"Frostbite" -- July 23

Word count: 750

Frostbite

Jem and Gray were assigned to the tracks on the most bitter morning of the year. January 14. They took three pairs of gloves apiece and an extra. The team that went out before them had lost a man to frostbite.

Jem and Gray did rock, paper, scissors for carrying the gun, which meant standing atop the handcart and watching for the wolves. Gray lost.

The sun hung low in the sky when they reached the end of the line, where the half-built, frozen tracks faded into snowbanks, but the snow shone all around, like a white bonfire. The air attacked the openings in Gray’s clothing, nipping at his wrists and the skin around his eyes.

“They won’t come during the day,” Jem said.

Gray leaned against the pump in the center of the handcart and flexed his stiff fingers against the barrel of the gun. He could feel the brittle coldness of the steel through his mittens. The last time he’d felt a gun like that in his hand, it had shattered when he pulled the trigger.

Gray squinted into the white wasteland, searching for eyes.

Below him, Jem pounded at the tracks with his sledgehammer. The hammer’s clink on frozen metal echoed over the blank white landscape. Gray did not envy Jem his job—track duty meant working, sweat turning wool clothes into an inescapable sauna.

“You could help me, you know,” Jem said, resting on his sledgehammer.

“We agreed.”

“Gray, they won’t come during the day.”

Gray didn’t answer. He’d had this fight with Jem too many times to count. He had seen the white wolves attack before. Jem was new. Anyone who had been on the line for more than two months knew about the wolves.

He held the gun barrel close, to keep it warm, and scanned the snow for movement.

The sun cast no warmth on the men. Jem’s hammer never stopped, each erratic plink jarring inside Gray’s skull. As Jem laid track, they crept further and further from the base.

Jem’s hammer finally stopped sometime around midday. He leaned it against the side of the cart. The platform shook as he jumped up beside Gray.

“What are you doing?” Gray asked, his voice muffled through his scarf.

“Taking a break.” Jem shrugged off his outer coat and hung it over the mechanism of the handcart.

“Put your coat back on, idiot!”

Jem looked Gray in the eye. “Strong language from someone watching for imaginary wolves while I work.”

“You’ll get frostbite.”

Jem spread his arms, showing Gray the layers of coats he still wore. “Come down and help me. Oh, wait.” He leaned forward and squinted outward. “There might be a wolf.”

Gray refused to respond. After a pause, Jem dropped back to the ground.

An hour later, Jem removed a second coat and one pair of gloves.

“It’s hot,” he said, staring up at Gray with his face uncovered, blowing defiant clouds of steam into the cold, dry air. “I’m sweating.”

An hour later, he removed his last coat, leaving himself in a fleece-lined shirt. He made an eloquent gesture when Gray opened his mouth to comment.

Jem swung the hammer more slowly now, gathering strength between each swing, movements sluggish.

Gray moved his eyes back to the edge of the woods, covered in a thick blanket of dazzling white. Something black moved against the snow. He snapped the gun to his shoulder, reminded once again of the brittle coldness of the barrel. The stock numbed his cheek through his scarf.

“See anything?” Jem asked, his voice slow and exaggerated.

Startled, Gray looked down. Jem stood soaked in sweat that was already crystallizing into frost, grinning lopsidedly. His warm clothes made dark gray spots on the snow behind him.

“Jem, put your clothes back on!” Gray moved to the edge of the platform to step down.

They attacked. Wolves from every direction, materializing out of the snow. Gray threw his rifle to his shoulder, but the black noses, black eyes, white shadows were everywhere and nowhere, impossible to reach with the rifle.

Jem screamed, staggering. “Get lost, you sons—”

Hot adrenaline pumping through him, Gray sighted at the nearest wolf, on the edges of the flailing pack clustered around Jem.

The crack of the shot echoed across the plains as the kickback knocked Gray backward. He stumbled, his stiff fingers refusing to catch him. As he hit the platform, the rifle barrel shattered, leaving him at the mercy of the wolves.