The Equinox

by M J Preston

  Goddamn, I’m smoking up.

  He felt a buzz, but it was not at all disconnected. His mind had become completely clear except for the fact that he’d forgotten to exhale. Toomey loomed there in front of him as the sky danced psychedelically above in splashes of emerald and blue, rippling ethereal.

  “Let it out and pass me the pipe, Dave.” Toomey was smiling mischievously like they were two teenagers smoking up in the woods.

  Or Burke’s garage, he thought and laughed aloud. Toomey had already taken another draw and was handing it back. How long has the old guy been standing there smiling? I wonder if he can read my thoughts. Boy, Old Jake, my pal Burkee would have thought you were one mystical dude.

  He once again took the cool stone into his grasp, understanding that it had been passed on for centuries and its bowl filled and refilled. He wondered what this pipe had gone through to travel to this place.

  A relaxed feeling washed over him. His pain subsided with it.

  “It’s the Jimson Weed,” said Toomey and motioned with his hand. “Take another; it will clear your mind.”

  Logan took another deep draw and passed it back across while Toomey fumbled with something from his bag.

  This stuff is great! I feel focused and, Jesus, where are my aches and pains?

  Toomey had the vial open. He was heating the last of the black tar. “You feel better, Dave. Yes?”

  “Great stuff, Old Jake. I gotta get some of this off you when we’re done saving the world from Indian shape-changers.” He laughed a bit and decided that maybe he was just a little high.

  “Skinwalker,” Jake said, holding the pipe below the vial as he poured the last of its black contents into the bowl. The glowing embers sizzled as the blood smothered them, and then a smell not unlike burning hair rose up. “He is a skinwalker, the servant of the black orb. A bastard child of Wendigo. His name was Jackanoob once, but now he is only darkness and pain.”

  “That stinks. What are you up to with that?”

  “We are going to draw from its blood and gather the knowledge we need to beat it.” Now he stuffed more tobacco into the pipe, burying the tar beneath it.

  “What I am about to show you will come hard and fast. Do you trust me?”

  Logan considered the question. Overhead the sky pulsed and rippled, a mile off, a monster was perched atop a building digesting its breakfast, and he was waiting to die from a killer he could only feel moving through him, eating his insides.

  Do I trust you? A good question.

  “Is your pain gone?” asked Toomey.

  “Yes, it is.” Logan raised his thumb to mimic Toomey’s Little Big Horn seal of approval. “Can you give this white devil some for later?”

  Laughing, Toomey said, “You are no longer a white devil; I cured you of that when I made you a Chocktee Hunter. To answer your question: yes, I will give you all my magic, but this next part must be of your own free will. One draw and we will know what it knows, see what it sees – and then we will be ready. So I ask again: do you trust me?”

  Logan decided he had no choice. If they didn’t die today, he would wind up in a hospice probably doped out of his mind as the plague inside him converted his cells to dark matter. So he said, “I trust you, Old Jake.”

  Toomey handed the pipe over. “You will draw first. Do not be afraid; I will guide you.”

  “I never smoke alone.”

  “I will take a draw as well, Dave, and be at your side; a guide as we walk through passages. Together we will gather strength and knowledge.”

  Logan stared deep into the old man’s eyes. There was no deception in them – and he knew the same was true of Toomey’s heart.

  Time was short. He brought the pipe up to his lips and waited as Toomey rolled the round stone over the flint. The flame licked upward, an amber tongue with a rim of black. The odor of butane filled the air.

  “Come let us palaver.”

  And with that Logan abandoned all caution and drew on the pipe as the flame was pulled downward and ignited the mixture of blood and herb. At first, it was warm and sweet, the last of the resin from the first mixture burning off – then came the bitter blood of the creature’s dark heart. It tasted like copper pennies, old and caustic, and with it came a cold that felt like dry ice burning the roof of his mouth.

  Poisoning me. Infected.

