The Beast of Nightfall Lodge

by SA Sidor

  Under normal circumstances I would refuse such a weapon. But these were not normal circumstances. I took the shotgun and walked down the hall of dioramas. Here were the lions to my right. I had spotted the lovers entwined in their grassy habitat. I had smelled a perfume that reminded me of roses. Plugging any combination of participants I could imagine into that tryst left me dry-mouthed. But they were real. I wasn’t sleepwalking, and it was no dream. As I opened the front door, I heard a scrabbling of nails on wood behind me.

  “Are you going for a walk?” a deep voice said. Orcus peered up at me and cocked his head. His stubby black tail wagged.

  “Yes, would you care to join me?”

  “A walk turned down may never be offered again,” he said.

  “Then let’s be off.”

  Orcus and I took the path. The fog had thickened to a cold gruel. I could see no farther than a few steps in any direction. The mists swirled and eddied in our wake. The walk seemed much longer than I remembered it. I held the shotgun out in front of me as if I were offering my enemies a loaf of freshly baked bread instead of death.

  “Do you smell anything unusual?” I said.

  Orcus lifted his nose and took a few deep sniffs. His ears twitched.

  “We are getting closer to the horses. Master Oscar has passed this way.”

  “Recently?”

  “Hard to say. But I think so.”

  “Did you know that Claude was a werecat?”

  “Yes, but he never tried to eat me. I knew him since he was a pup.”

  “And Cassi?”

  Orcus stopped. He looked toward the foggy right. Out there, not very far, the ground ended abruptly in a sheer drop. The plunge was as deadly as it was obscure. I felt as if I were already falling, awaiting the impact of pines and boulders the size of small apartment houses.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  “I hear things moving,” the dog said.

  I crouched and pointed the gun. My finger feathered the triggers. “What sorts of things?”

  “Your tongue for one.”

  “Sorry.”

  The mastiff stiffened his neck.

  “It walks on the snow. In the trees, branches moves. But there is no wind.”

  “Might it be an animal? Rabbits or, say, a single young unimposing deer?”

  “In the fog it might be anything. I can’t see through fog. It’s big. Two legs.”

  Orcus considered this noise a bit longer. He started trotting along again.

  I stayed where I was. Eyes fixed on the gray boiling vapors.

  “We should go,” Orcus said.

  “Is the two-legged thing walking away?”

  “No. That is why we need to hurry. It is coming. The fog makes it leery.”

  I quickened my step. Soon the outline of the mountain and the darker impression of the alcove emerged from the mists like the prow of a damaged ship. A slender figure came at us, pausing, and extending its arm. I touched the triggers but feared the spray of lead would hit Orcus. The dog ran ahead of me into the mouth of the horses’ niche. I thought Orcus was springing onto the long-armed devil in the misty haze, but then I heard a loud human voice.

  “Who are you?” it asked me.

  Oscar.

  “Dr Rom Hardy, Egyptologist,” I called back.

  I lowered my weapon.

  “Get in here,” he said, impatiently. “I almost shot you with my elephant gun.”

  Oscar had donned a sheepskin vest and a knitted cap. I was happy to see him. He had no overt beastly qualities I could discern. He seemed invigorated by the intensification of our ordeal. Oscar was not to be mistaken for a likeable man, but he possessed a level of self-confidence I envied. There was no room for doubt in his worldview. He knew the facts that he knew. He sought out other facts which interested him. Everything beyond that scope was useless information. It was a tidy philosophy if nothing else. He anticipated my question, answering before I could ask it.

  “I came to check on the horses. I thought the Beast might slaughter them to keep us from leaving in a hurry. But, as you can see, the horses are fine. Why are you here, Hardy?”

  “Pops’ medicine bag has something in it I need. You should know that Cassi was attacked. The Beast caught her when she was out on the mountain above the lodge.”

  “What was she doing up there?”

  “Sleepwalking.”

  “Is she hurt?” he asked.

  “She will likely lose her arm.” I watched to see his reaction to my blunt delivery of the tragic news. His expression revealed strain but little in the way of tenderness.

