Near the End

A Forest Made of Fire

It was a cold winter night in 1983 and 38 year old Charles N. Roberts was in bed, no wife, no kids, no one except his best friend, a 11 year old Beagle named Max.
        Like any other night, Charles lays there, attempting to sleep, but failing to rest. After he lost his wife and kids in a tragic car accident four years back, he has not been able to rest. The nights are long and days are short. It is quiet as the chilling wind blows against thin glass pane window. He finally falls asleep but wakes up only hours later to Max barking at the door. Charles quickly gets up and grabs his gun, presuming either a animal or a person is potentially putting him and his best friend in grave danger. He attaches Max's leash to his harness and grabs him tight. With his gun is one hand and a leash clenched in the other he opens the door, prepared for confrontation. He slowly steps out shouting "Who's out there!?" He waits, no noise. He waits some more, still only the sound of the cold winter wind and his own footsteps. As he travels farther away from his home, he hears a slight barking in the distance. In the same instance, he is jolted in the direction by the pull of max's leash. He gives in and runs with Max towards the other dog. The barking gets louder and louder and then comes to a halt as they enter a forest made out of beautiful quaking aspens trees. Charles sees the other dog and there is a moment of silence. Max is quiet, the other dog is still as a statue, the wind seems to be non existent for just an instant. Then, the dog bolts in the opposite direction and Max follows. Once again yanking the leash, forcing Charles to run with him.
        As Charles gets closer to a large oak tree, he sees a man sitting down leaning against the tree. He hears a faint cry for help. He approaches the man who is sitting on top of snow dyed red. Charles immediately reacts and tries to help. He asks the man what is wrong and what happened but no response. He instantly realized how serious of a situation this is as he sees large gashes on his right leg that the man was trying to cover with his hands. He then takes off his belt and ties a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from his legs. Charles grabs the back of the man's coat and starts to pull him back towards his house.
        Charles, Max, the wounded man, and his golden yellow dog all make it back to the cabin. Charles, out of breathe, tries to call for help but because of the weather outside, it's no use. Charles thinks to himself and now knows that he has to take take care of this man himself. He rushes to the restroom, tears through his cabinets in the search for alcohol or antibiotics to help this man. Charles finally sets down his gun on the side table, finds peroxide in the cabinets, and hurries back to the man. Non responsive, Charles pours the peroxide on his legs wound. He quickly jolts up with a faint scream. As he is up he says "Eric...my name is Eric" and slowly seems to fade away again. Charles tried to quickly think as of what to do, he looks and realizes Eric's fingers are almost completely purple and blue. So he quickly lights a fire, wraps a blanket around him, helps set him up next to the fire.
        Charles sat down and waited. He, Max, and Eric's dog, whose tag said Buddy, all waited. Eventually Eric began to stir and come to. Time goes on and Charles decides to cook something for the two. As he is almost done he turns around to go tell Eric that food is almost done. "Hey, if you're hung..." and he pauses, realizing Eric is gone. He searches his room, nothing. He looks in the restroom, nothing. Eric is nowhere to be found. He opens the door and sees Eric attempting to limp away into the storm.
        "Where you going?!" screamed Eric, but no response. He closes the door behind him, leaving Max inside. He yells again "Eric, come back! It's too cold out here man."
        Eric finally responds "I'm sorry Charles, I didn't mean for it to be you." Charles being confused walks closer to Eric. Then in haste, three men come from the side, knocked Charles down, and pins him to the ground. Charles watching sees a man in a black coat and a mask on say "Thank you Eric, you did good." then bang. Eric sitting there again, in need of help, laying in snow dyed red. And then he fires a second, ending any fight Eric had left in him. Buddy runs from behind and tries to attack the man with the weapon. He throws buddy to the ground, he lets out a small whine and is right back at it, bang. One of the other men there pulls out his gun and fires, killing buddy. Charles still pinned is struggling. They tie a cloth around his mouth and tied him to a tree out front as he watched them rob his home. He tries to scream and wiggle free when once again, bang. He hears a dog whine and Charles know what just happened. It seemed the entire world went quiet for a second and then he lets out a scream. He then sees someone carry Max's body out. And then the cabin goes up in a flame as they pull out in their trucks. Starting to light up the tops of the trees turning the tops of them fiery red and orange. Tied up, he couldn't do anything, nothing. Nothing to help his best friend, nothing to help his home, nothing. He weeps in despair.