The Equinox

by M J Preston

  The transformation made from a sloppily dressed 5’ 9” psychiatrist to a seven-foot grotesque hairless monster happened in a blink of an eye and the only sound to indicate the change was a liquid noise somewhat like water boiling over onto a hot stove. What was once Dr. Robert Kolchak exploded into a black tar-like substance which then evaporated into a thick, toxic, caustic-smelling smoke. It hung in the air for a moment, then gravity dragged it to the flow. Pearson didn’t even get to see the change take place.

  As the dirty smoke dissipated the arm retracted and dropped, holding Pearson’s head at its side like a bowling ball. The grey translucent skin over its chest cavity was riddled with spider veins which pushed the black ick through its body. The sound of its breathing was like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  Pearson might not have seen the transformation, but Hopper and Cooper did. Hopper understood the danger. Cooper just stared dumbly.

  “Now,” it hissed, and for a moment both men thought it might be addressing them – but it was not.

  At the front of the plane, the flight attendant stood up and knocked on the cockpit door. “It’s Devon.” When the lock released he swung it wide open, turned back to the creature, obediently chanting in the ancient language, “Kaw seu, Igwhot.” This meant: ‘For you, Master.’

  Hopper’s eyes darted right to see Pearson’s headless body strapped into the seat. Great gluts of blood spurted upward onto the ceiling of the aircraft. Beside him, Cooper was fumbling out of his seat. Towering over them, the gigantic creature breathed in and out, and an out of place smile formed on its nightmarish face. Its eyes, reflecting the interior of the plane, were mirrors into the darkest places man dare not look. It let out a shriek that tore through the fuselage like a rusty chainsaw.

  Hopper followed Cooper, and they crashed into the aisle much to its amusement. It loomed over them, its black lips peeled back, revealing jagged teeth that were weathered and petrified by time and bloodletting. They scrambled back down the aisle like crab men. It dropped Pearson’s head on the carpet. There was a hollow thud.

  Hopper, behind Cooper, used his elbows: he was still bound by chains.

  Now the creature was almost ten feet away. Cooper pulled his gun out, but the creature paid him little mind. It reached over and disemboweled the headless corpse of Pearson, pulling out his small intestines like so much spaghetti pie. As it jerked more out, the lifeless body moved back and forth like some macabre puppet.

  “What the? What the?” Cooper huffed and puffed almost dropping his gun.

  “Oh no,” Hopper moaned from behind him.

  “Hello, Stephen.”

  The creature was chewing on Pearson’s small intestine and gulping with a gleeful smile. Fresh blood ran down its face and onto its boney grey chest.

  Cooper’s hand shook madly as he trained the gun erratically on the monster. With his free hand, he pulled himself up onto the armrest of an empty passenger seat, staring back at Hopper. “What the fuck?”

  The creature shrieked again, rattling the inside of the aircraft, wreaking havoc on Hopper’s and Cooper’s eardrums, making their ears ring intensely.

  The creature dropped its clutch of intestines onto the carpet and began to work its way forward toward the cockpit. That was when Cooper knew that he had to try before it got to the cabin.

  “Close the fucking door!” he screamed to the pilot and began squeezing off shots.

  Behind him, Hopper backed away.

  The flight attendant just held open the cabin door, chanting, “Kaw seu, Igwhot. Kaw seu, Igwhot Kaw seu, Igwhot.”

  The co-pilot looked back through the open doorway and at the flight attendant, not sure what had happened in the last five seconds. “What’s going on, Devon,” he got out –then the third bullet fired from Cooper’s gun crashed through his head. He was killed instantly.

  The pilot saw blood splash across the instrument panel and onto the windshield, and without another thought, he keyed his headset. “Mayday! Mayday!”

  Three more bullets hit the creature – but they sailed right through and smashed into the console. Sparks flashed, and there was the mechanical sound of failure.

  Devon only held the door. “Kaw seu, Igwhot. Kaw seu, Igwhot. Kaw seu, Igwhot.”