  “A person can live without an arm. We must finish this tonight at all costs. I have to capture that creature. I’ll send Hodgson into Raton tomorrow for a doctor. Hardy, help me load these boards into that wheelbarrow. We didn’t have enough wood inside to seal all the windows.”

  “I need to find the bag first,” I said.

  “It’s by the wagon. Let’s get going. I don’t like the feel of the mountain. I’ve hunted enough big game to know when a predator is lurking around. The Beast will strike as soon as it sees we are vulnerable. Timing is the key. I don’t want to miss it.”

  I found Pops’ bag where Oscar said it was. Inside was one vial of the glowing green elixir. I pocketed the potion. I also found my trusted ape-headed walking stick where I had dropped it during our confrontation with Pops and Billy. The great naturalist and I loaded the wheelbarrow with a dozen boards (and my stick and shotgun); we whisked them back through the fog (I did the whisking, Oscar the elephant-gunning), and we followed Orcus to Nightfall’s heavy doors.

  Surprisingly, Oscar didn’t object to the séance. But he insisted we finish fully boarding the windows and the front doors first. It didn’t take us long. After the last nails were pounded home I found myself feeling more secure that I had since arriving at the lodge. It would take a great deal of force and time to break through the boards. Oscar, McTroy, LaFarque, and Gavin Earl were all experienced hunters, and, frankly, extraordinary killers. Evangeline and Viv’s séance would soon lead us to the Beast, I was certain. Now I was not neglecting the fact that one of my housemates might be the Source-Wendigo, as LaFarque had suggested. But I thought it just as likely that LaFarque was wrong. He’d heard an Algonquin legend. But what did a white con-man circus performer know about Indian spirits? The Wendigo – or Beast, or whatever it was that killed the hunters, tempted me in the dark, and cast its contagion over the mountain like a malevolent pall – might be an abomination completely unconnected to any of us. Demons don’t need men to live.

  It came here for a reason.

  We may never know why.

  We only had to send it back.

  Or cage it.

  31

  Shotgun Séance

  We sat in a circle and joined hands around the black table. Fogbound. Barricaded. Staring at a lit red candle; its flickering light was our only illumination. The darkness gathered around us. The charred partial remains of the surgeon lay across the table like a roasted carcass waiting for the carving knife. If we had been floating at the bottom of a chasm, or tumbling through the outermost planets of the solar system, it would not have felt any stranger than it did. My head ached dully from lack of sleep and a growing pressure mounted behind my eyes.

  Faces.

  That is what we were to each other.

  A ring of masks in this order: Vivienne, and to her left around the circle – Oscar, Evangeline, McTroy, Earl, LaFarque, Yong Wu, and me completing the circle with my sweaty hand in Viv’s.

  The candlelight wavered. In this yellow, trembling pool we began our descent.

  Viv said, “I call to the spirit of Pops Spooner. We have your corporeal self before us. We can put you to rest if you help us. But we have questions first. Enter your body. Speak.”

  I released Viv’s hand and stood. I took the syringe from the table. The elixir in the glass barrel cast its own eer
ie light. I shot the full cylinder into Pops’ skull, entering through the top of his spinal column as he had done to McTroy on the trail. But it did not stir.

  I refilled the syringe.

  “That’s the last of it,” I said as I plunged in the spike.

  We watched.

  There! Did the skin along one cheek quiver? Yes, I believe so. I saw a blackened tooth I did not notice before my administering the potion. A shivering of the limbs, almost imperceptible. But I could swear–

  The hand of the surgeon slammed on the table and his bloodshot eyes met ours.

  “Pops, do you hear me?” Viv asked.

  “Aaagrrhlahfff…”

  His cracked lips peeled back. His tongue protruded, as sooty as a blacksmith’s thumb.

  “Give him water,” Evangeline said.

  I lifted the pitcher from the side table and poured water directly in his cooked maw.

  “Yassssss,” he said finally. His wet burned head smelled… indescribable.

  I sat in my chair and rejoined hands with Wu and Viv.

