Mike bent over the body, trying hard not to gag.
The interior of the body was a mass of ice crystals and frozen organs, gleaming silver and pink under the harsh neon.
“Not liquid nitrogen? What else could do this?”
“A week in an industrial freezer,” Mina said. “But I understand these people were walking about this time yesterday?”
Mike nodded. He couldn’t look away from the frozen body.
“The cell cultures all tell the same story,” Mina continued. “Almost instantaneous freezing through the whole body. These people died from billions of tiny ice crystals lancing through every cell simultaneously.”
“And that was the cause of death?”
Mina nodded.
“The decapitations and the…other wounds, all happened post-mortem.”
“Other wounds?” Mike asked.
“Bites. Human bites. We found lumps of flesh missing from all the bodies. But it’s got us stumped. Whoever chewed those holes would have had to have the jaw strength of an alligator.”
“And that’s what you’ve got for me?” Mike said, sighing. “I’m looking for someone with a snout full of big teeth and a by-line in freeze-drying?”
This time he almost got a smile. It was a thin thing, but better than nothing at all.
“We’ve got a bit more than that,” she said.
She held up a small sealed jar. Inside lay something that looked like a thin slug, black and glistening.
“We found this in one of the wounds. It’s a frostbitten lower lip…and it doesn’t belong to any of the victims.”
“Can you pull DNA from it?”
She nodded.
“If they’re in the database, we’ll have a name for you by sundown.”
* * *
Cole had no difficulty making his way into Dick North’s office. His disguise consisted of a pair of spectacles, a satchel and a black Nirvana sweatshirt. He chose the name of a student at random from the online list on the University web site. That, a diffident manner, and a hard luck story about losing his security pass to a mugger, was enough to get him past security and into the Archaeology Department.
He stood outside the professor’s door, unsure what he would say if the man was in there. So far he’d been running on instinct.
Next time, it might be a good idea to have a plan.
It was too late now to back away. He rapped hard on the door three times, and then held his breath.
Nobody answered.
He waited until the corridor was empty, then tried the door. It opened first time. He let himself in.
The room was everything he imagined a professor’s office would be. The space was dominated by a huge oak desk, piled high with books and bones. Cole recognized one as a human jawbone, but the rest could have been anything. Old books lay open on every available surface.
The place smelled of must and pipe tobacco. On the desk was a large picture of a thin, wiry man with a grey goatee beard. He stood over a trench, pointing down at what looked like two skeletons clasped in an embrace at time of death. Cole guessed the man must be the professor.
He realized he was prevaricating. The longer he stood here in the centre of the office, the more chance there was of him getting caught. But now that he was in, Cole was unsure what to look for.
If he was working on something to do with the dig, it will be on his desk…close at hand.
He moved to the other side of the desk and sat in the huge leather chair. He looked down at the desk. A handwritten journal lay in front of him. Cole picked it up and read.
This is it, the passage began in a scrawled hand. I finally have the proof I’ve been looking for. These men were here before the Dutch! Just as I suspected.
The rest of the writing was in a calmer, more precise hand, as if the writer had been taking extra care to make it legible.
* * *
Taken from the personal journal of Captain John Fraser, Captain of the Havenhome, a cargo vessel. Entry date 16th October, 1605. Transcribed and annotated by Dick North, 13th March.
My dearest Lizzie. Today has been the worst day of my life. As I sit here, warm in my cabin, whisky at hand, I can scarcely believe the deprivations suffered by the brave people of this far flung outpost. I should have stayed at home like you asked. You would have kept me warm. If only I’d done as you asked, then I might have been spared the terrible sights that met us at landfall.
We had no thought of winter when we left home port. Do you remember? It was a bright Scottish summer’s day. You cried as we parted, and the sun made rainbows of your tears. I can still see you now, standing on the dock, waving us off. How I wish I could look at you, just one more time, one more time to warm my heart against the cold that has gripped us all.
After the auspices of its beginning, our voyage soon reminded us that the sea is not always benign. After four months at sea my crew expected some ease from the biting winds and cold autumnal spray, some shelter from the elements that had assailed them so assiduously. And some were expecting something more, having heard tell of the harbor tavern of our destination, and the warm doxies who waited there.
Cold comfort was all they found.
We arrived under a slate grey sky, having to tack hard against a strong offshore wind that faded and died as soon as we entered the safe haven of the natural harbor. I thought it passing strange that there was no one on the dockside to mark our arrival. We have been looked for these past two months, and the Havenhome is tall enough to be seen from many a mile. And yet no smoke rose from the colony, despite the chill in the air and the ever-present autumnal dampness. There was already a pall over my heart as we hove to.
“Mayhap there is a town meeting,” the Pastor said as we stood at the prow.
“Aye, mayhap,” I said. But my heart did not believe it. I knew already there was some dark power at large. Perhaps I do have a touch of the Highlander sight after all.
Jim Crawford was ashore before anyone else, running down the dock.
