Coyote in the Groundhog’s Den — Part Two

Short Fiction — Dan learns the reason he was spared from a catastrophe trapping the world in a series of maddening time loops. But can he fix it?

Missed the last entry? Click here for Part One.

“I said: what took you so long?” Isaac repeated.

It was a fair enough question. The letter from the reunion registry had come almost two months before the Pause. Plenty of time to respond, to meet even. But every time Dan picked up the phone, he froze.

“I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. Felt like some decisions don’t get do-overs.”

“That, I could almost understand. But why did you give me up in the first place?” Isaac asked.

What a question. Dan had pondered it all along the bumpy road up Mickey’s Gulch, and with every step he took along the trail. “You deserved to grow up with a Mom. Clara and Will gave you a great home. I couldn’t.” It was a half-truth. No matter how many times he rehearsed the conversation, Dan couldn’t bring himself to say his real reason. Even now, he could plainly see Bridget’s features in the boy’s face; a painful reminder of his loss.

“Then what changed your mind?” Isaac raised an eyebrow.

“A few weeks ago, calendar time, I called,” Dan lied. “Got ahold of your dad. He said you were leaving on this big camping trip. He told me how excited you were to see the mountains, and that we could set something up when you came home.” The words flowed from his lips instinctively and without hesitation. After all, he thought, the only person who could contradict him was dead.

“When I realized you were probably in a loop like everyone else, I went after you.”

Isaac nodded politely, as if he understood. “I wasted so much time waiting by that phone,” he muttered.

Dan doubted Isaac wanted the real story: how the Pause made him feel like reconciliation was the only meaningful thing to do with his life; that he called only after the Pause begun; and when no one answered, how he followed their trail into the mountains.

“Every loop you tell me something a little different,” Isaac shook his head. “Maybe in one of them, I’ll get the real version.”

Dan tapped his feet, unsure of what to say next. Coming clean now felt wrong. “I um, spoke with your mother. She doesn’t know who I am, does she?”

Isaac scoffed. “She doesn’t even know I went looking for my biological parents. She was always afraid of how a reunion would go.”

He let out a long breath of steam. “Take a closer look at that staff.”

Dan turned it over, and spotted an inscription. “For Dan — Don’t look back.” he read aloud.

“I’ve had a long time to think on this—to think about why you were spared by the Pause. I keep coming to the same conclusion: you’re not the only one.”

“Bullshit. I’ve seen the cities.”

“You’ve seen one city. And nowhere close to all the people in it,” Isaac corrected him. “No, I’m certain the world has plenty of people just like you, plugging along in normal time.”

Dan mulled this over for a while. “But what’s different about me?”

“Everything. My theory is: we’ve been sorted. The things behind this probably watched us for a long while; divided us up based on the lives we led.” Isaac mused.

Dan wrinkled his brow. “What do you base that on?”

“Most of us were living in loops before time got screwed up. Same day, every day.” Isaac looked down at his pants and brushed off a few loose wood shavings. “Putting someone like that in a recurring day is like taking a fish out of the ocean and popping them in a nice, safe tank. No long-term consequences, no pressure of self-improvement.”

Dan thought back to Will, Marie, and those who had either lost, or taken their lives in the process. For them, it had not been safe. “How does your theory make sense of all the suicides. I mean, your own adoptive father—”

“My Dad,” Isaac swiftly corrected him, “was misguided. These entities are still here, watching. I’ve seen them, in the shadows. I think they’re checking to see who really wants to be back in the wild. My dad definitely wanted to be released. Just not that way.”

Isaac stared over the ledge for a long while, watching the trees twist in the breeze. “I’m trying to show them I want out too. And that means letting go of you.”

“Isaac—”

“I’ve lived a lifetime since I requested that meeting. Hell, my mind is probably older than yours by now.” He let out a haughty, half laugh. “It’s too late for us, Dan. You and I will never be Father and Sun. Whatever happened in this world—it robbed us of that. Our roles are reversed: I know too much. You’ll never know enough.”

Dan winced as if he had been gut-punched. His eyes became misty, but he blinked back the tears before they could escape. After all this, his son wanted nothing to do with him.

Of course Isaac was right. Their relationship, just like every other Dan had—was rendered hopelessly asymmetrical by the Pause.

Finally he rediscovered his voice: “So where do I go from here?” For the first time in his ruthless pursuit of ambition, he had no clue what to do next.

“Oh, Dan. I don’t have all the answers. I’m just the kid you didn’t want.” Isaac stretched, and got to his feet. “You best be going. Wouldn’t want to slow you down.” With that, he disappeared into the trees, leaving Dan to stew in his thoughts.

He eventually stood, intent on backtracking and heading home. But something gnawed at him. Dan considered what it would mean to go back to an empty home, condemned to a life of hopelessly broadening alienation.

Perhaps he would be put in a loop too.

