by Will Hill
Wallace watched them go, his heart racing in his chest. Silent stillness fell over the campsite; he could hear nothing of his colleagues, nor see any sign of them. It was as though the forest had swallowed them.
Then an ungodly shriek tore through the freezing air, a terrible screech that rose and fell and seemed to go on forever. Instantly, it was answered by wolves, a chorus of soft, almost mournful howls that floated over the trees, dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, some barely audible. Wallace’s blood froze in his veins as the cacophony echoed around him, his breath held tight in his chest as the noise gradually faded away to nothing.
He felt fear coursing through him, and resolved to use it to his advantage. He flexed the muscles of his back and heaved with all his strength against the post he was tied to. He felt it loosen instantly, took a deep breath, and heaved again. The post moved, sliding upwards a few inches as the icy ground’s hold on it gave way. Wallace gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain shooting through his shoulder blades and down his bound arms, and heaved himself forward with all the strength he had. The post slid upwards again, more easily.
One more push, he hold himself. One more will free it.
Something landed in the clearing with a heavy thud, and rolled towards the fire. It came to rest near the edge of the now roaring flames, and was still. Wallace looked at it for a long moment, then threw back his head and screamed up into the night sky, a vast, unearthly noise that shook the trees and the ground. And even as he screamed, he heard laughter float among the trees, a high cackle of glee.
Grant pounded back into the campsite, closely followed by Munro and Paterson. The three men were breathing hard, and looking frantically around, their knives raised.
“Where is he?” shouted Munro. “What happened?”
Wallace managed to drag a huge, freezing breath into a body that had been fixed in place as he screamed, and slowly lowered his head. His mouth was full of saliva, and he spat it on to the snow before nodding towards the thing that had been thrown into the clearing.
“There,” he said. “It’s there.”
Munro frowned, then stepped round the fire next to Wallace.
“Mary Mother of Jesus,” he said, his voice low and cracking as Paterson and Grant followed his gaze.
Staring back at them, with wide eyes and an expression of profound confusion, was McTavish’s head. His hat was still in place, and his skin was pale and seemingly unmarked. But where his body should have been there was only a ragged stump, torn flesh surrounding a bright white nub of bone.
“Dear God,” said Paterson.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” whispered Grant, “I will fear no evil.” He crossed himself, his eyes wide.
“We have to find his body,” said Munro.
“Why?” asked Wallace. “What good will that do you or him?”
“We have to,” repeated Munro. “It’s only decent.”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Wallace. “Decency left this place long ago. Untie me and let us set watch. Our survival is all that matters now.”
Munro shook his head. “You stay where you are,” he said. “We will find McTavish, and then we will decide what is to be done.” He walked unsteadily in the direction that McTavish had gone, and disappeared into the trees. Grant and Paterson looked despairingly at each other for a long moment, then shuffled after their colleague.
“Don’t,” said Wallace. “There is only death out there.”
The two men passed without so much as a glance in his direction. Paterson looked close to tears, and Grant was holding tightly to the silver cross that hung around his neck. A second or so later, Wallace was again alone in the clearing. He instantly pushed all concern for his colleagues from his mind, and refocused on the task of freeing himself. He rocked forwards and backwards several times, loosening the post once more, then, with a grunt of effort, pushed himself forward with all his strength. The post rose up, caught agonisingly on the lip of the hole that had been dug for it, then burst out of the ground in a shower of snow.
Wallace tumbled to the ground, still tied, and shuffled backwards across the campsite, dragging the heavy post with him. He rolled himself so that the post, and the rope knots, were in the flames, ignoring the pain that began to radiate from his hands. He could smell burning fibres, and felt the slack around his wrists increase. He twisted and pulled, forcing the loops wider and wider, until, in a moment of heavenly relief, his hands came free. He wasted no time applying snow to the burns that covered them; he drew his knife, raised his legs, and began to slice furiously at the knots that locked his ankles and knees in place. The rope was strong, and the knots were well tied, but his knife was sharp, and it was the work of thirty seconds to cut the last of his bonds. He climbed to his feet, his legs screaming in pain at such sudden movement, in time to see his three colleagues emerge from the forest, their faces ashen.
For a long moment, nobody moved. They stared at him, and he at them. In the end, it was Grant who spoke.
“I never doubted you, Wallace,” he said. “McTavish has held a grudge on you for some months now, and I apologise to you for letting him act on it. I beg your forgiveness.”
“You have it,” said Wallace. “What of you others?”
“I apologise,” said Munro. “The accusations made against you were clearly false.”
“And you, Paterson?” asked Wallace, turning to face the youngest of their company. “Has the time come when you will admit what you saw? Admit what could have spared me this ordeal had you had more courage?”
Paterson nodded. “What happened was just as you said,” he replied, his voice unsteady. “Scott was attacked, but not by you. I was not brave enough to tell otherwise.”
“Then the matter is laid to rest,” said Wallace, his words full of a magnanimity he didn’t feel. “Any sign of McTavish?”
“Blood,” said Munro. “Steaming hot, and in large measure. Nothing else.”
Wallace nodded. “Come warm yourselves,” he said. “There is much to discuss.”
