Skully, Perdition Games

by L E Fraser

  “Okay,” Nina agreed. “I’ll get dressed, and we’ll go down to meet him before he leaves.” She struggled to her feet.

  “No! He’ll leave without me. You’re too slow.” Gabriella’s pug nose crinkled and the crimson bow of her lip jutted out to a pout.

  Part of the dock was visible from outside the cabin, and it was a short walk down the beach. She thought about the last parent-teacher meeting, when Gabriella’s teacher implied Nina was overprotective.

  “Well, if he’s not there, come straight back. I’ll watch from the patio.”

  Her daughter bolted through the door and raced to the beach. Nina spotted Quentin in his red hat standing with the other fishermen. She waved and pointed at the running child. He raised his hand.

  When Nina walked across the patio to get a better look at the dock, the orange juice shifted in her stomach and her mouth filled with saliva. She clamped a hand over her mouth and shuffled to the bathroom as fast as she could, just making it. Sitting on the cool linoleum, she took shallow breaths. Just when the nausea was passing, her bowels churned. She scrambled for the toilet seat and sat panting and sweating through the awful cramps. Yes, it was the flu. The best solution was to go back to bed.

  On her way to the bedroom, she stepped out the screen door and looked toward the dock. Gabriella was gone. A scattering of boats was heading to the deeper waters of the lake, and the dock was empty. Relieved, Nina plodded inside, returned to the bedroom, and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Quentin

  WHEN QUENTIN STEERED his boat to the dock, he had to hunt for a spot to tie it off. It was seven-thirty, and the sun was low on the western horizon. Everyone else had left hours ago, and the beach was deserted.

  It was late because he’d lost several hours of fishing. Anglers had invited him to a fish fry at a secluded beach up the coast. Lunch was fantastic and the spot was stunning. The sandy beach hugged the rocky base of high escarpments that rose thirty metres above the water to crests dotted with rolling evergreens. The scenery was simultaneously wild and elegant, and the tiny beach was a luxurious oasis. Perfect for his girls. He’d take them for a boat ride and a picnic tomorrow to make up for being so late.

  Quentin pulled his cooler from the boat, tossed his empty beer cans into a plastic bag, and removed his copious catch. His prize was a salmon, and Nina would be thrilled. The cold, deep waters of Lake Superior were ideal for salmon, but tackling the aggressive fish was difficult.

  He set to work cleaning his fish and decided to polish off the last two beers before going up to the cabin. He brushed a fly away from his nose and winced. He’d been on his way back to shore to retrieve the forgotten zinc cream when he caught the salmon. All thoughts of sunburn had evaporated under the euphoria of the catch.

  Quentin glanced at his watch. It was after eight. He put the fish in the cooler, rinsed the table, and headed to the cabin.

  When he arrived, the closed door surprised him. He wondered why Gabriella and Nina weren’t enjoying the fine weather. He moved his fishing hat to a rakish angle, pulled open the door and strutted into the cabin, imitating Jimmie Walker from Good Times.

  “Dyn-o-mite! The fisherman king returns.” He waved his catch over his head and swayed his hips, waiting for their giggles.

  The cabin was musty and quiet.

  “Hello?”

  No answer. He looked around the living room on his way to the kitchen. No sign of them. They must have gone for a walk. Quentin put the fish into the fridge and rinsed out the cooler.

  An acid and unpleasant odour hung in the stale air. Rentals often had odours from the ghosts of past tenants hanging around, but this smell was downright funky. Maybe fish guts had spilled on his shorts.

  Nina wouldn’t take Gabriella on a long hike this late. He’d change clothes and set up the campfire so it was ready when they returned.

  At the doorway to the bedroom, Quentin stopped abruptly. Nina was asleep in the bed. The room reeked of vomit and diarrhea.

  He stumbled to the side of the bed and pawed at his wife’s body. “Nina? Nina, wake up. What’s wrong, what’s going on?” He knelt by the bed and shook her. Her flesh was burning beneath his fingers and dried vomit soiled the bodice of her nightgown.

