Darren settled back in his seat on the plane- a business trip that would take him across the country meant plenty of time to read a few postcards. The Nebraska postcard showed a field of corn, with the letters spelling out "Nebraska" emblazoned across the front.
HUNGER
Walter cursed as he held the ravaged ear of corn in his hand. He cursed long and inventive. As people went, Walter was an easy-going guy, but this was his livelihood. For too long, it had been barely that, and now Walter was looking at what could easily be his personal financial demise. He held sixty-five acres of farmland in his name, and he used a full half of that to grow his corn. So far, he’d covered about twenty acres this day in his ATV, and it had all been the same. Random patches of each row had been attacked; the stalks broken and the ears chewed to hell or completely gone. HUNGER
Walter tossed the ruined ear downwards to one side, accompanying the act with a grunt of disgust. He dug down into the back pocket of his well-worn jeans and pulled out his phone. He swiped his finger across the screen, uttering another annoyed grunt as juices from the damaged kernels smeared across the surface. Wiping the phone on his pants leg and his hand on his shirt, Walter repeated his attempt to bring up the directory of apps, and then opened his contact list.
He hit the dial button, and after a couple of rings, the line on the other end picked up. "Yeah?" a female voice asked, tinged with impatience. Walter shut his eyes tightly. He’d done it again, accidentally dialing his ex-wife while trying to contact his consultant, Dan, who held a B.S. in agricultural engineering. He really needed to rearrange his contact list, Walter thought sourly. His damn fingers were too thick to use the touch-screen efficiently. Still, Ginny would be sympathetic to this current problem. She’d grown up on a farm herself, even if she preferred not to live on one now or be married to a farmer.
"Hey Gina," Walter said, trying to be cheery. He sounded more like that guy who had done the voice for the bird in Aladdin. Gilbert something. All screechy and nails-on-chalkboardy. He immediately dropped the pretense. "Sorry- I was trying to call Dan."
"You haven’t changed your contact list," Ginny said flatly. Walter nodded, forgetting she could not see him. He made a gesture of apology.
"Yeah, sorry about that. Just that I got a big problem here, and it’s- well it’s bad. Like, dealbreaker bad." Ginny’s reply carried more courtesy than concern, but it was still nice to hear that hint of interest in her voice.
"My corn crop is pretty much screwed for the year, Ginny. No harvest at all, probably. Something’s gotten into it, and it’s not the usual birds or vermin. Something a lot hungrier and a lot bigger. I actually think it’s-" He grimaced, knowing how his next word would make him sound: crazy. "-deer," he concluded.
The pause on the other end was all Walter needed to know he was right about how he sounded. Then Ginny spoke again. Her voice was toneless, carefully devoid of all nuances. "Deer."
Walter sighed. "Well, the stalks are all broken and trampled. And the ears have been stripped as high as my chest."
Ginny’s sudden intake of air wasn’t quite a gasp, but came close. "You don’t think it was – I don’t know what you’d call them, poachers? I mean, people stealing it?" Walter was already shaking his head.
"No, no. People would take it all, right? To eat, or to sell, I do know what you mean, but a lot of it was eaten right there. A good twenty acres’ worth already, as far as I can see. Over half the crop" His voice was a bit crisper with bitterness. He glanced around again at the mess surrounding him.
"I’m sorry Walter. I know how that must hit you in the pocketbook," Ginny replied. "What are you going to do about the rest of the corn? Set out traps or what?"
"I dunno. That’s why I was gonna call Dan," Walter explained, a small smile on his face. "Sorry to bug you, Ginny. You take care."
"Alright, then. Good luck catching the bad guys. Or bad deer," Ginny said, before hanging up.
Walter squinted at the screen, the tip of his tongue sticking out with concentration as he carefully positioned his finger over Dan’s number.
Forty-five minutes later, Walter was standing in front of his modest little house, watching Dan as he drove up in his pickup truck. As always, Dan drove too fast, so Walter turned around and went inside his house to avoid inhaling the dust clouds that often accompanied Dan’s skidding tires as he came to a stop.
When Dan’s knock vibrated through the house, Walter counted to ten before he crossed over to his front house to admit the tall, grinning man. Dan wasn’t quite taller than Walter, but he had a presence that seemed to fill the room, leaving little space for much else.
"Hey! Whoo this Indian Summer sure is taking its time huh? Say, you wouldn’t have a beer would you?" Dan asked, wiping his brow with his sleeve. He started to walk into the kitchen, but Walter stopped him with a wave of his hand.
