Wolves

CW: Implied violence, moral distress

Today is April 31: Liberation Day. Hurrah. The pong my armpits emit rivals the reek of the mounds of black seaweed baking in the sun. My vest sticks to my skin, my underpants are riding up, chafing every step I take. I’m dying to rip off my protective suit and let my body breathe. To get off the island of Texel. Go home. Experience some civilisation. Take a bath.

Relief is due tomorrow, May 2 – Remembrance Day.

‘Who knew a sea could turn into a desert so fast?’ Mette says.

‘I guess you won’t be seeing your family anytime soon.’

‘Always the optimist,’ she scoffs.

‘With that one brewing?’ I say, pointing ahead.

The pink hue in the air darkens to an angry purple glow at the horizon. Between us and the storm stretches the seabed — a wet, fractured, concrete-coloured slab. Perhaps an hour before the storm hits the island.

‘It’s supposed to be the size of Luxembourg.’

‘Maybe they’ll get a bird in afterwards.’

‘Yeah, right, it’ll take days for the dust to settle,’ I say. ‘We’ll be lucky if the wolves haven’t crossed already before.’

My fingers trace the clips on my belt – three left. Mette glances at the 9mm submachine gun. Just enough ammo to stop a small band of marauding Neo-Vikings. Wolves? Not a chance.

‘Anyway,’ says Mette, ‘we’d better head back inside.’

‘You go in, I’ve got to water the crops.’

Behind her visor, Mette raises her eyebrows. ‘Don’t let the gulls get your pølse.’

Certain she’s out of sight in the armoured glass bunker, I free my head from my helmet and zip open my suit down to my soggy undies. The wind whispers in my ears. My piss foams at the base of the thumb-thick stumps of purple sea kale.

I strain my ears, searching for the screeches. Above me, the pink-streaked blue sky. Not a single seagull. Something howls in the distance. I tell myself it’s just the wind blowing around the shipwreck’s masts. Sloppily, I finish my business and go inside.

‘Got anything planned for Remembrance Day?’ Mette says. ‘Wait — isn’t it your anniversary?’

‘It is.’

‘How is Björn?’

‘On his way back from the Arctic front. The original plan was some man-to-man action, if you know what I mean.’

‘I’m glad August teaches; at least he’s home when I’m off rotation.’

‘How long since you’ve seen him and your kids?’

‘Seven months. You?’

‘A year.’

‘That’s harsh.’

I take a drag from my purple sea kale cigarette and offer it to Mette. She waves it away.

‘You’re stinking up the place with that filth,’ she chides me. ‘And you’re not supposed to get doped on watch.’

Shrugging, I say, ‘Remember the actual stuff?’

‘I miss chocolate,’ Mette says. ‘My grandma tells me it was even better before.’

‘Before the attack, or…’

‘Before Greenland.’

‘Oh,’ I say and instinctively make sure comms are switched off. Some habits die hard.

‘Coffee?’

Mette nods. I scoop toasted chicory granules into chipped and stained ceramic mugs, pour hot water on top and hand Mette hers.

‘Surrogate comfort to warm your soul.’

Mette says, ‘Tak,’ and wipes her face with her mottled green handkerchief.

Outside, a towering purple vortex races across the seabed towards the island. The pink in the sky is thickening, half an hour before it hits us—at the most.

‘Did you lock the hatch?’

With an exaggerated sigh, I say, ‘Jeez, Mum. Forget it once.’

But I check it, anyway.

The handle’s down. Just to be sure, I push—it doesn’t budge. I peek out of the small, round window. Something moves behind the wreck. I blink. Gone. Must be a speck of dust in my eye.

I take my place behind the control panel next to Mette. A pink reflection bounces off the metal framing August and her children, Nils and Astrid. I put the binoculars to my face and inspect the greasy cracks of sea mud. An orca’s corpse is rotting next to the wreck of the Dutch frigate sunk during World War 4. Nothing that wasn’t there before.

‘You reckon there’s still life cod trapped in those puddles by the frigate’s wreck? I could make it if I took a quad. It would be a welcome change to dried tofu and samphire.’

‘You got a death wish? Wait till after the storm.’

‘The wolves will get there before us—’

‘I said no, Henning.’

‘Aye, sir,’ I say.

Red light flashes to the hysterical beeping of the radar. The tempest already fills a quarter of the screen, bright purple.

STORM IMMINENT.

‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ Mette says.

Ten kilometres ahead of the storm, hundreds of pixels light up. They move as a group.

Mette says, ‘Never seen such a massive pack.

‘Do you think the Neos are right? That the Attack summoned Fenrir and that the wolves are his children—that we’re facing Ragnarok?’