Munro shook his head. “Not for me,” he said. “I’m making for York Factory. Any who wish to accompany me are welcome.”
Wallace grimaced. “That is a mistake,” he said. “Likely a fatal one.”
Munro nodded. “I understand your view.” He turned to his colleagues. “Do you share it?”
“Be reasonable, man,” said Grant. “It’s madness to go alone. Wait till dawn, when we will go together.”
“You say madness?” said Munro. “I consider it mad to stay in a place where you know there is something that means us harm.”
“Please, Munro,” said Paterson. “Stay with us.”
Munro shook his head. “I mean no ill to any of you,” he said. “I wish you all the best. But I will not stay here, not for one minute longer.” He crossed the campsite, picked up his pack, and walked away along the trail without another word. Within seconds, he was lost from view.
Less than a minute later, a terrible scream echoed through the wilderness. Grant crossed himself once more, and the three men lowered their heads as silence settled back over the forest.
“How did you end up here, then?” asked Grant, rubbing his gloved hands together over the fire.
The three men were huddled in a triangle round the orange flames. There had seemed no point in standing guard, as Scott, or the grey creature Wallace and Paterson had seen, or whatever it was that was preying on them, could clearly move with great speed and quiet. Instead, they would stay as warm as possible, keep each other awake, and watch over each other’s shoulders for any sign of an attack.
Paterson shrugged. “A Company man came down as far as Manchester,” he said. “He was recruiting outside the factory where my dad works, and Father signed me up for five years. Didn’t even tell me until it was time for me to go to Liverpool to board the ship.”
Grant winced. “That’s a hard turn.”
Paterson nodded. “It’s all I think about,�
� he said. “On the crossing, and every day since I got here. I think about making it through these five years so I can go home and break his nose when he answers the door. That’s what keeps me going.”
Grant laughed, and Paterson gave a small smile. Wallace watched them steadily, sympathy and sadness mingling inside him.
“Don’t be too quick to take vengeance,” he said. “I have some experience in the subject, and it rarely brings the satisfaction you hope for.”
“Why do you say so?” asked Grant.
“It begets further vengeance,” said Wallace. “It becomes a cycle, with a momentum of its own. Little good comes of it.”
“Even though I was wronged?” asked Paterson. “And clearly so? I should let it pass without consequence?”
“I would not presume to tell you what you should do,” said Wallace. “I offer only advice, that you will either take or you will ignore.”
Paterson nodded, then turned to Grant. “What about you?” he asked. “What were the circumstances of your arrival here?”
Grant shrugged. “I was born on the Orkneys,” he said. “A wife and three children wait there for me. Orcadians have been taking the Company coin for years now. My brothers, two of my uncles. All of them sailed.”
“How many made it home?” asked Wallace.
“Two,” said Grant. “The rest are buried up at the Factory.” The grim statistic settled over the men before Grant continued. “I’m three years in, two more to go. Then I go home. I doubt my children will even recognise me, but they’ll get the chance to reacquaint themselves with me well enough. Because I will never leave them again once this term is done. Never.”
Wallace nodded. “You were born in the Orkney Islands?” he said.
Grant nodded.
“Yet your manner of speech is so different to McTavish’s. How came that to be the case?”
Grant smiled. “My wife is an Englishwoman,” he said. “From the south. She determined to cure me of rough talk, as she called it, when we married. I dare say she succeeded.”
Wallace smiled. “I dare say she did.”
“Do you have a family, Wallace?” asked Paterson, turning to face him.
He shook his head. “None that live,” he said. “There was a man, who I realised had been my father only once it was too late. But I committed terrible acts against him, and he is gone. I was not the only one of us who sinned, but mine were greater, and harder to atone for. Although I am more of a mind to try than I have previously been.”
“What sins did the two of you commit?” asked Grant, his voice low.
“We attempted to destroy one another,” said Wallace. “I was successful, and he was not. When it was done, I took a new name, and began a new life.”
“So John Wallace is not the name you were born with?” asked Paterson.
He shook his head. “No. But it is the only one I have.”
“Would you not take your father’s name?” asked Grant.
“Perhaps I would. If we survive till dawn, that is.”
The three men fell silent. Wallace stoked the fire with a damp branch, staring into the flickering flames. What he had told Grant and Munro of his past was more than he had ever told anyone, and he was surprised to realise that he felt fractionally better for having done so; the guilt, the huge weight that he bore unprotestingly across his shoulders every day, seemed to have lightened, ever so slightly. It was perhaps only a momentary thing, a temporary lessening of his load, but it was welcome regardless.
“So what did you see?” said Grant, eventually. “What was it that attacked Scott?”
Paterson looked at him, and Wallace nodded. He quickly filled Grant in on the details of his encounter in the forest, drawing a look of disgust from the man with his description of the creature that had affixed itself to Scott’s back.
“The Cree say the wendigo can possess a man,” said Grant, when Wallace was done. “Do you think that is what has befallen Scott?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Paterson. “What else could it be?”
Wallace said nothing. He saw no point in contradicting his young colleague, as he had no better explanation for what had befallen their party. But, having seen the creature up close, he was not sure that Paterson was correct; he was not sure at all.