"Fresh out," Walter said, "sorry." Dan cocked his head with an expression of amused doubt. Chuckling, he began moving towards the kitchen again.
"You sure you don’t haven even one tucked way in back?" Dan stopped, mildly surprised when Walter’s hand closed firmly upon his arm, detaining him. Walter shook his head.
"No time for this, Dan. I told you, I got a serious problem. C’mon, let me take you out there," Walter stated, already walking towards the back of his house, where his ATV was parked outside.
Dan cursed also, when he saw the carnage. Not as inventively as Walter had, but he still came up with plenty of interesting phrases as he looked over the surrounding mess of stripped and broken cornstalks. Walter nodded wearily, understanding completely the need to give voice to the disbelief and despair. When Dan petered out, Walter gestured vaguely towards a chewed-up ear. "Deer, you think?" In response, Dan got down to his knees, grunting loudly.
"No deer tracks, but I’m seeing dog prints. Lots of dog prints," Dan declared after examining the ground for a few moments. Walter blinked.
Walter wished he still had a landline at his house. It would have made hanging up on the unsympathetic pencil pusher all smug and secure in his cubicle at some fancy office that much more satisfying. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. He really shouldn’t be surprised, but he’d been holding out for even just a little leeway, a drop of compassion. Seventeen years. Seventeen years working his ass off for the distributor company that shipped his crops out and gave him his percentage, and now they wouldn’t even forward him any advance cash on the next crop. No corn, the guy had said in a voice about as full of emotion as a gnat, no cash.
Walter drove to the grocery store, bought a case of Tecate beer, and returned home to get thoroughly drunk.
Walter awoke to a pounding head, but as he groaned and put his hand to his head to caress his headache-wrapped temples, he realized his head didn’t hurt all that much. Rather, the pounding came from somewhere else. Walter attempted to lick his lips, but instead simply rasped a sandpapery tongue over dry skin. His chest hitched, and a bilious version of the beer he’d downed earlier rose in his throat. Swallowing hard, Walter fought his way to his feet, orienting himself towards the incessant noise.
He tried to call out, but his words were muffled by the invisible cotton balls filling his mouth, so he just staggered to his front door and opened it.
Ginny blinked in surprise. She looked Walter over, and then her expression morphed into repulsion. "Jesus, Walter. You look terrible-have you been drinking?" Walter leaned against the doorframe, his head against the wood.
"Come in, if you don’t mind waiting while I shower?" Walter managed to utter. Ginny sighed, but she nodded brusquely.
"Normally I would pass, but . . ." her eyes were sad. "I went out to look at your fields already."
Half an hour later, Walter emerged from his bedroom mostly dried off and fully dressed, except for footwear. He followed the scent of fresh coffee into the kitchen, where Ginny had cleared just enough space to set up Walter’s coffeemaker. Walter felt a twinge upon seeing how familiarly she moved through the space she had used to occupy as his wife. He opened a cupboard and took out two coffee mugs and set them on the counter next to the coffeemaker.
"Thanks," he said in acknowledgement, and got a small smile from Ginny in return. They both sipped coffee in silence for a few minutes. Then Ginny leaned back against the kitchen counter, as if she intended to hop up to sit on the countertop. She remained on her feet though as she spoke.
"You just might be right, Walt," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Deer. I mean, when I first saw all of the damage, the first thing that popped into my head was something even crazier."
Walt gazed at Ginny for a few seconds, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t say anything, he raised his eyebrows and gestured with his coffee mug. Ginny rolled her eyes, and then said, smiling sheepishly all the while, "It did occur to me that perhaps it was, oh God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, crop circles." She chuckled and shrugged.
"I need you."
He wanted to say these words. He should have said them. I need you, I should never have let you go, my days are so hollow without you. He wanted to shout these words at her, whisper them in her ear.
Instead, he forced a chuckle. "Be nice if that were true. Then I could go on TV, make some money to cover this loss," he said ruefully. Ginny began to speak, but ended up just looking away.
"What about your soybeans?" she asked finally. Walter lifted his shoulders up high and sighed loudly.
"I hadn’t gotten around to checking on them. Guess I should do that soon," he muttered. Ginny reached out and Walter automatically handed her his coffee cup. She turned and placed both cups in the sink, rinsing them out quickly, but she did not wash them. She dried her hands on her jeans, since Walter had no towels of any material whatsoever within sight of the entire kitchen. She turned to face her ex husband, concern clear in her face.
