by Tim Marquitz
It was just a fleeting image, a sliver of time, and her eyes could not register exactly what she saw. There were arms, muscle, and folded extremities that her mind told her were wings. Above all there were teeth, so many teeth, and blood-soaked claws. A glint of blue flashed in her direction, and she flung herself to the ground when she realized they were eyes. A deep cry tore out of her throat. Her body shook and her bladder let go.
Through it all, Brad screamed and screamed.
And then it was gone, leaving nothing but a gaping hole in the wall of the diner. From the kitchen Bob flung open the door and rushed to her side. She was crying as his large hands wrapped around her, helping her to her feet.
I saw nothing, she told herself, over and over again, finally understanding what it was that had tormented Brad’s final days. I saw nothing, nothing, I saw nothing, and you didn’t see me.
But those blue eyes had seen, they’d looked right into her and scorched the recesses of her mind.
“It’s all right, we’re all right,” Bob said, holding her against him as she sobbed. He patted her back like she was an upset child, and for some reason that infuriated her enough to fight down her terror. Slipping free of his grasp, she looked at the devastation while wiping her face with her sleeve.
Bob crossed his arms, uncrossed them, then gestured to the hole.
“What the fuck?”
~
“What else could it be?” Bob told the police officer as they stood outside the diner. “I’m telling you, some crazy yokel ran their damn semi right into the side of my diner.”
The officer was an old man, George Webb, and had been the sole policeman for the small town for a good ten years. He looked at Bob and scratched the back of his head.
“Might need to call up Springfield if that’s the case. You say he hit your customer, correct? Do you think it was intentional?”
Darcy hunched beside the squad car, holding a rag against her forehead. She wore a towel around her waist, the best Bob could think of to hide the fact she’d pissed herself. It took all her willpower to keep her eyes level, to keep from searching the roof of the diner or the tops of the many trees along the edges of the road. Bob waved a hand her direction.
“You’ll have to ask her. She saw it all. I didn’t.”
George and Bob turned her way, and Darcy shivered. Three pairs of eyes looked at her then, she knew somehow. Three, not two.
“I … I guess it was a semi,” she said. She’d raised two boys. She was a terrific liar. “I blacked out when it hit, though, so I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. Was so quick and loud, I just thank God I’m alive.”
She’d thank God to be alive, yes, thank Him for hiding such things from her, but she sure as shit wasn’t going to thank Him for creating it in the first place. George frowned, clearly disappointed.
“Listen,” she said. “It’s late. Will it be all right if I head on home?”
“Sure thing, Darcy,” George told her. “I’ll swing by tomorrow and see if you remember anything else.”
“We’ll be here,” Bob said. “Lot of cleaning up to do. Hell, you think insurance will cover a semi-truck through the wall?”
“Oh, and Darcy,” George said. “If you get any terrible headaches, make sure you go to the hospital. Probably should anyway with a cut like that.”
“No insurance,” Darcy said. “And I’ve made do with worse.”
Darcy went into the diner and grabbed her purse from behind the counter. Slinging it over her shoulder, she dug out the keys, then, putting on a straight face, walked to her car. Her every action felt like an act, a determined façade to show she’d seen nothing, learned nothing, remembered only the lie she’d spoken.
Sitting down in the driver’s seat, she adjusted the rearview mirror. As she did she caught that same fleck of blue glinting in the moonlight from atop the row of apartments behind the diner. Her heart skipped a beat, and then the blue blinked away. Turning the key, she flung the car into reverse and backed out of the parking lot. Putting it into gear, she pulled out onto the highway, her foot pushing harder and harder on the gas the further she got from the diner.
Darcy drove, a shadow in her rearview mirror blotting out the stars as it followed after.
Rurik’s Frozen Bones
Jake Elliot
The tide propelled the dinghy through turbulent waters beneath starlit darkness—up and over one wave, and then dropping it into the next valley. Lying within the small rower huddled two men, shivering in wet clothes. A puddle sloshed from one end inside the boat to the other in whatever direction the waves moved it. Like the little pool inside the boat, both men were prisoners to the sea’s bitter whims.
