Up ahead, Sgt. Cox began stomping his boot, dancing around and swinging the lantern light, tossing shadows all about. There was a squeal and a sickening crunch. The sergeant peeled a flattened rat off his boot. “Stupid rodents.”
The three soldiers walked single file between two upturned canoes that were stacked on sawhorses for repair. Wickliff felt his end of Pembrook’s body slipping and had to stop to pull it back up his chest. “We almost there?”
“Can’t rightly tell,” Fitch said, his face a faint outline. “I’m the one going backwards.”
Wickliff said, “Can we stop, Sarge? My arms are killing me.”
“Just a few more paces,” Sgt. Cox said.
“This is complete bollocks. I didn’t take this job to work in a morgue.”
“Quit your moaning.”
For some reason the back of the shed was much colder than outside. A chill seeped into Wickliff’s red greatcoat, making him shiver. They finally reached the end where the building expanded left and right into a T. The afternoon light from the front door had tapered off at the middle of the building. Wickliff rapped his knee on a crate. “Bugger, why couldn’t the builders have put in at least one window back here?”
The back half of the Dead House was so pitch dark, it seemed like nothing existed beyond the circle of Sgt. Cox’s lantern. But as they rounded the corner on the right, the sergeant’s light revealed that there were things living in this primordial blackness.
Rats.
Dozens of knobby-tailed critters scurried away from the sergeant’s stomping boots. At the back wall, he revealed the very thing Wickliff had hoped to never see again. The storage shelf stood six levels high. It had been built for storing barrels and crates. Those had been removed, and now five bodies were tucked away on each shelf like mummies in a catacomb. Pembrook’s corpse made number six.
“Fourth shelf,” Sgt. Cox barked.
Privates Wickliff and Fitch hefted Pembrook’s body over their heads and stacked him next to the inspector’s boy. Something wet and furry leaped onto Wickliff’s shoulder. “Uhhhhhhh!” He danced around and swatted.
The rat hit the floor, and Sgt. Cox crunched it with his boot. “Damned vermin! This place is infested.” The sergeant went to the bodies and peeled back a sheet riddled with holes. “Christ almighty.” The corpse was chewed down to the bone.
“That does it,” Cox said. “Wickliff, Fitch, your next task is to exterminate these rats. And I don’t want to see either of you come out until every last rodent is dead.”
“Aye, sir.” Private Wickliff looked at all the hairy creatures scampering across the floor, along the walls, and over barrels, and feared he just might bloody well faint.
118
Willow pressed her backbone against the curio cabinet, her body trembling. She peed down her leg like a little girl.
The man cloaked in darkness shook the vial of cocaine.
“No…p-please…d-don’t hurt me.”
“Just stay calm, Little Lamb. I wouldn’t want to flaw that pretty face.” He stepped into the gray light. His face was covered by a native mask—white with red outlining the hollow eye sockets, nostrils, and mouth. A band of red dots rounded the forehead.
“You…” Willow gasped. “But how?”
“You dreamed me here. Remember?”
She flinched as his cold hand stroked her hair. “Ah, don’t be scared. I’m here to make alllll your dreamssss come trueeeee. Now, just relaxxxxx.” The croon of his voice made Willow’s eyelids go heavy. A memory surfaced. She was a seventeen-year-old girl walking down a marble staircase, cradling a porcelain doll. At the time, she and Avery were newlyweds and living in the Pendleton mansion in Montréal. Music from a string quartet echoed from the ballroom. Avery was hosting another one of his sordid masquerade parties.
At the bottom floor, Willow passed strangers in the foyer, men and women wearing colorful masks. Hand in hand, they stepped into guest bedrooms. A woman with a cat face and heavy cleavage tugged on Willow’s golden ringlets. “Mmm, how precious you are. You must be the Willow I keep hearing about. And what’s your doll’s name?”
Willow stuck up her nose. “I don’t associate with whores.”
“Oh.” The cat woman rolled back her shoulders. “Well, that’s just as bloody well, because I don’t associate with snobby girls.” She stomped off and entered the toilet.
