat, he said, "Fred, old pal, you don't know just how good a partner you are to me." He fixed it over the fire to slowly sizzle on the spit.
Sitting close to the fire, and listened to the radio, as he occasionally turned the meat, then as he became conscious of the musical chimes of the jingle to announce the news, Joe listened in hard and gave it all his attention.

"This is Pete Kelly on KLM radio, beaming out from Whitehorse, wishin' y' all a good evening and bringing you the latest news, at twenty hours, Pacific time. The un-seasonally heavy snowfalls, which have hit the Yukon this Fall, appear set to continue, the Weather Bureau stated today, and I quote, 'Interior and Forestry Departments are concerned for the safety of the dozens of trappers, who set up camp early, to prepare for winter, but will have been caught unawares by the heavy snowfalls, particularly in the Pelly Mountains area. Anybody in distress who does not have a transmitting radio is advised to make black smoke and clear your cabin roof of snow, then something brightly coloured should be nailed to the roof. When the weather clears, spotter planes will make food drops when possible.' That's the end of the quote fellas, Keep listening, you guys, were all rooting for you, and be nice to each other! Try not to get into each other’s hair while you are penned up in those cabins.” Without a break and with the seasoned radio broadcasters speed of chatter he carried on.
“More weather reports on the hour. Now some international and national news, before going back to some nostalgia with the recorded sound of Big Bill Campbell and his Rocky Mountain Rhythm."
Joe smiled at the chatty words of the announcer as his main attention was now again directed at cooking the meat. Showing the effects of the alcohol, he said very loudly "I think me and Fred's going to be able to survive for a few more weeks. He sure does have good fleshy thighs and by gosh, he smells a lot better on that spit than he did when he was alive. I'm looking forward to some delicious ham, off Fred's big fat juicy butt for breakfast. By the time Fred's gone, there should be plenty of good bear and elk available." The radio now played 'Home, Home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play, where never a word of discouragement's heard, and the skies are not cloudy all day.' A slight drunken slur entered his voice. "I love your singing Big Bill, but you and me must hunt different ranges." With which he switched off the radio. "Well, I suppose I may as well stay and see the winter out." He said pensively, as he jabbed his hunting knife into the sizzling flesh, to test whether it was ready to eat. Satisfied, Joe put the meat and some boiled mixed vegetables on a large aluminium plate, and set it on the table, then making a deliberate play of setting knife and fork on either side of the plate, sat down heavily on the bench seat. Chuckling to himself, he jokingly said. "Well I guess, it's 'Better Fred than dead'."

The End.
Copyright Brian Kelly
6th. October 1997.