  “Do you know where you are?” Viv asked.

  “In Hell.”

  “Your soul has not yet left this earthly dimension. You are at Nightfall Lodge.”

  The encrimsoned eyes rolled around, taking in the sights.

  “I need to ask him about something,” I said to Viv.

  She nodded for me to take my turn at questioning.

  “Pops, this is Rom Hardy. Wu and I discovered the secret ingredient to your elixir.”

  “Th- thieves.”

  “Yes, well, regardless of that. We have it. I want to know where it came from.”

  Pops’ mouth worked as if he were chewing a tough chunk of beef.

  “D- d- desert. I found it in a shipwreck.”

  “A shipwreck? In New Mexico Territory? You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “P- Peeecos River and Salt Creekkk… not a water ship. Airship. Took the wagon out by John Chisum’s Jingle Bob Ranch. Right before I dug up Billy. I found maybe a balloon. It was silver. In the silver was the Pilot. I cut his head off for a souvenir. He didn’t stink. The buzzards stayed away. Soon as I put him in the wagon he started to slime up. Green as foxfire. I tested it. You know it was a special slime the Pilot made. Heh-heh. Old green devil. I’ll keep him, I said.”

  “How does it work?”

  “Hell if I know. I keep the head quiet or Billy goes whacko.”

  I nodded. Something else occurred to me.

  “I injected you with the elixir. Are you… in communion with the Pilot the way Billy was, and McTroy is?”

  Pops thought about it.

  “I don’t feel like nothing but Hell.”

  “Very well then. My questions are finished.”

  Viv squeezed my hand. I had done well, not breaking the contact with Pops.

  “Pops, do you know where the Beast lives?” she said.

  “Right here, I reckon.” He licked at the drenched tablecloth.

  I poured more water on him.

  “Is there a lair or den where the Beast retreats when it is not in the woods?”

  “Goes inside.”

  “Please explain. We don’t understand you.” Viv was polite but firm with him.

  “Lady, I watched the damn thing eat me. It stuffed my corpse in a tree crotch. Comes back later to drag me around the mountainside and cram me into that chimney flue.”

  “But where did it hide?” I asked, interrupting the conversation.

  “Inside. Up in the body of a host. It shrunk down after. I was dead, what did I care.”

  “Whose body?”

  “You’re so smart, you figure it out, thief. I told you. Don’t matter to me. I hope it kills and eats you all. I hope you watch it eat each of your chums and it scares the shit out of you and then it kills you like it did me. I am in Hell, boys and girls, and I’m waiting to climb up your sweet little asses as soon as you get here to join me. It’s flamin’ hot. My skin is blisters and pus. My ass smokes like a fine seegar. You’re gonna feel rows and rows of teeth tear at your hide. I’m laughing thinking about how it’s gonna look with all you going at once like a damn meat grinder, a-grindin’ and a-chewin’ aw Hell yes–”

  McTroy shot Pops in the head with his Colt Army.

  Pops had half a skull now to match the half of everything else.

  I wiped Pops’ brains off my jacket. There was a smoking bullet hole in the tablecloth. McTroy seized the remains of Pops’ ankle and hauled him off, hurling him into the corner where clattering buffalo skulls tumbled over him in an avalanche of bones.

  “I didn’t need more from him,” McTroy said. “Let’s carry on.”

  Viv was shaking. She had kept up her strength through the first interview of our session, but I wondered how much more she might endure. The longer we sat together at this table the more she looked at her husband. She was pleading with him silently. He was uncommunicative. He glanced away or simply stared down at the section of cloth in front of him as if waiting to be served his dinner. Evangeline nodded at her to go on.

  Viv took a deep breath. Her gaze fixed on the flame.

  “I call now to the dead spirits who roam around us. I am your instrument. I invite you to speak through me to this group. We are not here to harm you. Miss Evangeline will ask you questions. Answer her using me as your conduit. We do not judge you. We wish you only peace. Help us to defeat the evil which plagues this mountain. I feel you standing behind me. Speak.”

  Viv’s voice dropped into a deep bass.