  The smoke rolled across his tongue, down his throat, and into his lungs. He could feel his core temperature begin to drop at an alarming rate. Had he seen what the old Indian was seeing he never would’ve drawn from the pipe. The veins that were visible on his neck and hands turned dark almost instantaneously, but it was eyes that were the worst. Like Steel, they seemed to wash out, at first becoming clear marbles – then liquid mercury rolled into them, and they turned to chrome.

  “Mamiswin,” Logan said in the old language, which was universal for trust.

  Toomey took the pipe gently from Logan and brought it to his own lips.

  It was like watching an old television blink out. One moment Toomey was standing before him. Next, there was a crash of white noise and the light which stimulated the cones and rods in his optic nerve closed off and drifted away. Logan cried out, and for a moment thought he might be dying, when all around him he saw the specter off in the distance. He could hear something: water dripping, a drum, voices, shrieks: a symphony of thousands of sounds all fighting for dominance.

  This is the sound of madness, he thought.

  Toomey was suddenly beside him.

  “We must walk,” Toomey said, and suddenly they were moving forward through the void. The dripping sounds grew louder about them as they went. “This world is just one among many; a staging ground where the light and the darkness try to seize ownership of our hearts.”

  “Where are we going?” Logan asked. Below his feet, he could see water, and beneath its skin things moved. Some green with life, others black with death.

  “Look into the passage, Dave,” Toomey urged, and he watched a glowing green orb pass directly under him. It was stunning, and the light was blinding as it pushed past the skin. The water rippled as the droplets of rain from above plopped downward. “That is a Guardian. There is no evil in it, just love. It is the vessel which guides us between worlds. When a man dies, a Guardian carries him on, and if you accept it, they will stand vigil as you breathe your last breath.”

  Logan wanted to turn to Toomey, to ask him questions: but Toomey was not really there; not in body anyway. So he turned back and watched the Guardian move off its light dimming.

  Is that what will come for me?

  “Yes. Now we must walk.”

  And so they did – but as they moved on, the warmth of the Guardian was gone, and Logan felt something else. Something colder.

  3

  They parked the cars on the road and dismounted in front of Hopper’s house. John Proudfoot walked over to Collins’ cruiser as they got out. The three Elders stayed in the SUV, waiting for him to return. This was the last meeting they would have before this was over. Or before or they were all dead, Proudfoot thought.

  Drawing up to the car, he said, “Do you have the map of the area?”

  “Yeah.” Mick reached into the cruiser and pulled out the topographical map they had been using to unearth Hopper’s graveyard. He spread it out on the police car’s hood and pointed. “We are here.”

  Proudfoot examined the map, the perimeter road that ran around the Wakeman and Hopper Farm and the woods that stretched through it and to the north. “Here is where Dan must be,” he said, pointing to the center of the graveyard where the ground swelled above the rest of the terrain. Using his finger, he drew an imaginary circle around where Blackbird would be waiting. “Here is where you will place all your people.”

  “Where are you guys going?” Mick asked.

  “We will set up outside the circle, on
e to the north, south, east, and west. When it comes, stay out of sight until you hear the drums: then close the circle.”

  “Drums?” Mick asked.

  “The drums of Chocktee,” Blackbird said. “When the drums start the circle must be closed and not broken under any circumstances.”

  “Do you hear that?” Proudfoot called to all of them. “The circle must not be broken! If it breaks out, we will not be able to get it back.”

  “No matter what – even if it kills – the circle must not be broken,” Blackbird added.

  They all nodded.

  “How do we know it will come?” Oddball chimed in.

  “Jake Toomey will see to that,” Proudfoot said and turned to his cousin. “We will palaver in the Spirit Wood, cousin. I only wish I could stand with you, but my duty is with the drums.”

  “I hope to meet your children, but I am glad to see you, no matter the outcome.” Blackbird reached out, setting his free hand on Proudfoot’s shoulder, steadying himself on the diamond willow stick with his other.

