I thought I saw the wildmen plenty of times in the months after that, but I was always too busy restoring the lodge by day and getting wasted by night to seriously track them. I called the county sheriff to make a trespassing report and raise concerns about the possible truant minor, but the idiot who answered the phone laughed at my backwoods survivalists theory and asked if I was high. I screamed a few of my special forces accomplishments at her and hung up.
Out of concern for the teenager, I ordered a few cartons of protein bars and snack cakes and hung them from ropes around the property where wildlife couldn't get to them. Some disappeared faster than others, and every time, the trail cams I'd hidden got smashed to pieces first. At least they had food if they needed it.
Desperate to believe I hadn't imagined the strange pair, I even fell into the habit of beating my meat outside in the morning in hopes of luring them back. The weed was a big help in convincing myself I was doing it out of concern for the teenage wildboy, especially when it was always the herculean wildman I imagined showing off for when I came.
Spring blossomed into beautiful summer and fall rose to kill it all before I saw either of my savage trespassers again. Winter hit hard that year and the property's biggest lake was already iced over by late December. The lodge's Christmas decorations were gathering dust in storage and I hadn't been to town on a supply run since before any of their jingle bell nonsense went up, but the threat of the approaching holiday season still weighed on me. Weed and my dad's whiskey collection turned out to be better than nothing for company.
To save money on heat fuel, I spent most nights getting wasted in front of a roaring fire in the great room, adding or removing clothing as needed to adjust to the temperature. Of course, drinking always made me feel warm, so the more I drank, the more I tended to take off. Most nights I ended up bare-assed on the carpet in nothing but my jock strap, at least on the nights I didn't push that down to work a pre-bed load all over myself.
The night of the first snowfall, I was a dangerous combination of drunk, high, and depressed. My ex had let our sons back out of visiting me for the holidays so they could be with friends they saw every other day of the year, rather than "all alone" with me. I put up a token fight, but if I'm honest, I think I only felt bad because I felt so damn relieved. I love my boys with all my heart, but I'd been away for too much of their youth and I had absolutely nothing in common with the soft, timid little nerds. Adding fatherhood to my list of failures had me feeling low enough that I was thinking about calling one of the hotlines my counselor gave me to talk to someone, but the unexpected snowstorm arrived first with other plans for me.
The sound of the wind outside battered at the fog of my inebriation until I realized with a start that I'd never gotten around to winterizing the guest cabins. If the storm turned out to be half as bad as the forecast said, I'd have frozen pipes and shattered windows all around the property by morning. While I might not have cared enough about myself to shave or even shower lately, the lodge was my family's legacy, and my sense of duty was the one good part of me I still had left to cling to. In just my jock, I stepped into my combat boots, strapped on a headlamp, and buttoned up my stiff wool overcoat. Comforted by the weight of my Glock in one pocket and some emergency scotch in the other, I trudged out into the howling winds.
My flask was empty and two inches of sticky white snow had fallen by the time I was headed to the last house on my rounds. The path down to the lake house was treacherous with new ice, but I was whiskey brave and desperate to be done, so I stomped my way down the hill, digging my boots in to find traction before each step. I was doing fine up until I heard a twig snap in the woods beside the trail.
Old instincts sent my heart rate to red alert and I pulled out my sidearm as I whipped around. When my headlamp lit up something furry a few yards into the forest, I screamed in terror, but not because I thought it was a wolf or even a wildman; I was so drunk and high I thought it was the devil himself come to get me.
I fired a shot before I even realized I was pulling the trigger, and the surprise kickback cost me my balance on the icy path. I slipped and fell so hard, I accidentally fired three more rounds into the woods. The thing was gone by the time I recovered enough to look, but I was sure I hit it at least once.
I was still staring into the forest, trying to get my breathing under control when I heard the sound of glass breaking on the dock. I hurried down, sidearm raised, to finish the ugly job of putting down whatever I'd shot.
As I crept incursion-style across the dock, the wind blew open the lake house door and I heard the sound of what I thought was an animal whimpering. When I got the balls to aim my flashlight inside, however, I saw that the devil wolf I feared was actually my long lost wildman. He wasn't covered in mud and I couldn't see his face, but I'd have recognized the position his hairy ass was in anywhere.