Terror tainted the whisper of one of the men, “Is it gone?”
Too frightened to speak, the other only shook his head. At any moment, death could come for them. It had to know they were there—the beast couldn’t have just let them go. Both men huddled together to keep warm, and to comfort each other like children waking from bad dreams. A predator hunted out there ... somewhere ...
~
It was springtime in Hundested, Denmark. Eight-hundred and nineteen years have passed since the death of the Christian’s Lord. His name means nothing to the Vikings, for in these lands, Odin is the god almighty.
It may be spring, but snow dotted the north end of the surrounding hills and mountains, and ice lingered in the shadows of the wide and powerful oaks. At first dawn, frost glazed the grasses of the meadows and pastures. By mid-morning, the crystals had vanished, but a chill clung to the air. It was not cold enough to frost anyone’s breath, but enough to require a thick cloak for comfort.
For the hardy men and women of the fishing town known as Hundested, winter’s darkness has passed. Farmers had begun to till the cold soil. Sailors and merchants followed the old trade routes, and the warriors prepared for renewed raiding against the cities beyond Scandinavia now that the weather permitted.
But not Rurik.
Everyone in Hundested, who knew Rurik, expected the young man to remain as always, seated upon a bench aside the hearth fire in Werner’s Mead Hall and Eatery. As a manner of pride, all men in the Norse lands wore beards, but Rurik’s is wild and harried, unkempt and poorly groomed. Stiffly, he sits with one eye inside his flagon and one eye on the fire, while to himself he mumbles.
Werner, the proprietor of the hall, would say Rurik had never thawed from the day he was found, and when asked what that meant, he’d always tell the curious to ask Rurik. Upon looking at the frazzled man, no one ever asked. Not until that early spring day when Oslo ‘Boarstout’ entered the mead hall.
The robe Oslo wore was made of bear hide with the bear’s skull still intact. During combat, he’d pull the skull over like a helmet. Pinched under one arm, a spear hung loosely, and in his scabbard dangled a mighty sword. Bare chested and strong, the straps holding his bearskin coat crisscrossed Oslo’s body. Here stood a warrior not to be trifled with.
Werner carried to Rurik what would be his third flagon of mead before noon when Oslo Boarstout spoke loudly, “I seek nourishment and drink, yet you hang upon this man like a mother holds her babe to her breast. My coin is good here, or is it not?”
Werner looked over his shoulder at the man. “You’re berserkr?” It was an obvious statement that needed no answer. Still, the man in the bearskin robe nodded. Werner continued, “Then you are a man of honor and know the code.”
Berserkr was a title reserved for the bravest, most ferocious, and proven loyal to the Norse kings. The bear-warriors could be likened to knights by the command in their voice – an order from one was to be respected as if it were an echo from the king. In the heat of battle was where their similarities differed. A far contrast from the chivalry of knighthood, the berserkr showed no mercy in the killing field. A frothing, enraged beast is what the blood-lusting berserkr became upon the field of war, and his proudly worn bear-cloak served as a forewarning of what would come if challenged.
&n
bsp; “Aye, I live by the code.” He pulled upon his long beard and asked, “Are you a fighter then?”
Werner nodded, “Sure, when I was younger. I’d helped fight off the hill people in the south. After that I came here to the island looking for mercenary work. My woman found me and I slowed down.”
The berserkr nodded, a smile creased his face. “They have a way with that, do they not?” Delivered as a question not requiring an answer, the second inquiry did expect one. “So what of honor and code should I offer to this morning’s mead swiller?”
Rurik did not flinch. He raised his replacement flagon to his lips and poured. Werner turned back to the warrior and patted Rurik on the shoulder. “From one warrior to another, we both know that to save a man’s life bonds them forever. Rurik has survived what many men could not. When my woman and I found him, he was near dead.”
Oslo the Boarstout set a scattering of silver coins upon the table. “If your woman cooks, I’ll take the daily meal, and a flagon of ale.” He pointed at Rurik with a soft nod, “and his story.”