Willow followed the sound of string music into the ballroom. Couples danced. Most of the gentlemen were dressed in fancy suits, top hats, and masks. The women wore masks, too, but not all of them wore clothes. As usual, Avery, who always wore a wolverine mask, was nowhere in sight.
Willow’s eyes widened. A fully naked woman wearing a sheep’s mask was sitting in the lap of a hairy-chested man in a white tribal mask. His red-rimmed eyes looked in Willow’s direction. His red mouth was frozen in a grimace. “Well, hello there, Little Lamb,” spoke a strange man’s voice.
Frightened, Willow turned, collided into a butler carrying a tray. A glass of champagne crashed to the floor, splashing her nightgown. In the confusion, she dropped her doll and dashed out of the ballroom, her heart flapping like a bird in a cage. In the foyer, the cat woman grabbed her arm. “You shouldn’t run in the house, Miss Priss.”
“Let go of me.” Willow tore loose from her grip and raced up the marble staircase to her boudoir. It was the only room she felt truly safe. Her own private sanctuary. The walls were pink and lacy and shelved with over a hundred dolls. She dove onto her bed, burying her head in silk pillows, and sobbed. Someone knocked at her door. “Are you in there, Little Lamb?”
Willow leaped off her bed and hid inside her closet.
The door opened, and the man with the tribal mask entered with the sheep woman. He wore pants and shoes, but she wore only a see-through nightgown. Sheep Woman slid her hand across the silk bedspread. “I don’t think she’s in here, lover.”
Willow trembled, afraid she might pee.
“Look at all these dolls.” The man set the doll she’d dropped on a shelf with all the others.
Sheep Woman said, “I’m sure Avery’s new wife is absolutely spoiled to the core. Look at this darling makeup table.” She sat down and leaned toward the mirror. Keeping her sheep mask on, she picked up one of Willow’s brushes and began running it through her hair.
Willow gritted her teeth, thought of jumping out and screaming, but was too scared to reveal that she was watching from the closet.
Sheep Woman hummed. The man with thick, black chest hair stood behind her. He pulled the sheer fabric off her shoulders. “Since she’s not in here, why don’t we carry on with all the dolls watching?”
She turned and laughed. “Oh, tonight I have found such a kinky one. What is your name?”
“Ah, my naughty little lamb, you know the rules,” he crooned in that sultry voice. “No names. No faces. Just surrender to your wildest fantasies.”
Willow’s fear turned into curiosity and arousal as the man cupped the sheep woman’s breasts. She moaned and leaned her head back against his stomach. He tore off her sheer nightgown. The woman was curvaceous and beautiful. The man picked her up and carried her to the pink bed. As he lay on top of her, his red and white mask turned toward the closet. “I don’t think Willow would mind if we used her bed for awhile.”
She felt the dark eyes in those red-rimmed sockets gazing right into her.
The reverie played out in glorious detail, stirring the slippery serpents beneath Willow’s skin. She felt flushed and heated. Her eyes fluttered open. Her awareness was back inside the apothecary room with the masked man standing in front of her. She never saw the man’s face or knew his name. He was just one of the many men who did sinful deeds at the Avery’s masquerade parties. But somehow the first man she had ever lusted for had found her.
We told you he would come for you, Zoé said. You thought it was Tom or Andre, but nope, it never was.
Willow shook her head. “No.” Her lips quivered. She felt dizzy and feared s
he might faint. She grabbed the curio cabinet. The mysterious man from her past had to be another hallucination.
“You can’t be real.”
“I’m as real as you desire me to be.” The red circles of the mask appeared hollow, as if he had no eyes, only blackness. Then she saw things writhing in the holes and heard chittering sounds. His knuckles stroked her face with a touch so icy cold it frosted her cheek.
Willow yelped and stumbled to a corner, crouched and hugged herself. She couldn’t stop shaking.
“This will make all your suffering go away.” His pale hand jiggled the cocaine vial. “You still want this don’t you, Little Lamb?”