  The Dash 8 shuddered then and began a bumpy descent. The creature continued up the aisle, tearing down roof panels along the way, exposing wires and insulation.

  “Devon! Close the fucking door!” the pilot screamed, but Devon wouldn’t budge.

  “Kaw seu, Igwhot.”

  His new master came forward to reward him.

  Cooper’s chamber ran empty. Thirty bullets and none had had any effect, just blowing right through the creature. He snapped the clip in, trying not to look at his partner’s head lying in the aisle. Fuck, Ron, what the hell happened? To add to the madness, he was pretty sure he’d accidentally killed the co-pilot.

  Devon looked up at the Master standing over him and then the illusion evaporated as the anesthesia it had used to fog his mind began to wear off. The goliath skinwalker towered above him, its mirrored eyes reflecting the carnage. The co-pilot was slumped over, the interior of the craft looked as though a hurricane had torn through it. Blood ran down from the creature’s mouth over its grey papery skin, turning it a sickish ink. Devon was just about to scream when it slit open his belly with its incisor toe. His guts spilled out.

  “This is Oasis 182! We are under attack!” the pilot yelled frantically.

  Then the creature reached around, ripped out the pilot’s windpipe. He slumped forward in his seat. From behind, Cooper fired again, and a bullet tore through the communications system. At the same time the craft’s computer began sounding alarms, it was short circuiting and shutting down. The autopilot disengaged, and the circuitry controlling the fuel transfer shorted out.

  The steady burr of the engine props cut out. First the left, then the right, and the Dash 8 shuddered. The aircraft continued to stay level, but it now was a doomed vessel. Oasis Airline 182 began its final descent into US airspace.

  The creature looked through the cockpit window, listening to the warning bells, watching the clouds evaporate and become moisture as they hit the glass.

  Such a large winged beast. So big, yet so fragile. It looked around, captivated.

  Behind it, Cooper and Hopper were attuned to the stark reality that they were going to crash, but Hopper doubted they would live to see the ground. Oxygen masks swung uselessly above the seats, although the pressure in the craft was still holding.

  That changed when the creature turned and made its way back toward them.

  The first few steps it took were purposely slow, watching for its victims’ reaction and craving the adrenaline that flowed through their veins. The sweet nectar of fear expanded inside both men as it dug its hooked claws into the ceiling and floor. It shrieked again and smashed out one of the port windows, creating a vacuum. Taking another step it tore a seat from the floor, tossing it over and behind it. The door which had been held open by the flight attendant now bumped back and forth between galley wall and body.

  It smashed the second port window. A length of Pearson’s severed small intestine danced about like a charmed snake drawn to the vacuum.

  Cooper was staring right at it now, and he thought any moment he would wake up from this horrific nightmare. Behind him, he could hear Hopper screaming at him.

  “Shoot me! Goddamn it! Shoot me!”

  Shoot me? Doesn’t he mean to shoot it? Cooper turned and looked at Hopper and yelled above the rush of oxygen whistling through the fuselage. “What is it?”

  “Please, Detective! Shoot me, and if you’re smart you’ll shoot yourself!”

  The creature was halfway to them now. Its lips peeled back in that devilish grin a mixture of black ick, and human blood spilled from its rotted mouth.

  “What the fuck is that,
Hopper?” Cooper screamed at him.

  “That’s Franklin!” Hopper screamed, backing into the lavatory, slamming the door shut and fumbling the lock over to the occupied position.

  Cooper turned back toward it and took up a firing position. If he could hit its eyes, maybe he could blind it, but he knew they were finished no matter what the outcome.

  He began squeezing off shots as he said aloud, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”

  Crack!

  “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me!”

  Crack!

  “Thy rod and thy staff they –”

  It came at him in a flurry of smoke.

  Kurt Cooper looked down to where his forearm used to be and realized it had been torn off. The creature was right in front of him. He could smell its rotting breath, which stank of death.

  “Aw, shit…..”

  It ripped out his beating heart and held it up as if to mock him.

