Then the creature sliced into the old man’s cheek, tearing a gash from eye to lip. Blood ran down his face as it widened the gash with its hooked claws. The creature sucked in a long whistling breath and spat a gob of black saliva into the gaping wound.
Jackanoob winced, his eyes washing out, the veins in his face darkening, black ick running through them, turning his skin pale and lifeless. With that came the smell of starvation, death and rot. The creature pinched the wound tight cutting off the flow of blood, sealing the poison, and it began to heal into a protruding hard, white scar.
The creature set the old man back into the snow, holding him by each shoulder until he regained his balance and composure. As it did this, it looked down on him, speaking in the ancient language.
Now it was her father's turn to speak.
“We are one, Jackanoob. Go back to your people. Prepare them. When the winter snow is gone I will be waiting. Do not try to stay among them. If you do, you will slaughter them all.”
Damned, the old man turned and started back toward the village.
Then it dawned on her, the scar, a mark of the damned, and she turned to face her father whose face was old and gray. A similar scar, one she had never seen, ran from eye to chin. And there was something else, a dimpled scar below his chin. “Daddy?”
“I love you, Jem.”
She felt his grip loosen.
She fell back into darkness, and then back to earth.
***
She was lying on her left side when she opened her eyes, her shoulder a buzzing hive of pins and needles. At a ninety-degree angle, the crackling fire had been reduced to embers. Beyond the haze, John Proudfoot’s face glowed blue grey in the darkness. He was watching her.
“She’s awake,” he said.
A hand touched her shoulder. It was Uncle Mick. “Jaimie?”
She retreated from the touch, did not respond, instead weeping for her father who had again been pulled away. Perhaps forever.
“Let her be for now, Mick.”
She lay there listening to the woods. Afraid to ask for the answers she had so desperately wanted on the morning she had come here. She was certain he had been damned like the Chief Elder, infected by the poison spat into an open wound and mourned his loss even deeper. She cried until there were no tears, and then she slept until the late hours of the evening.
***
When she awoke, the fire was alive, crackling under the night sky. Proudfoot sat before her, hands clasped beneath his chin, taking her in. His face was solemn, but there was empathy in those eyes. He poured her a coffee, which was full up with sugar, but no cream. It was hot off the Coleman stove, almost too hot to drink, but she blew on it and sipped conservatively
Beside her, Uncle Mick rubbed her back, a gesture of condolence. She brought her gaze to meet his, saw the watery eyes, cheeks flush red from fresh tears. “Did you see him.”
“Yes.”
“Your father was my best friend. I loved him like a brother.”
“Why did you show me this?” She was on the verge of crying again.
“Jaimie,” Proudfoot said, “you had to be shown, before you could be told. You would never have believed otherwise.”
“How? How did my father end up with this horrible curse?” She was crying.
“The story is not finished.” Proudfoot’s voice was becoming impatient. “You must finish your spirit walk.”
She stood up. “I don’t want to know any more.”
“Yes you do, Jaimie.” Proudfoot hardened his stare. “We have only hours to finish this. The ritual circle must be prepared and we must be ready.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Enough,” Mick barked, also standing up. “Your father was not cursed! He saved us, saved us all!”
“You’re lying to me, Uncle Mick! I saw the scar!”
“I was there, Jaimie. I spoke to him. The last thing he said to me was, ‘Mick, take care of my kids.’ I tried to do that. Tried to protect you and Howard from this.”
“But the scar. I saw it.”
“He made the same bargain for us, but he took his own life before it could infect him! Shot himself.” He reached out, took her hand, tears streaming down his face. “We had to cover it up, Jaimie. What were we supposed to tell people?”
She burst into tears and fell into his arms.
Proudfoot looked on.
Time was growing short.
***
“One last spirit walk.” Proudfoot then drew the sweet smoke and offered the pipe to her. She took it and inhaled once more. The sweet herbs that filled her lungs tasted different this time. Proudfoot had added something to the sweet tobacco. Her vision did not blur, but intensified; her surroundings became ethereal, but the clarity of every sight and sound was in high definition.
She blinked. Once, then twice, and she heard herself say, “One last spirit walk.”
She was in the chief elder’s shelter, standing in the corner, watching as Jackanoob and Igasho spoke. Now, for reasons she could not understand, she understood their dialect. They were speaking the ancient language, the mother tongue of the Chocktee people, it came to her ears in its raw form and she understood.
“It’s almost time,” Jackanoob said.
“Yes,” Igasho said. “When will you be leaving.”
“I must return to the clearing before morning. I can feel the hunger, the change. If I stay…”
“More will die.” Igasho agreed. “I can go with you, take you to meet the Windigo.”
“No, you have business here. You must prepare Chocktee.”
Igasho softened. “You shouldn’t have gone alone. It was all of us who sinned against the spirit mother.”
“It was my decision. It cannot be undone.”
Igasho fell silent.
Time shifted once more.
***
He was walking once again and she followed behind him through the spirit woods of Chocktee. He ambled along, an old man whose spirit had been broken. The snow had withdrawn into dirty leaf encrusted islands on the forest floor. The air was cool and smelled of rotting foliage. Ahead, the clearing loomed.