Werner nodded and called to his woman, “Helle! Bring a large bowl of stew and a quart of ale for our new guest.” A woman’s voice acknowledged the order from behind the bar in the kitchen. Werner leaned in and whispered into Rurik’s ear.
Rurik lifted his flagon in a shaking hand to his mouth. He poured nearly half and swallowed his brew in two gulps. Turning around upon his bench, Rurik gave a frozen stare, piercing the warrior. His eyes were hollow, empty and blue. His haunted voice reflected a deep ache. “So you wish to hear my tale?”
The warrior nodded again, “Aye, I do.”
Rurik started, “Well, five years ago—less if I were to be true ... ”
~
Four years and seven months earlier, Rurik pulled against the ropes, swiveling the yardarm connected to the mast of the ship named the Windward Mare. The Mare was a deep tub with a wide and open storage, separated by a fore and aft deck. From bow to stern she totaled thirteen meters, and by her deeper hold she could deliver around twenty-four tons per trip. Speared through the center of the ship, at the front edge of the aft-deck, a single mast held a triangular-sail that whipped aggressively in the wind.
The yardarm, a long wooden-beam, whirled around on a greased groove before the wind caught and blew the sail full open. Rurik hung to the riggings as the ship listed starboard. Upon the side opposite of Rurik, another sailor named Gurvald wrapped the slack of his rope around a pin set into the side-rail to hold the sail in position. Rurik wrapped his end of the riggings around another wooden stop, securing the top-sail from falling.
The total crew of the Windward Mare was five. Rurik, Gurvald, and Njorf comprised of the seamen. Sten, the helmsman, steered the yoke from the back-deck. Balancing aside his helmsman stood Captain Brodir ‘Fairkin.’ He’d earned his name by how he treated his men, but also by how generously he paid them. In return, he had a loyal crew.
With the sun dipping into the southwest sea behind them, they sailed into an advancing night. They’d gone on, and by midnight they touched familiar dirt in the port town of Helsingborg. There was barely one-hundred miles of water between the two cities of Aarhus and Helsingborg. Due west, at their backs, was the Danish city named Aarhus.
The Windward Mare was a type of ship known as a Knarr, and was built for transportation of supplies and for long distance exploration. The ship served a different job than the dreaded Norse longships, but the men who sailed them were no less courageous. The island civilizations beyond the channel believed the Norsemen were terrors from the sea. Within North Umbria, the Vikings had rightfully earned their reputation. They were renowned as sea-fighters and raiders to the Christians, but to the other empires in the east, the Norse were respected as shrewd merchants. Brodir Fairkin was an astute merchant, and in a few hours his haul of livestock would be delivered on time for the morning’s market.
The sea rose with a respectable chop in the waves, but was nothing Captain Brodir’s crew couldn’t keep command over. As the sea began swallowing the sun behind them, the gusts gradually lessened over the surf. The ship rode up and over a wave’s crest, and then slammed the bow down into the valley. The next wave would be driven into, splashing up and over the front, sloshing down into the hold where a small flock of sheep received a cold, unexpected shower.
Captain Brodir stood beside Sten at the yoke. As the helmsman held the wheel, keeping the Mare on course, Brodir stated above the noisy wind and surf, “I hope the cold water doesn’t freeze our delivery. It’ll be hard to sell forty frozen sheep.”
An experienced sailor, Sten did not fight the sea. He merely used the ships wheel to guide them steady. Through a blond beard, he gruffly replied, “I’m worried the smell of wet sheep will kill us before we reach dock.”
Brodir chuckled. “Would you like to go see how Njorf is faring?”
Sten laughed at knowing his fellow sailor was with the sheep in the open hold. “No, sir, he is probably covered in cold soggy sheep shit by now. I’d rather he not see me laughing.”
The bow of the ship lifted over the next wave, but as it came down, the hull hit flat and felt as if it scraped against something underneath. The next wave lifted the ship and twisted the Mare’s direction. Upon the tide’s release, the ship again seemed to slide across an object submerged in the water.