  The Dash 8 was not in a nosedive but looked as though it had been to Hell and back as it descended from the sky on its final voyage. Forty miles away two F16s were on their way to meet it.

  Hopper gazed into the mirror over the stainless steel sink. He was as white as alabaster, his pudgy cheeks devoid of blood and his expression that of a man who has resigned himself to the inevitable. Behind him, a talon scraped along the textured surface of the carbon fiber door. Then it was ripped completely off.

  “I know I deserve this,” he said, not to the creature, but to himself.

  “Hello, Stephen.”

  It yanked him from the lavatory, dragging him kicking and screaming up the aisle. The aircraft was at 8000 feet now. Beneath, the Michigan landscape passed peacefully, oblivious to the mayhem transpiring above.

  Halfway up the aisle it stopped and hoisted Hopper up by one leg. From upside down, he saw the body of Detective Cooper slung over the headrest of one of the seats. His back was broken, his right arm missing, and there was a gaping hole in his chest.

  “Told you I’d be back,” it hissed, then split a gash in his genitals with its incisor claw. He screamed, a bolt of searing pain rippling through his stomach and into his legs like ten thousand hot needles.

  “Oh, that’s nothing, Stephen.”

  It elevated him even further, and he felt the hot blood from his scrotum flowing down over his belly. Using both claws, it went to work on his foot, twisting it around, breaking the tendons and cartilage. It twisted and twisted, as the skin stretched and rippled into a macabre corkscrew until it ran out of elasticity and gave way.

  Hopper bawled in agony.

  “Like a fly, Stephen.”

  It tossed the foot onto a vacant seat and dragged him a little further up the aisle. A claw lifted him by his throat, ever careful not to crush his windpipe. “You should have controlled yourself, Stephen. You should have listened.”

  It plucked out his left eye.

  Shock hit him. His brain started shutting down all the nerve pathways: the pain rolled away into the fog as he bled out – but that did not stop the creature from dismembering him.

  Limb after limb fell onto the floor…

  The aircraft was now at 6000 feet. Ahead Lake Superior was a beckoning watery grave. The creature dropped all that remained of Stephen Hopper on the spongy blood-soaked carpet and went to work on the window it had smashed out earlier. Digging a claw into the ceiling to anchor itself, it smashed a bigger hole in the side of the craft. As it did one of Hopper’s severed arms was sucked out the hole and gone. The air was cold up here, freezing everything it enveloped.

  Once it had torn through the last of the craft’s outer skin with its free claw, nature did the rest. The gash in the side of the aircraft began to peel back and break away.

  It ripped out two more seats and tossed them out the gaping hole. Then it exited the craft, just clearing the tail, falling to earth and twirling crazily like a life-sized ragdoll. Behind it, the airplane continued on toward its end, carrying with it the terrifying secrets of its deceased cargo.

  It tumbled over and over, falling to the earth, and then it transformed, twisting, contorting, pulsing molecules rearranging themselves until it was complete. Black ick and smoke became like clay, and for a moment it was frozen.

  Transformed, the black raven flew north-west to meet the hunter, and it’s destiny.

  3

  4:35 PM

  Daylight was giving way to grey clouds that threatened rain. Mick knocked on the door for the third time. Still, there was no answer. Steel was at his side, waiting, hoping that the Indian was wrong, but also thinking that life would be a lot simpler if John Parkins had pulled the pin. The Indian was in the back of the cruiser, waiting to be put into a jail cell.

  Mick had grilled him along the way.

  “What do you mean he’s dead?” he yelled from the front seat as Steel tried to concentrate on driving to the Parkins house without getting in a wreck. Steel was a little pissed at Mick for this. He didn’t think it was very professional dragging the Indian guy along. They should have secured him at the station and then come over here.

  “I think he killed himself,” Blackbird responded.

  4

  “Delay? Why is there a delay?” Toomey and the rest of his group were now standing in the Winnipeg Airport; they had overshot Brandon in the 757 and now had to catch a commuter back. “Did they say how long this delay will take?”

