by Unknown
His body she threw over her other shoulder. The river would make short work of his remains. Slipping out the door and into the night, she skipped merrily across the cobblestones.
This was her world now, and she would take it.
* * *
The next morning Doctor Sweeger cautiously opened the lab door, having received no answer to his knock.
“Hello,” he called into the darkened space. “I understand you are having trouble coping with the passing of your betrothed, Mr. Wyling. I can help you. I am most practiced with these sad situations.”
The only sign of life was an incessant buzzing coming from an apparatus across the room. Sweeger crossed the floor, cursing the spilled blood in the middle that stuck to his shoes. A human brain rested in a container of some strange fluid. Even after only a minute, the buzzing was most vexing.
He looked beneath the device and disconnected a wire.
“That will be quite enough of that,” he said, before taking in the shabby laboratory one last time and exiting again.
With the door closed, the lab was pitch black and silent as a crypt.
None of that mattered to Bernard, who now simply existed in a pure void where seconds seemed to last centuries. In his mind, he lived the life of a great man, then a mad man, then a hundred more men, before the idea of what a “man” was became lost to him.
He spent what seemed like a millennia responding to colors and sounds like a formless animal before he forgot those sensations as well. Bernard was alone now, a something experiencing nothingness without respite.
Footless
Ross Baxter
Lieutenant Kate Dumont shivered and turned her leather collar up against the increasing chill which seeped into the wheelhouse despite the heating pipes. The mountains of Western Montana could be mighty inhospitable in late fall for a small dirigible, and she was growing increasingly worried given the distance they had still to cover. Jack had been right yet again about the coming storm, which came as no real surprise.
“You’re spot-on with your prediction of the weather,” Kate muttered despondently to her helmsman.
Jack Fiddler nodded, but said nothing, which was his usual response. Although fluent in English, Spanish, and most dialects of the Sioux and Ute, the Cree Indian was a man of few words. But concision was normal for many who served in the smaller Army Air Corps airships, it being hard to keep conversation fresh after months being with the same small crew.
“So, what do you want to do?” asked Grant Meyer, the engineer, tapping the port steam gauge gently with a small wrench.
“We won’t make it to Bonners Ferry before the storm breaks, and we’ve got maybe five hours of daylight left,” Kate mused, thinking out loud. “Reckon we need to start looking for some sheltered place to lash the ship down.”
Jack and Grant nodded their assent. Getting caught in the elements was an occupational hazard for the crews of the supply dirigibles, whose job it was to keep the many small outputs along the disputed border with the Anglo-Canadian Federation supplied.
“What about Fort Cline, isn’t that around here somewhere?” Grant offered.
“Thirty miles,” Jack said flatly, “on the other side of the Bull River.”
“Can’t be much left of it now,” said Kate. “The army abandoned it six or seven years ago, but it should still have mooring points. It’s probably our best bet to keep safe and warm tonight.”
Without another word, Jack pulled the brass wheel to starboard and the dirigible slowly altered course towards a gap between the cloud-shrouded peaks. Kate and Grant dutifully moved to the rear of the chilly wheelhouse to make ready for a landing and a rough night.
* * *
Kate was the first to spot the old fort as it hove into view around the bend of the valley a few miles distant. It was difficult to make out, the broken wooden walls blending into the yellowed grasses and autumnal shades of the hillside upon which it squatted. The fort had been built a decade earlier, in an attempt to control the marauding Crow tribal bands which used the Yaak Valley forest as a base. It served for a number of years, but proved difficult to defend, man and re-supply. The army eventually cut their losses and moved north to a more tenable position on the Kootenay River, an easier location in every sense of the word. Fort Cline was quickly abandoned and left for the wilderness to reclaim.
Only Kate and Jack were in the wheelhouse, Grant being aft in the cramped boiler room stoking up the fires. Kate took the wheel and eased back on the power before feathering the twin propellers. The valley was sheltered from the rising winds, but she had to struggle to counter the frequent eddies which threatened to push the craft into the crags on either side. Jack stood by the screen staring intently towards the abandoned fort.
“Okay?” Kate asked quietly.
Jack continued to stare, ignoring her.
Being used to the ways of the Cree, she said nothing more, carefully scanning around the fort to see what held Jack’s attention. The four main buildings were still standing, although the roofs of two of them appeared to have fallen in.
The smaller Officer’s Mess to the rear of the compound seemed to have burnt down, and the outer stockade walls had collapsed in a number of places. One of the heavy wooden gates to the front lay smashed and broken, the other canted diagonally on ruined hinges.
“Looks like we’ll have to make our own supper,” Kate offered, even knowing any attempt at humour was lost on Jack.
Jack kept his eyes fixed on the fort and continued to stand statue-like. “We should fly in from behind the fort,” he said.
Kate knew better to question the Cree. When Jack Fiddler decided on a course of action, there was usually a sound reason behind it. She gave a quick nod and slowly brought the dirigible around.
Grant appeared from the boiler-room, sweating and flecked with soot, ready to exit the ship and take a securing line if required. No one spoke as the airship traversed a wide arc to the left of the fort, all closely scanning their surroundings for anything that spelled danger.
