FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The clouds lay heavily upon the land and a white curtain of snow drifted silently down to shroud the hills, draining the colours away and turning the world into washed out landscape of grey and white. Trees loomed out of the gathering darkness, a forest of towering spruces and pines that were as still and silent as death as they gathered their strength to stand against this first blast of the inevitable winter. Most of creatures that inhabited the forest were bedded down and curled about themselves, comfortable within the warmth of their bodies and waiting out the storm in the way that only animals do. The temperature had dropped a fair bit since the snow started and it was decidedly cold outside. Despite the inclement weather and the biting cold, it would appear that not all creatures were smart enough to find shelter from the weather or had the means to do so. Through the obscuring veil of the thickly falling snow, a flickering orange light could be seen. It was the only sign of life in an otherwise deserted land.

A lone figure sat morosely in front of a small fire, staring deep into the flames. Snow drifted gently down, the flakes glittering like stars in the firelight to coat the motionless figure's head and shoulders with a steadily thickening layer of white. The dancing orange firelight threw the features of the figure's face into sharp relief. At first glance, a frown appeared to be permanently etched onto his face and he himself seemed to be carved of stone. For long minutes, there was no sign of life from the solitary figure until an arm suddenly snaked out to the stack of wood that sat beside him and latched onto a log. He threw the new piece of wood on the fire and raised his head to watch the sparks fly upwards and mingle with the drifting snowflakes like a cloud of fireflies. He shook some of the clinging snow from his clothes and then leaned back and sighed.

The look of nervous fear ingrained on his features betrayed his innermost thoughts. He was in a situation that confounded him to no end.

He was lost. That was a difficult thing for a man to admit at the best of times, but he knew for a fact that he was very lost. The damndest thing about the whole deal though, was that he shouldn't be lost. He just couldn't figure it out. How does one get lost after driving to a campsite, parking the truck, setting up camp and then crashing for the night?

He just couldn't understand it. Nothing made any sense, not a single damned thing, and it had been bothering him to the point where the questions were beginning to eat into his brain in a terrifying manner.

He got up and paced around the fire for a short time, a look of intense concentration cast upon the angular features of his face. He rubbed his gloved hands together and stamped his feet in attempt to get some circulation going, and made his way through the ankle deep snow to lean against a nearby tree and stare out into the blizzard.

He was completely preoccupied with trying to figure out just what had happened to him during the night and he just stared blankly out into the white void. A crooked smile came to his face as he stood there, pondering the strangeness of his situation.

He'd gotten lost before on some of his excursions out into the wilderness, but never quite like this.

This morning had come as mornings always do near the end of October in northwestern Alberta. Cold, dark, and way too early. First he had gone through the usual morning camping routine of bringing every piece of clothing into his sleeping bag to warm it up before he put it on. Then there had been a period of perhaps five minutes where he had curled into a ball in the centre of his sleeping bag and tried desperately to ignore the outside world. Eventually, and with a reluctant groan, he had left the comfortable warmth of the sleeping bag and had stumbled, bleary eyed and grumbling, out through the door of the tent and into the cold predawn gloom.

As he stood in front of his tent, stretching and yawning, he had seen a world of white and black. A thick layer of snow, perhaps four inches or so, was a new addition overnight. He had been a little surprised at the snow since it had been dry when he arrived and the forecast had been for clear and relatively warm weather over the next few days, but he paid it little attention. His morning brain functions were always at a minimum until he'd had a couple of cups of coffee.

It was only when he began to search for the necessary pieces to brew that all important cup of coffee that he began to clue in that something wasn't right. He remembered that he had left his old Coleman stove on top of the picnic table but it was nowhere to be found.

The picnic table that is.

The stove was there all right, overturned in the snow with the grill and fuel tank scattered about, but the table was inexplicably absent. He had stared dumbly at the pieces for a moment before stooping and picking them from the snow. He wandered about aimlessly for a minute or two before locating a convenient stump to set up the stove on. After assembling the pieces and lighting the stove, he had turned towards the truck to get the cooler, and stopped cold with his heart in his throat.

His truck was missing as well.

That little bit of information was better than caffeine. In an instant, he was suddenly awake and aware. He turned a slow three hundred sixty degrees, his pale eyes searching the amorphous shapes of trees and snow...

Nothing.

He stopped and scratched his head for a moment, stunned. Missing picnic table, missing truck? Just what the hell was going on here?

Picnic tables and trucks tend not to wander away by themselves. If someone had been playing some sort of sick practical joke, he should have heard something during the night. He wasn't that deep of a sleeper. There should have been some evidence in the snow as well, but there was nothing. The only tracks that marked the fresh snow had been made by his boots. He shook his head and looked up at the slowly lightening sky. Nothing added up and he was beginning to get really confused and more than a bit worried.

He slowly made his way around the campsite, searching the snow. After a couple of minutes, he found the cooler. It was lying on its side and was half embedded in a small bush. Again, there was no sign as to how it got there. The snow was untracked around it. He also found it quite strange that while there was four inches of snow on the ground around him, there was none on the cooler. He didn't quite know what to make of that but nevertheless he felt a surge of relief sweep through him. At least now he could get his caffeine fix.

He threw open the lid of the cooler and rummaged around inside. The clank of metal on metal rang out into the eerie silence. Once he had extracted a battered coffeepot and a bag of coffee, he returned to where the stove sat. He stopped for a moment.

Where's my water jug? He thought.

Coffeepot in hand, he went in search of the blue twenty litre jug. He failed to find it and with a shrug, he scooped the pot full of snow and set it on the stove, adding more as the snow in the pot melted down. He went and retrieved the cooler and carried it over to where the stove was, sat down on it and focused every last bit of his attention on the pot on the stove; listening to the gentle hiss of the flame and watching the steam rise from the pot and waiting eagerly for the water to boil.

