Draugr

by Arthur Slade

  Not too many people were up yet. We went by a cabin where a middle-aged, sour-faced man stared at us like we were aliens. “Morning!” I said, waving, but he continued to glare. We hurried past. Were all the locals like this?

  “I shoulda mooned him,” Michael said when the cabin was out of sight. “That woulda given him something to stare at.”

  Angie laughed. “Or scared him back into his home, at least.”

  “Hey!” Michael gave her a friendly shove. “It’s an honor to see my bare—”

  “I don’t want to hear this!” I interrupted. “There are some things I just don’t want to picture.”

  Both Angie and Michael started chuckling. “Okay, okay,” Michael said finally, “no more butt jokes for the rest of our holiday.”

  I sighed. We continued on, going past more cabins, some of them huge, with three levels and three-car garages. But the farther we went, the smaller and older the buildings seemed to get, until we passed two or three in a row with broken windows and lopsided doors and no sign of anyone living inside.

  A few steps farther and we found a group of cabins whose roofs had collapsed. There was a swampy smell surrounding them and it was darker here, as if the light couldn’t quite reach this place. I was starting to feel a little edgy. It looked like this part of the lake had been abandoned.

  We kept walking. Soon we found ourselves away from the lake in a little clearing with a small stream. There were no footprints, paths, or signs of buildings. It was warm and muggy, even though the trees were now casting thick shadows across us. I heard frogs croaking up a storm, but they clammed up as we approached.

  We wandered farther into the clearing. Feeling like a rest, Angie and I sat on a log and stretched our legs.

  “I’m going to catch a Kermit.” Michael rubbed his hands together. “Maybe we can have frog legs soup for lunch.”

  “Oh, gross,” I said.

  “I hear it tastes like chicken,” Michael said over his shoulder and went wandering off.

  “His brain gets smaller every day,” Angie pointed out.

  I laughed. “Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to believe we’re related.”

  Angie smiled.

  I couldn’t. Because I suddenly had this strong feeling that something was wrong here. That we were in danger.

  A moment later Angie gave me a funny look. “You sick?” she asked. “How come your face is so pale?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I said, looking around the clearing. Everything looked normal. “No reason, I guess.”

  A second later, Michael called out, “Hey, get off your butts and get over here. I found something cool.”

  “I’m kinda frightened to see what he thinks is cool,” Angie whispered. She got up and started on the way to where Michael was standing. It took me a moment to stand; the effort left me exhausted. I had to struggle to catch up with Angie.

  “It’s a path,” Michael announced when we got there.

  “I can see that, Sherlock,” Angie answered. She was bent over, tightening the laces on her boots. “The question is . . . where does it go to?”

  “I don’t know if we should . . .” I started. “. . . uh, guys.”

  They were already heading down the path. I followed. At first the trail was straight and easy, but within a few hundred yards it twisted around the hills and led deeper into the trees. I was pretty sure I could find my way back, but I wished I had a long spool of string to trail behind us like they did in all the fairy stories.

  “I’m glad I brought my hiking boots,” Angie said.

  “Me too,” I answered. My feet felt safe in the big, thick Hi-Techs. Like I could climb anything.

  The trees became wider and taller so that they blocked out most of the light.

  “We probably won’t find any new friends here.” Angie was looking around. I wondered if she was feeling the same uneasiness as me.

  “HELLO, NEW FRIENDS!” I yelled, to show I wasn’t frightened. Angie’s back straightened and I realized I had startled her. She frowned at me. I shrugged. “I don’t think there’s a soul around. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s been out here for years.”

  Michael had jogged ahead and had almost disappeared around a corner. He certainly seemed to be in a hurry to go nowhere. Angie and I doubled our pace until we caught up with him.

  Now the trees were definitely bigger and older, their thick, dark roots creeping over the path. Twice I almost tripped. I was starting to get a little tired and hungry. I wondered how long we had been out here. I looked at my wrist but it was bare.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  Both Michael and Angie stared at their bare wrists. They had forgotten their watches too.

  Michael looked at his other wrist. “I swear I put mine on this morning. I remember taking it off the dresser next to the bed.”

  “I wonder if we should go back?” Angie whispered. She looked a little pale.

  “Grandpa’s probably getting worried about us,” I added. “We’ve been gone for hours, I bet. It might even be lunch time.”

  Michael shook his head. His dark hair had flipped over one eye. “Let’s just explore a little farther. This has to go somewhere.”

  “Well . . . okay,” I agreed. Angie nodded but didn’t meet my eyes. We went ahead.

  The path grew narrower and now the trees seemed to be leaning over us. We were in a world that was part shadows and part light. And it was cold. Some of the winter air still clung to these trees.

  “I see something—someone,” Michael said a second later. He was a few yards ahead of us again.

  “What is it?” I strained my eyes.

  “A little kid, I think.”

  We came over a rise and into a dimly lit clearing. Michael was right. There, standing next to a dying tree, was a young boy, maybe five years old. His clothes were ragged and torn. He was shimmering and hard to see.