  He put his hand beneath her nose and felt her breath on his fingers. He shook her harder. “Nina, please! Wake up, babe.”

  Slowly, she swam up to consciousness. She blinked at him and mumbled something incoherent. Her breath was rancid and her eyes were dull. He was ashamed but had an overwhelming urge to drop her hot, stinking body back onto the bed. He put his hands under her armpits to lift her into a sitting position. Holding her with one arm, he stuffed pillows behind her back and tried to pull away the blankets. He loosened the neckline of her nightgown and saw clammy sweat rolling down between her large breasts.

  “Nina,” he shook her gently, “where’s Gabriella?”

  No response.

  He ran to his daughter’s room. Empty. He checked the bathroom and sprinted back to Nina.

  A wave of cold white panic took hold. “Babe, what’s wrong? Where’s Gabriella?”

  No answer. He wiped strands of hair from her face, tapping her cheek with the tips of his fingers.

  “Where is she, where’s Gabriella?”

  Quentin’s throat was dry and there was a ringing in his ears. His stomach flopped and adrenaline rushed through his body, making his legs rubbery and his heart race.

  “So hot,” Nina whimpered, and he didn’t recognize the weak, willowy voice. Her tongue poked from between dry lips.

  He grabbed water from the side table.

  Suddenly, her eyes opened wide. She gasped in pain and curled inward. Water sloshed across her chest, accentuating the stench. Beneath the smell of vomit was something else, something metallic and nasty, like spoiled fish.

  She must be in early labour. Where was their daughter? He hadn’t seen Gabriella outside. She must have gone for help when Nina started having contractions. But where did she go and how long ago?

  Quentin took a deep breath. “Babe, you’re in labour. Is that what’s going on?”

  Her left hand snaked down to her abdomen. She feebly kicked at the tangled blankets.

  “Nina, where’s Ella? Did you send her for help? Why didn’t you call the police or the ambulance?”

  Through the ugly stained glass, the setting sun painted wide red stripes across her fingers. His mind was sluggish when he gazed at her hand. He held up his own fingers, and the diffused light cloaked them in a red shadow.

  Just a trick of the light, he thought, but he felt the sticky, congealing blood and smelled the thick coppery odour.

  His heart careened into his stomach. “Hold on, I’m calling help.”

  He ran to the living room before remembering the phone was on the kitchen wall. He slipped and grappled for the doorframe. The middle finger on his right hand smashed into the wood. His finger bent to the back of his hand. With a roar of pain, he scrambled to his feet and grunted when he seized the phone. Emergency numbers were on the wall. His fingers trembled while he dialled.

  His mind was blank. He couldn’t remember the name of the cabins or the road they took.

  “Sir, give me the number you’re calling from and describe the cabin,” the calm dispatcher requested.

  “It’s white. No! It’s brown with white trim and green shutters. It’s on the lake. There’s a dock and a cleaning table and—”

  “Break the window,” Nina yelled from the bedroom. Her voice was full of pain and terror.

  “Sir, stay with me. I need your help. Where did you exit off the Trans-Canada Highway?”

  Conversations from their drive raced through his mind, all mangled together. Okay girls, watch for Havilland Shores Drive.

  “Havilland Shores Drive,” he shouted.

  “Please stay calm. Try to remember the name of the rental. Who did you make the deposit out to?”

  “Run,” Nina screamed.

 
Quentin sobbed. “Redington, I think. Something Pines. Please, my wife is bleeding and my daughter is gone. The baby—”

  “Sir, I know where you are. I’ve dispatched paramedics. Stay on the line with me, and—”

  Nina screamed again. He dropped the phone and sprinted to the bedroom. She was squirming against her tangled, blood-soaked sheets.

  “Run,” she mumbled.

  Quentin tried to loosen the sheets, bending his dislocated finger in the struggle. With a yelp, he switched hands, fumbling with the sheets while his wife twisted and turned, rolling against his efforts.

  “Skully, killer.”