To the rear of the fort, Kate could see four mooring posts—two pairs of sturdy brick blocks sticking out of the long grasses and bushes. She deftly piloted towards the area between the pairs, using the wind to push the tail around and venting air to lose altitude. Grant deployed the pneumatic landing legs and locked them before the tallest of the bushes began to scrape on the underside of the wheelhouse, then Kate vented enough steam to set the craft down in the long grass. Despite the unfamiliar site and the angry winds, it was another textbook landing.
Grant and Jack jumped down from the ship and broke out the mooring cables, leaving Kate to de-clutch the propellers and transfer power to the drills located within the landing legs. The crew of three worked like a well-oiled machine, each a master at what they did, and within minutes the vessel was secure.
Kate deftly climbed down from the wheelhouse after dropping Jack and Grant their heavy coats. She handed them each a carbine and unfastened the holster on her trusty Colt Navy. “Let’s check this place out before it gets dark.”
Kate and the engineer fell in behind Jack, who led them towards the fort. Before being conscripted into the Army Air Corps during the war, the Cree had been one of the most accomplished trackers on the frontier, and—despite his advancing years—Jack Fiddler had keen senses the others could not hope to match.
They had seen him display a sort of sixth-sense, a strange and uncanny knack for knowing what was about to happen. This had saved them numerous times in the past, and Kate was thankful the Cree decided to remain part of her insignificant command after the hostilities ceased.
The three slowly swung around the gentle slope upon which the fort sat. They passed an old corral which had served to graze the army horses, the grass now long and tangled like the prairie.
Kate rubbed her chin thoughtfully, apart from the low sound of wind in the trees and the occasional wheeze from Grant, she could hear absolutely nothing. No crows, larks, or loons. Nothing a
t all.
Jack suddenly stopped and held up his hand to halt the others. Kate and Grant stopped alongside him, silently gazing ahead.
In front of them lay the small camp cemetery, built for the soldiers and civilians who had perished during the brief tenure of the fort. A two-bar wooden fence, fallen in places, surrounded a small plot holding around thirty graves. Every grave had been dug up, the dark soil scattered and piled over the yellows and browns of the unkempt grass with the upturned crosses and wooden markers.
Kate slowly stepped forward over a section of broken fence and approached the nearest grave, removing her battered leather flying-helmet as she stopped at the lip. “The bodies are still here,” she said with puzzlement, looking down into the eyeless sockets of a dusty skull.
Grant nodded, walking past two more open graves. “I was thinking the army had dug them up for reburial in Billings, but they’ve just been uncovered and left.”
Kate moved over to the next grave and stared down at the exposed remains. The body lay amongst the broken remnants of a thin plank coffin, about four feet down. The depth was about right—it was rare to be buried deeper on the frontier, especially in thin soils.
As a young soldier, she had always been told to bury just deep enough to stop the critters digging it back up. But it was not critters that had uncovered this body. The whole grave had been dug up, the sandy soil spread around the ground on all sides.
The body appeared relatively undisturbed; tattered blue tunic buttoned over the frame of the ribcage, sparse ginger scalp and beard clinging despondently to the gray skull beneath, with a worn gun-belt resting atop the ragged breeches. The American Confederation logo was still clear on the corroded buckle.
Kate walked over to Grant, who stood peering down at the remains of a woman who had been buried in a pink satin gown, probably the wife of one of the camp commanders.
“Why the hell have they all been dug up and left like this?” Grant muttered. “I just can’t fathom it.”
“It wasn’t grave robbery,” Kate replied. “She’s still got rings on her fingers.”
Grant peered closer, seeing a dim sparkle and the hint of gold on the third finger of the woman’s left hand, which lay folded on her now sunken chest.
“There’s one thing about all these corpses,” Kate murmured, moving over to the next grave. “None of them have any feet.”
Grant joined his Commanding Officer and followed her gaze. The skeleton of a small child lay forlornly clutching a battered china-faced doll, the stumps of the leg bones ending where the girl’s feet should have been.
The engineer looked up in surprise, moving over to the next grave to check. Lieutenant bars glinted on the collar of the cavalry tunic, which seemed to have lasted better than the ragged shirts of the ordinary soldiers. At the bottom of the dusty gray moleskin trousers, solid yellowing bones poked out into the dirt. Where the feet should have been, only sandy soil and small stones lay scattered.
“Well, I’ll be,” Grant muttered. “Indians?”
“I’ve seen some pretty sick sights, but I’ve never known them to do anything like this,” Kate replied. “Let’s ask Jack.”
They found the Cree kneeling in the long grass just outside the weather-beaten perimeter of the cemetery. Kate and Grant strode over in silence, glancing quickly at the footless remains in the graves they passed.
Jack Fiddler knelt at the edge of a large pit, a mass grave roughly ten feet square and four feet deep. Inside lay the jumbled remains of around fifteen bodies; men, women and children.
“Crow,” Jack stated, without looking up. “Ashkúale clan. Spring Hunting Party.”
“Why have they all got no feet?” Kate asked, the stillness of the pasture seeming to amplify her voice.
Jack shook his head.