When the water finally began to boil, he dumped in a generous amount of coffee and sat back, watching the sky gradually lighten as the coffee brewed. When the coffee was finally ready, he poured the steaming contents of the pot into a large tin mug and inhaled deeply of the delicious aroma. He took his first sip and felt a warm rush spread through his body right down to the tips of his toes. He leaned back with a happy grin on his face and let out a satisfied sigh.

The caffeine began to clear away the last remnants of sleep that fogged his mind. As more and more neurons began to fire and the day grew lighter yet, he began to take stock of his surroundings. The more he saw the more worried he became. Snow and conifer trees surrounded him as far as he could see. Of the road into the campsite and of the still missing picnic table and truck, not a sign could be seen.

Strange, so very strange, he thought. He'd been to this spot almost every year for the past ten years and he knew the exact layout of the campsite in his mind. The problem was, nothing matched. Not a single damned thing. Even the fire pit with its large ring of stones was missing. He took another sip of his coffee and made a wry face as he spit out a couple of pine needles. He glanced at his watch. It showed 8:09am. It was almost daylight now, and time to go do some exploring. With any luck, he might be able to figure out just what the heck was going on.

With a grunt, he forced himself to his feet and coffee mug in hand, started exploring the campsite. He walked in circles of an ever increasing size, eyes searching the snow and trees for any clue as to what had happened. After about five minutes, when he was about twenty metres from the tent, he came across something that was very curious. In the midst of a large area of untracked snow was an unusual imprint. His brow furrowed as he walked over to stand next to it. What he was staring at was a perfect imprint of an axe in the snow, his axe in fact. He was strangely unsettled by this bizarre discovery. There wasn't a track for metres in any direction, yet here was his axe as if it had been dropped from the sky. He scanned his surroundings for a moment then looked up to the grey sky, seeking an explanation. Finding none, he stooped and pulled his axe from the snow then retreated back to the campsite and refilled his coffee mug.

This just gets stranger and stranger, he thought. And unfortunately for him, his situation wasn't about to get any better.

After refilling his mug, he sat down on the cooler again for a few minutes, lost in thought and staring absent mindedly into the distance. It was an overcast sort of day, bringing with it the promise of more snow. Low clouds slowly drifted in the distance, seemingly just above the tips of the towering spruce trees. When the clouds parted for a short moment, he saw something in the distance that made his blood run cold. Before he had time to grasp the implications of what he saw, it was gone, hidden behind a thick layer of grey cloud. He sat transfixed, his mug halfway to his mouth, waiting to see if the apparition would manifest itself again. In short moments it reappeared. And with it, any hopes that he had of a quick end to the strange situation that he suddenly found himself in.

What had grabbed his attention so completely, was the range of jagged, snow encrusted mountain peaks that protruded above the layer of ground level cloud like the teeth of some titanic saw blade. And suddenly, realization hit him like a fist in the gut.

He shouldn't be here.

He didn't know where 'here' was.

If he was where he should have been, the nearest mountains would be some two hundred and fifty kilometres to the southwest, not right on his doorstep.

But he was where he should be! He remembered driving into the campground last night. What could have happened during the night that made him end up here?

A frown settled on his face as he contemplated this disturbing new development. For a long time he sat still while a storm of thoughts flew through his mind, then suddenly he jumped into action. Casting his now stone cold coffee aside, he grabbed his axe and went in search of a suitably dead tree. He would have preferred to use the chainsaw but it had been in the back of the truck and since he didn't have a clue where the truck had ended up, the axe would have to do. It took about perhaps five minutes for him to fell the dead spruce. After the tree was down, he took another couple of minutes to chop it in half. Breathing heavily from the exertion, he leaned the axe up against a nearby tree and then dragged the first piece of lumber back to his camp. He cleared some snow away with his boot and began to make a fire. A quick trip to the tent to retrieve his matches and then a minute or two spent breaking off the dry and brittle lower branches from the tree he had cut down and soon a wisp of smoke curled up from the carefully arranged sticks in the crude fire pit. More wood was added and soon he had a crackling fire. One more trip into the forest to retrieve his axe and the other half of the tree and then he sat down on the cooler and watched the fire.

He had spent most of the day there, sitting in front of the fire. The only times he moved from that position was to chop more wood for the fire and to take stock of what few supplies he had with him.

He had perhaps three days worth of food in the cooler, perhaps more if he rationed himself. He had his overnight bag in the tent with a change of clothes, an extra sweater and a few other odds and ends. His rifle was in the tent as well, along with a single box of ammunition, his binoculars, compass, and his hunting knife. He thought about that for a moment. That would be enough to survive for some time. He had a fair bit of experience when it came to living in wild places and with luck he would have no trouble surviving until he was rescued. Or would he?

There was something about this situation that didn't sit well with him. Getting lost was one thing, but this was something else entirely. Nothing felt right. He had the strangest feeling that there was something important that he was missing, an understanding that was just out of his reach. He tried to shake the feeling off to no avail. It remained stuck in the back of his mind, hinting at something he could not yet understand...

After a deep sigh, he chuckled a bit and shook his head. Always look on the bright side, he told himself. At least he wouldn't have to go back to work on Monday. Not only that, but he might get more of a break from the insanity that was modern life than he bargained for. He returned to his fireside seat and after a moment's indecision, he threw another armload of wood on the fire and then covered the whole thing with an insulating layer of ashes and dirt. Hopefully, there would be enough heat left there in the morning to avoid having to use any more of his now precious supply of matches to restart the fire.

He stood up, stretched and yawned and made his way into the tent. Bedtime, he said to himself. Tomorrow would bring another day, and hopefully a few answers.

Sleep did not come easily among restless thoughts but eventually he drifted off.