Night of the Wendigo

by William Meikle

“Like you were safe back in the Forensics building?” Mike answered. “I don’t think so.”

  He dragged Jackie out of the cab and lifted her over his shoulder. She moaned, but her eyes didn’t open.

  “Stay, or come,” Mike said to Barter. “It makes no never-mind to me.”

  He turned away from the plough and walked off into the crates, hoping he’d remembered the old man’s directions properly. Behind him he heard Barter scramble out of the plough cab and scurry to follow.

  Even though he carried the archaeologist, the going was much easier than the last time he passed this way. The sky was crystal clear overhead, and the snow underfoot was crisp and firm.

  A grinning, gibbous moon hung overhead, but Mike didn’t look up; he’d given it one glance and that was enough. It looked like it was taunting them.

  He reached Tom’s container block in less than two minutes. He gave a shave-and-a-haircut knock.

  The old man answered almost immediately. He had a palm-sized freeze-burn across his right cheek, but his eyes were alive and sparkling.

  “Glad to see you back, son,” the old man said. “And I see you found the girl…I’m…”

  The old man stopped abruptly when Mike looked him in the eye.

  “Ah shit, Mikey,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. Come through. The whisky might not cure what ails you, but it’ll ease it, for a while at least.”

  Tom waited until Barter came in before locking the door behind them. It shut with a reassuring clang.

  Mike allowed himself a small degree of relaxation.

  “I had a bit of trouble in your absence,” Old Tom said, pointing at his burn. He kept talking as he led them through the alley in the container. “And I had to blow the head off another one. It was wearing a cop uniform…but I didn’t tell you that, right?”

  Mike hadn’t been paying attention.

  “Right, Mikey?” Tom said, louder this time.

  Mike grunted, but that was enough for the old man.

  “The world’s going to hell in a hand-basket anyway,” he said. “Nothing for it but to break out more Scotch.”

  “The old man’s drunk,” Barter whispered in Mike’s ear.

  “Yep,” Tom said. “And you’re gullible. But in the morning, I’ll be sober.”

  His cackle echoed through the containers as he led them to the living area.

  Mike was grateful to be able to put the archaeologist down on the sofa. She whispered one word. Dave? But she didn’t wake up.

  Old Tom looked down at her, then round at the other men.

  “Now this is strange. Of all the people to end up here tonight, I’ve got three that I know, three that have listened to the old stories.”

  He went to the far side of the room and came back with a bottle of whisky.

  “How about it, Cole…Do you want to hear about the great freeze of 1902? Or you, Mikey? Want to hear more about Sad Sam and Itchy Nose? Maybe we can wake Jackie here so I can tell her what the Dutch found when they landed?”

  “We already know that one,” Barter said softly. He clutched tighter at his satchel.

  Mike sat down heavily on the sofa.

  “No more stories,” he said. “No more stories ever again. I’m going to bring the tale of Hunter’s Dock to an end.”

  Tom swayed alarmingly as he negotiated his way round the sofa.

  “And tell me, Mikey? How do you plan to do that?”

  Mike told him.

  The old man sobered up fast.

  * * *

  Five minutes later Mike stood at the container door, checking he had everything that he’d asked for from the old man’s armory. He could feel the bulk of most of it where it hung from the webbing belt at his waist. The replacement shotgun felt heavy and reassuring in his hands.

  “Are you sure you don’t have another flame thrower?” he asked.

  The old man cackled again.

  “I never figured on needing more than one. I’ll remember the next time I’m stocking up for a plague of frozen zombies.”

  The old man suddenly looked serious.

  “Look, I should come with you…”

  “No,” Mike replied, putting a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Barter’s no fighter. I need you to look after Jackie. I lost one woman already tonight…two would be carelessness.”

  He looked the old man in the eye.

  “And stay off the booze, okay?”

  Tom nodded.

  “I won’t open the bottle until you come back.”

  Mike turned away so the old man wouldn’t see his face.

  “Say a prayer for me,” he said. “Just in case.”

  He opened the door and walked out into the night.

  * * *

  Jackie woke from a dream of a long soak in a hot bath.

  She had no idea where she was. The last thing she remembered was Mina knocking into her and throwing her out of the path of the snowplough as it came through the door.

  Wherever she was now, it didn’t sound like the forensics department. Ice cubes knocked together in a glass tumbler. There was the well-known sound of liquid being poured from a bottle. Then she smelled it.

  Whisky. What a great idea.

  She opened her eyes, slowly. A neon strip sizzled overhead. Suddenly her view was filled with the round face of Old Tom the security guard.

  Maybe it was all a dream? Maybe I just got too drunk listening to the old man’s tales?

  The pain in her leg kicked in, just to remind her that the real world didn’t work that way.

  “Mina?” she said, almost shouting.

  The old man did the disgusting thing with his teeth.

  “She didn’t make it,” he said softly.

  Jackie sat up straight. The movement sent pain shooting up her body, but she tried to ignore it.

  “What do you mean?”

  That was when she spotted Cole Barter on the far side of the small room. He had a large tumbler full to the top with whisky in his hand. When he saw Jackie looking he raised it to his lips and did his best to empty it.