  “Grandfather’s magic.” Proudfoot placed a hand over his and hugged him. “I love you, Dan. I always have,” he said, and before Blackbird could respond, he turned to others, raising his voice again. “When the circle closes, all of you chant ‘Kihci-manitow’ over and over. One after another around the circle, use the drums for cadence. Do not stop and do not break the circle!”

  Proudfoot let go of his cousin and left him standing there. He walked over to West, and they spoke briefly. The officer handed Proudfoot something, and he turned and marched to the SUV.

  “Kihci-manitow,” Blackbird said absently.

  “What does that mean?” Hardy asked. She pronounced it phonetically: “Kee-kee-man-ee-towe?”

  “Great Spirit God,” Blackbird said, then called after his cousin as he mounted the vehicle. “Johnny!”

  Proudfoot stuck his head out the window.

  “Grandfather’s magic!” He raised the diamond willow high above his head like a Chocktee Warrior about to go into battle. It was a sight to see, his long gray hair hanging about his weathered face as the spirits tossed and turned in the clouds above. “Spirit Woods.”

  Proudfoot smiled at his cousin, then pulled his head back into the SUV and peeled off down Van Dyke Road. For a moment they watched the dust cloud kicked up by the SUV, then it fell flat as the air became thick and still from the impending storm.

  “Let’s get these vehicles out of sight,” Mick barked.

  4

  Logan felt like he was moving through a dream, but he was lucid. From beside him, in his right ear, the affable Toomey narrated the purpose of their quest. Much as Blackbird walked with his grandfather and watched the fall of Jackanoob, Logan also absorbed the knowledge of the creature and its origin.

  “It is always hungry,” Toomey told him. “A curse for eating of the man.”

  Logan watched the Elder Jackanoob bargain with the Wendigo. Like a 360-degree movie he watched as the beast stood before the old man, its grey skin pulled against its ribs, tattered and malignant with sores. Watched it pull the old man up and cut open his cheek with its razor claw then spit into the wound, understanding this was a pact. He thought of the scar on Blackbird’s cheek.

  “Our destiny was sold,” Toomey said.

  Now the vision changed and he watched the men of Chocktee preparing for the coming equinox. They moved fast, marking spots in the woods, carving out the calendar he had seen scrawled out on the basement floor in Rhonda Sawyer’s blood.

  All the while he watched Jackanoob standing with another younger Native as they oversaw the preparation, and even without Toomey’s words he understood that the old man was doing what the creature had told him.

  “Prepare them,” the Wendigo said.

  Time shifted.

  Then the poison began to take him. As time marched forward, the Chief Elder would stop and slip into states of waking sleep as his people watched in dismay. In these states he would chant; other times he would stare blankly, drool flowing from his mouth.

  Something terrible is coming, Logan thought.

  “He knew he would not be able to stay among his people,” Toomey schooled.

  The sun rose and fell over Spirit Woods in the panoramic vision before them, and a double exposure of the Chocktee calendar turned and clicked over.

  “Goodbye,” Jackanoob said to the high council in the Chocktee tongue, and Logan understood. Sadness settled into his heart as he realized that the old man was going off to martyr himself.

  They watched the old man walk away to the tune of a single drum tap-tapping as the sun crested the morning sky. The snow was gone, and the vernal equinox was in full bloom. He did not look back at his people for fear he would lose his nerve.

  “He’s going to die,” Logan said.

  “Worse,” Toomey replied.

  Out there in the woods, it was waiting for him. With each step, he could hear its call, feel its infection moving inside him. As he walked his skin became yellow with jaundice, the muscles in his face began to melt away, and the whites of his eyes darkened. He stripped off his clothes, dropping them to the ground, never to be worn again, and the madness ate into him like a horde of earwigs.

  The pain, the pain of hunger; it hurts so badly.

  Logan shuddered, feeling Jackanoob’s tortured thoughts. As did Toomey, and for the moment they felt nothing but sympathy as he transformed from man to skinwalker.

