The Call
The next morning I woke and started my routine with stretching.
Before I knew it, Wolf had padded up beside me, tilting his head and staring as if to ask, What are you doing?
Whenever I dropped into a push-up or a squat, Wolf would go down and come back up, mirroring the motion. He seemed to regard my workout as some kind of entertaining game.
I spoke to him.
"Wolf, once we're done exercising, I'll take you for a walk."
Whether he understood the word walk or not, Wolf spun in a full circle right where he stood, tail beating. A laugh slipped out of me at the sight.
After finishing the morning routine, I pulled an emergency rope from the trailer and fashioned a makeshift leash. Then we stepped out of the truck together.
The instant Wolf hopped down from the trailer, he bolted straight into the grass along the roadside. He hesitated a moment, then settled in and did his business. He hadn't relieved himself indoors.
He'd been holding it. Smart boy, after all.
Then Wolf and I jogged a light loop around the truck stop. An Asian trucker out running with a massive wolfdog made for a pretty incongruous pair, but I no longer had the luxury—or the reason—to care about anyone's stares.
After one circuit we came back to the entrance, where a trucker just stepping out of the diner spotted us and let out a whistle.
"Hey, Polar Bear—that your dog?"
I hesitated. Was it right to call a dog I'd only met yesterday mine? Then I nodded.
"That's right."
He seemed to put Wolf's imposing bulk together with my nickname, and burst into a hearty laugh.
"Haha, a polar bear and a wolf… now that's a hell of a combination. Nobody's gonna mess with you now."
We went back to the trailer, had a simple breakfast, and I pulled out the Sorento again.
Wolf climbed into the passenger seat. Even though it was his first time in a car, he sat quietly, watching the scenery roll past the window.
I drove us into downtown Boise.
I found a big-box discount store, but the line of vehicles stretching from it sent me searching my phone for somewhere else.
Huh. Never thought I'd be this grateful for the internet.
Ah—I should download offline maps ahead of time, too.
A large pet supply store called Petco sat a little farther out. I confirmed it and headed there.
When I opened the door and walked in with Wolf, the clerk's eyes went round and he let out a gasp of admiration.
"Wow. A Czechoslovakian Wolfdog. It's been a long time since I've seen a specimen this magnificent."
He'd recognized the breed at a glance. While I picked out what I needed, Wolf sat properly at my side, his tail swaying gently. The clerk couldn't stop praising him.
"Mind if I give him a treat?"
"Haha, of course. Thank you."
"Really classy friend you've got there. He's been trained exceptionally well."
I chose a sturdy leather collar and leash, a brush for his coat, and the other essentials, asking the clerk questions as I went.
Then I headed for the kibble aisle.
"This food—I'll take everything you've got here."
I pointed at every twenty-kilogram bag of large-breed dog food stacked on the shelves. At a rough count there were easily more than twenty-five. The clerk looked startled.
"I'm sorry? All of it? That's enough to feed this guy for a full year."
"Yes. That's the idea."
At my firm answer he asked nothing more and started loading bags onto a cart.
With each bag we packed, I could see the Sorento's suspension sinking. In the end we agreed I'd come back for ten of them tomorrow.
Trunk and back seat filled to the brim, we headed into town again. Next stop: the bank.
Unlike near the border, the ATMs here were still quiet. I slotted in my Canadian card and withdrew US dollars.
As expected, a sizable fee came out of it, but an insurance premium of that size no longer felt like a waste.
Cash in hand, I drove to a warehouse-style discount store called WinCo Foods.
When I arrived it wasn't particularly crowded, for some reason. I understood why the moment I walked the aisles. The food sections had been almost completely stripped bare.
But food wasn't what I was after.
I'd thought I already had just about everything that mattered, but you always had to prepare for the worst. This time I was focused on analog equipment—the kind you'd need if technological civilization collapsed completely.
The fundamentals.
First, from the pharmacy aisle, I picked up extra antibiotic ointment, rubbing alcohol, and compression bandages. Next I found the outdoor section, where I grabbed an old-fashioned oil lantern with spare wicks, a tarp, and about thirty meters of 1.3-meter-wide polyethylene sheeting—the kind they used back in Korea during kimchi-making season.
Plenty of uses for that. I could even fashion a still to collect dew…
Finally, from the stationery aisle, I bought several waterproof notebooks and dozens of pens.
They weren't strictly essential. I even wondered whether they'd mean anything in a world where every digital record had vanished. But for some reason, I wanted them.
With the Sorento packed to the roof, Wolf and I returned to my truck.
As I transferred the new purchases from the Sorento into the trailer and put them in order, it suddenly struck me that I'd overlooked a few important things.