  “What happened?” she shouted. “Tell me what happened.”

  Barter shook his head. He went back to the glass.

  “I only know what Mikey told me,” Old Tom said. “He said…”

  Jackie grabbed the old man’s arm.

  “Mike? The Moose? Where is he?”

  “He left. He said he would finish it.”

  “Finish it? How?”

  Tom told Jackie what Mike had taken from the armory.

  She turned on Barter.

  “And you let him go? You knew what he’d do, and you just let him go?”

  Barter refused to look her in the eye.

  Jackie stood, too fast. A wave of pain and nausea passed through her. She would have fallen if Old Tom hadn’t put out a steadying hand.

  “You’re in no state to be on your feet,” the old man said.

  “No,” she said. “But neither is Mike.”

  She rose into a stiff walk, lumbering from side to side.

  “Please. Sit down,” the old man said.

  She pushed him away.

  “Don’t try to stop me. I’m not letting him face it alone. And I could help, if there’s any vestige of Dick North left.”

  “Who?” the old man said.

  “Long story,” Barter replied. “One best kept for another day.”

  He put down the whisky.

  “Dorothy wants to walk the yellow brick road. It looks like I’m going too.” He took the archaeologist by the arm. “If she’ll let me.”

  The old man sighed and did the thing with his teeth.

  “Okay, Toto. This munchkin’s in. Let’s go and find out if this poobah is as grand as he thinks he is. But we better hurry. Mikey’s got a start on us, and he looked like a man on a mission.”

  * * *

  Mike walked past the timber yard onto the dock, thinking of other nights he’d trod the same path. As a beat cop he’d almost always got a flush of excitemen
t as he reached Hunter’s Dock; anticipation grown from the knowledge that bad things had happened here…and could happen again at any time.

  Tonight, that feeling was gone, frozen out of him, leaving behind only cold fury and murderous intent. All of his life he’d been looking for someone who saw the world the same way he did, who saw the absurdity, and could live through it with a joke and a smile. It was only recently that he’d found it in Mina.

  Now she’s gone. And somebody’s going to pay.

  He turned onto Hunter’s Dock.

  During the course of the long night he’d come to accept the unbelievable, but even after what he’d seen, his mind had difficulty comprehending.

  The entrance to the dock was guarded by a tall wall of ice that stretched from side to side.

  The only gap was delineated by two tall pillars, frozen blue-white and glistening in the moonlight, guarding a gap two yards wide. Each had as its base a grizzly, reared up on hind legs, mouth open, frozen in mid-roar. A wolf sat on top of each bear’s head, head down, looking down the snout as if ready to pounce. And, the crowning glory, atop each sculpture, sat a great white owl, wings outspread, beak open in a defiant screech.

  Mike stepped up and rapped the butt of the shotgun against an arm of one of the grizzlies. Small flakes of ice scattered pattering to the snow. There was no other movement.

  Mike walked through the gap, half expecting the frozen heads to turn and watch. The guardians of the gate stayed frozen.

  But there were plenty of other eyes to see him.

  An alleyway led down to the dig site; an alley of large grey wolves, sitting back on their haunches. At first Mike thought that these too were frozen, but as he passed them, each flanking pair fell into a loping walk behind him, cutting off his retreat and herding him down towards the dig site.

  “No need to crowd me, boys,” Mike said. “I was heading that way anyway.”

  A figure waited for him at the end of the alley, a bone-white man, chest bare, wearing a pair of tracksuit pants and a high, feathered headdress.

  “Howdy,” Mike said. He raised the gun and fired straight at North’s heart.

  It had no effect apart from sending a few tiny slivers of ice flying.

  “No. I didn’t think it would be that easy,” Mike muttered.

  The white figure slapped his chest. It made an expansive gesture with his arms. He did it again, so that Mike would get the message.

  All of this is mine.

  “Maybe once,” Mike said. “But not now. This is my dock now. And you’re not welcome.”

  Mike raised the gun again, just as the figure raised its left arm. It pointed straight at Mike.

  The gun fell to the ground, forgotten, as Mike’s feet carried him, unbidden, towards the smiling beast. The cold bit, even through the survival suit.

  Behind him the wolfpack howled in triumph.

  A voice echoed across the dock.

  “This dock is ours!”

  Mike couldn’t turn to look, but he didn’t have to. Jackie Donnelly had followed him.

  “This dock is ours,” she shouted out again. “I saved the Havenhome from the muddy depths.”

  “And I kept its story alive,” Old Tom shouted.

  “As did you,” Barter called. “Your journal tells the tale. This dock is ours. Your time has gone.”

  North snarled. He waved a hand. The wolfpack turned, as one, towards the intruders.

  But he’d taken his attention away from Mike for a split second. That was all Mike needed. He unzipped the suit and stepped forward towards North. His hand found what it was looking for.

  “This is for Mina,” he said.

  He set off the flare inside his jacket.

  * * *

  Jackie saw Mike step forward, but had to take her eye off him. The wolfpack loped across the dock towards them. They didn’t look to be in any particular hurry.

  Then again, we’re not going anywhere.

