A Dark Fairy Tale: Master Hunter

A Note from the Author: Here's my entry for the Halloween 2026 contest. There's an obvious ode to Samuel Coleridge's epic ballad "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" because I love that work and the message it conveys.

Content Warning: Please note that, as with the other story in this series, "The Mighty Oak," the sexual content of this story is very tame by design. While it fits the contest criteria of "scary situation" the sexual content is implied only. If you like your smut very smutty, you may not like this story.

All players are adults over the age of 21.

THE TALE OF THE MASTER HUNTER

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ARGUMENT.

How a winter storm passed across the land, and how the land changed, and the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Master Hunter made his way home.

PART THE FIRST.

Lake Superior spread its icy fingers over the land, slowly squeezing activity to a halt. Fine crystals of snow intruded through every crack in the old cabin. The emergency candle, which had burned since the harsh white of the blizzard was replaced by howling darkness, wavered each time the wind slammed the rickety structure.

Matt watched the candle burn, focusing on the flame in a failed attempt to concentrate on anything but the semi-rhythmic cacophony that emanated from the adjacent bedroom. Granddad could raise the roof, but their own father was a close second place in the unconscious snoring competition that was underway.

Chuck sequentially rapped his fingers across the Formica kitchen table. "Dude."

"I know." Matt didn't bother to make eye contact with his older brother.

"Dad would have a shit fit, but I'm wondering if Jenny is open over across the road." Chuck continued to tap his fingers. The candle flame blew almost sideways.

Now Matt stared directly at Chuck. "Surely you can't be serious. We can't go out in this."

"Grow a pair, little brother. Let's go get a beer." He concluded with an age-old family joke. "And don't call me Shirley."

Matt could not deny that a beer at Jenny's place would take the edge off of two days trapped in a hunting cabin with two professional snorers. The case of beer that they had packed was long gone, and the sudden, unpredicted stormblast had so far foiled their annual trips to the little local bar. Jenny was easy on the eyes, too. His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden cracking snore from the bedroom as Granddad unleashed his A-material. The candle flickered.

"Fuck it. I'm in." Matt rose from his chair and began layering up.

Chuck clapped a single time. "That's what I'm talking about."

"Fucking-A, dude," Matt said looking through the single pane window. "We might need to tie a rope to the cabin to make sure we don't get lost in this shit."

Chuck, never one to decline a challenge, stared out the window. His bravado wavered with the candle. "You might be right. But I think I see a light on at Jenny's. Hard to see."

Their father had often told them the story of the great blizzard of 1978, and how he had become disoriented only a short distance from their home, and how it terrified him. It was one of the few times he had admitted fear of anything. They each grabbed a one-hundred foot hank of paracord from the mammoth pile of gear, and tied the ropes together. Jenny's bar was close, but it was best to have too much rope than the alternative.

They steeled themselves for the freezing onslaught. Matt's green eyes were the only visible part of his body, while Chuck trusted his dark beard to protect him from the brunt of the wind.

Chuck jotted on the back of a paper towel. "Went for a beer a Jenny's. Don't worry we have rope and huge balls." He set the note on the table, far enough from the candle to prevent a predictable lecture.

"Are we doin' this?" Matt asked, perfunctorily.

Chuck answered by opening the door. They stepped into a snowy abyss. The wind whipped as Matt secured one end of the rope around one of the posts that stood on either side of the door. They began the slow trek through knee-deep snow to Jenny's, Matt holding a single gloved hand to the back of his older brother's parka, lest they be separated. The rope slowly uncoiled in his other hand.

Their cabin disappeared in the roaring storm, leaving the men in a state of purgatory, neither here nor there. The rope seemed suddenly their most valued possession. Chuck strained to see the little bar across the road, while Matt wondered if this is what it felt like to perform a spacewalk. The knot, which served as the splice between ropes, left Matt's hand and was soon too difficult to see in the living darkness. They trudged on.

To their amazement, the full moon appeared, blurred by the static of the blowing snow, but visible all the same. In the transient clarity, Chuck realized they were far to the left of the bar, and corrected his course. It seemed as if the entire world was frozen, beneath a frozen moon.