How could he be so calm, she wondered.
This was cut short by the repeated shriek of the mutated thing. Its call high and shrill.
Jackanoob stopped, fell to his knees and let out a moan.
The shriek came again, closer this time.
He rose up, began to strip away his clothes and dropped them onto the forest floor. As he did this, he trudged forward revealing himself with each dropped layer. When he reached the edge of the wood line he was completely naked, a withered old man.
Another shriek cut out across the open ground.
He dropped again, this time in agony, and let out a painful cry. She saw the first changes when he rose. His long mane of hair fell in clumps. The bones in his back began to twist and contort. He fell to all fours vomiting, black ichor spilling from his mouth. His arms began to stretch, the bones turning to taffy, contorting like tree limbs in an ungodly time lapse. There were pops of unhinging sockets and painful snaps of tendons that gave way. His legs began to elongate, and his genitalia shrivelled and dropped off.
The shriek of the Master came again.
She could see it in the distance, waiting for the servant to come to it.
Ruthlessly, the mutation continued.
His eyes sunk back into his now bald head; his skin became grey, papery and bits of it fell away as he shrieked in agony. His hands began to melt, becoming waxen, twisting, dividing and forming into long jagged ugly talons. Jackanoob rolled onto his back. There were, more cries of agony. His stomach caved in, leaving his rib cage to protrude. He took on the carriage of a mutated concentration camp inmate. He reached up with one claw and raked the air, breathing in and out and in again. The transformation complete, he was frozen in that pose, burned permanently into Jaimie Logan’s subconscious.
She heard the voice of Proud
foot.
“The bargain was made. When night and day were equal, during spring and fall, Jackanoob would return to these woods and haunt them. The Chocktee must stand vigil, in a ritual circle on these two days, to keep the beast from entering this world and eating of the man. He is not Windigo, but the child skinwalker born of the guardians' black other.”
The thing that was Jackanoob rose, and began to scurry to its calling master, moving on fours, no longer a man, but a thing, a smaller doppelganger of the horror that was waiting. Jaimie followed behind, losing pace as it went to the master. Halfway there it stopped and turned, sniffing the air, black yolky tendrils of ick spilling from its mouth.
“You have no business here, child,” it warned through broken graveyard teeth.
She froze.
It looked up, smelling the air, searched for her scent, but found nothing.
“Let it go, Jaimie,” Proudfoot said.
“Come back to us, Jaimie,” Uncle Mick called.
She turned, stared across the field, and saw another man, an apparition she recognized. She knew him. He had been the one who came to Thomasville when it all had been unleashed. His name had been Daniel Blackbird. He was there, but he wasn’t there, staring back at her from another time. She didn’t know how she knew this, only knew that Blackbird was on the same spirit walk as her. Their vision quest had intersected here, hundreds of years in the past.
“Daniel,” she said.
He said nothing, just watched the creature. He was unaware of her presence.
“It’s time to come back,” Proudfoot urged. “Your spirit walk is done.”
The creature, skinwalker, trundled toward its master. As it did, the shrieking intensified and she knelt and closed her eyes. She had seen enough. It was time to go home. Then she felt herself tumbling away from the sour ground, back to earth and through the darkness. She heard her father calling, “I love you, Jem.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
***
She opened her eyes once more. The fire had gone dark. Proudfoot and Mick were standing over her, deep concern etched into both their faces.
“You saw my cousin, Daniel Blackbird?” Proudfoot had tears in his eyes. He wanted to ask her, wanted to know more, but there was so little time. It would have to wait.
“Yes. I saw him.”
“Are you okay,” Mick interrupted.
“Yes, I am okay, Uncle Mick.”
Proudfoot leaned in. “Now you know.”
Did she though? Did she really know anything? No, there were many questions. This was not the end of the story, only part of it. “Yes, John Proudfoot. I know, I still need to know more.”
“In time, Jaimie. You now hold a secret that must be kept.”
She thought about this as she sat up. Thought about the stuff she had smoked. Maybe it was all a hallucination. Psilocybin or some other ergot from a shaman’s medicine bag. She rubbed her eyes, looked around and thought, How do I know any of this was real? How do I know that Jackanoob was just not some bad trip brought on by smoking drugs?
To her surprise Proudfoot answered the thought.
“Because, it is almost midnight and the equinox is upon us.”
In the forest, beyond the fire, there was movement. Voices of people, many people, some carrying lanterns. From between the trees, Micks wife, Nancy, appeared, looking to her husband. “Does she know?”
“She does,” Mick answered.
She reached down, took Jaimie’s hand and they helped her up.
“We must hurry,” Proudfoot said. “We have to get off the sour ground and outside the ritual circle.” They picked her up, sped her along, tree branches whipping by. When they broke the tree line she saw a cordon of people standing shoulder to shoulder.
“Kihci Manitow,” Proudfoot called and they parted, letting them through.
Once outside the circle, they fell to the ground and the circle closed ranks. They kept repeating the same phrase. “Kihci Manitow.” Proudfoot was on his feet, moving away and calling to the others. “Keep the circle tight. No one in or out!”