"Hopefully you can get some profit on that, defray some expenses. You’ll let me know?" She walked into the living room, looking back at Walter with expectant eyes. Walter nodded, following her to the front door. Awkwardness ensued as they tried to decide how best to say their farewells to each other. Finally Walter settled for a hand on her arm, with a slight squeeze, which Ginny responded to by reaching up and placing her hand over his for a brief moment. She seemed about to say something else, but instead just flashed a tight smile and began to walk to her car. Walter watched her go, his head beginning to throb more strongly as the tension in his neck and shoulders thickened.
Walter’s hangover morphed into a migraine as he rose through the remainder of his corn crops to access his soybean crops. It was clear that more of the corn had been ravaged since Walter had last checked. The amount of ruined crops now totaled more than half his entire corn output. Walter’s breathing became ragged as he tried to visualize any possible means of escaping complete and utter ruin.
Walter had always been more stoic than emotional, but he could not prevent the sobs that tore out of his chest when he arrived at the acreage containing his soybeans. These too had been hit by the same forces of destruction. His crying was brief, but it left him exhausted and his head in a giant spiked superheated vise. Suddenly an odd noise arose, like a train made of whistling teakettles. Walter actually began looking around before he realized that the noise was coming from him. His anguish was manifesting itself as a steady shriek. As his screams became louder, the pain crushed Walter’s head further into blackness.
When Walter awoke, shivering, it was full dark. The starlight was weak but sufficed to allow Walter to slowly navigate his way back to the house, squinting all the way. He ran over quite a few stalks, but he no longer cared. His corn crops were as good as fucked, anyway. His head felt significantly better, yet when he thought he heard the faint crunch of raw corn ears being chewed a sudden jolt of pain ran through Walter’s brain. He continued grimly towards his house.
Over the next few days, Walter tried setting out some traps, but this proved futile on two counts. One was that his had taken too much loss in his crops to really make a difference even if he caught whatever or whoever had been devastating his farmland. The other was that he didn’t even know what he was trying to catch, so he could ill afford to try a large variety of traps and bait.
Walter took to patrolling at night. He left the coffeemaker out everyday now, since he made much more daily than he had in years. He also liked how the tang reminded him of Ginny’s recent visit. He couldn’t quite justify just up and calling her, though. He couldn’t keep using his failed harvest as a reason to reach out to her. Even with the caffeine boost Walter still started to droop around ten or so every evening, and so would head back to the house then to brood on another wasted day.
Then came the phone call that broke the camel’s back. A camel called Walter. When Walter answered the phone, the voice on the other end reminded him in some way of his uncle Corey whenever he’d tried to ask a woman out. Genteel, respectful, yet with a note of sleaziness underneath. Like a really good used car salesman that relied on charm rather than ebullience.
"Good morning. May I speak with Mr. Reynolds?" the called inquired. Walter actually straightened up a little.
"Yeah, that’s me," he replied.
"Hello, my name is Brice Hennessey. I am with Mackins Brothers, which is-"
Walter exhaled noisily through his nostrils, coming pretty close to snorting. "I know who you are,’ he retorted. All the local farmers knew of the food packaging and distribution corporation with several large farmland holdings. The business had started out small, as a family-operated farm, but had grown over the years via buyouts and complete embracement of the different methods for enhancing crops with chemicals, hormones, and so forth.
The voice continued without missing a beat. "Excellent, you have heard of us. I have been authorized to call you to discuss the possibility of offering you the opportunity of becoming a stakeholder in our company." Walter ground his teeth. He hated how these people talked, as if they couldn’t just spit something out directly.
"Thanks but no thanks. I don’t plan on selling out," Walter informed the slick guy.
"Oh no, Mr. Reynolds. You may have the incorrect impression of our company. You’d retain full autonomy of your propert-"
"Oh, bullshit," Walter shot back. "Your business isn’t concerned at all with people like me. It’d be a takeover, plain as that. No sale." He was about to hang up, but then what Brice Hennessey said next made him hesitate.
"You cannot afford to turn this offer down, Mr. Reynolds. Your crop losses this year have out you in serious financial straits. Unless you have other assets of substantial value, you may not recover from this setback. Might we at least agree to-"
Walter interrupted him with venomous anger. "And how do you know about my crops?"
There was a pause, during which Walter heard a soft thump as if the caller had put his hand over the mouthpiece. Then the voice spoke again. "We received the pertinent information from a Mr.-" the faint crinkle of papers being moved transmitted through Walter’s phone. "-Daniel Smythe."