They reached Jenny's front porch, and Matt tied a sturdy hitch around the closest porch post. Chuck turned the knob and found the door unlocked. He pushed himself inside, brother in tow.

Jenny Mears had bought the little bar, its upstairs apartment, and cabin rental business with money she earned with pure sweat and blood. The logging industry demographics reflected a 98% male population, yet Jenny had endured, excelled, and made good money. Her serene demeanor was sometimes confused with timidity, but her regulars knew she was not to be provoked.

When Chuck and Matt entered the bar, Jenny raised an eyebrow, but took two beers from her generator-powered refrigerator. "Some storm."

Matt pulled his hood back, revealing a boyish grin. "That's an understatement. We tied a rope between here and the cabin so we don't die going home. So, yeah, some storm."

Jenny nodded quietly and said, "Smart."

They each took at seat at the long, wooden bar. "Kindly set us up with a shot of Jägermeister, please," Chuck said. They had sometimes started their night with a shot and a beer chaser.

Jenny poured the thick, cold shots and set them next to the bottled beer. The brothers threw back the concentrated liquor and tapped their beers together before downing a sizable portion. The room was dark aside from a dim light behind the bar and candles on several tables. The jukebox sat dark and silent. Howling wind was the only sound.

Chuck broke the silence. "How's your cabins? Mostly rented out?"

"About half. Not sure how the storm will affect the rentals. Bar business is bad." She motioned to the empty room.

"How about opening day?" Matt asked. The annual whitetail hunt was set to start the day after next.

Jenny once again raised an eyebrow. "It'll come just the same."

Matt felt himself flush at her reply. He found Jenny to be naturally beautiful, and clearly formidable. She made him feel like an unsure teen with a crush, rather than a college senior with moderate experience. Her expression was typically unreadable. Matt tried to recover. "I mean. Uhh. How will the storm affect the hunt? Will the deer bed down? Or will they--"

A deep, baritone voice spoke from the darkness at the far end of the room, startling both men at the bar. "Hunters, eh? The deer will bed down, same as you."

Jenny was as impassive as ever, adjusting the bottle of Jägermeister such that it was just so. Matt spun on his barstool. A flickering candle reflected in the glasses of the man in the dark, rendering the illusion of two glittering disembodied eyes. Chuck remained facing the bar and said, "Yeah, the family has been coming up here since the 50's to hunt."

The man attached to the disembodied eyes walked to the bar and sat next to Matt. He motioned to Jenny, who produced a beer. Following a long swallow from the amber bottle, he said, "Family hunters, then. That's real nice."

There was an edge to his voice that made the brothers question if the man actually thought it was real nice. Chuck looked him over. The man's hair and beard were completely gray, and the glasses could not hide deep lines around his eyes. He was dressed in a well worn, wool shirt and suspenders. His pants were covered in stains, unidentifiable in the dim bar. His boots were massive. The man's knuckles were bulbous and his hand looked as if it might easily crush the bottle it held.

"It's a family tradition," Matt said, gamely. "Granddad and Dad and sometimes our uncle. And us. Looking for that trophy buck, you know?" He smiled, and thought Jenny's gaze lingered on him for an instant.

The old timer nodded. "I've hunted every manner of beast. Elk, bear, moose, elephants, lions, even shot an alligator once."

"That's awesome," Chuck said. "Where did you--"

"Jenny. I've a tale to tell. Will you stay open?" The old man set down his empty bottle. Rather than answer, Jenny set a fresh beer in its place.

"You boys need to hear, before you go back in the woods."

Matt looked at his brother and shrugged. It wasn't unusual to hear a hunting story in the bar, sometimes a tall tale, and it was nice to have a beer away from their snoring cabin-mates. Chuck nodded in response. The old man took no notice. The tale would be told.

"Yes. I've hunted everything. Shot everything that crawls on legs or flies through the air. When I was a young man, I didn't care for anything but the trophy. The antlers, the hide, the bones..."

Jenny moved off into the darkness and extinguished the candles, one by one until there was a single candle remaining, which she set on the bar. Once again, the old man's eye glittered.

"But one hunt was different than all that came before it. I had my regular gear, good gear, tested gear. I had warm clothes and my compass and my rifle. 'Twas a Remington Woodsmaster 30-06. I was out to hunt whitetail deer with two of my comrades, like yourself." He nodded to the brothers.