Willow nodded and reached out. “Please.”
He pulled his hand back. “All you have to do is give me something that’s dear to your heart.”
“Like what?”
“Leave the doll here with me.”
“No. I can’t.”
“It’s just for a spell, while you spend some time in wonderland.”
“No, I can’t leave Zoé.”
“Very well, then.” He tipped the vial, sprinkling white powder onto the floor.
“No don’t, please,” Willow begged.
The hand turned the vial upright. It was still over half full. “So what will it be? Would you rather I touch you until you freeze to the core? In a day or two they’ll find you here, shriveled and curled up with your doll. Then they’ll store you on a shelf alongside the others in the Dead House, where the rats will chew your flesh to the bone. Is that what you want?”
Eyes streaming tears, Willow shook her head. She looked at the Indian doll sitting on the curio cabinet.
It’s okay, Willow, Zoé said. He’s my friend. He’ll keep me safe.
“Hand me the doll.”
Willow picked up the doll, hugged it, and then offered it to the masked figure.
Zoé giggled. Now we can play together forever.
Feeling hollow and afraid, Willow turned to the masked figure. He pointed to the floor. “Kneel down, Little Lamb.”
She dropped to her knees. He held out a long fingernail full of magic dust to her nose. She snorted and immediately plunged into bliss.
119
Deep inside the cavern of the Dead House, a few feet from where the mummies slept, Private Fitch crouched behind a barrel. He waited, staring down at a chunk of cheese on the ground floor. A rat scurried into the lantern glow and began to nibble. Fitch brought down his shovel with the quickness of a guillotine, snapping the varmint’s neck with his spade. “Ha, gotcha!”
He picked up the limp rat by its ropy tail and tossed it into a barrel. It flopped on top of a mound of slaughtered rats. Fitch spun in a circle, doing his victory dance, then returned to his crouched stance, gripping the shovel.
“Way to nail ’im, Fitch.” Private Wickliff emerged from the dark tunnel, carrying a shovel in one hand and three more dead rats in the other. “I’ve killed up to thirty-six of these little beasties. How many for you?”
“Forty-two,” said Fitch, feeling quite proud. They had made a wager. The one who slew the most rats got a night off from his next watchtower shift. “Guess that makes me Rat King.” He did his victory dance. “I’m getting a night off.”
“Don’t get cocky too quick, mate,” said Wickliff. “We ain’t done. I can hear a few more lurking in the nooks and crannies. I think they’ve gotten wise to us.”
“Well, it’s almost supper time. One of us should go get Sarge, while the other finishes up. I’ll stay behind, if you like.”
Wickliff spat tobacco. “You just want to lock the win. No way. How about we arm wrestle for it?”
“Bugger that, you’re stronger than me.” Fitch reached into his pocket and pulled out his lucky silver coin. “Let’s flip for it. Winner stays behind to claim the title of Rat King. Loser goes to get the sergeant. I call tails.” He tossed the coin in the air. It landed on the dirt floor. “Tails!”
Wickliff grumbled, “Fine, I’m ready to get out of this rat hole anyway.”
“Hurry back.”
Wickliff offered a sinister grin. “I might just have to hit the crapper first. Happy hunting, Rat King.” He turned the corner, leaving Fitch alone at the back T-section. The young soldier grabbed his shovel and lantern and walked between the barrels, searching for any sudden movements.
“Fe, fi, fo, fum…I smell the blood of the rat kingdom.”
Being in this dank shed reminded him of growing up at the orphanage back in Lachine, Quebec. He used to play a similar game down in the cellar. Only he chased mice instead of rats. The shortest soldier of the garrison, Fitch had always been the runt of the litter. At the orphanage, all the bigger kids picked on him and made him do the least pleasant chores, like cleaning the cellar. He thought he had escaped that torment when he caught a ferry to Ottawa to work as a security guard for the Pendleton Fur Trading Company. Again, all the other soldiers were bigger and always picked on him and gave him the shittiest jobs. That was his lot in life for being the smallest and weakest. But here among the rats, Fitch felt colossal. He banged the handle of the shovel against the dirt. “I am the mighty Rat King!” He imagined he was a powerful giant, and the rodents were frightened villagers. “Fe, fi, fo, fum…”
The aroma of death must have been affecting his brain, because Fitch suddenly heard a strange chittering echo throughout the Dead House. He raised the lantern over his head. Dozens of black, beady eyes stared down from the rafters.
