He nervously refilled the glass, wondering whether or not his alcohol-soaked brain was playing tricks on him. He drank in morose silence, fumbled for a cigarette and inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs. It took all his strength to remain calm and regain some serenity.
Jackson’s mind raced from one paranoid thought to another and he drained the glass again. A noise came from the rear of the house, near the woodpile. Jackson jumped to his feet and raced over to the small window and peered out into the darkness. He saw nothing but the reflection of his own dilated pupils in the glass. The wind gusted and Jackson felt the house tremble as it resisted. Then the wind abated and he was struck by a silence so still that his ears rang in the quiet. He remained there for several moments concentrating on the silence, trying to detect any foreign noises that might come from the outside. He heard nothing but the sudden wail of the wind and the loud bang of the door hitting against the exterior wall. He suddenly realized there was another sound missing. The fire in his stove had stopped its comforting popping, warning Jackson that either the fire was dying or dead. The lack of the sound from the stove brought with it the awareness of chilling cold. The temperature of the room, although it was fully insulated, was dropping fast and he walked over to the stove. He raised a work boot–clad foot and hooked the latch on the front door of the stove. The door slowly swung open. Jackson squatted down and peered into the stove’s interior; the fire was down to smoldering embers.
He reached into the wood box that sat near the stove and cursed when he found it empty. “Shit,” he moaned. The last thing he wanted to do was to go out into the subzero cold and dark to replenish his wood supply. He scoffed at his hesitance and reached for his coat. “What are you, some dumb kid? Afraid of the dark? Goddamn it, man. Get a grip on yourself….”
He knew words alone were insufficient to calm his nerves. He also knew he was not so much afraid of the dark as he was by what the darkness might hide. Inside the cabin he felt a sense of security, however small, but outside, with the woods a mere fifty feet away, he would feel no such security. He grabbed the worn parka from the nail upon which it hung and struggled to get his uncooperative arms into the sleeves. He returned to the table and picked up the half-filled glass of whiskey. He stared at the contents of the glass for several seconds and then drank it down. He cast a wary glance at the door and then sighed with resignation. I might as well get this over with, he decided. He zipped up his coat while walking to the door. He reached for the door latch and hesitated. Breathing deeply, he released the hook from its eyelet and cautiously pushed the door open. “Fuck it, man,” he said as he stepped out the door and felt the cold quickly envelope him like a huge blanket, “you’re forty friggin’ years old and still afraid of the dark….”
The effects of the whiskey he had drunk hit him and his legs felt wobbly. In an effort to steady himself, he placed a hand against the aluminum wall and fought back a wave of sudden nausea. He pulled his collar up against the cold as he turned to the left and began the journey around the building to the woodpile in the back.
Jackson detected movement out of the corner of his eye and stood immobile. He peered at the area from which the motion had come with such intensity he felt as if his eyes would leap from his head. He felt a deep cold enter his body and suddenly sweat covered his chest and back soaking through his inner clothing. A wave of nervous tension set his stomach to fluttering, a feeling much like a low-intensity itch—one he couldn’t reach to scratch. A battle waged within him. His brain sent an urgent SOS to his feet and legs in an overt effort to get them to run back into the safety of the trailer’s interior. He won the battle against his fears by talking to himself, “Shit, man, you either get wood or you freeze to death. Put your childhood fear behind you and grow up….” The sound of his voice was strangely self-assuring and restored forward momentum to his feet, yet he still felt an uncontrollable urge to dive back through the trailer’s open door. He struggled against the preservation instinct eating at him, and kept going toward the unlighted rear of the house, and his wood supply.
Jackson was a mere six feet from the chopping block when a loud bang startled him. He jumped back into a defensive posture, ready to fight for his life. Again he saw movement! By the chopping block! He stepped forward and almost laughed when a porcupine jumped to the ground. It gave him a look, which communicated its irritation at being disturbed, and then waddled across the snow and disappeared into the darkness. Jackson realized he had been holding his breath and slowly exhaled. He wiped sweat from his brow and walked forward.