  “Go away,” he moaned. “Go away. Bad here.”

  3

  “Do you think he’s sick?” I asked. He certainly seemed unhealthy, all pale and thin. He leaned against the tree. His mouth was still moving, but no sounds were coming out now. We walked slowly towards him.

  “It looks like there’s something wrong with him . . . like he’s lost,” Angie said. “But how come we can’t get near him?” The closer we came, the farther away the boy seemed to get, moving from tree to tree. But he still stared at us, holding one hand out as a warning.

  His mouth opened and closed. A second later I heard the words as if they were being carried on the wind. “Go away!”

  We edged closer. He retreated backwards, but I couldn’t see his feet move. He seemed to be drifting away from us.

  “I’m going to run,” Michael announced.

  “I don’t think that’s—” I started to say, but Michael had already dashed off. He pushed branches aside and hopped over fallen logs. He was halfway to the little boy when I got a strong feeling in my gut that something terrible was going to happen.

  “Michael! Michael!” I screamed but my voice was a whisper now, like I was yelling into a great big empty space. I looked at Angie. All the blood had drained from her face.

  I squinted into the distance. The boy’s mouth was moving faster, his eyes wide. “Bad here! Bad!”

  Michael tripped once and got up, brushed himself off, and kept running. Finally he was right in front of the kid. Michael seemed to be shimmering too.

  “Evil!” The child yelled. “Evil!”

  Michael reached out a hand.

  The boy vanished.

  Michael patted around, looking this way and that, then turned to us. “Do you see him? Do you see him?” he yelled.

  “No,” Angie answered. It took us a few seconds to get down to where Michael was standing. It was chillier there and the air seemed very still. It smelled a little like
smoke, as if some of the trees had been struck by bolts of lightning a long time ago and were still smoldering.

  There was no one to be seen at all.

  “Where . . . where could he go?” I asked. “There weren’t any holes for him to fall into.” We searched around. I thought I heard a whisper for a second or the sound of crying, but when I held myself perfectly still and listened, I heard nothing.

  We split up and looked around. I made sure that the other two were always in my sight. After about ten minutes we met back where we had originally seen the boy.

  “We better get home,” I suggested.

  “We can’t just leave him,” Angie said.

  Michael examined the palm of his hand. “I don’t think he was really here.”

  We both stared at him.

  “I’ll explain later. Let’s start walking first.”

  We agreed and began heading back down the path.

  It seemed to take years to get to Grandpa’s cabin.

  4

  It wasn’t until after we had eaten Grandpa’s chicken soup and sandwiches and done dishes that Michael finally told us about the boy. We were in the living room. Angie had a blanket around her shoulders, though it wasn’t really that cold. Grandpa was on the deck.

  “When I touched him . . .” Michael started to explain. “. . . well, I really didn’t touch him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Michael’s blue eyes, so like my own, looked troubled.

  “My hand went right into him.” He held out his hand, re-­enacting the event. “He was—he was made of mist. And it was really, really cold. It was as if he was a ghost or something.”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Angie said.

  “I know that,” Michael huffed. “But there was something really strange about this boy.”

  “He probably just lives nearby,” Angie suggested. “In a farmhouse or something.”

  “But he disappeared. Right in front of me. He couldn’t have gone anywhere or run away. He just wasn’t there anymore.”

  Angie shivered under her blanket. “A trick of the light. It was kinda dark in there.”

  “I don’t know,” I said finally. “Maybe we should tell Grandpa.”

  They both looked at me. A moment of silence passed.

  “At supper time,” Michael answered. “I . . . I want to think about it more. He might believe all his stories went to our heads.”

  “Yeah, I want to go into town,” Angie said, throwing off her blanket and getting up. “Walk around and see the sights—if there are any. Get away from all these trees and things. Maybe there’s something fun going on. C’mon.”

  We followed her out the front door. I was quite happy to not think about the boy any longer. I needed time to clear my head.

  Grandpa was sitting in his rocking chair, whittling. “Yeah, yeah, I know you’re going to town. I heard Miss Loudspeaker announce it. I bet even my neighbors heard it.” He flicked his knife and a long sliver of wood came off. I wondered what else he had heard. If he did know more, he didn’t show it. “You three blurs don’t slow down for a second, do you? It makes me tired just looking at you.” He sent another chip skyward. I couldn’t tell what he was carving. “Since you’re going that way, would you mind picking me up a copy of this week’s paper? Your ol’ Grandpa Thursten would love that.”

  We agreed to do that and just as we were heading out of the yard, Grandpa yelled, “Don’t fall in any holes—”

  “—you might meet a rabbit you don’t like.” We finished it for him.

  “Oh, you heard that one before.”

  We all laughed, then followed the road into Gimli.

  “Grandpa sure hears a lot,” Angie said when we were a safe distance from the house. “Doesn’t he know old people are supposed to be deaf?”

  “He can probably hear you right now,” I said.

  “No. He couldn’t . . . could he?” Angie looked back. The cabin was quite far behind us.