Grant opened his mouth to say something more, but never got the chance. With a sudden rush of air and a noise like a falling comet, a tree branch, as thick as a man’s waist and covered in ice and snow, fell from the sky above them, and slammed down on to their fire. The fire exploded, shooting sparks and burning pieces of wood in all directions, followed by a huge eruption of snow that sent the three men sprawling to the ground.
Wallace found himself buried beneath a white blanket, as snow poured through the gaps of his clothing, numbing his skin. He swallowed ice and retched, coughing as the cold tore at this throat and lungs, and surged upwards, rising through the snow like a bear awakening from hibernation. He looked frantically around the remains of the campsite, and saw a hand sticking out of the snow. He waded across to it, took hold of the gloved fingers, and hauled for all he was worth. Paterson popped up like a jack-in-the-box, his eyes wide, his face bright red. Wallace released him, scanned the area for Grant, and saw no sign of him.
Then the laugh came again, a shrieking rattle of madness, echoing out of the trees, and Wallace’s heart sank with the realisation that his search would be fruitless.
“We have to go,” said Paterson. “We have to go now, right now, we have to go, we have to go, we have to—”
Wallace waded through the snow and slapped the man across his face, hard.
“Quiet,” he hissed. “Compose yourself, or I will leave you here alone. Do you understand me?”
Wallace had absolutely no intention of doing any such thing, but his words had the desired effect; Paterson’s eyes widened, then his mouth shut with an audible click.
“Run,” Wallace whispered. “Now, while there is time. Run into the forest.”
Paterson shook his head. “No, please,” he whimpered. “Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me.”
“I will not,” whispered Wallace. “But if we do not fight, we will die. So run, and I will follow. When it comes for you, I will ambush it. We will end this here.”
Tears spilled down Paterson’s face, hardening almost instantly to ice. He shook his head again, but with less conviction than before.
“I will not leave you,” repeated Wallace, his voice barely audible. “I swear I will not. Now run, before the chance is lost. RUN!”
He bellowed the final word; Paterson cried out, then scrambled to his feet and staggered into the woods, sobbing as he went. Wallace drew his knife, checked its blade, forced himself to wait for five agonising seconds, then went after his colleague, as quickly and quietly as he could.
Wallace moved through the shadows, stepping from the cover of one tree trunk to the next, and watched as Paterson blundered through the snow, alternately screaming and pleading for mercy. He was searching the darkness between the trees for any sign of movement, no matter how small, for any hint of what might be coming.
His plan was dangerous, almost foolhardy; he could not be certain that if Paterson were attacked he would be able to reach the man in time to offer any aid. But he had not been able to think of anything else; it had been clear that if they stayed where they were, they were going to be picked off in turn, long before the first fingers of dawn showed above the eastern horizon.
Ahead of him, Paterson stumbled, fell, clambered back to his feet, and kept moving. The noises he was making were incoherent now, a blubbering mess of prayers and sobs and apologies. Wallace tracked him, trying to keep the distance between them to no more that twenty feet, then ducked against a tree trunk and froze.
Something had dropped silently out of the sky behind Paterson.
Wallace craned his neck as slowly as he dared, and peered round the trunk.
It was Scott.
His face was turned away
from him, but Wallace could see the dried blood on the back of his head and neck from where the emaciated creature had savaged him, and could see something far more troubling.
A red glow was emanating from Scott’s eyes.
Paterson was still crashing forward, oblivious to the presence of anyone behind him. As Wallace watched, Scott stepped up and floated above the ground, his feet a clear inch above the snow. Then he leant forward, and slowly began to follow Paterson, his arms outstretched like a lover awaiting an embrace.
Wallace stared, unable to believe what was happening. His own birth was a violation of the laws of nature, but it was a result of science, of man’s headlong pursuit for knowledge, regardless of the cost. What he was seeing, with his own two eyes, was something else, something primal and unnatural, something that belonged in the darkness.
He forced himself to move, not to let fear paralyse him once more. He followed Scott, keeping a distance that he hoped was safe, until the floating man stopped and said a single word.
“Paterson.”
The young man shrieked in new terror, and spun round. His legs tangled, and he fell into the snow, a look of wild panic on his face. His eyes settled on the man who had spoken, and his face crumpled with misery.
“Please,” he said, his voice thick with sobs. “Please, Scott. I have never wronged you, at least never knowingly. Please let me go. Please.”
Wallace circled silently round, moving his feet with the utmost care. He settled behind a tree that was barely ten feet from Scott, in time to hear his reply.
“No wrong was done,” said Scott. “You do not deserve this, if that is any comfort to you. But I am so hungry.”
Paterson cried out, his sobbing intensifying, his eyes wearing the look of a man who is staring through the gates of Hell itself.
“Hush now,” said Scott, and flew slowly towards the weeping man. “It will be quick. I promise it will be quick. Try and face eternity like a man.”
Paterson lowered his head. Thick trails of icy spit and mucus were glistening on his red, swollen face, and his body was visibly shaking.
“Good boy,” said Scott.