No, Dan would press on. He picked up the trail at the edge of the cliff, winding down into the valley. Sunlight scarcely broke the canopy here, where the needles soaked up all the sound save for his crunching footsteps in the snow.

After an hour’s walk with nothing but his thoughts, Dan broke into the world of Giants. Without any trees ahead to give the mountain wall a sense of scale, Dan’s imagination shrank him down to the size of an ant.

A vague suggestion of a trail switchbacked up toward a narrow gully between two of the spires, disappearing beneath the snow long before the path reached the top.

Dan stopped to put on his snowshoes, before heading up the wall. Even with them on, he still sank a few inches with each step. Wet, heavy snow clung to his legs and weighed him down. Even the biggest gulps of oxygen did little to soothe his burning lungs.

He stopped a moment to catch his breath. The break was long enough to look back on the path he walked so far. The pine valley ran like a black river, separating the foot of the spires from the campsite overlook. Dan could just make out Isaac’s carving spot, a tiny dot of gray in a sea of white bark and snow.

He looked back at the way to the peak. It was so close, compared to the distance he’d traveled already. With newfound vigor, he pressed on.

The pitch steepened.

Dan’s heavy pack pulled him backward with every step he took. He unbuckled the waist strap, giving his aching hips a break from the friction as he fell into a marching rhythm.

Staff into the snow… left… right… repeat!

Dan focused only on the spot in the snow where he meant to thrust the walking stick. Steam rose from his body as the world faded away, leaving only the repetitive cadence.

When a crack in the snow pack spread from the tip of the walking stick, Dan could only watch in horror. The fracture spread across the mountain face in either direction, widening into a yawning fissure.

The entire gully slid backward, and he slid with it, in an enormous avalanche.

This was his end.

Just as Dan resolved himself to embrace the landslide with open arms, a voice in the deep recesses of his subconscious awakened. The voice was primal and angry, and issued a command: “Live.”

Dan twisted his body around to face the valley floor. He flailed his arms above his head like a drowning man trying to pull himself back to the surface. Head above the snow. You can do this.

The shifting snow caught around his backpack, ripping it from his shoulders and twisting his arms awkwardly. Dan watched it tumble town the headwall, looking eerily like another hiker caught in the catastrophe.

The flow swelled, threatening to pull Dan beneath the surface, and he lost sight of the pack.

The pines at the valley floor grew, as the slide approached the tree line.

The avalanche slammed Dan into a smaller tree like a limp ragdoll. His brain flashed back to a teenage memory, when he was hit by a rusted red car. In that moment, tumbling with the snow, he decided he’d prefer another round with the sedan.

Something snagged his arm, yanking his shoulder free from its socket. The roaring avalanche drowned out his scream.

With his one good arm, Dan managed to thrash hard enough that his head remained above the snow until the slide slowed. A wave of snow rushed over his head, burying him in an instant.

Existence itself squeezed him as more loose snow piled above him. Whether it be six inches or six feet, he had no idea. As quickly as it all had started, the mountain was still again.

Silence permeated the cocoon encasing Dan. Panic followed shortly after. He began hyperventilating. His mind latched on to his most frequently used curse. Dan repeated it, over and over until he grew dizzy, and that guttural survival voice boomed again: “STOP.”

Dan complied. He made a conscious effort to slow his hammering heartbeat, and rein in his panicked gasps for air. Only then did he take stock of his situation. He had done his research on the many dangers of mountaineering, avalanches included. All that knowledge still hadn’t prepared him for how utterly disorienting the fall had been. Dan had assumed the pull of gravity would let him feel which way was up, but he couldn’t tell.

An idea came to him.

He hawked up a wad of phlegm from the back of his throat, and spat. Saliva dribbled down from the corner of his mouth and landed on his injured shoulder. Dan couldn’t believe his fortune: he’d landed a little off kilter, but still right-side up.

With his good arm, Dan began reaching, above his head, brushing aside snow. It was already starting to harden.

He stretched as he could, until he felt the snow give at his fingertips. Dan brought back his arm, and punched through to the surface.

Elated, he shoved more snow out of the way, and pushed off with his feet. His head poked out into the cool mountain air.

“Yes!” He hollered at the top of his lungs. “Yes!” The syllable echoed off the surrounding peaks. He was alive, for now.

Up on the mountainside, Dan could plainly see the horizontal line where the slab broke away. He’d been agonizingly close to the summit. Climbing over the new cornice would be impossible without triggering another avalanche—not that he was in a fit state to try.

Dan dragged the rest of his body out of the would-be grave, cataloging his injuries: a dislocated shoulder to be sure; confirmed by his right arm’s grotesque drooping at the joint, and the muscle spasms working their way down to his hand. Pain was sure to follow as the adrenaline rush faded. He suspected a broken rib, but nothing seemed to be stopping him from breathing.

Good signs.

But what now?

