Dave disliked loud sounds, which was the primary reason why he had moved out into the countryside. With springtime upon him, the birds were incredibly loud. He even bought ear-protection in an attempt to sleep through their early-morning serenades. In the end it still got through to him.
Flicking his wrist he threw his hearing protecting back onto his bed. He'd stopped making his bed after he left the military, he liked the lived-in look of an unmade bed.
It helped cover the soul-burning loneliness of being out here all by himself.
His company didn't see a point in forcing everyone to return to the office after the pandemic. He'd made sure that wasn't something which would change anytime soon. The second he'd been certain of it being possible he'd bought a house on the outskirts of a village in northern Montana.
The rest of the inhabitants were older people, so there was little chance of finding a romantic partner.
A worthy trade-off for the beautiful landscape and clean air.
There was a national park nearby. The state had recommended that everyone in the village buy special bear-proof trashcans. Was kinda embarrassing how long it took for him to figure out that bloody thing. At least the bears wouldn't have an easy time.
He jumped in the shower for a quick rinse-off and put on some clothes.
The weather was perfect for a little trip on his bike. He grabbed it from his garage and set off.
He rode down the gravel road leading up to his house, past an ancient abandoned cabin and onto the gravelly bike-lane adjacent to the main road.
The landscape spread out, with a large grassland to his left, a mountain or large hill to his right,
Hank's Outpost was an outstanding general store, with a large assortment or wares, with only a thirty percent markup on perishables and around ten percent on everything else. It was on the other side of the road from a tiny hotel and cafe.
When he pulled up there was an argument going on in front of the general store.
“Hank, man. Don't be a cunt.”
“I can't sell them to you. You told me what you wanna do and it's a crime.”
“You can't be serious, man.”
“I'm gonna be an accessory if you shoot them now.”
“Please man, they took one of my sheep.”
“Go to Johnson's, but leave me out of it. They're protected animals.”
Dave brushed past them, went inside the store and tried to forget what he'd eavesdropped on by accident.
He bought smoked sausage and rye bread. On the way out he noticed a discount on rope, so he got some, just in case something broke during gusty season.
Securing the rope on his bike without having it get in the wheels was something he should've considered before buying it.
As he turned off the main road he felt like he was being watched. He scanned his surrounding and the feeling went away. Maybe the conversation he'd heard made him paranoid.
He went inside for a droll day of loom-calls and Hexel spreadsheets.
The world turned, it became late afternoon.
He got off work in a horrid mood. One of the new guys had made a consistent mistake through several documents. Fixing it had him bounce calls around, bothering everyone involved.
Even still he wasn't certain that he'd got every instance of the mistake.
He couldn't even blame the new guy, it was an easy mistake to make and someone else in his department should've caught it before it went out to everyone.
Dave decided to go on a small hike before it got dark. He wanted to forget about work, walking around in the pine forest on the slope of the large hill behind his house should get him in a better state of mind. Maybe he'd even forget about the clusterfuck he'd have to clean up tomorrow, while also doing his normal workload.
He quickly checked the temperature on his oil boiler to make sure that everything was in working order. It was something he'd gotten in the habit of doing, the thing was supposed to be extremely reliable, but he wasn't taking any chances this far up north. Not even in spring.
Strapping on his boots he set off on a little evening walk.
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Walking through the cooling crisp air made him delight in the many different sights. Orange from the setting sun shone through the pine trees surrounding him.
He heard a growl from his right.
At the root of a tree lay a large timber wolf.
Utterly massive in comparison to even the biggest dog he'd ever seen. Its fur was Grey, white and seemingly sticky around the left hind leg.
It growled at him again and tried to get up on its front legs. It twitched in pain and fell back down.
Dave swallowed heavily while backing away. He didn't dare turn his back on the wolf, until he was out of its line of sight, and even then, he kept his head on a swivel.
Walking back was an unnerving experience. Gone was the feeling of safety and wonder, originally brought on by watching the approaching sunset.
He remembered the conversation he'd heard by coincidence, back at the general store. It'd make sense if they'd been talking about a box of shotgun shells filled with buckshot. Hank sold a variety of ammunition, but no slugs and this wolf appeared to be wounded. Meaning that the sheep-guy had used up his ammunition to defend his sheep and had gone to Hank for more, leading to the argument.
It was an impressive wolf and he hadn't gotten a picture of it. You really weren't supposed to feed wildlife, since they'd become dependent and used to humans, but curiosity nagged at him.
He felt restless.
