Alex was not and had never been a fan of snow. His memories before the Merge were gone; he had no idea how old he was, but the way his body protested against the cold, it was clear to him he was middle-aged. If someone had warned him that he would wake up to snow one morning while he was traveling from town to town, he would have just stayed home with his wife and sons, and the mayor of Withergate could have found someone else to go around trading for medicines.

But then his wife would have cuddled up to him, batted her beautiful chocolate brown eyes at him, and reminded him that there were people who were sick and in terrible need of those medicines. She would have reminded him that the Merge had given him a rare gift that made roaming the dense less dangerous than it was for others, and she would have told him exactly what that mayor had said to him:

“You’re the only one we can count on, Alex.”

Alex’s joints ached as he trudged through the snow. He was carrying a thick medical book in his bag, along with a few medicines of various varieties, in his huge backpack. His feet were wet from melted snow soaking into his snow-inappropriate hiking boots. On top of that, he carried extra rifle ammunition and a bulky sleeping bag that clipped to the bottom of his backpack.

The crunching of the snow made it difficult to listen for other living things, so Alex made it a point to pause in walking every few minutes and look around, keeping his ears open to any noises at all. Merged creatures might not have been as abundant as they had been at the beginning of the Merge, but they were still dangerous—still posed a threat greater than a human with a rifle.

As Alex walked, he noticed a large pile of snow. It was between two barren trees, and it must have been tall enough to reach his hip. He checked for the pistol holstered to the side of his backpack, and he stared at the pile of snow through wide eyes as he side-stepped through the snow around it.

In his youth, he might have given in to the urge to poke it just to reassure himself that it was a giant rock or something under that, but now he was a middle-aged man with children and an entire town depending on him. None of that reckless behavior was going to happen while he was alone in the woods.

Alex heard the distorted, rumbling growl of a Merged dog. The pile of snow shook, and chunks of it slid off as the creature beneath it raised itself. It was a blur of black that leaped at Alex before it was fully revealed to him. He pulled his pistol out of its holster, but before he could aim it, the creature landed on him, knocking him to the ground with its momentum.

Alex’s chest burned as its claws tore into his flesh and dug in between his ribs. He had a moment to take in the blackened, gnarled teeth, fur matted with black goop, and wild, black-spotted yellow eyes before its mouth clamped around his arm. Rancid breath assaulted his nose. It thrashed its head, and his blood spurt through the air and splashed all over its mouth.

Alex gritted his teeth as he let out a strangled scream. He wrapped his legs around the dog, crossing his ankles to lock them in place. With his free hand, he pressed the muzzle of the pistol against the underside of its jaw, and he fired the pistol. Black blood sprayed from the top of its head. It went limp against him, and it twitched, claws and teeth digging into his skin more. Its eyes rolled in their sockets.

Then it was still.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief, and he sagged against the ground. His heart raced in his chest from the adrenaline that had surged into his veins the moment he had noticed that pile of snow. After taking a couple of deep breaths, he pried its nasty teeth from out of his arm, and he removed its claws from his chest. He shoved it off himself, and he slipped his arms free of the backpack. Then he climbed onto shaky legs.

The Merged dog was bigger than he was—bigger than any man he had ever met. Its fur was matted with black goop, and its teeth had grown large enough to pierce through its mouth—both in the top and the bottom. The claws on all of its paws were long enough to stab through his body.

Merged creatures only looked like their original forms when they had freshly caught the illness. This one had been around for a while, suffering as its body was overcome with strange, parasitic magic.

Alex coughed, and blood splattered onto the ground. He muttered a string of curses, but then he coughed up more blood. It was at the very least dark red rather than black, like the parasitic magic that had turned the dog into a monstrosity.

Alex holstered his pistol. His body burned as he shrugged off his coat and the blood-soaked sweater beneath it, and he tossed them on top of the Merged dog. Trembling from the adrenaline and the cold, he inspected his torn arm. Blood poured from it in rivulets, but it was a normal color, a sign that his body had not allowed the magical parasite into his body. It was the same with his ribs—blood flowing out of his body with no blackness in his blood.

Alex grabbed fistfuls of snow and wiped his arm and chest clean anyway to wipe away any residue left on his skin. He needed to take care of the Merged creature. Black goop was already leaving its body and slithering over the snow to get to him.

Alex grabbed a book of matches from a small pocket on the outside of his backpack. Blood stained everything he touched. He broke off a match and struck it once, twice to light it. There was a tendril of black that had made it farther than the other tendrils to his feet. He dropped to one knee, and he touched it to the slithering goop. It was ablaze faster than gasoline, spreading up the tendril to the wolf and down to the other tendrils.