  “No, Old Jake. This sort of thing happens from time to time,” Proudfoot explained.

  “How long would it take to rent a car and drive there?” Toomey sounded impatient.

  “At least four hours,” Fortier chimed.

  “What do you think, Little John? Should we rent a car?” Toomey asked Proudfoot.

  Proudfoot rubbed his chin and looked around to see all eyes were upon him. “Why don’t we wait an hour? If by then we aren’t boarding, I say we rent a car.”

  “Agreed,” Toomey said. “Well I had hoped that we would be nikotwâsik, but it appears we will be nîyânan.”

  “Five and Six?” Proudfoot surmised. “Okay, Old Jake, what the hell language are you speaking, because it sure isn’t Chocktee?”

  “It’s Swampy Cree,” he replied. “My, Little Proudfoot, you really need to expand your mind to other cultures. Especially since it was you who bought me the book off the Amazon dot com.”

  The others laughed, and Proudfoot joined in.

  “Come: let us go to a private corner of this place if there is one.”

  They gathered up their bags and found a relatively quiet area of the airport where some renovations were being done. Some of the fluorescents were down, and the maintenance men were nowhere to be found. Toomey pulled out an eagle’s feather he regularly used in talking circles and addressed them. “I have told you what I know of Jackanoob, of his age and how he bargained away the future of our people with a creature of the black orb. Now I am going to pass the feather to each of you, and we will discuss the many things that need to be done when we reach this town of Thomasville. Each of you will pass me one question which I will try to answer. I had hoped that our brave hunter would be present in this talking circle, but I fear that time now works against us. There are some details we must talk out. For now, ask only one question.”

  He handed the feather to the Chief of the Chocktee people.

  “How are we going to set this right, Old Jake?” Proudfoot asked and handed the feather back.

  Toomey looked silently at each of the men in his charge. “Set your minds on fire, my brothers: this will be a day when none of us can falter or be weak. Young Daniel Blackbird will find a way, and we will be pillars upon which he stands when we do something not done since the days of Jackanoob.”

  He handed the feather to Michano.

  “And what is that, Old Jake?” Michano asked handing it ba
ck.

  “As all of you know, tomorrow is the fall equinox. The walls are thinning, my brothers. Tomorrow we are going to summon the Guardians.”

  5

  Blackbird touched the scar on his face, feeling its tingle and looking through the windows into hell. While the two cops were up on the porch of the Parkins house, he was watching the mayhem taking place on Oasis Flight 182. He had found his way into the creature’s mind just as it tore Kurt Cooper’s heart from his chest.

  The vision was much clearer this time. Daniel took care to keep his thoughts to himself because he guessed that in this state it might hear him.

  He slumped back in the seat, his eyes rolling in his head. He could see its claw reach out and tear the bathroom door from the hinges. He could feel the physical toll it was taking on him. Blood splashed madly about as he watched from behind the two windows of the skinwalker’s eyes. He tried to be strong and continue, but the vision was killing him, forcing him to pull away.

  When he came to his nose was bleeding and looking through the car window was Chief David Logan.

  6

  Minutes before Logan arrived they forced the front door open to the Parkins house and were immediately overcome by a rancid smell. Steel looked to Mick, and for the moment they were equals in trepidation. Neither wanted to go forward: both knew what they would find.

  He’s dead, Mick thought and felt guilty relief that he would not have to deliver the terrible news of Olivia’s death. This mingled with his anguish, threatening to make him freeze up – but he pushed on just the same.

  He worked his way down the hallway toward the master bedroom while Steel headed across the living room toward the kitchen. The sour smell became worse the closer he got to the bedroom. His guts were filled with butterflies, compounding the dread. With one hand over his mouth, he turned the doorknob and pushed. It swung open soundlessly, and there he saw John’s body sprawled out on the bed. He only recognized him by the shirt he wore and his giant hands. Beside him was the shotgun. It had tumbled from his dead hands and stood propped haphazardly against the dresser. Bluebottle flies buzzed about, depositing eggs on the decomposing corpse of John Parkins.