Eventually he gave in. Grabbed some smoked sausage, since he didn't have anything better on hand, took his flashlight and Glock before heading out.
The walk was tense, he kept second-guessing his terrible decision, but kept going through with it anyways.
He felt curiosity drawing him ever closer to dipshit territory, but he couldn't get over himself.
When he reached the wolf it was still roughly an hour until the sun would fully set. He had checked by holding his hand fully outstretched from his body and counting how many fingers were between the horizon and the sun, with each finger being fifteen minutes worth of daylight.
He approached in a way that would give both of them ample warning, so neither would feel surprised.
When the wolf growled, Dave stopped and threw the sausage near its head, which caused it to twitch.
Dave took out his phone, held it in front of himself so it wouldn't silhouette in any way and took a picture.
Doing it this way, he hoped, wouldn't cause the wolf to remember the 'ouchy pointy thing' it had been shot with.
He left before seeing whether the wolf ate the sausage.
Sleep came easy that night.
In the morning he biked to Hank's and bought some frozen venison and some sausage for himself.
Work wasn't going too well. Sadly he'd been correct, it had become a cascading error, because several people had input incorrect data into automated systems, which had extrapolated incorrect things and ruined everything further downstream.
As the first error of this type, there had been no defense against this. A lot of variables didn't even care that they were completely out of range of anything sensible.
At least it made it easy for the workers to tell when an output was wrong.
Dave had left the venison to thaw during his work-hours. He was almost certain that the wolf wasn't going to be there anymore. If that were the case he'd just be firing up his pan and eat steak for the next few days. Not a terrible outcome.
After getting off work, he kitted up and headed out again, this time earlier in the day.
The wolf was still there.
Dave threw the venison and left quickly.
He spent the rest of the afternoon and evening just walking around on the large hill his house lay at the foot of.
The wolf seemed to be immobile, hence he figured it'd be fine.
He had nightmares that night. Filled with smoke and ash.
Dave started off the day by reading the news. Something groundbreaking had been discover at the highest level of particle physics. Journalists were really trying to hype it up. The articles themselves were complete bollocks, claiming wild breakthroughs in potential sources of energy. Listening to what the actual scientist was saying boiled down to “We had some changes in our results that should've stayed constant and we aren't really sure what's causing it. We're working on it.”
He hated how journalists sensationalized every little discovery in the sciences, to the point of being outright misinformation. On the other hand he understood why they did it. Generating interest and promising wild results would get them more funding and it would draw attention to the journalist's work.
Work was uneventful, they had a debriefing about the wider effects of the error, in which it was suggested that the automatic propagation of a complete bogus input should be prevented at the onset by denying said input in the future. It fell on his head to fix, basically.
Not that it was hard. It was just another annoying software update.
After work he grabbed his gun, some meat and went out to face the wolf again.
He encountered the wolf in the outskirt of the forest behind his house.
“It must've followed my scent back”, Dave thought in shock.
Dave threw the meat and quickly retreated to his house.
Looking out his rear-facing windows he could see the wolf from inside, as it lay under a tree.
He went to sleep, after he moved his bed upstairs and locked the door behind himself.
No nightmares this time.
Day four after he discovered the wolf started off with him driving to Hank's in his car. Better to not risk getting attacked on his bicycle. Dave bought a lot of meat this time around. Thankfully he had a large freezer, since his house's previous owner had been an avid hunter.
There was something interesting on the internet. A text seeming to be a masterpiece of art, describing a workout routine had been uploaded to a Fakebook page by someone named Jonathan. Every person reading it interpreted it wildly different which was what drew a lot of people's attention. Regardless of interpretation it seemed to energize people when performed.
Sounded like some modern art bullshit.
Dave saved it for later.
Seemed like neat little gimmick to deconstruct.
Work was uneventful, everyone had calmed down and he was left alone to make the fix, to prevent future incidents. He'd taken his laptop down the stairs, so he could watch the wounded wolf out of his back window.
It didn't move around a lot, lying down most of the day.
When Dave went to feed it this time, it immediately walked towards him as he went out his back door.
They met halfway, he didn't wanna throw the meat fearing that it might startle the wolf. He held the venison in his outstretched hand.
The wolf took it and walked away.
It didn't seem to be in pain anymore. Odd, since it had only been a few days since it'd been shot.
Dave went for a hike in the other direction today. Across the wide open grassland, until the sun set. Wind played across the tall yellow grass and moved it to its whims in waves spreading out towards the horizon.