The First Mate called after him.
“Do not tire the doxies out, Master Crawford.”
“I will have first choice,” the deck hand shouted, laughing. “I’ll leave you the ugly ones. But if you want any ale, you’d best be quick, for I have a terrible thirst.”
We found him again when we disembarked and headed into town. He was first at one thing…he’d been right at that…he was first, but by no means last, to fall in a dead faint.
At our last visit some three years ago this was a thriving town of a hundred souls, living off the land that God gave them, and maintaining peaceful trading relations with the natives. There had even been talk of expansion, with land to the south earmarked for a church.
Now it will only be used as a cemetery, for they are dead…every last soul of them.
The fortifications have not been breached and there is no evidence of a fight. There were just the bodies of the dead, as if the Lord decided in that instant to take them to their heavenly rest. They lay, scattered on the ground like fallen leaves, faces grey, ashen and almost blue. They are cold to the touch, their eyes solid and milky, like glass marbles sunk in a ball of snow.
It was all the First Mate and I could do to keep the men from fleeing. Some did indeed fall to their knees in prayer and supplication.
“What could have caused this, Cap’n?” the First Mate asked.
“Mayhap t’was a freak storm,” Coyle the cook said. “For surely we have seen the same thing happen to a man at the mast in the far north waters?”
“But these are not the north waters,” the Pastor replied. “This land is most clement, even in comparison to our own home. Men do not freeze in October. This is the Devil’s work, mark my words.”
As for myself, I kept my peace then, but as I saw more of what lay on the streets I came to think they might both have been right.
I was in the courthouse, standing over the still, dead bodies of Josiah MacLeod and his family and trying not to weep
when the Pastor made his final report.
“We have searched the whole town, Captain. As far as we can tell the entire population has been felled, for no one answered our calls, although our entreaties have been long and loud. God rest their souls.”
The Pastor looked afraid. That’s when I felt the first icy cold spike of dread for myself, for the Pastor is afraid of nothing, except the wrath of his God. And even then, had the two of them met, I might have been tempted to bet for the Pastor.
“Have you checked all of the houses?” I asked. “Mayhap some of the women and children…”
“Nay, sir,” the Pastor replied. “We have been in every home, in every cellar. All we found was more of the same, more cold death. And in the tavern, there has been carnage. Some wild beast has got among the bodies and desecrated them vilely, with tooth and claw, leaving naught but a charnel house of blood and gore.”
I visited the tavern for myself. The Pastor would not come with me.
“I have seen too many sights already this day that mortal men should not have to bear,” he said. “I entreat you, Captain, do not enter. The sight has me sair vexed. I would not wish it on any other man.”
“I have to see it,” I replied. “No matter how hard it may be. For it will be my responsibility to report this to the proper authorities to be dealt with.”
“The only authority with the power to deal with this is the Lord himself,” the Pastor said quietly. “And I fear this is not of his doing.”
The First Mate came with me. The Pastor had it right. What lay in the tavern was something that no Christian man should have to endure. I hope to God I never have to look on such a sight again. I have had the building locked for now. Only I, the Pastor and the First Mate have seen what lies within. The Pastor has his Lord to sustain him, no matter how much he is vexed by the sights he has seen, and the First Mate is strong in ways that neither I nor the Pastor can muster.
As for myself, all I wanted to do was curl up in my cot and let sleep take me, but I had to talk to the crew. I needed volunteers for burial duty.
At first the men refused to touch the bodies.
“There’s disease to be thinking of,” sail-master Thomas said. “Plague even.”
“Aye,” called out Jim Crawford. “Mayhap we should up-anchor and make for clean waters.”
“These are Christian folk and require Christian burial,” the Pastor called out.
“Then I suggest you get to it, Pastor,” someone called. “We will return for you in the spring, when there is no more chance of this deviltry.”
Rough laughter rang out over the deck. There were more calls for us to sail off immediately, and even one call to go, “Whether the Cap’n likes it or no.”
“Belay that!” I called. They fell quiet, but I faced a sea of sullen faces.
“The Pastor has it right,” I called. “These are Christian folk. And I for one will not deny them Christian charity and a speedy trip to Paradise and the right hand of our Lord. Now who is with me?”
No one stepped forward.
I do believe there might have been mutiny. If the First Mate had not finally stepped to my side, I might now be lying cold with the others.
“As ever Captain, I’m by your side. But if I may suggest, the men would prefer if, once the burials are done, mayhap we can make for Elizabethtown? I hear that, unlike here, the doxies there are yet warm.”
“Elizabethtown it is,” I said. “And I will pay for the first night’s grog.”
At that they cheered as one. The burials began. I vowed never again to underestimate the seaman’s capacity for hard work, given the promise of grog and a warm doxy.
“Pastor,” I asked the only man left beside me. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Ask, and it shall be given,” the Pastor said.
“I would have you aid me. You and I will take the hardest part of this burial duty. If you will do it, I would have us deal with the little ones, the children.”