Dan reached for the sat phone tucked into his shoulder strap pocket. His hand brushed his jacket and fell away. The backpack; he’d lost the backpack! Forget the phone—he had no food or dry clothes. And in a little while, without his flashlight, he’d be alone in the dark.

His eyes scanned the glazed landscape, knowing already his gear was probably buried under feet of snow.

The adrenaline faded, replaced by a flood of pain and exhaustion. Dan limped to one of the nearby trees, and collapsed against the trunk. He looked back at the trail winding through the pine thicket. Darkness would surely fall before he came close to Isaac and Clara’s camp, leaving him hopelessly lost without a flashlight. He could try in the morning, assuming he survived the night. But judging by the numbness already creeping into his toes and fingers, that too would be a tall order without a bivy.

Finding that pack would be essential for survival. But as the sun disappeared beyond the headwall, and the soreness took hold of his joints, Dan leaned back against the bark.

If he shut his eyes, Dan knew he would never reopen them. But was this such a bad way to go?

“I’ll see the stars one more time,” Dan told himself. He felt a tear roll down his cheek, freezing on his face. “This is okay. I’m okay.”

He watched the sky turn violet, then black, with stars emerging from the inky void. His toes had long since gone numb when Dan felt warm breath on the back of his neck. He turned his body as much as he could and saw nothing. Yet his instincts told him he was not alone in the clearing.

Dan spotted it in the shadows—no, it was the shadows—shifting unnaturally to avoid being spotted. He turned to look forward, and stifled a scream.

The creature towered over him, easily standing eight feet tall. It was the ghostly suggestion of a figure, made corporeal only by the wooden wolf mask it wore on its face. Its body was shapeless, gray, and almost fully transparent. It moved closer, as if to study him. The ghostly thing smelled somehow fresh, like a spring rainstorm. Dan wasn’t sure why, but the odor more than anything else ignited a paralyzing fear.

The entity reached out with one of its nebulous appendages, and the scent grew stronger. He felt drunk, and dizzy. Before it could get ahold of Dan, a second being appeared, stopping the first with a gentle touch to its shoulder. This figure wore the face of a Coyote, and spoke with the sound of rushing water.

The wolf asked a question in the same ethereal language. The coyote simply shook its head before turning to Dan, holding out a tattered green bundle.

“My pack!”

The coyote lay the crumpled heap before Dan. He didn’t know if the entity could understand him, but he offered up a sincere: “Thank you,” before fumbling with the shoulder pocket. With some difficulty, he managed to pull out the sat phone. Aside from a crack in the screen, everything appeared to be working.

His thumb flirted with the bright orange SOS button on the side of the device. In his current state, this was his only hope of survival. Would anyone answer it, though? From the perspective of the rescue team: what was the point of schlepping out to the mountains if everyone’s loop will reset in a few hours? Well, not everyone’s.

Dan closed his eyes, and clutched the device against his chest. He pressed the button down, and held it. The Sat phone responded with a shrieking alarm tone.

After a few seconds, static replaced it.

Then quiet.

Dan deflated.

“Survive the avalanche, only to freeze to death.” Dan hung his head.

The two creatures still stood before him, expectant.

“What do you want?” Dan asked. “Is this it? Am I dead? Or are you hear to put me in one of your loops?” He wasn’t sure which possibility terrified him more.

The creatures shook their masked faces before retreating into the trees, their footsteps taking on the sound of crisp, crunching leaves.

The satellite phone crackled. “Hello?” A confused voice called from the other end. “This is High Peak Search and Rescue, is someone there?”

“Yes—hello can you hear me?” Dan mashed the phone against his ear. He waited the longest three heartbeats of his life before the woman answered.

“Yes, I can hear you.”

Dan laughed out of sheer relief. “You have no idea how much—ah, listen, there’s been an avalanche. I’m pretty banged up. I’m not sure I’ll survive the night without help.”

Another pause. “You’ve got to be messing with me.”

“No-no! Of course not. I need help.”

Dan heard the rustling of cheap venetian blinds before she gave her answer. “I’ve just had a look, it’s pitch black out. Your loop will reset any minute.”

“You don’t understand—” Dan’s voice shook, “—I’m not in a loop.”

With the prospect of help vanishing before him, Dan broke down.

“I’m just a guy. No loop. No do-overs.” He tried to choke back a sob. “It’s been a week for me. Everyone else has lived for years, and years. I’ve fallen so far behind…”

The woman cut him off. “I see your coordinates; you’re not far from the station. Think I can get to you by snowmobile in two, three hours. Can you hold out that long?” She sounded excited by the prospect of the rescue—giddy, even.

“I think so, but—three hours, won’t your loop reset before then?”

“No loop, No do-overs.” She replied. “Looks like we’re not alone after all.”

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Thank You for Reading!

This is was the final standalone short story planned for the Stasis Collection. You can check out the others here.

The Stasis Collection

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