Dead of Winter Page 9

  “A ‘skinning room,’” Chris whispered. It was where dead animals were gutted, skinned, and butchered. He weaved between racks of beaver pelts stretched out for tanning. His hand grazed the soft fur. “Why would the trappers leave behind all these pelts? Aren’t they worth a lot of money?”

  “There’s enough here to buy a year’s worth of rum. They must have left in some kind of hurry.”

  Chris rounded a corner and explored a back room. The walls were lined with pens made of chicken wire. A kennel like the one Anika had. Most of the cage doors stood open. Tufts of fur covered the meshwork and surrounding walls.

  Something crunched beneath his boots.

  Bones.

  Pembrook whispered, “Blimey.”

  Piles and piles of dog skeletons littered the floor. Fur-covered skulls stared up at them. From the darkness, an animal growled. Turning with his lantern, Chris spotted two glowing eyes. The beast exposed its fangs.

  “Shit!” Pembrook bolted.

  34

  On the third floor, Tom paused when he heard a crashing sound from downstairs. A strange howl echoed throughout the lodge. Tom hurried back down the stairs. “Chris?”

  Private Pembrook entered the lantern’s halo, his eyes wide. “There’s a wolf in the lodge!”

  Chris was missing. Panic shot through Tom as he followed the sounds of snarling at the other end of the lodge. “Son!”

  Tom, Anika, and Hysmith stepped into a kennel. Their boots crunched over animal bones. “Chris!”

  “Over here.”

  Tom found his son hovering in a corner behind a sled. At the far wall barked a dog. Tom shone his light into the pen. The door was still closed. A tail brushed against the mesh. Growling inside the cage was a hairless husky that was all bones. It screeched and leaped at the latched door.

  Everyone stepped back. The dog’s front teeth chomped at the metal. Its eyes gleamed solid white. As the dog snarled, strings of gray saliva dripped off its fangs.

  Anika yelled, “It’s got rabies.”

  “Everybody stand back.” Hysmith pressed the barrel of his shotgun against the cage and fired, splattering the dog’s head across the wall. The wound didn’t kill it though, because the headless beast continued to ram the cage door, smearing red across the chicken wire. With each attack, the mesh bulged, snapping the wood frame. Tom and Hysmith fired several more shots into the husky’s chest and ribs until the white flesh was riddled with red holes. The slain dog flopped on the ground with its legs still kicking. Hysmith reloaded and continued to shoot it until all the life finally shuddered out of the writhing mass.

  Tom helped his son to his feet. “You all right?”

  “Yes, sir. Just spooked.”

  “Next time I tell you to stand post, you stay there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tom knelt beside Anika, examining all the dog carcasses that covered the kennel floor. They had been eaten, many of them torn apart.

  “Could the killer bear have gotten in here somehow?”

  Anika shook her head. “Doorway’s too small for a grizzly. There’s no scat or bear paw prints.”

  “Then what in hell attacked the sled dogs? And don’t tell me it was a manitou.”

  “I’ll tell you what happened,” said Hysmith. “The huskies caught rabies and turned on each other.”

  Tom stood and reloaded his pistol. “Well, there could be more in the lodge, so everybody stay alert.”

  Hysmith checked his watch. “It’s time to head back.”

  Tom said, “We still don’t know why the trappers abandoned their post. I’d like to keep exploring.”

  “No way in bloody hell!” Hysmith pointed to a window. “You hear that wind out there? There’s another storm rolling in.”

  As if to emphasize the lieutenant’s insistence, the wind howled and sleet began to hit the windows.

  Anika said, “If we don’t leave soon, we’ll have to stay the night here.”

  Tom said, “Fine, we go then.”

  The four of them returned to the front den. The door opened, and Sgt. Cox entered with a gust of frosty air. He approached his lieutenant. “Sir, snowstorm’s gettin’ worse.”

  “Tell the men to saddle up. We’re leaving.” Hysmith looked around. “Where’s Pembrook?”

  Anika said, “He stayed behind at the stairs.”

  “Did he go outside?” Hysmith asked.

  The sergeant shook his head. “No, sir, we haven’t seen him.”