“It’s the same with all the other graves—every one of them dug up and feet removed,” said Grant. “Who would do such a thing?”
Jack again shook his head, and then carefully clambered down to stand in the pit. He squatted, studiously studying the leg stumps of the nearest corpse. Kate and Grant remained silent, watching the Cree expertly scrutinize the remains for several long minutes. Eventually, the scout stood upright, muttered some words in his native tongue, and quickly climbed back out of the mass grave to face his colleagues.
“This was done ten, maybe twelve days ago,” Jack said impassively. “It wasn’t done by any of the tribes.”
Kate and Grant accepted the information without question, both knew that Jack would tell them if he knew anything else. She thrust her hands deep into her jacket pockets, aware of the increasing wind and the chill pervading the open ground. A few snowflakes sped past, tracing erratic paths on their descent to the cold ground.
“Let’s see what we can find in the fort,” she said. “Looks like it’s going to be a cold night.”
* * *
The rear gates of Fort Cline yawned drunkenly open. No one spoke as they walked slowly through, all listening instead for something out-of-place in the eerie silence which pervaded the place.
They skirted past the blackened remains of the officers’ quarters and the CO’s house, both of which had been completed burnt to the ground. Ahead lay the quartet of buildings they had seen from the air, arranged in a square, typical of many such army establishments. Three of the wooden buildings were bunkhouses, the fourth a stables. The roof of the nearest bunkhouse had fallen in, as had that of the stables. The entire fort appeared totally deserted, with no evidence of recent habitation.
Even so, Kate’s right hand rested on the butt of her holstered pistol, whilst Grant tightly gripped his carbine, both ready to raise and fire at the slightest provocation. Only Jack ignored his weapons, preferring instead to run a string of tribal beads through his fingers.
“Stables first,” Kate whispered.
The others nodded and moved towards the back of the building and its gated doors. Grant heaved the gate open and the three stepped inside. Although half of the roof had indeed fallen in, the timbers still appeared sound at the back of the stables where the space had been divided into stalls.
“Smells like something died in here,” Grant muttered, stepping over a fallen joist.
“It did,” Jack said with a frown. “Look.”
Two bodies lay sprawled at the rear of the stall block. Both lay on their backs, holding pistols in their bloated, discolored hands. From their beards and dress, they looked to be trappers, and from the putrefaction and flies buzzing around them, they appeared to have been dead about a week.
But the most noticeable feature of the decaying corpses was their lack of feet.
Kate approached the nearest body and prised the revolver out of the stiff, dead fingers. She appraised the gun carefully—a Smith & Wesson Model 2, almost new, and a very desirable weapon. All six chambers remained full, showing the gun had not been fired.
Stepping over the dried blood, she peered at the weapon of the other trapper, this time an old Colt Paterson, but, again, with a bullet in each chamber. She left the Colt, but shoved the Smith & Wesson into her jacket pocket.
“Well,” mused Kate, “they weren’t robbed. This is a hundred-and-fifty-dollar revolver.”
“And their furs are still there in the corner. That haul of beaver must be worth five hundred in Spokane,” said Grant.
Jack stepped up to inspect the bodies, dislodging a number of bloated flies as he turned the trappers over. The Cree ignored the insects, and the stench, and looked over the corpses with a detached interest. “These men died from losing their feet.”
Kate nodded. From the quantity of dried blood pooled around the stumps of their legs, it looked like they had both bled to death.
“This is a bad place to stay,” Jack stated coldly.
Kate nodded again, but looked towards the front of the stables where snow was falling more heavily through the uncovered rafters.
“Don’t look like we’ve got much choice,” said Grant, putting into words the t
houghts of his commander. “We’ve got maybe an hour of daylight and this weather will last at least the night. We can’t fly in this.”
“Agreed,” said Kate. “Let’s check the rest of the fort to make sure we’ve got it to ourselves.”
“No,” said Jack flatly. “There is nothing here but death.”
Kate looked at him questioningly.
“You two go back to the airship and lock yourselves in until the storm passes. If I’m not back by then, go without me,” said the Cree.
“What makes you think we’d do a thing like that?” demanded Kate, a note of incredulity in her voice.
“Because I ask you to, and because you know I don’t ask such without a good reason,” replied Jack.
Kate and Grant exchanged worried glances. Both knew his assertion was correct, but neither wanted to agree.
“We’ve been together for a long time, Jack. Why can’t we stick together now?” asked Kate.
Jack stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes unblinking.
“Jack?”
“This was not done by a man,” said Jack, indicating the dead trappers with a sweep of his arm. “This place is home to a Wīhtikōw.”
This time Kate and Grant exchanged questioning looks.
“Some know it as a Wendigo,” Jack explained. “A spirit cursed through eating human flesh. A spirit that cannot rest and cannot pass. Instead, it is fated to feed upon humans, although it gets no sustenance from them.”
“But why take just the feet? And why dig up the bodies in the cemetery?” asked Grant.
Jack shrugged. “Maybe it takes the feet to stop the spirit walking to the next world.”
If it had been anyone else telling her this, Kate would have laughed in their face. But she knew better than to do that with Jack. “Okay. But isn’t it better for us to stay together?”