  His marrow became hot. His bones twisted and warped, and his arms became long and skeletal, bands of muscle twisting around the underneath the grey translucent skin. His head began to swell, his eye sockets doubling, and while his jaw started to fall unhinged, the agony he felt was horrible. Tendons stretched and snapped, then crawled under his skin like tapeworms eating their way through and reattaching themselves in unnatural places.

  The old man carried on forward, no longer his former self, but a hybrid. Then he stumbled, falling on all fours, and as he did the small and ring fingers on both hands shriveled and rotted off. His remaining appendages began to twist and hook into deadly talons.

  He held up one claw, looked at it through the new bulbous eyes that swam with mercury and let out a shriek of pain and angst that could be heard by every man, woman, and child in the Chocktee Nation.

  Jackanoob was gone, but it wasn’t over.

  In the woods, the beckoning of his Master Wendigo called.

  He hissed. “Kaw seu Igwhot.”

  This was answered by a higher pitched shriek. The thing that had been Jackanoob tensed up, still on all fours, black yolky drool spilling from its mouth as the vertebrae on its back pushed against the thin rotted skin. Turning its head once more Logan caught the creature’s mirrored eyes, for a moment thinking he saw the tortured Elder’s reflection. It shrieked again and looked to the woods where its Master waited.

  For a second it hesitated, turning back toward the village, wanting to sate the new unbearable hunger which plagued it – but then the commanding shriek called once more, and it tore up a clump of the forest floor in frustration and shrieked aloud.

  From behind its eyes, they watched as it shot forward. Branches whipped by, animals in proximity bolted left and right as it tore through the forest with unimaginable speed. Neither Toomey nor Logan spoke as it drew closer to its Master. Anxiety rippled through it.

  It entered the clearing where the bargain was struck. There the Master waited, clutching a tree. It was not unlike the creature that was once Jackanoob, but much larger. Below it lay the carcass of a moose, its belly torn open, killed only an hour before, the warmth of life force still clutched the forest floor.

  The wendigo spoke in a language that was not Chocktee, but a series of hisses and shrieks that only the former Jackanoob could begin to comprehend. It was demanding something. Jackanoob cowered at first, then crawled on his belly toward
the Master.

  It reached down and snatched him up, holding him there in its clutch, studying. From behind them, the air seemed to change and swell and undulate just as the sky in the waking world was doing. Blue fog rolled into the clearing, seemingly from nowhere, while lights moved within its haze. The bigger creature could only be seen from the waist up, but it was twice the size of Jackanoob, and as it held him there, the mist began to pulse with light.

  What is it doing? Logan thought.

  Toomey answered: “It’s taking him back to the void.”

  A sphere began to rise from the haze behind them. As it rose blue light flashed within the sphere and it hovered ominously, dwarfing them. The orb was approximately twenty-five feet in circumference and semi-transparent. It hummed as it waited for its occupants.

  “Some Guardians serve the light and the dark. This is a Guardian of the dark world,” Toomey said, but there was no need. Logan understood.

  As the light within the orb began to grow brighter, the fascia started to tear open, revealing its true interior.

  Jackanoob began to squeal, struggling to pull from the Master’s embrace. Inside the sphere was blue mist – and beyond that, another world altogether. One with bare rocky hills and darkened skies. Upon the peaks of stone, things not of this world moved and twisted, painfully, hungrily waiting for the sentry to bring forth the new meat.

  “Oh my God,” Logan said aloud now.

  Jackanoob clawed at the air. No longer able to formulate words, his shrieks were cries of terror and remorse. Then they entered the black orb. The humming and pulsing blue light intensified – then Logan and Toomey were moving again, pulling away from the scene before them.

  Logan was thankful.

  5

  Paralyzed! Can’t move! In front of him, Jake Toomey, also frozen, his eyes locked and unblinking.

  The vision had been so surreal, but it was fading. There had been more, after the exit of the creature from this world, visions of murder and mayhem, anguish. It was too overwhelming, so much information. Trying to stuff all of this into their minds might kill them, Logan guessed.