Jenny sat two fresh beers down and perched on a stool. Her oversized sweatshirt and blue jeans could not hide her shape, muscular and thick. Matt attempted a surreptitious survey, only to catch Jenny looking back at him. There was a trace of a smile at Matt, unnerving him. He broke his gaze and looked back at the man next to him. "Were you guys hunting around here?"

"Yes and no. We started down by the old Kirk property, as we always did, and headed for the great swamp. But the hunt went someplace different." The old man's glittering eye seemed focused far away. "A gray day it was, overcast. It had been warm for November, but that day there was a little snow on the ground for tracking. Good for hunting. We were creeping, stalking, looking for tracks. Of course, I wanted the biggest deer in the woods. No six point or eight point or even ten point would satisfy me. I needed twelve points or better. We went deeper and deeper into the woods, which I knew very well."

"We're familiar with the area around the big swamp," Chuck said.

"I thought I was, too." The old timer shook his head. "I was overconfident, you see. Focused on the kill. On the trophy."

There was an uneasy silence. The brothers shifted on their stools, but did not interrupt. Something about the old man's demeanor indicated a revelation forthcoming. A spell was being cast.

"On we stalked, but saw nary a track in the snow. And then some help arrived." He nodded at this simple truth. "I was moving through the woods, my comrades spread out wide to either side. I remember the full moon was still visible in the sky. I came around a big white pine, and saw a gray wolf in the distance. A rare thing, brother wolf and sister moon together in view. The wolf was moving off, hadn't seen us. Far away."

The wind whipped. The storm seemed louder, angry.

"Without a word, we followed the wolf, thinking it might be on the trail of my trophy deer. Deeper and deeper into the wood. I saw tracks for the wolf and a deer, alright. Big ones; some of the biggest I had ever seen. The ground seemed less familiar. I looked at my compass and was heading due south, which seemed about right. I hung it from its lanyard around my neck so I could keep navigating. Dead reckoning. We could still backtrack through the snow, I thought."

Jenny set up another round of beers. Chuck let out a deep, satisfied belch, but neither brother interrupted.

"We went some distance over the next few hours. Sometimes I saw the wolf, far off. Sometimes just its tracks. Now I was in completely unfamiliar territory. I thought I knew every inch of that forest, and so did my comrades. But those deer tracks were monstrous big, so I kept going deeper. A light snow began to fall, and I wondered if it was the witch of November."

The witch seemed to laugh at this. The bar's sturdy door rattled in its frame. In the candlelight, the eye glittered.

The old man suddenly looked dejected, sad beyond the capacity for words. Matt said, "That's pretty cool! You guys tracking a trophy buck by way of wolf." There was only the reply of the angry storm. He hesitated and then continued. "Why, uh. So. Why do you look so sad? Did you, like, lose him?"

A sudden break in the wind rendered the bar as quiet as a mausoleum. The old man stared at his beer as though it was his only friend. "With my Woodsmaster, I shot the gray wolf."

PART THE SECOND.

"Why would you...." Matt asked, eyes wide. He shook his head and his hand opened towards the old man, a wordless gesture of bafflement. The question floated in the air.

There was no answer from the old man. Jenny stared out the window, thoughts lost in the blizzard. Chuck gave his brother a gentle nudge with his elbow, indicating that he should let the old man continue.

"The moon hid herself and the weather took a sudden turn. The temperature dropped real steep and sleet began to fall, mixed in with snow. Within minutes the tracks started to be covered, our own included."

Casually, Chuck rose and walked to the window. Their own tracks were completely obscured, not even a ghost of impression remained on the fallen snow. Their rope held firm on the post, but Chuck could see no further into the abyss.

"My comrades came to me and they were angry at what I'd done. Just then we heard the sounds of motion behind us, and we all stopped. Sometimes the creatures of the forest will investigate a noise foreign to them. My companions weren't mad then."

Matt and Chuck glanced at each other, wishing they had bought more beer for the cabin. The old man nodded in apparent satisfaction. "No sir, they weren't mad at all." Something solid struck the window, causing Chuck to flinch and Jenny to raise a single eyebrow once more.