He reached the woodpile without encountering any of his childhood monsters and he calmed down. He surveyed the chopping block used for splitting wood and saw his axe was in its usual resting place. He grabbed the axe and tugged on it. The handle was chewed beyond use and the blade hopelessly frozen into the block. Jackson cursed. The porcupine had chewed the handle, seeking the salt left by his sweat that permeated the wood. He knew the axe handle would have to be replaced. While the handle had not been chewed through, it would be too weak to use on anything as hard as firewood and decided against using it.
He rummaged through the woodpile until he found a piece of wood not frozen in place and pulled it from the pile. He used the wood as a battering ram and freed a number of pieces from their icy prison. He gathered up the pieces of wood—it was impossible for him to load more than four by himself—and started on the return trip to the cabin. The labor of freeing the wood completely dissipated his earlier fears and he whistled as he rounded the corner of the shack. Once he reached the front and spied the light-filled open door his thoughts returned to the day’s events and fear came rampaging back into his inebriated brain. He began to run in a jerky trot. The light was one of the most welcome sights he had seen all day. Jackson happily vaulted through the door and into its safety. Once inside he slammed the door shut, locked it, and felt safe.
Jackson watched the fire until it caught and then returned to the table and his bottle. He poured half a glass of alcohol and sipped it. He was on his second sip when he heard a voice outside. “Help me!”
Jackson stood, walked into the chilly mudroom, and opened the door to the outside. “Who’s there?”
“Help me!”
It sounded like Barry Boudreau, but he just left Barry at the Borderview….
“Help me!”
It’s Barry! Jackson turned the deadbolt and opened the door. He was immediately repulsed by a stench that reminded him of the putrid odor of a corpse he was hired to disinter several years before. He took an involuntary step back. He heard Barry call for help again and stepped through the threshold.
A powerful hand gripped Jackson’s shirt and he was thrown out the door, landing on the frozen, ice-covered ground with such force his wind was driven from him. He blinked his eyes to stop the lights flashing before them and saw something rising and falling with his labored breathing. He stared into the bright exterior light unable to discern what he was looking at. The light from the trailer was suddenly blocked out and Jackson blinked his eyes in disbelief—a gigantic shadowy figure emerged. A large hand, horny with callouses, grasped him by the throat, completely enclosing it. It opened its twisted mouth, made a thunderous roar and yanked viciously upward.
The most intense pain Jackson had ever experienced tore through his ravaged neck, bringing an end to his disbelieving funk. He knew he had to act and act fast, but he had no strength. He attempted to free himself, hoping that if he got loose he might get to the handgun he kept inside. However he was consumed by a weariness that bore down on him as if he were Atlas holding up the earth.
Jackson watched, strangely mesmerized, as the giant raised him up, grabbed him in both hands and slammed him down across its bent knee, snapping his spine in half. Jackson felt a flash of pain and he screamed, then as quick as it had appeared the pain went away. He tried to raise his arm to hit the beast but neither his arms nor his legs would respond to his commands. The creature dropped him to the frozen
dirt, placed a hand on each side of his head, placed a foot on his chest and yanked up, decapitating him.
Steve Jackson’s last thought was: I’m dead.
_____________
The Wendigo bent over, grasped the severed head by the hair and held it up in front of his face. He watched, fascinated as the eyelids blinked in rapid succession for several seconds before the eyes within turned glassy. He tossed the head, blood still pouring from the severed neck, over his shoulder. The head spiraled through the air, turned three revolutions, and bounced through the open door, spraying the mudroom with a frightful red paint. It landed with a sickening thump and rolled over, coming to a stop in a corner resting on its right side. Steve Jackson’s lifeless eyes remained open into a dimension only he could see while a mixture of sputum and blood trickled from his open mouth and puddled on the floor.
The Wendigo lifted the cadaver with his free hand, took a final glance up and down the road and carried it into the house. Upon entering, he threw the carcass on the table and recoiled at the heat emanating from the stove. He grabbed the cast-iron stove, ignoring the painful heat, walked into the mudroom, and threw it out the door.