Walter closed his eyes. Fucking Dan. It was obvious that Dan had panicked regarding the crop damage and called it in to Mackins, in hope to turn the loss into a liquidated asset, and then dissolve his partnership with Walter at a gain. Walter completely understood Dan’s thinking, but what made him angry was that Dan hadn’t discussed any of this with him.
Walter’s body went cold as a terrible thought struck him, hard enough to cause his temples to throb with significant pain. What if Dan had collaborated with Mackins to sabotage his crops? Walter hadn’t been pulling in a lot of profit for the last few years, and all it would take to ruin his business would be a disaster just like this situation. Suddenly, Walter couldn’t quite catch his breath.
"Mr. Reynolds? Sir?" Walter realized that the voice had been going on for some time and he’d been ignoring it. Refocusing on the here and now, Walter brought his phone closer to his mouth, the better to transmit loud and clear.
"I said, no sale!" He thumbed the disconnect icon, then sat heavily upon his sofa. Coffee. He needed coffee. And a beer. It was going to be a long day. And a longer night.
Walter twisted his head in several directions, trying to relieve the stiffness increasing in his neck. His knees ached. Walter had drunk a lot more coffee earlier, determined to stay up all night and catch the culprit or culprits for once and all, but shortly after midnight Walter’s energy had tapped out almost completely. Practically the only thing keeping Walter from toppling over in sheer exhausting to sleep on the ground was the fact that his bladder seemed to fill up every half hour, thanks to the caffeine in his blood.
Groaning miserably, Walter hunched over to stretch his back a little while he rubbed his eyes, massaging his eyelids and sockets thoroughly. When he lowered his hands and opened his eyes, he very nearly pissed himself.
Not ten feet away, there stood an enormous wolf, staring at Walter with intense curiosity. Or maybe it was ravenous hunger. Good god, the thing was huge. Its half-dollar eyes reflected the moonlight with a fiery golden glow.
Walter held his breath for what seemed like forever, but then he had to release the air in his lungs. He tried to do so as silently as possible, but he could not bring himself to move a muscle.
The wolf continued to regard Walter, apparently trying to make up its mind about how to assess Walter’s threat level. Or how many steaks it could make out of Walter’s body. Walter had no illusions about being able to either defeat the beast in a direct attack or outrunning it. He needed a weapon, and he had none, unless his flashlight counted. He tightened his grip upon the flashlight, ready to hurl it at the wolf, when he noticed more golden orbs appearing behind the beast.
Walter’s knees buckled slightly. A pack. A bonafide honest-to-god wolf pack, standing right there in the middle of his cornfields. Then something clicked, as Walter recalled Dan’s comment about dog prints.
Finally, the forefront wolf moved. Never taking its eyes off Walter, it moved to the side, its head brushing up against a cornstalk. Raising its muzzle slightly, the wolf’s jawline came parallel with the base of an ear. The wolf opened its jaws and clamped down on the ear. Again, the wolf went still, watching Walter intently.
Walter remained frozen. Yet he flinched when the wolf suddenly jerked its head, simultaneously breaking the cornstalk and severing the ear, which it held firmly in its jaws as it started to back up slowly, eyes still fixed on Walter.
Then the wolf turned its back on Walter, and faded into the darkness. The multiple shining points of golden light vanished in pairs. Walter could hear the loud crack of the wolf biting down into the ear.
Walter’s body began to tremble as the adrenaline that had just flooded his body began to subside. He staggered towards his ATV, and leaned over the handlebars for a few moments, wracked with nausea.
He dropped into his seat, his limbs feeling like rubber. He buried his head in his hands. Wolves were eating his corn and soybeans. Wolves. Big fucking wolves. Walter was no super genius, but he could understand what he’d seen. He’d heard enough of the science behind it from Dan.
The ecosystem was inexorably headed for some kind of massive shift or collapse. Walter could only hope that wolves turning vegetarian was a sign of massive changes in the food chain, not a shattering of the chain. As he made his way back to the house, Walter thought about how the most dangerous predators these days were monsters made of paperwork, creatures with giant sucking throats made out of debt and loans.
Upon arrival at his house, Walter went straight to the fridge and looked for beer. There was just one bottle of Sam Adams in the back. He twisted the cap off, and chugged the beer down in one swig. Then he smashed the bottle on his counter, jerking his head back slightly as an airborne glass piece stung his cheek.
He looked at the jagged edge of the neck he held in his hand, and then at his wrist and forearm. He looked back and forth at the broken bottle and his arm until the sun rose.
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