"With the sudden snow and the noise, I turned and began making my way back north, companions in line, but the storm outran us." The old man nodded absently at the window. "Sudden and violent, that storm, like tonight." The window shook in agreement. Jenny joined Chuck and surveyed what she could see through the thin pane.

"Even though we started the day early, the light seemed to be going fast. My watch said it was high noon, but the shade of the sky said sunset. We came across a little clearing, covered in snow, surrounded by deadfall. Pretty as a picture, but it got eerie quiet there. No wind at all. I stopped and looked a full circle from the center of the clear, and didn't recognize a single landmark, nor did my comrades."

Matt nodded even as a chill worked it's way up his spine. He'd been turned around in the forest before, and it had rattled him. Chuck returned from the window and sat back on his barstool. He said, "Remember that time you got yourself lost in the woods, Matty?" He laughed gently and spoke to the old man. "My little brother was about spitting distance from the old truck road, but he never looked at his compass. Damn near wet himself. Our uncle and granddad never let him live it down."

Jenny returned and smiled once again at Matt, who blushed in the candlelight. Again, he attempted to recover. "Yeah, I was a little turned around. It was only my second hunting trip! I was just about to use my compass when--"

"As we sat in that empty clearing, darkness coming on, I heard the howling of wolves. Between the cold and the wolves, I knew we needed to light a fire, but my fire starting kit was gone. Vanished. I had the only kit."

"Surrounded by wood and no way to burn it," Jenny said, setting up another round.

The old man nodded in agreement. "And the damnedest thing of all..." He took a long pull on the glass bottle. "No matter which way I turned, my compass read North. There we were: Cold, surrounded by wolves, totally lost, and me with my dead compass around my neck."

PART THE THIRD.

"That might have been a shingle," Jenny said. "That hit the window earlier."

Chuck nodded. "Something dark. Lord knows the wind is high enough."

"Ice." The old man did not appear to be adding to the conversation as much as continuing his recollection. "Ice can be just as dark as anything."

Now Chuck and Jenny shared a glance. Matt shifted uncomfortably on his stool. He said, "Yeah maybe we should get a couple of roadies and head back to the cabin, Chuck. I think it's getting worse. Dad and Granddad will be--"

"You gotta hear me out, boys," said the old man, as if he suddenly remembered there were others in the bar. "I have to tell you this."

Matt sighed. Chuck sighed. Jenny was perfectly quiet, her dark hair hid any expression.

"It was the ice that got us. For that was not a clearing, but a frozen forest pond. I should have known from the feel on my boots, but the quiet of the air and the sudden white out had distracted all of us. And as I said, it had been a warm November. The ice was thin, and with a sudden monstrous crack, we were all beneath the black ice."

Matt slammed his beer on the bar. "No fucking way! That'd kill you!"

Jenny looked at the old man with the eye of a skeptic and the ear of one who had heard many a tavern tale. Chuck stared at his own beer and quietly shook his head.

"To this day I do not know how I got to the edge of the pond. I woke sometime later, wet to the bone and as cold as I'd ever been. Rifle gone, presumed at the bottom. My comrades were beside me, both unconscious. The wind had a musical quality. Have you ever been deep in the woods and thought you heard music?" The old man seemed to wait for an answer.

Chuck said, "My dad says sometimes at sundown he hears things that sound like voices, sometimes singing."

"I've never heard anything," Matt added.

"Yes, your dad will know what I mean then." The man nodded. "Whispering wind in the dark. In my state, I thought it might be another hunter, so I tried to cry out. My lips were frozen shut. I had to reach up and tear them open, and even then I could only croak. 'Avail! Avail!' I cried."

"That's fucking weird." Chuck made no attempt to lower his voice. "Why not just cry for help?"

The old man glared at him but tapped his empty bottle on the bar. Matt noticed that Jenny was in no hurry to retrieve another beer. She lingered with the cooler door open for a full twenty seconds before gently placing another cold one on the candlelit bar.

"Men act strangely when they are half frozen. I closed my eyes and thought I heard a woman's voice, then another. They spoke in riddles. When I opened my eyes again..."

The witch of November punctuated her ongoing fury. The entire windward side of the building shook as if nudged by a giant hand. Matt shivered as he thought about the inland sea only a few miles to the north. Lake Superior suffered no fools.