18
Lyndon Station
Pelky had just finished breakfast at Del’s and was getting into his patrol car when his radio squawked. He picked it up. “Pelky, over.”
“Bob, we need to check out a situation on Sunset Road in St. Francis, over.”
“That’s toward the Back Settlement, over.”
“You got it. Actually it’s in the Back Settlement. A passerby noticed the door open and what looked like a woodstove in the yard, over.”
“Got an address, over?”
“Nope, caller said it was Steve Jackson’s place though, over.”
“I know it—on my way, out.”
He had been trying to locate John Bear all morning to question him about the missing body. The search had thus far been anything but fruitful. The only thing Pelky could think of was that John was on another of his woods adventures.
Pelky knew something was wrong as soon as he turned into the driveway and saw the frozen blood on the ground. He snatched his radio and called for backup. The door to the crude addition built onto the ramshackle mobile home stood open and swung back and forth in the freezing wind, banging against the exterior wall each time it cycled. Pelky also noted there was a small woodstove lying across the hood of the pickup truck. One end was protruding through its smashed windshield, and was tipped at a forty-degree angle. Pelky exited his patrol car and loosened the strap on his holster. He removed his service pistol and held it alongside his leg as he looked inside the truck. He saw where coals from the stove had burned the hood, seat, and floor of the truck. It appeared that most of the coals had burst out of the burn chamber and had slid off to the side; only a couple landed in the interior or the truck would be a burned-out hulk. Who would be capable of throwing a burning woodstove? Pelky did not want to consider the possibilities.
The mercury that morning had plunged down to forty below zero—the wind chill was reported to be as cold as eighty below—not the type of weather that made a person want to throw open his door and air out the house. Pelky knew if Steve Jackson had passed out in this weather without a fire, he had surely frozen to death. Pelky stopped beside the police car and spied a large area of red ice in front of the single step leading into the cabin.
Pelky mechanically checked the handgun’s load and slowly began the long walk to the open door. Each step closer to the entrance of the dwelling increased the nervous tension in his stomach. He felt the large breakfast he had eaten at Del’s lay heavy in his gut. He felt as if he had swallowed a shot-put.
He came to the red spot in front of the door and squatted down to inspect the crimson-stained ice. The hair on the nape of his neck stood on edge when he recognized the color for what it was. It was frozen blood. A lot of blood.
Pelky looked up from the grisly discovery and strained his eyes to see through the fine blowing snow into the foreboding interior. “State police,” he called. “Is anyone in there?”
No answer.
“Steve, Steve Jackson, are you in there?”
Still no answer.
Pelky concentrated all of his attention on the open door. He saw nothing but the dark opening he knew he must enter. He started with alarm when the door, once again caught by the winds, banged against the wall. He slowly rose from his squat and tentatively approached the ominous opening. He paused short of the threshold, a battle waging within him. His emotions told him: Get back in that car and wait for backup to arrive. Just wait and let some other idiot walk in there with you—you don’t have to do it alone. On the other hand his logical side argued: You have to go in. There may be someone who needs help in there.
Pelky remained indecisive for several seconds before his sense of duty and honor won over his instinct for self-preservation. He pointed the handgun ahead and stepped inside.
The sudden transition from the bright, snow-reflected sunlight to the house’s darkness rendered Pelky momentarily blind. He began to blink his eyes rapidly trying to adjust his vision to the diminished light; the room was as dark as the bowels of a cave.
A loud screech sent Pelky diving to the floor with a shout of surprise. He fired a shot in the direction of the sound as he dove. A shaft of light instantly appeared where the large-caliber bullet passed through the back, exterior wall. Pelky heard a loud flapping and, when he looked in that direction, he’d recovered his vision enough to see two large ravens launch from a table and pass over his head as they burst through the door. He noticed that the black predators carried what appeared to be entrails in their beaks as they fled from the unwelcome intruder who had interrupted their feast.