  From the back part of the lodge a door slammed.

  Lt. Hysmith called out, “Pembrook, get your arse back to the front!” When the soldier didn’t come, he said, “We have to find him.”

  Tom felt a gnawing in his gut. He turned to the soldier. “Sergeant, bring in two more men. Chris, get your horse and wait outside the gate with the soldiers. Anika, go with him.”

  “Come with us,” she pleaded. “Let the soldiers find Pembrook.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Tom said. “Just have the horses ready when we come out.”

  Chris and Anika exited the lodge house as three more soldiers entered.

  Tom and four gunmen searched the second floor, crossing back through the skinning room ,past the kennel and into a dining hall. Still no sign of Private Pembrook. The last room was a kitchen. The storm blew sleet in through several shattered windows.

  Tom aimed at a silhouette with long hair who was standing in a corner. “Who’s there?”

  “Don’t shoot, it’s just me,” spoke a man with a familiar French accent.

  Tom raised his lantern to the Jesuit’s face. “Andre, what are you doing here in the dark?”

  “I came in through the back door. The wind blew out my lantern.”

  Tom said, “Have you seen Pembrook?”

  “No, no one.”

  One of the soldiers yelled, “Sir, I found blood.”

  They all gathered at a door. There was a marking on it. Blood had been smeared on the door in the shape of a handprint. Tom touched it. “It’s dry, so this couldn’t be Pembrook’s.”

  Tom pulled the door open and was knocked back by a rotten stench. Bloody steps led down into a dark cellar. He listened for a moment, but all he heard was the wind rattling the windowpanes.

  Tom descended the stairs first, holding his lantern and pistol. One by one, the soldiers followed. At the bottom was a splintered door. It had been chopped open. Tom crossed the threshold into the cold, dark undercroft. The earth floor was covered in black puddles. Barrels and stacked crates lined the walls. Windows were boarded over. The soldiers fanned out. The depths of the cellar seemed endless.

  Tom bumped into a twin bed. There was a row of them, with bloodstained mattresses. At the closest bed, a rosary hung from the shadows. Tom raised his lantern. Mounted on the bedpost was a severed head.

  35

  Outside Manitou Outpost, a gray tempest spiraled above the lodge house. Thunder rumbled. Snow fell in heavy sheets, pounding Chris Hatcher as he walked his horse outside the gate. Under a cropping of trees, Anika and one of the soldiers were readying the horses for the ride home. The boy mounted his skittish palomino and waited.

  Anika climbed onto the saddle of her horse. “Don’t worry, they’ll be out soon.”

  Chris tried to hide his fear, but his hands were trembling. He was still shaken by the sight of that rabid husky. His clothes were smeared red where he’d fallen onto the pile of dog carcasses. The beast in the cage had been so diseased that it took several shots to kill it. There could be more dogs inside the fort, hunting for food. He watched the gate, wishing his father and the soldiers would come out. Chris imagined them inside the lodge, fighting off a pack of rabid dogs with white eyes.

  “Anika, what happened in there?”

  The native tracker stared at the lodge house. “The post is haunted with dark spirits. I sensed it when we arrived.” She reached into a furry pouch and sprinkled tobacco and feathers on the ground, whispered some phrase in her Ojibwa tongue. When she was don
e, she looked toward the woods. “This whole forest is a bad place. We are not wanted here.”

  Chris stared at the surrounding pine trees. Snowflakes swirled among the shaking branches. The forest was alive with eerie sounds: howling winds, snapping wood, the constant cracking of the ice that covered Makade Lake, and underneath it all strange, distant moans.

  “Do you really believe there’s a spirit world?”

  The native woman nodded. “It’s all around us.”

  A hawk flew over them, screeching. Something fell between Chris and Anika, landing in a snow dune. The tracker hopped off her horse, reached into the deep impression, and pulled out a dead rabbit by its feet. The head was missing. Blood spattered the snow.

  “Hawk Manitou is warning us,” she said. “We should go get them.”

  “No,” barked Private Wallace. The red-coated soldier was the only sentry who had remained outside. “Orders are to stay put until they return.”

  “But they might need our help.” Chris rode his horse toward the open gate.