"One of my comrades was gone. The other looked at me and I watched as his eye froze into a cloudy orb, dead on the spot. In the tree above perched a great horned owl. It seemed to look at me, right into my own eye, and then flew into the storm." He paused and then concluded, "I was all alone in the storm with a dead man, staring at me with frozen eyes."

PART THE FOURTH.

Jenny seemed to shiver and caught Matt's eye. "Give me a hand bringing up beer from the cellar?"

The younger brother perked up, desperately wishing to change the dour mood in the bar. "Sure! Just tell me where it is and I'll haul it for you."

"I don't need you to haul it. I need you to hold the flashlight while I haul it." There was a trace of a smile, causing Matt to blush again.

"Yeah go hold a flashlight for the lady, little brother." Chuck grinned broadly and slapped his brother on the shoulder. Matt followed Jenny into the back room.

The old man took no notice, and continued his tale. "I knew I had to get moving, or I'd freeze just like my comrade. I vowed to return for his body and I got up and started wandering in the dark. There was no feeling in my hands or feet or face. I looked for the tracks of my other companion, but there were none in the snow, which was by then above the knee."

"Not quite as deep as it is out there right now. It's got to be coming up to waist level," Chuck said. He polished off the last of his beer and belched.

"And it did during that storm. The sun came up and the sun went down again, shrouded by clouds, and still I wandered in those woods. I know that forest and I should have come across a logging road, but I never did. My compass read north at all times. I tried to pray but I was so cold I could not remember who I was praying to, or for."

Matt returned and quickly took his seat, followed by Jenny, who carried a case of beer bottles. Neither spoke, but now Matt smiled just as broadly at his older brother. Chuck raised a quizzical eyebrow. Jenny placed a fresh beer in front of the old timer, then Chuck, and finally lingered as she placed one in front of Matt. She smiled. "Thanks for helping me out."

"Uhh. Any time. Yep." His blush seemed to light the room a degree.

"I wandered in that white abyss for what seemed like days. Raving, freezing, starving, then raving all the more. The northern lights made the snow dance with unnatural color. Purples and greens and reds. Deep, red snow at the heart of midnight. Wolves howled in delight, they did. From all around." The old man seemed not to have noticed that anyone came or went. He shook his head, lost in hellish memory.

"In the midst of this, I saw movement, two creatures that looked as red as the lights in the sky. I watched them dance, I don't know how long. As I stood, maybe for minutes, maybe for hours, the lights vanished and the sky took on the color of dawn. I saw it was a pair of loons, just walking on the snow."

"Why would a loon be out there in that shit?" Matt asked with a minor slur. He drained half of his beer.

"No idea, and I didn't think to ask them direct." The old man stared at Matt until the young man looked away. "But they were a beautiful pair, just as out of place as I. Unbothered, they were. I wondered what made such a beast dance to the eerie lights in the sky, and what made it dwell so deep in the forest at the wrong time of the year, and why they seemed perfectly happy."

"That'd be a sight," Jenny said quietly.

"Indeed it was. Those happy living things. My heart seemed full and warm for the first time in days. I blessed them there, watching them in the woods."

Jenny nodded as if she understood. The younger brother watched her carefully, and his older brother watched him watching.

"And at that moment, that useless compass that hung from my neck, it fell into the deep snowpack, pulled by the earth itself, and never was seen again."

PART THE FIFTH.

"This story is unhinged," Chuck said to his beer bottle.

Matt nodded to his own bottle. "Sounds like the yarn Granddad told the other night. The night the storm started." He belched, but stifled it with his hand when Jenny glanced his way.

"A yarn, you think?" The old man's eye glittered.

The wind answered with a howl and the candles flickered. There was an air of authenticity to the tale that was undefinable, as shapeless as the shifting wind.

"Those loons took flight, and I reasoned that they would head for open water, to the big lake, so I followed their line. The howling wolves seemed further and further away, behind me now. I was tired and sat on an old stump and must have fallen asleep. When I woke, the first feeling was warmth on my face. The sun had emerged for a peek, and was enough to thaw my frozen face. Glorious."