“No one in or out,” they repeated, passing it down the line. “Kihci Manitow.”
Uncle Mick was beside her, also on his knees, patting her back gently. “It means, God is good.”
The night calls continued, some men, some women, all chanting. “Kihci Manitow. Kihci Manitow. Kihci Manitow.”
Jaimie followed the chain of people, each a shoulder length apart. They stretched into the darkness; there had to be hundreds. Across the way she saw faint, distant lights swaying.
That’s the other side of the circle, she thought.
Then from the darkness, inside the circle, came the shriek in the night.
Still on her knees, she searched the darkness, scanning between the gaps of people, trying to see, to catch a glimpse of the creature that lurked inside the circle. Was it Jackanoob?
Then Proudfoot called, “The ritual has begun.”
THE LAKE
Stacey Turner
THE day was perfect, hot and sunny with a slight breeze. Lilia lay on the metal dock, letting the sun seep into her bones. Its warmth baked into her skin and chased the last chill of winter from her body. She turned her head lazily and took in the view. A vast expanse of blue lake stretched before her, surrounded by tall pines, cypress, and oaks. The whoosh of traffic on the highway a few miles away did little to mar the tranquility of her paradise.
A shout rent the silence, cut off by a splash of water. Lilia sat up and pushed her sunglasses off her nose to stare at her offspring. Allie stood on the floating dock while Steven sputtered in the lake; clearly, he’d been shoved.
“Must you two be so noisy?”
“Um. No? I’m simply happy summer is finally here.”
Lilia laughed. She agreed with her daughter. Summer had been a long time coming this year. Winter had lingered far longer than usual while they waited for the lake to thaw, the last bits of ice to disappear. Lilia reveled in the season’s playfulness. The three felt lighter, freer, unleashed.
“And, well, he deserved a dunking.”
Steven probably had deserved it. He was all boy, boisterous and full of energy–like his father. Sadness moved through her heart, her pain settling like a cold lump at the base of her throat. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes against the tears pricking the back of her eyelids. “Patrick…” she whispered. I’ll miss you until the day I die.
After his gruesome murder, she had moved the children here, to this remote area of Illinois, where they could get away from such vile acts of vengeance and violence. Far away from the prejudices that hounded her people. Life was peaceful here in a way it wouldn’t have been on the coast where grudges from old wars wouldn’t die. She sighed. She was lonely; she missed her sisters and their families. But Patrick would have wanted this for his family.
Steven’s head bobbed to the surface and he splashed water at his sister. She giggled and scooted back to avoid the spray. Lilia thrust her misery away and lay back down.
“Hey,” Steven yelled. “Why am I the only one in the water?”
“Because I’m ready to get some sun, and obviously I’m the queen of this dock.” Allie fisted her hands on her hips.
“I’m not getting back in yet. The water is still too cold,” Lilia said.
Steven regarded them for a moment. “Wait! This is how every horror movie starts— peaceful day, everyone relaxing— and bam! Send in the monsters. If I’m the one in the water, I’m the one who gets eaten.”
“While they’re busy eating you, I’ll swim for shore,” shouted Allie.
“Mom will stand up and walk to the sand, leaving us to fend for ourselves.” Steven laughed.
“You’re big kids; you can handle it.” Lilia smiled. “Besides, we—”
The growl of an approaching engine cut off her words. A low slung sports car scraped the ground with its exhaust as it sped down the hill, slinging gravel to the sides. The music from the stereo syste
m, loud and obnoxious, shattered the peace of moments before.
The base thumped raucously as the singer shouted something about his “ho”. Lilia shot a look at her children. Allie’s nose wrinkled. Lilia raised a brow and Steven shrugged. She sighed. They didn’t own the lake. But she hated having the tranquility marred by strangers, loud ones.
Two boys and two girls spilled from the car. Their laughter filled the air as they pushed and shoved each other in contest to see who could reach the water’s edge first—stripping down to board shorts and skimpy bikinis.
The driver of the car, a boy with red trunks, stomped his cigarette on the sandy ground as he headed for the water. The girls lagged behind, gingerly testing the water with their toes as the boys splashed their way in up to their waists.
“Oh shit! The water’s cold,” yelled Red trunks.
“Watch your mouth,” the smaller of the two girls hollered. “Other people are here.”
He looked sheepishly at Lilia. “Sorry.”
“No problem. I’ve heard foul language before and the lake is cold.”
“Ohmigod!” The other girl pulled her toes from the water. “It’s too bad you can’t get a heater for lakes.”
Lilia grinned. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
The boys roughhoused in the shallows until one broke away and strode towards the girls. He picked up the taller one and ran towards the water, grinning.
“Don’t you dare, Thomas,” she screeched, breaking free and returning to the other girl’s side.
Lilia winced at the noise and glanced back at her children. Allie sat on the edge of the dock, watching the four in fascination. Steven was holding on to the side of the dock, mesmerized. They had little interaction anymore with anyone their own age, isolated as they were. Lilia worried, but sometimes you had to make compromises. And their safety was of far more importance than socialization.
The boy put the girl down and pointed at Allie. “She’s obviously not afraid of a little water.”
The girl shot him a dirty look as he dove back in.
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