“Oh, Jesus.” One leaped onto his shoulder. He slapped it off, dropping the shovel and lantern. The kerosene lamp rolled into the corner, illuminating the mummified corpses stacked upon the shelves. The bloody sheets began moving and twitching as if the bodies beneath were waking from their post-mortem sleep.
“Oh, bugger this!” Leaving the lantern, Fitch stumbled back toward the middle of the T-section. Rounding the corner, he hurried through the dark toward the open doorway at the front end of the shed. Tiny feet scampered the rafters above. Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. The horde was following him. His only escape was through fifty feet of darkness. At the end, a portal opened to the snow-white world outside.
A man’s silhouette suddenly rose form the floor, blocking the doorway.
Fitch cheered, “Wickliff! Thank God, you’re back!”
When his friend didn’t answer, Fitch said, “Sarge, is that you?”
The visitor closed the door. The front section of the shed went black.
Fitch bumped into a crate, scuffing his shin. “Hey! Open the door!”
The rats squeaked all around him.
Fitch felt his way between the stacked canoes. “Wickliff, this ain’t funny. I can’t see anything. Please, mate, open the damn door!”
Up ahead in the dark came a throaty, wheezing sound followed by gibbering.
Fitch halted. The entire garrison was probably in on this. He imagined the whole lot of them outside snickering, while Wickliff or one of the others got him to shit his drawers. “Quit trying to scare me.”
The wheezing-gibbering voice drew closer. Then a hammering noise, like metal against wood. Something was striking each passing barrel in a slow and steady cadence, moving toward Fitch. “Ey, what the fuck are you doing?”
Trembling, he looked back from where he came. The only light was a faint glow from the T-section. Rats or not, seeing was better than being blind. He retreated. His face cringed with disgust. The floor was an undulating rug of black fur and white, worm-like tails. Shadowy things crawled over his feet, hopped onto his legs. He trudged through the current, slapping rats off his pants. He turned the corner, back into the dim light of his lantern.
No windows. No back door. Trapped.
Wheezing.
Shaking, Fitch whirled around. At the edge of darkness, a figure wearing a fur parka stood hunched over.
“Who the fuck are you?” Fitch shouted.
The man stepped into the lantern glow. His face was hidden in the black pit of his hood. He was one of the
voyageurs.
“W-What are you doing in here?” Fitch grabbed the shovel. “Answer me.”
“Hungry…” The man raised an axe with bony white hands.
Fitch screamed as the blade chopped into his shoulder, snapping his bones. He dropped to the floor.
The hooded man yanked out the axe, wrenching Fitch’s body over to one side. Blood pumped out. The rats swarmed the red fountain.
A cold blackness oozed at the edges of his vision. He tasted copper and bile. His eyelids drooped. He didn’t die fast enough though, because his last gurgling breaths were spent watching the gibbering man lop off Fitch’s arm and sit down to feast among the rats.
120
As Andre and Father Xavier were blessing the cabins, Willow stepped from between two houses. Her white fur coat was soiled. She stumbled aimlessly a few steps then collapsed onto the snowy ground.
“Dear God, Willow!” Andre ran to her aid, skidding to his knees by her side.
“What happened? Willow, speak to me.”
Her hair was disheveled. Her eyes rolled back.
Andre pulled her up into a seated position, but she just stared ahead, as catatonic as a doll. “There’s something wrong with her.”
“She’s ill,” Father Xavier said. “Get away from her.”
But Andre kept holding her. “We need to do something.”
Dead of Winter Page 25