Sten felt it in the wheel. For a quick moment, the rudder stiffened. Through vibrations in the wood at his feet, as much as by the sudden free-spin on the yoke, he knew the cable controlling the rudder had snapped underneath the ship. Sten’s eyes grew wide before announcing what the Captain already knew, “The rudder is free!”
With barely a sliver of twilight-orange remaining on the horizon behind them, Captain Brodir grabbed to the side-rail and peered over the side into dark waters. With an oscillating shimmer atop the rolling sea, he could see nothing below the dark green surface. They must have hit some floating debris and drove it deeper.
Attentively, Brodir searched the murky water for whatever they had hit. Behind him, on the other side of the boat, a long appendage slithered up and out of the ocean. The tentacle began at a blunted point, a nub that grew thicker, to the expanse similar to the shoulders of the biggest Viking warrior. The slick and leathery tentacle wrapped itself over the ship’s forward bow. As the serpentine arm coiled and gripped the arch of the bow-spirit, two more dark tentacles slipped from the blackish-green waves.
The second arm glided atop the swelling waves toward the main mast as the third appendage shot high out of the water and hovered over the helmsman.
With paralyzed feet, Sten called out, “Kraken!”
Sten’s call sent a shiver through the souls of all on board. Norse sailors knew the stories of the kraken, a terrible squid-like monstrosity with a history of snaring longships sailing though the deeper waters. Warships, forty Vikings strong, met their ends to such feared beasts, pulled down with their ship to the ocean’s depths. Until that evening, Brodir believed the stories to be nothing more than tall-tales told to scare children.
Brodir turned and stared in stunned amazement before the hovering tentacle slammed down upon Sten. The captain stepped to the side, barely dodging the slithering arm as it veered to knock him over the side of his ship. Sidestepping by only a margin, he watched Sten become pinned beneath the lumbering arm and rolled against the deck. Sten was crushed between ship and beast as the sea-monster tightened its hold across the back railing. Brodir heard the snapping of bones and saw a splash of blood squirt across the wet deck before looking away from the friend with whom he’d just shared a laugh.
The tip of the central tentacle wrapped around the mast. Gurvald attempted to wrestle it away but became ensnared as it coiled its powerful arm. Brodir noticed Rurik had been knocked off his feet and bumped clear from immediate harm, but the captain knew Gurvald’s powerlessness would soon end as did Sten’s.
The kraken’s leathery skin appeared slick and slimy in the fading light, but in contradiction to
appearances, its coarse and knobby skin adhered against Gurvald’s soft flesh. Each feeler was simply a giant muscle wrapped in sandpaper-like skin. The tentacle continued to curl around the bottom of the wooden shaft, but Gurvald was caught and pulled within the spiraling arm. There, he popped under the pressure and was crushed within its grip.
Brodir twisted around. “Rurik, Njorf, cut us free!”
Along the ship’s railing were small hatchets, set in sheaths, to be used in case of an emergency. The purpose for the axes was in the rare event of a man becoming ensnared within the ropes. With one swift hack the sailor could be freed. There were two at the bow, two in the aft section, and one on each side of the deck, opposite the mast.
Brodir’s arm stretched for the hatchet’s handle but the ship began to list onto her starboard side. The kraken pulled itself up from the ocean, a dark shape emerging from the even darker waters. By the pull of strong tendrils, the ship slid further onto its side in the water. Brodir’s fingers touched the ax handle for a split-second before he slid across the sanded deck toward the water and the awaiting hunter. Brodir rubbed the palms of his hands against the deck to slow his fall. Looking over his shoulder to the braying sheep falling out of the hold and into the water, Brodir saw Njorf riding their wooly backs closer to the blackening waters. Njorf kicked some of the sheep overboard to avoid being shaken out of the open hold.
Brodir’s feet hit the portside railing, now submerged by inches. Icy cold water soaked into his boots. To the right, he watched Rurik, also balanced upon the rail, his hands splashing frantically, searching for the submerged handle of the emergency hatchet.
Water poured into the storage hold as the ship turned on its side. Njorf pushed the jam of floating sheep away from him. The wading sailor made eye contact with Brodir and yelled, “Captain! I’m standing on an ax! I can get it once the sheep give me room to dive.”