Jenny fixed Matt with a smoldering stare from behind the bar, never breaking eye contact. This time he did not look away, though his face felt just as warm as the old man's description. Chuck carefully avoided looking at his brother, and said, "So, aside from the dead guy you left in the woods with a pack of hungry wolves, you finally made your way out."

"No."

"Well, you must have made it out at some point, you sitting here and all." Chuck smiled at his own wit.

The old man was not smiling. "The dead guy, my comrade, haunted me, and haunts me still."

Chuck motioned for another beer. "No offense meant. Sorry about your friend."

With a nod, the old man continued. "I wandered for days, always walking north. I used the sun when it showed, but mostly it didn't. I should have come to some road. Some people. Something."

"Days?" Jenny's voice was quiet but there was a subtle note of disbelief.

The only answer was a grunt. "Nights, too. I've never been so cold. So hungry. And the whispering in the night followed me. Always just far enough away that I could not see the source. Sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. No tracks in the daylight. Sometimes they spoke from high in the trees, as if the owls themselves we not what they seemed."

Matt finally broke his staring contest with Jenny by standing and walking to the window. What he saw made him shiver. "What did the whispering voices say?"

The wind rose to a crescendo, then a sudden caesura. The old man's voice dropped as if he spoke to himself again. "Was it a dream? I don't know." He looked beyond Matt, out into the abyss. "The voice said, 'The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.'"

Matt shivered again. From behind the bar, hidden beneath her warm sweatshirt, so did Jenny.

PART THE SIXTH.

Jenny set up beers for the old man and Chuck, but left the bar empty in front of Matt. He returned and looked at Jenny curiously, who shook her head almost imperceptibly.

"That's fucking creepy as all hell, dude." Chuck slurred nearly every word.

"I don't know where I was, but I wasn't in those woods out there. I was someplace else, out there with something that followed me."

"Really makes me want to walk out there in the dark by myself the day after tomorrow." Matt said with a chuckle.

"That's why you have to hear this story," the old man replied. "And now you'll hear the end."

The brothers both sighed with relief. Jenny smiled at them both. The old man took no notice.

"I know I was gone a long time. My beard grew thick and my body grew thin. And then one day I saw someone through the woods, far away. I got so excited that I broke into a run, lest I lose the man. He was dressed as a hunter, but I could only see his back."

Chuck let out a lengthy belch. "Hell yeah, now we're getting somewhere."

"As I got closer I called out but the man stood stock-still. From the back, he didn't even flinch. I knew something wasn't right. Then I saw it. No tracks around the man at all."

"Oh shit," Matt whispered.

"You're goddamn right." The old man nodded. "Whoever he was, he'd been standing in that position for days."

"That's fucked up," Chuck said.

"It was my other companion. Frozen solid. Upon his face was a hellish smile, and his eyes froze open. I saw that his hand was open, a single finger pointing through a gap between some sycamore trees."

Jenny visibly shivered, despite her thick clothing. She absently leaned on the bar across from Matt. Her hands were inches from his, she he could feel the heat of her body. His hands moved a fraction of inch, closing the gap.

"Those stony eyes fixed on me. Damning me. I see them in my dreams, in the glittering moonlight on the fallen snow." He shook his head. "I stood staring for some time, eyes locked. A gentle breeze snapped me out of my thoughts. I followed the direction of his finger through the trees. Things seemed more familiar there."

"Good Lord," Matt said with a clear voice. "Both of your friends gone. You're lucky you got out of there."

"Lucky. Right." The old man scoffed. "I saw a tree I recognized here, a familiar rock there. And soon I saw the old Kirk place. I cried. Wept like a baby. Walking towards me was three hunters."

Jenny's voice was quiet and clear. "Did you know them?"

"Two of them I'd never seen. A man and a boy, who turned out to be his son. The third was the old hermit that used to visit this very bar. An unlikely trio, but rescuers all the same."

PART THE SEVENTH.

"I don't recall a hermit in here," Jenny said.

"Before your time." The old man nodded amiably at Jenny. "Before you classed the place up."

Matt grinned at Jenny. He thought he saw the faintest blush on her cheeks.

"He loved to talk with hunters in here. Sometimes he sang hymns. A strange man was he."

"Fucking craaaaazy," Chuck said.