  “Well, the way you shout everything he could.” Michael was grinning.

  “I don’t shout. I speak calmly and clearly.”

  “And loudly,” I added.

  Angie fumed. I knew she was searching for a perfect comeback, but her moment had passed. “You’re both just jealous,” she mumbled. We all chuckled for a second and continued onwards.

  It took around forty-five minutes to walk into Gimli, past houses, cabins, trees, and more trees. Finally, we came over a small rise and there was the town itself laid out before us. It was really quite small compared to most towns in the U.S. And from this distance it appeared there wasn’t very much going on.

  But Michael and I had learned the previous year that looks could be deceiving. We’d found more than enough things to keep us entertained through our whole vacation.

  The sun was warm and we strolled up and down the streets, looking in store windows and getting a feel for the place. A few people stared at us like we were escapees from an asylum. One old woman even looked up, saw us, then hobbled across to the other side of the street.

  “Sarah,” Michael said, “take a look at my forehead.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I think there’s a sign that says Danger: American kids approaching.”

  We giggled and guffawed so hard we had to stop walking. This made a few more people stare at us. We noticed and started laughing some more. Then we headed down the street, holding our sides.

  Already the events of the morning seemed far behind us, maybe even a daydream. We scouted around for an arcade or a park, but didn’t have any luck, and I discovered I couldn’t remember where anything was . . . almost as if the whole town had changed since last summer.

  “What kind of place is this?” Angie asked. “It’s as dull as math class. Is it against the law to have fun in Canada? And what kind of name is Gimli anyway?”

  “Well . . .” I said, giving a long, dramatic pause, “. . . I happen to know the answer to that. Grandpa told me this town is named after a gigantic hall where the old Viking gods would stay after the world ended. Kind of like a hotel for the big shots.”

  “Well, how come everyone’s staring at us?” she asked.

  “’Cause they’re Icelandic . . . just like us,” I answered. “They like to stare and they like to tell long stories. Grandpa warned us about that last summer.”

  “So whatdaya think people from Gimli call themselves?” Michael asked.

  “What do you mean?” Angie responded.

  “Well, are they Gimli-ers and Gimli-ettes, or just plain Gimli-ites?”

  “Michael, you’re just plain stupid,” I said.

  “Just curious, that’s all. Just using the scientific part of my mind.”

  “What mind?” Angie teased.

  Michael rolled his eyes. “Just trying to teach you two how to think.”

  “Hey, look,” I said. “Books.”

  We had come to a plain-looking bookstore at the end of an unremarkable street. The sign on the front said: Odin’s Eye Books.

  “I have a feeling I’m going to like this place,” Michael said. We followed him inside.

  The store was small, hot, cramped, and smelled like books. I loved it right away. The old woman at the till, who was half hidden in shadows, smiled at us and I felt instantly welcome. We rummaged around for a while, pulling out novels, reading the back covers, then putting them back. Angie went straight to the romance section. I discovered a fantasy work I had been looking for and made my way to the front. I also picked up a copy of The Interlake Spectator from the pile that sat on the counter.

  “That’s a good book,” the woman said softly. I looked up at her and almost dropped my money on the floor.

  She only had one eye.

  Her good eye was a swirling color of gray and I knew she could see right into my though
ts, right into the very center of my spirit. Her left eye was covered by a patch. She was in her sixties, her hair gray and tied in a bun, and she wore brown clothes.

  “Uh . . .” I said.

  She grinned. Wrinkles formed around her eyes, made deep from years of smiling. “Don’t worry. I know I look a little . . . unique. I lost my eye a long time ago.”

  “Uh . . . sorry.”

  She shrugged; her shoulders were wide. It seemed like she was made out of earth. “I see a lot more with one eye than I ever did with two. I guarantee it. By the way . . . what’s your name?”

  “Sarah.”

  “Sarah who?”

  “Sarah Asmundson.”

  She nodded for a moment. It was as if I had answered an unspoken question. “You’ve got Grettir’s blood in your veins.”

  “Oh . . . do I? Uh . . . good.”

  “Here’s your change.” She opened a wrinkled hand. Coins seemed to appear magically in her palm. Had she even opened the till?

  I took the quarters with shaky hands. They were warm.

  “If you ever have any questions about anything in town . . . just ask me,” she said. “I’m Althea, Gimli’s answer lady.”

  “Sh–sure . . . see ya.” Then I turned and went out the door, my brother and Angie following.

  “Whoa—she was big time weird!” Angie exclaimed when we were a few blocks away. “The way her one eye just kinda glowed. Bizarre woman, that’s for sure.”

  “You don’t even know her!” I felt a little angry, but didn’t know why.

  “I could tell just by looking.”

  I fumed.

  “Wake me when you kids are done fighting.” Michael took The Interlake Spectator from me. “Let’s see what’s happening in this burg.”

  He made a show of opening the paper. We all looked at it.

  The headline read: MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE RECALLED.

  The picture beside the headline was of the boy we had seen that morning.

  5

  “I . . . I don’t believe it,” Angie whispered.