  “What now?” she said. She leaned on the upturned broom that Old Tom had provided as a makeshift crutch.

  Barter and Tom both carried automatic rifles, but Jackie was weaponless…she had enough trouble standing upright as it was.

  Barter stepped in front of her, weapon raised.

  Tom moved to join her.

  “Now we buy Mikey some time,” the old man said.

  “These won’t hold them for long,” Barter said.

  “We won’t have to,” Tom replied.

  Out over the dock Mike grabbed North in a bear hug.

  * * *

  “Got you now, fucker,” Mike whispered.

  Cold ate into him. His sight dimmed as the fluid in his eyeballs froze. The last thing he saw was North’s frostbitten, lipless mouth turn up in a smile.

  Mike felt ice crack on his own lips as he smiled and locked his arms together behind North’s back.

  The first of the magnesium flares he had strapped to his waist went up like a brilliant white rocket.

  * * *

  Old Tom and Barter strafed the approaching pack. The chattering of the guns was almost deafening.

  Jackie tasted cordite.

  A flash, like an unexpected camera going off in a dark room, lit the dock. For a second the pack’s black shadows leapt across the distance between them. The wolves howled as one, and sprang.

  The men kept firing. Shards of ice flew where the bullets hit, but the attack didn’t falter. Barter was hit first, a big-maned male, landing paws-first on his chest. Only his satchel saved him. The wolf’s teeth ripped through the old leather, and scraps of paper from the journal inside flew into the air.

  “No!” Barter shouted. He stuck the muzzle of his gun into the creature’s mouth. He pulled the trigger and the head blew apart like a badly packed snowball thrown against a wall.

  A second wolf took advantage of the gap and launched itself at Jackie.

  She heard Old Tom shout, heard the automatic rifle chatter, but only had time to hold the handle of the broom in front of her like a sword. The wolf hit her hard on the bad leg and she went down underneath it.

  She struck the broom handle in its mouth but she could do little else but wait for the jaws to snap shut.

  * * *

  Mike had never felt such pain. Blind, screaming silently as flesh melted, he lifted North off the ground, feeling ice slip beneath the heat.

  He had no idea of direction, little sense of what he did, as he walked, stumbling across the pier.

  The rest of the magnesium went up as they fell, locked in embrace, down into the dig site.

  He had time for one last thought.

  Mina!

  All went black.

  * * *

  The wolf opened its jaws. White eyes stared straight at Jackie.

  This is it.

  She poked the broomstick forward with what little strength she had left. It went through the wolf’s mouth and burst out the back of its head. The creature fell apart in a heap of thawing slush.

  Jackie pulled herself to her feet and looked around.

  The wolfpack was gone, only piles of thawing ice left to mark where they’d been. The two grotesque totems that guarded the entrance tumbled and fell with a crash, scattering ice, already melting.

  “Mike?” she whispered.

  Old Tom dropped the smoking rifle he carried.

  “Over there.”

  Smoke and flame rose from the dig site.

  She hobbled over. When she nearly fell Tom gave her a shoulder to lean on and together they looked down into the dig.

  The wooden decking still burned, draped with melted remains of thick polythene. In the deepest part of the trench lay a smoldering charred mass, unidentifiable as anything that might once have been human.

  Tears stung in Jackie’s eyes. She turned away.

  A warm breeze ran across the dock, sending the scattered pages of the journal flying. Barter scampered after them, but the wind stepped up as the sun came up. The papers flew high in the air.

  By
reflex Jackie caught one as it blew past her nose.

  She recognized the handwriting immediately.

  * * *

  I have made enquiries. There is no record of Captain John Fraser after the last date in his journal. The Scottish Register of Shipping records show only the fact that the Havenhome, a cargo vessel of some thirty souls, was lost at sea while voyaging to the New World in 1605. There is a single record for an Elisabeth Fraser in the Stonehaven Parish Records, recorded as a “Widow of this Parish”, died June 23rd, 1634, aged sixty and four.

  There is one other record of note. A one-legged man, aged and wizened, was arrested in London on charges of public drunkenness and lewd and libidinous conduct in June 1615. It is said he told a tall tale of encounters with supernatural savages in his defense, but was sentenced to five days imprisonment, where, it is noted, “He kept the prison guards amused with a wide repertoire of sea shanties played on a battered squeeze box near as old as he was.”

  No other records exist to relate the fate of the Havenhome, save the Captain’s Journal.

  No matter how remarkable we may find it in this day and age, something truly wondrous occurred on Hunter’s Dock back in 1605. In order to share the experience, and to echo the proud Captain’s words, I am decided.

  The Algonquin believed that a brave became a Wendigo if he ate the heart of either another Wendigo, or consumed the frozen heart of a recently born child. This is obviously from a myth used as a cautionary tale where winters were long and bitter and where they were often left with no recourse but to consume members of their own tribes. Whatever the reason, the shaman native on Hunter’s Dock all those years ago clearly believed. And if I too am to share that belief, to know what he knew, then I too must, in spirit at least, become Wendigo.

  Tonight I will eat the heart of the dead native, as he ate the heart of the one before him. I hope for enlightenment.