  Wallace, who was on foot, marched after him. “Kid, get back here!”

  “I’m not…” Chris froze. He spotted a white form moving through the woods behind Anika. Inside a spinning wall of snow and branches, a blurry shape was charging right towards her.

  36

  Tom swung his light around him, then back to the bedpost where the head stared with hollow eye sockets. Long white hair hung around the dead man’s ghoulish face. His cheeks and lips had been eaten away, leaving behind a skeletal grimace.

  “Oh dear God!” Brother Andre gasped. His knees buckled and he looked away, leaning against a pillar.

  Tom gazed at the rosary that hung from the bedpost. “Is that Father Jacques?”

  Lt. Hysmith nodded, in shock.

  “Here’s another one.” Tom set his lantern on the dirt floor beside a human skeleton that had been gnawed to the bone. A skull was still attached to the neck, suggesting that it was a second victim. He couldn’t discern if it had been a man or woman.

  Lt. Hysmith said, “The dogs must have broken through the door and eaten them.”

  Tom shook his head. “Dogs didn’t mount a head on a post. The priest wrote in his letter that the colonists had suffered some kind of ‘madness.’ If the trappers were isolated here for over a month, I’m guessing their food ran out, and they resorted to cannibalism.”

  “Then the killer could still be here,” Hysmith said.

  Tom scanned the surrounding darkness. Something glinted. A silver cross jutted from a post. He pulled it out. The cross’ bottom half had been sharpened into a dagger. The blade was well-crafted, the work of a sword maker. Engraved into the metal was a fiery sun, the emblem for the Jesuits.

  He showed it to Brother Andre. “Do you recognize this?”

  The young missionary was a blubbering mess. He shook his head.

  “Why would a priest carry such a weapon?”

  Again, Andre had no explanation. Was he lying, or was his mentor a man of many secrets? The cryptic diary Father Jacques wrote in Aramaic suggested the latter. Along one of the walls Tom came across a desk with blood-speckled parchment and an inkwell. There were several holy articles laid out on the desk: silver crosses, a bottle of holy water, and a black book with a red cross on the cover. The priest had been performing some kind of ceremony. Perhaps offering a final Mass to the survivors before they were overtaken. Tom sensed something in the gloom above him. He raised the lantern to a large circle of blood smeared on the stone wall. Stepping back, he realized it formed a pattern. A red spiral.

  “What do you make of this, Lieutenant?”

  “Some kind of totem. Probably to ward off evil spirits. The French trappers are a superstitious lot.”

  “But this looks as if it’s part of the priest’s altar.”

  What had Father Jacques been doing down here? The barricaded door and empty food tins suggested he had been hiding down in the cellar. Zoé must have been with him. Had they been hiding from one of the others? Between fifteen and twenty people had lived at Manitou Outpost. Thus far only two had been found, both dead. Zoé made three. That left too many inhabitants unaccounted for. But where were they?

  A cry from the darkness seized his breath. Across the cellar there was a commotion among the soldiers. “Oh, Jesus!” One of them vomited. Another soldier came running with a lantern. “Lieutenant! Inspector!” The soldier’s face had turned bleached white. “Pembrook’s dead!”

  37

  Outside, the thing in the white squall howled, its hellish shriek startling Chris Hatcher’s heart. He pointed. “Anika!”

  The shape charged behind her. The native woman spun just as her horse whinnied and reared up on its hind legs. One of the hooves struck Anika in the head, and she went down. The snowstorm engulfed her and whirled toward the fort.

  Beyond the wall of snow, the charging thing roared. The horses bumped one another, running in circles.

  Private Wallace raised his rifle and fired into the mist as it swallowed him. There was a loud scream. The soldier flew out and smashed against the stockade.

  The white shape turned, lumbering toward Chris just beyond the storm’s veil. He tried to gain control of his horse, but it galloped frantically into the woods. Branches scraped his face and shoulders. He ducked, wrapping his arms around the palomino’s throat for dear life.

  His horse turned too quickly. Chris slid off. Smacked the ground, landing on his side. His pistol flew into a mound.

  “Jesus!” He plunged his hands into the freezing snow, digging.