‘Oh, come on, Mette. Tell me you don’t believe those old wives’ tales. The radiation, chemicals, or whatever else in that alien projectile caused the mutations—’

A stray pixel about a kilometre away from us is closing in on the frigate’s wreck. It flickers in and out of existence.

I grab the binoculars again and switch on the enhanced mode.

‘Something’s heading towards us, just behind the wreck.’

‘Lone wolf?’

With my right index finger, I activate identification mode. Taking the binoculars off my face, I check the settings and look again.

‘It’s human,’ I say.

Mette snatches the device from my hand.

‘You’re fucking with me.’

She peers through the binoculars. ‘Nothing there. Must be a glitch.’ She tilts the binoculars and returns them to her face.

‘Hvad helvede?’

‘Any ID?’

Mette shakes her head. ‘Too much purple dust interference.’

‘We should—’

‘Do no such thing. We’re ordered to spare ammo. Whoever is out there won’t survive. Neither would we.’

I stare at Mette. ‘We can’t just do nothing!’

‘All we can do is report it; maybe the Dutch coast guard knows something.’

Maybe they’ll make it to the shipwreck and sit out the storm and the wolves,’ I offer.

I open the joint military-civvy info app and type a message reporting our sighting.

My wedding ring catches my eye. I think of Björn’s face, picture his crooked smile.

‘He’s Dutch, isn’t he, Björn?’ Mette says.

I nod.

‘Unusual name for a Dutchman.’

I shrug. ‘We’re the same nation now, aren’t we?’

On the radar display, the storm advances. Outside, on the other side of the foot-thick glass, the fuchsia-coloured dusk is falling. The wolves are gaining on the human being. I search for the poor soul through the binoculars. The signal is getting stronger. Searching for ID, it says on the display.

‘They’re military,’ I say.

I recount the magazines. ‘How many cartridge belts are left?’

‘Two. Don’t even fucking think about it.’

‘I’m not. Just a bad feeling. Should we let the rest of the battalion know?’

‘Let them know what? That the wolves spook you?’

‘We’re in a good mood today, aren’t we?’

‘Bugger off. I want to go home too.

‘Fair enough,’ I say, again looking through the binoculars. ‘E—D—A,’ I read out loud. ‘It’s one of ours.

‘Personal ID?’ Mette says, putting the bunker’s tracking system on display.

I watch the screen. EDA—dot, dot, dot—blinking cursor.

The letters NL appear.

‘To be expected for Dutch territory,’ Mette comments.

The personal ID code blinks to life.

EDANL20760426-3

My stomach curdles, and I retch. My breathing is ragged.

‘It’s Björn! What’s he doing out there?’

The screen goes black.

‘Why did you turn it off?’

‘A glitch,’ says Mette.

‘You turned it off; I saw you flip the switch.’

‘You’re imagining things, corporal.’

I scoop up the binoculars. The figure is closer now; I can see it’s a man. Björn’s number and name are stated in solid lettering in the display. There is no doubt it’s him.

‘Permission to go outside, sir.’

‘Denied,’ Mette fires back.

‘But…’

‘I said denied.’

‘That’s my husband out there! We can’t leave him out there. He’ll die!’

‘So will we if we go after him.’

‘What if it were your husband out there? Would you sit here and watch him die?’

‘We have our orders.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘I repeat, we have our orders.’

‘What orders?’

‘Call in an airstrike if it’s Neo’s. And. Stay. Put.’

‘So, you would let August die. And your kids? Them too?’

‘That’s enough, Corporal Madsen!’

I fall back into my chair and try to control my breathing. My heart throbs like a machine gun. I refuse to believe that Mette would allow her husband to fend for himself against the wolves. I can’t believe she’d let him turn into a bloodied puddle of human slush by the purple fallout particles carried by the storm, sharp as shards of glass. Björn would come for me.

‘If I take a quad, I can fetch him and make it back. I could.’

Mette only glares at me.

But if I open the hatch now, purple dust gets into the seals. The storm will tear it wide open for the wolves to come in.

Outside, the storm is still far enough away, but the dark, four-legged shapes are getting closer, fast.

Memories flash by. Our first date at Copenhagen Zoo. An awkward first kiss. Our wedding.

Björn has almost reached the dead frigate. Three clips of ammunition.

Mette glares at me as I glance at the picture of her family. They’re on a rollercoaster cart. August sits between Nils and Astrid, big grins on their faces. They’re waving. At us. At Mette.

I gaze at her. At the photo and back to Mette. A bone-chilling shiver freezes my heart solid, and my muscles stiffen.

‘Fanden tage dig!’