  The hair on Quentin’s arms stood on end. His balls crawled up and were tight against his groin. There was a ringing in his ears. His vision distorted and the sunset colours bled together. Through the stained glass, the dying sun bathed the bed covers in a macabre spiral of red and orange, resembling Dante’s rings of hell.

  QUENTIN DIDN’T KNOW how long he sat in the stinking room holding his unconscious wife before he realized people were in the cabin.

  “We need you to step out, sir,” said a calm voice, the owner of which was tugging at his arm. “What’s her name?”

  Quentin climbed to his feet. When he stumbled, the man supported him.

  “Sir, what’s your wife’s name?”

  “Nina.” Quentin cried harder. “My daughter, I can’t find my daughter. She’s only five.”

  “The police officers will help you find your daughter. Let us take care of Nina.”

  Quentin staggered through the doorway, listening to the emergency medical team speaking to Nina in quiet tones. When they released her body from the nest of linen, blood dripped from the sheets and pooled on the plank floor.

  “Ganawenim,” she screamed at the top of her lungs and swatted at the paramedic’s hands.

  “Yes,” the man assured her, “we’ll protect you.”

  “Nishiwe.”

  The Aboriginal paramedic frowned and followed Nina’s eyes to Quentin. She reached a hand that dripped with blood toward her husband and pointed her index finger at him. “Nishiwe,” she repeated. “Nishiwe. Nishiwe.” Each time she said the word, her voice grew louder and more hysterical.

  Quentin lurched through the bedroom door, reaching for his wife. A cop clamped a hand on his shoulder, roughly pulling him away and shoving him into the other room.

  The officer asked the medic, “Did I hear that right?”

  “Yes,” came the clipped reply.

  The paramedic and cop stared at him with hard expressions. Quentin struggled in the officer’s steely grip. “Let go of me. Why aren’t you helping my wife?”

  “Ganawenim Nishiwe.” The colour ebbed from the medic’s face. His eyes blazed with fury. “I can’t believe you. You sick fuck.” The man spit and the gob of phlegm hit the side of Quentin’s face.

  For a moment, he was too stunned to move. When he raised his hand to wipe the spit from his cheek, the officer grabbed his wrist, twisted his arms behind his back and threw him into the wall with such force that two pictures fell off the wall.

  Glass smashed against the floor. Jangling handcuffs forced his wrists together. The officer shoved aside his dislocated finger and tightened the manacles until they pinched skin. White-hot pain flooded down his finger and bathed his hand.

  “What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this?” Quentin thrashed against the restraints. “We have to find my daughter.”

  The officer squished his face into the wall. The man’s breath was hot and moist in Quentin’s ear. “What did you do with your daughter? Where is she?”

  Quentin sobbed in frustration, pain, and fear. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Why are you doing this?”

  “Your wife,” the officer snarled, “asked us to protect her from the killer — to protect her from you.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  One month later: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

  Nina

  NINA WOKE WITH a gasp. Again with crazy dreams all mixed up in her head. “An Da Shealladh,” she whispered. Her dream was telling her Gabriella was alive. She could feel this was true, deep in her bones.

  Something heavy lay across her chest, and she tried to throw away the blanket to dislodge it. An infant cried and she gazed with indifference at the baby. It nestled against her chest, searching for her breast, and she felt an overwhelming urge to slap it away.

  She heard a sharp tsk to her right. “It’s important for you to cuddle her, Mommy.”

  Over the past month, Nina had grown to hate the sound of the nurse’s condescending voice. Lethargically, she shoved the baby off her body. Capable hands scooped up the tiny infant before it toppled off the bed, and the baby’s indignant wails heightened to ear-shattering tones.

  “You’re very lucky,” the nurse said. “Little girl is five pounds two ounces now, amazing for a preemie after one month.”

  Nina didn’t respond.

  “Your husband is in the hall, speaking with the… ah… speaking with a doctor.”

  Speaking to the psychiatrist, Nina silently amended. She had never been a fan of mental health professionals, and now she despised them. If they couldn’t find scientific evidence something existed, they refused to consider it as an explanation. You were crazy as a feral cat, simple as that, and Nina swore she’d never deal with another one. Strangers didn’t have the right to decide how she should feel.