He went pale at that, but grasped me by the arm.
“Thank you, Captain. It will be an honor.”
“I would not ask anyone else to take the task,” I said. “For I need the doughtiest man in the crew.”
He smiled at that. I managed a small smile of mine own in reply. That was the last merriment that passed between us for many an hour.
God help me, I don’t know how many more dead children I can touch.
The smallest ones are the worst. The sun has partially thawed their bodies, but when you lift them you feel the hard frozen core inside. It is all that you can do to keep from weeping as you lay them into the too-small holes.
The Pastor and I laid twenty and two children in the ground; twenty and two innocent souls sent to their maker before their time on this earth had scarcely begun. Hard men, men who have stood unbending in battle as the cannons roared and muskets sang, have been brought to their knees by grief. There is a part of me that will for evermore lie in shadow.
Darkness has fallen. My crew is spent, their eyes near as dead as those they have buried. Yet I have to ask the same of them on the morrow, for the Pastor tells me we have buried less than a half of them.
May God preserve us all.
* * *
Somebody knocked on the door of the professor’s office. Cole closed the journal and held his breath, but whoever it was didn’t try to enter. A shadow moved away from the door and Cole breathed.
He placed the journal in his satchel and slipped out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
His heart pounded loudly in his chest.
This really could be it…this could be my chance.
Outside, afternoon was winding down towards dusk.
* * *
Tommy Takake was royally pissed. Not only did he have tickets for the fight at the Garden, not only was he on a sure thing with Rhona from the Radio Room, but he had been stuck with scuttlebutt night shift guarding an empty crime scene. The sun was only now going down…he had hours of this to go yet.
He stood just inside the taped-off cordon, looking over the empty dock. The circus had moved on, splitting itself into two camps—one at the morgue, the other in a ring-fenced area across the road from the precinct house. All Tommy had for company was a slightly battered van from a radio station at the bottom end of the dock…the occupants of which had already closed up shop for the night. The soft thump of a rock station was all that showed there was someone there.
I should have been a bank clerk, like Mother wanted, Tommy thought. Warm office, regular hours and a decent pension.
A wind blew across the concrete, a forewarning of the night to come. Tommy pulled his jacket tighter around his body.
And I’d be able to take Rhona to the fight.
He’d been working on Rhona for weeks now, the flirting and innuendo getter ever hotter, ever closer to the point where she’d say yes. And just last week he’d been hit with one of life’s wonderful coincidences…he landed two tickets for the Garden, and on the same morning, found out that Rhona was a fan…not just a fan, but a historian of the sport. She took no convincing at all to accompany him, and Tommy was on cloud nine…right until the Sarge told him he’d pulled sentry duty. He’d tried to get out of it, but there was no denying it was his turn…he’d swapped too many in the past, now it was payback time.
Should have been a bank clerk, he thought again.
Cold seeped in at his ankles, his feet feeling like lumps of metal. He knew of old there was only one cure for that.
Time to walk the rounds.
Tommy walked the perimeter, but there was nothing more to see. The clang of metal on metal carried on the wind from across the dock. Arc lights suddenly blazed on, white against the gathering dusk. The night shift was getting prepared over there, but for now, they’d be sharing coffee, cigarettes and companionship.
Never mind bank clerk. Should have been a fuggin’ metalworker. At least they get to keep warm.
He was in a foul mood as he headed
down the ramp and into the dig itself.
All alone in the dark. And what the hell am I supposed to be guarding? Two piles of dirt, a big hole and a generator that doesn’t work.
He kicked out at the generator and it gave out a satisfying clang. At the same time his radio crackled.
“I don’t believe you’re standing me up,” the soft female voice said.
“Rhona? Best keep it off the air darling. You’ll get us both in trouble.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” she said. “The new VOIP is fully encrypted and the OSPF Routing Protocol is more secret than a very secret thing that’s been to spy school. There’s only a billion to one chance of anybody being able to hear us.”
Tommy had no idea what she was talking about, but she sounded as sexy as all hell saying it.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“All alone and feeling blue,” she said in a sing song voice. “Why, do you have any suggestions for cheering me up?”
“Listen. I’m sorry about tonight,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh, I’ll be making sure of that. And it’s such a shame. I could get all dressed up for you. Tell me, Tommy…do you like suspender belts?”
“Cut it out, Rhona. You’re killing me. Here I am stuck in this dark, cold hole…”
She came back fast.
“When there’s a dark warm hole waiting for you right here.”
He heard the laughter at the other end of the line.
“Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m just pulling your chain.”
“I’d rather you were pulling something else,” he said.
The laughter was louder this time.
“I hear tell the uniform trousers get a bit tight when you guys get hot? Can you confirm that, Officer Takake?”
“I’m straining against the zip here,” he replied.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Come round to my place after your shift and we’ll see what we can do about warming you up.”
Night of the Wendigo Page 4