I'll do another round of shopping tomorrow when I pick up the rest of the kibble.
I filled Wolf's bowl with the new food. He sniffed it for a moment, then sat neatly beside the bowl and looked me in the eye.
"What? Not to your taste?"
"Whine."
"Ah—haha. Wolf, eat."
Watching him gobble it down, I said with relief,
"Wolf, I'm glad it suits you."
He paused mid-bite, looked at me, and barked once. Uwoong! The sound had a unique resonance, a wolf's howl and a dog's bark blended into one.
"Is that a yes?"
At my words, Wolf answered again. Uwoong! Amused, I asked once more.
"So. Want to stop eating now?"
"Woof-woof."
This time he barked twice, short and firm—as if to protest, Don't talk nonsense.
There was a strange sense of déjà vu in the communication system that had formed between Wolf and his previous owner.
Wait. Does this guy understand Tap Code?
It matched the Tap Code my old team had used—a way of communicating through knocks, clicks, or a press of the PTT button when voice comms weren't possible. The most basic version was simple: once for yes, twice for no. Two knocks from our team, for instance, meant don't come out.
After spending time with Wolf, I tried Dave one last time. But hope came back as nothing more than an empty ring.
The next day, Wolf and I headed into downtown Boise again. I withdrew a little more US currency from a different bank ATM than yesterday, then went straight into a gun shop.
There, without hesitation, I bought a plate carrier—a tactical vest—and twenty Level IV ceramic ballistic plates to slide into it.
This was the last insurance policy for my body. I was tempted to pick up more guns and ammunition, but with a Canadian ID the purchase process would be complicated and the restrictions obvious. There was no need to draw unnecessary suspicion.
I collected the ten bags of kibble I hadn't been able to load the day before, then stopped at another pet shop for five bags of a different brand, plus treats and a few sturdy toys.
When I got back to the trailer after finishing all the shopping, I finally felt a weight lift.
"Wolf, that's your meals sorted for a while."
"U-woong. Whine."
"Yeah, yeah. It's feeding time."
After filling Wolf's bowl, I lined several ballistic plates along the vulnerable inner sections of the driver's and passenger's seats.
I figured that if anyone opened fire on the truck, they'd most likely be shooting from a position lower than the driver's seat, and I placed the plates accordingly—with care.
Hanging them all over the outside of the truck would just paint a target on us.
When the work was done, I figured my steel fortress was ready to protect me and my new companion. Evening had crept up on us. I took Wolf to the truck-stop diner. I briefly considered leaving him alone in the truck, then shook my head.
He'd have trauma from being left behind, separated from his owner. I didn't want to give him that kind of unnecessary anxiety.
When we walked in, Wolf's imposing presence drew a few stares. I took a corner seat and ordered a simple dinner.
While we waited for the food, Wolf lay proudly beside my chair. A few truckers took an interest, calling over to ask if he was a wolfdog.
Then a woman trucker—a rare sight on these roads—approached and asked carefully,
"That's a really beautiful friend you've got. Would it be all right if I… pet him?"
I looked down at Wolf.
"Wolf, this lady wants to pet you. What do you say?"
Wolf glanced at me once, then answered her with a low Uwoong. Permission granted.
The woman trucker beamed and carefully stroked Wolf's head, and he quietly accepted her touch.
After a pleasant meal, we returned to my fortress. As I wrapped up the day and turned on the TV, the screen was delivering tragic news out of Canada.
The screen showed aerial footage of Calgary and Edmonton, shot from a helicopter. Every vacant lot and park on the outskirts of the cities—even the highway shoulders—was packed with thousands upon tens of thousands of tents, campers, and battered caravans stretching as far as the eye could see. A vast refugee encampment.
The landscape of that tent city stretching endlessly beneath a gray sky. The faces of Dave and my friends, trapped somewhere in that place, rose in my mind.
Could they possibly make it out of that sea of despair in one piece? A cold unease settled over me, and I switched off the TV, feeling powerless.
When the screen went dark, a heavy silence settled over the trailer once more. The desperate landscape of Canada I'd just seen, and Dave, still unreachable.
I should have been anxious and restless—of course I should have been. Strangely, though, my heart was as still as a quiet lake.
I looked down at Wolf, lying at my feet, quietly breathing. Yeah. It was because of him.
The simple fact that this heavy, warm living creature was at my side was diluting the crushing solitude and the anxiety.
Just as I was about to turn in for the night—
Ziiing— ziiing—
Breaking the silence, the phone on the table vibrated and lit up.
I glanced at the screen without much thought—then felt my heart stop at the notification displayed there.