  Endless sleet turned the world into a blinding white hell. Grabbing the pistol, he crawled into a thicket.

  Something roared like an enraged bear.

  Chris wailed a cry of panic. He rubbed his eyes with frozen fingers, trying to get his vision back. Above the raging wind echoed the crunching footsteps of a predator circling him. The ground shook with each approaching step.

  Chris held the pistol, hyperventilating.

  Somebody please come help me!

  Chris felt like a ten-year old boy again, afraid of the boogeyman. He wished his father were here to chase it away. Tell him such evils didn’t exist. But this time the beast of Chris’ childhood nightmares was real. And now as his vision came back into sharp focus, he saw a horrific face peering through the branches. And it was grinning.

  38

  Gun barrels aimed, Tom, Lt. Hysmith, and three soldiers walked side by side across the cellar. Gray light poured in through shattered windows, casting a legion of shadows among the barrels and crates. Storm winds whistled through the portals. Tom’s gut burned with regret. They had stayed here too long. Private Pembrook had been found dead. But only his severed legs had been discovered. The rest of the soldier had been dragged off.

  The basement stretched half the length of the lodge. At the midway point lay a trail of blood. Ropy intestines disappeared into a gleaming red hole in a log wall. Scattered across the ground were piles of bones from both animals and humans.

  What kind of beast…

  Tom said, “Let’s leave quick.”

  “The hell we are,” Lt. Hysmith said. “Whoever killed my soldier is still here.”

  The soldiers exchanged nervous glances then stared back at the hole. A sound issued from it that Tom wasn’t expecting. A woman sobbing.

  Lt. Hysmith stuck his light inside the portal. In the next chamber, a woman hovered in a corner. She was naked, all the bones of her spine and ribs pressing outward against blue-veined skin.

  “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  The woman whirled, remaining crouched. Long, black hair hung over her face. Shriveled breasts flopped on her frail chest. Her bloated stomach sagged against grossly protruding pelvic bones. Tom had seen hunger victims before, but none this skeletal.

  Hysmith said, “Dear God that’s Wenonah…” The lieutenant froze,, as feral eyes gleamed in the lantern glow, reflecting like a nocturnal animal. Her face was greased with red muck. She g
nawed on a severed arm.

  One of the soldiers yelled.

  The woman loped towards the opening, half-crouched, and released a guttural snarl that reverberated around the cellar.

  Tom raised his pistol. “Back away, everyone.”

  Before the men could raise their rifles, Wenonah lurched out of the hole with the speed of a wolf and pinned a screaming soldier to the ground. She wrenched her head, ripping out the private’s throat. His screaming ended with a wet, gurgling gasp. Tom, Hysmith, and the other soldiers fired, knocking her back. As they quickly reloaded, the white ghoul rose, standing a head taller than all of them. Her stick-like limbs were too long for her body. A hunk of red flesh dangled from her lips. Her face remained in the shadows between the halos of light from two lanterns.

  Lt. Hysmith fired his shotgun, blowing off her lower jaw. Wenonah screamed like a banshee, her bloody tongue dangling from the roof of her mouth. She lunged at the lieutenant, daggered nails slashing down, gripping his rifle. He and Tom blasted holes into her chest point blank. The Ojibwa woman flew backward, rolling across the floor and landing in a twisted heap against the back wall.

  Cursing, the soldiers fired at her skull until there was nothing left of her head. Her decapitated skeleton kept moving. They fired again and again until her clawing hands finally went limp.

  Tom’s arms trembled. We just killed Zoé’s mother.

  The cellar began spinning. Tom grabbed hold of a post to keep from collapsing.

  More gunshots fired. This time from outside. Everyone turned toward the windows. Some kind of beast roared, and a boy screamed.

  Tom’s blood ran cold.

  39

  “Chris!” Tom stumbled out the front door.

  His heart hammered. He waded through the snow.

  Sleet blurred his vision.

  Outside the gate, he slipped through the entrails of a gutted horse. “No.”

  At the fence lay a soldier who was bloody and broken, his head twisted in the wrong direction. Anika lay facedown in the snow. Lt. Hysmith rolled her over. “She’s alive.”