Pelky looked up at the table; it was covered with a mess. It reminded him of roadkill. He lowered his suddenly sweaty forehead onto his outstretched arms and listened to the echoes of birds cawing as they flew over the forest outside the shack. The wind and bird sounds died away to an eerie stillness. Pelky let out a long sigh and struggled to regain his control. It only took a few seconds for him to feel a semblance of control return and he raised his head.
Pelky’s newfound self-control shattered like a beer bottle hitting a boulder. He stifled a scream of paranoid dread. He found himself looking into the terror-filled eyes of Steve Jackson’s bodiless head!
Pelky bounded to his feet and staggered over to the table, trying to keep from blowing the contents of his stomach across the room. He blindly placed his hand on the tabletop and felt it slide through the slime covering it. He quickly pulled his hand back with revulsion. He stared at the exposed ribs and mutilated organs of some large animal.
Pelky’s eyes roamed across the table. He stared at the grotesque mess with disgust. He forced his eyes away from the table and turned on the single bare lightbulb that hung over the table. He was appalled by the condition of the room. The walls were splattered with crimson paint—no not paint … blood. The place looked as if someone had opened gallon cans of the stuff and had thrown it helter-skelter around the room. He paused at the phrase helter-skelter (the phrase the Manson family painted on walls in the blood of their victims).
Pelky forced his attention back to the table and spied Jackson’s Red Wing boots, which were dangling from the ends of a pair of flayed legs, the femurs exposed to the unforgiving light. Pelky’s mind jumped. Good Lord! The table was not covered in animal guts. It was covered with the remnants of Jackson.
Pelky panicked. He dove through the open door, slid on his stomach across the scarlet ice, then scrambled to his knees until he was away from any evidence that he knew of and began to vomit. Pelky retched until there was nothing left. He felt his stomach lurch violently with each heave and thought it was going to push up into his throat. He believed the dry heaves would never stop.
Pelky began to suck in deep draughts of the cold air and felt relieved as the retching began to subside. He opened his eyes and stared into the si
ckening mixture of steaming vomit and frozen blood inches below his feverish face. The acidic odor of the mess filled his nostrils. With the look of a person who has just learned he has kissed a leper, he staggered to his feet and stumbled back to his cruiser.
Reeling like a drunken marine, he fumbled with the door handle, trying to pull the door open with fingers slippery with gore. It seemed an eternity passed before the door pulled open and he fell into the driver’s seat. Pelky laid his pistol on the passenger seat, placed his hands on the steering wheel, and then rested his head on his hands. He felt his hands stick to his forehead and pulled back with abhorrence. He vaulted out of the car and scooped up handfuls of snow as he tried to wash his hands. When his hands were on the brink of frostbite, even then he was not sure his hands were as clean as possible, Pelky got back into the vehicle and closed the door. He fumbled around until he found some napkins stored in a panel on his door and wiped his hands, trying to dry them and increase blood flow to his numb fingers. Once again, he rested his head on the steering wheel and fought to get his thoughts in order. He remained motionless for several minutes feeling hot sweat drip off his brow. He tried to put the horror he had just experienced into perspective. He fell back in the seat, let his body have its way, and let it shake out its shock. When the shakes passed, he picked up the microphone to his radio and called Linda Bouchard, the dispatcher, asked when the backup would arrive, and placed an added request for a crime scene team. He locked all the doors, started the engine, turned up the heater for warmth, and sat, like a waxen-faced dummy until backup and the requested crime scene people arrived.
19
Lyndon Station
John Bear’s cell phone rang, pulling him out of a deep sleep. It had been midnight when the forensics people had finished processing the Wendigo’s larder and close to dawn before he and Murphy had finally arrived home. He glanced at the clock beside his bed and saw that he’d been asleep less than three hours. At first he tried to ignore the iPhone, but it was insistent and rang, went to voicemail, and then rang again. He gave up and answered it. “Bear.”
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