  Staring sightlessly out the window, she felt the nurse’s eyes drilling into the back of her head, judging and persecuting her for being a bad mother. A door opened. Over the paging system, a woman’s voice requested a doctor to report to the ICU nurses’ station. Nina didn’t turn, continuing to stare at the window blinds.

  “Have you picked a name for this little darling?” the nurse asked.

  “Isabella.” There was no expression in Quentin’s voice. “Can you please take the baby? I need to speak with my wife privately.”

  He walked over and stood in her line of sight. His right hand was still in a cast from his accident at the cottage, and his expression was cold. What was it going to be today? More accusations and anger, or pity tainted with disgust. It wasn’t possible for a marriage to survive so much pain.

  ‘Placenta previa’, they’d learned, caused her to hemorrhage. Paramedics had saved the baby but the hospital surgeon had had to perform a hysterectomy. Her dreams of a large family were gone. Her daughter was gone. All that remained was pain and crippling guilt.

  The door opened and closed before Quentin said, “They haven’t found her body.”

  “She isn’t dead.”

  “It rained for three days, and there was nothing for them to track when they realized I hadn’t done something to her.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Gabriella’s gone. We have to face it.”

  She said nothing. Her daughter wasn’t dead, but she was tired of trying to convince Quentin of what she knew in her heart.

  “We have to go home. Nina, we can’t carry more debt, and I’m a heartbeat from losing my job. If I do, we’ll lose the house.”

  Quentin’s company had given him an emergency leave of absence, but it was without pay. The psychiatrist had recommended transferring her to London Psychiatric Hospital, but Quentin had arranged to co-pay the Sault Ste. Marie hospital so she could stay. It was expensive but Quentin wanted to help the Search and Rescue teams. She knew her husband well. Now they weren’t searching for a live child, he wanted to try to move forward. His willingness to give up infuriated her.

  “She couldn’t survive alone in the woods. Gabriella’s dead.” His voice was flat.

  “Gabriella’s not dead,” she replied. “He has her.”

  Quentin flapped his hands at his side. “Again with this shit about a mysterious abductor. No one has her, Nina.” He sunk into the chair beside her bed. “Why didn’t you take her to the dock? Why did you let her go alone?”

  “I told you. There was a man with a red hat at the dock, I thought
it was you.”

  “I’m not the only person who owns a red hat.”

  “I told her to come straight back if you weren’t there.” She let her tears come. “I don’t know why she went into the woods. Why didn’t those men stop her?”

  Fishermen had told the police that Gabriella went to the dock. She didn’t speak to them and walked into the woods. Why would they let a little girl go into the woods all alone?

  “A man has her,” Nina said. “I’m her mother. I know. She’s not dead. He took her from the woods. He believes he’s a Wendigo, a demonic spirit. You have to believe me.”

  “Stop with this shit. The staff psychiatrist is not going to discharge you to my care if you don’t cut it out.” He slipped his hand into hers and squeezed hard. “Take care of our baby, Nina. Isabella needs you, and you won’t hold her or feed her. You’re her mother.”

  “I’m Gabriella’s mother,” she yelled. “Why won’t you listen to me? He took her. He has her.” She pulled her hand free and wiped her fingers against the crisp sheet. “Grandma was right, I inherited An Da Shealladh. From mother to daughter,” she said. “Gabriella has the ‘two sights’, too. She’s sending me the dream. We have to find her.”

  “We have to go home,” he said. “The question is whether you’re going to be at home or transferred to London Psychiatric Hospital. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Ganawenim, it means to take care of or to protect. Nishiwe means killer. The dog protects the killer. An Da Shealladh comes in dreams. Wendigo can possess in dreams. That’s the connection.”

  Quentin stood and knocked a book off the bedside table. “What dog? What man? Don’t you get how crazy you sound?”

  “Nishiwe took her from the woods. He was the storm in the dream.”

  “It was a fucking dream. You weren’t even in the woods when Gabriella got lost.” He picked the book up from the floor and threw it against the door.