"The boy was scared of me, such a sight I was. I looked as though I had aged years."

"Yeah! How long were you out there?" Matt asked.

The old man seemed to ignore the question. "They loaded me in their car, an old Packard Clipper, as I recall. I shivered even with the heat set high. The hermit asked what happened to me, and I found it an agony to talk. But soon the tale left me free."

The old man stood suddenly and polished off the remainder of his beer. Jenny looked to the door and back at the man. "Going back to your cabin?"

"Indeed. It's late. My tale is told."

"That was a doozy," Chuck said. His eyes were tired.

"Yet I must tell it. At uncertain hours the agony strikes me, and won't be gone until I find someone to tell. I always know the right person that needs to hear. Tonight it was you." His eyes seemed to linger on the older brother.

Patting his jacket, the old man fished in his pockets for a wallet. Chuck looked at Jenny, "I'll pay his tab tonight. Seems like the least one hunter can do for another."

With a weak smile the old man walked to the door, bundling his coat and producing a worn woollen hat from a pocket. "Farewell. Good luck in your hunt. Remember that all that lives in the forest are nature's creatures. Man and bird and beast. All made with the greatest care."

He started to open the door, but a gust made him hesitate. Matt spoke up. "Wait a second. Did you go back for your friends? How long were you out there?"

Without turning back the old man said, "A party of twenty men searched those woods for days, but my comrades were never found. They are out there to this day. Bones." He opened the door and stepped out, but spoke once more before he closed the door. "I had lost a full thirty five pounds. My hair and beard were grown shaggy and long. But by all accounts, I was only out there a single day, twenty four hours."

The door shut. The bar was still and quiet. The spell was complete.

"Well that was fucking nuts," Matt said. He stood as if to leave. Jenny tracked him with her gaze.

Chuck extracted himself from the stool before dropping several bills at his spot on the bar. "Thanks for the beers Jenny, we're outta here. It's late."

"I'll be bedding down, same as the deer," Jenny said quietly. She stared intently at the younger man.

Matt pokerd his brother gently. "Hey. I might be a little late, big brother. Go on without me."

Chuck nodded once and headed for the door. Matt watched him go and then turned to Jenny.

She extinguished the candle, flipped the sign in the window to Closed, and returned to Matt. Without a word, she took his hand and led him upstairs.

By morning, Lake Superior's wrath had passed. The sun made the waist-high snow a blinding white. Matt pulled on the rope as he made his way home, not for guidance but for support. He made his way past the leafless mighty oak tree, and back to his cabin.

Inside, Chuck waited at the kitchen table. Matt could hear his father and grandfather still snoring in the adjacent bedroom. He regarded his older brother, still dressed in his clothes from the bar. They shared a long silence.

Chuck thought his brother looked as happy as he'd seen him in some time. He wondered if Jenny had that same smile.

Matt looked at his brother, who seemed suddenly older. Although Chuck smiled at him, Matt saw something in his brother's eyes that looked like an equal mixture of sadness and wisdom.

Opening day was tomorrow, an annual day of excitement. Although there were healthy bucks in the forest, neither brother had much interest in trophies.

Across the road, Jenny Mears flipped the sign in the window to Open. She cradled a mug of black coffee and looked at the bright scene outside. The wind was entirely gone, the trees silent and still. She had the look of a woman both tired and satisfied. Jenny's brown eyes followed the fresh tracks in the deep snow leading to the little cabin across the road. On her face, a trace of a smile appeared like the dawn of a new day.

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Author's Post Script: Erotic Horror stories don't do very well on a smut site, but I wanted to revisit these characters and write my love letter to The Ancient Mariner. I'm happy with it, and I hope I hope some of the elements (frozen corpses, dimensional travel, time dilation) both entertained and chilled the reader.

I had a little fun tossing in some references to Twin Peaks, as well as some imagery from Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee." There's even a wink to a song by The Cult.

The grandfather, father, Chuck, Matt, and Jenny are all based on real people. The authentic Jenny is just as soft-spoken and badass as her fictional counterpart, and I hope I did her justice.

Thanks to SandyBett for the pre-read, stylistic tips and edits, and for consistently tolerating my writing process!

Please rate and comment! I'm ever curious how this story will be received!