  “Où est le chat? Le panthère?”

  Evangeline said, “He is not here. You are safe. The doors are locked against intruders.”

  “Jules? Is that you, mon ami?” LaFarque said.

  “I am here, René,” the giant answered through Viv. “But I am gone too.”

  “Our game did not work as I planned. We knew the risks.”

  “Yet you sit here. I am sleeping in the snow forever. You always had the better risks.”

  LaFarque’s face collapsed. His chin quivered. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “You are correct, Jules. But what can I do now? Nothing…”

  The giant did not reply.

  Evangeline asked, “Did you see the Beast?”

  “I am the Beast,” Jules said.

  “I told you so,” Gavin Earl said. “Where is my gold? I’m finished with parlor tricks.” He let go of McTroy. He drew his pistol and pressed it to the temple of LaFarque’s head.

  “Do it!” LaFarque shouted. “I do not care if I live. Kill me. The Beast will still come.”

  Gavin Earl had no scruples about putting a bullet into LaFarque. I braced for the shot.

  “But I am not the only Beast. There are two. I was an actor. The other is le diable.”

  Viv’s face appeared to lengthen. Her shoulders squared up. She swayed in her chair.

  Jules said, “I saw it behind a tree. You were there, gunslinger. Chasing me. But snows were falling. You did not see it. But le diable saw you. Red eyes. Plusieurs dents like a loup-garou. I tried to hide. I work all my years in a circus with wild cats. Then one kills me. Ah, life.”

  Earl lowered his revolver.

  “Where did the Beast go? Did you see its den?” Evangeline asked.

  “Non.”

  Viv’s head switched from side to side as if she were hearing something we could not.

  “You lied to me,” Jules said. “Les chats are here.”

  Viv’s body slumped forward as if she had been shoved hard from behind.

  “Jules, don’t go. Not yet,” Evangeline said.

  But when Viv lifted her face and smiled, it was not Jules.

  “The happy family gathers with friends. This is the worst party ever. Where’s my sister?”

  “Claude?” Oscar said. “How could you be here? These people are dead.”

  Viv let go of Oscar and me so she could clap
. “Bravo, Father, you solve another mystery of the world. And for this one you did not need to leave the comforts of home. Can someone please get me whiskey? Evangeline, roll me another cigarette. Your last one tasted the best of any I’ve had.”

  Oscar was watching Viv. But he was seeing Claude, and it tore at him. I cannot say if I saw guilt in his features, but regret was there. He’d miscalculated. Never did he expect Claude to die, nor did he think the news would reach him by so shocking and circuitous a route.

  “Was it on the road? I thought you made it to town. Who killed you, son? Let me know, and I will take my revenge. I promise you. No one kills the son of Oscar Adderly and lives.”

  “It was a bear, Father. A dead bear that loved a fat man. If I could’ve bet on a million ways I might’ve died, that’s one I never saw coming. You should get Cassi out of here. Far away from this. Rom, she loves you. Has she told you yet? She told me. But there’s nothing a boy can do about that. Especially not a dead boy. Being a ghost may be more boring than being alive.”

  “Oh, Claude,” Viv said, in her own voice. “Please forgive us. Your father asked me to invite that evil spirit here. He said it would be a challenge. He wanted to fight a real monster. To cage a myth. He asked me to open a portal. And I listened to him.”

  “Viv, be quiet,” Oscar said.

  “No, I will not.”

  She addressed her son again, “Your father read some legend on a monolith in the Canadian woods. Ancient, older than the tribes that live there now, or any in recorded history. Far to the north, where he sought the polar predators. He copied down the words and symbols. He asked me to find out what they meant. I found nothing. No record of them anywhere. So I asked the spirit to come to me, unknown. To show itself. Night after night, I opened myself to… anything that happened to be passing in the cosmos. This spirit traveled from a long way off, across dimensions forbidden and immeasurable, loathsome spaces impossible to navigate. Yet it came to me. When it knocked, I let it in. Gustav was right. The Beast is a demon. I brought it here for your father to hunt.”