New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird

by Elizabeth Bear

  The trek across Melville Island was as quiet as it had been the first time, the two men walking single file over the uneven terrain. But Wendell’s dread made the journey much worse. They had been numbered five before, not two, and they hadn’t carried the suspicion they were being stalked by a predator. On the occasions the two men stopped to rest, they didn’t speak, sharing an overwhelming fear of what was happening. Wendell hoped if they remained silent the entire trip would simply be a hazy dream, one from which he’d soon awake. But he didn’t.

  His stomach rumbled after the second hour of their journey, and the sourness on his tongue arrived after the fourth. His head ached dully, letting him know his body was winding down. Dogan, too, seemed to be having trouble concentrating on the direction they were supposed to go, and more than once he stopped to ask if Wendell wanted to take the lead while he plotted their next steps.

  They took a rest after a few hours to eat a portion of their reserves. It seemed so little once Wendell saw it through the eyes of hunger, and it took immense willpower to keep from swallowing it all. He was exhausted, and Dogan looked no different, his eyes rimmed with dark circles against pale skin. His voice, too, was throated.

  “Who would have thought it would be you and me, trying to keep it together?”

  Wendell wanted to laugh, but just wheezed air.

  “I don’t think anyone would believe it if we told them.”

  “I’m not sure I believe it myself.”

  And like that, things had changed between them. Wendell didn’t know how long it would last, or if it would survive their return to civilization, but at that moment they were bonded, and Wendell would have done anything to keep Dogan at his side. It was unclear how long they sat, silently building their strength for the journey ahead, but their stupor was broken by an unsettling howl. Dogan and Wendell straightened, eyes wide and searching the landscape in all directions for its source.

  “There!” Dogan shouted, and went off running toward the sound, his feet sinking into snow as he dashed, his limbs flailing for balance. Wendell followed blindly in Dogan’s footsteps, hand pressed against his pack to ensure nothing was spilled. When he finally caught up, both he and Dogan were panting, barely able speak.

  “What did you see?” Dogan pointed.

  There was nothing there, but that wasn’t what caused Wendell to shiver uncontrollably. It was instead what had been there, and the evidence it left in the crusted snow—a flurry of footprints, none larger than a barefooted child’s. They proceeded in a line, leading back in the same direction from which Wendell and Dogan had come, as though whoever or whatever had made them had been keeping a steady watch on the two students since they left Dr. Hanson. It was no longer possible to avoid the truth: something was following them, something that wasn’t a wolf or polar bear or any other northern predator. It was something else, and they knew absolutely nothing about it.

  “What are we going to do?” Wendell asked. Dogan’s eyes teared from the cold.

  “What else can we do? We get the hell out of here right now.” They didn’t stop until they reached the landing strip, both afraid of what might happen if they rested too long. By Wendell’s watch it was well past midnight, though the frozen sunlight still shone, lighting their way. When they arrived, they found the strip vacant. No plane, no sign of life. Just a long stretch of iced snow and an ocean off in the distance. Wendell couldn’t explain why the discovery was crushing—Gauthier and Isaacs had over a day’s head start, and Wendell knew they wouldn’t have waited. And yet it was devastating. He and Dogan had walked so far . . .

  “On the bright side,” Dogan said, “we know they found their way back. That means they’ll be returning soon. It’s better than finding them stranded like us.”

  “True, true.”

  Wendell looked back at the snow and ice they had walked across. There were shadows moving out in the nooks and recesses, but none that seemed unusual. Wendell wondered what an unusual shadow would even look like, and whether he was in any condition to find out.

  “We need cover. Who knows how long we’ll be waiting.” There was a depression in an ice drift that shielded them from the brunt of the wind and snow. Their combined body heat warmed the air enough to diminish the chill under their jackets, and Wendell was able to peel back the farthest fringes of his hood so he might speak to Dogan without shouting. It had been so long since their last snack, simply raising his voice aggravated his headache.

  “Do you think Doctor Hanson is okay?”

  “If anyone would be, I’d bet on him. That old man is resilient.”

  “I’m not sure we should have left him, though.”

  “He wanted us to.”

  “I know, I know. I just feel it was a mistake.”

  Wendell closed his eyes to rest them. The brightness of the snow after being under a hood for so long was blinding. It would take some time to adjust.

  “Did you get a good look at it?” Dogan asked.

  “At what? The snow?”

  “No, not the snow, you idiot. What was following us in the snow. What left those footprints.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” He didn’t even want to think about it. Dogan wouldn’t be dissuaded.

  “I’m sure I was close to it, but I barely saw anything more than a blur.”

  “Maybe you were seeing things. Maybe your hunger—”

  “Did you, or didn’t you, see those footprints in the snow?”

  “I—”

  “Do you think I put them there?”

  “No, I—”

  “Did you put them there?”

  “How would I—?”

  “Well, they got there somehow. Just like they got inside our camp. It wasn’t an accident. It was something, watching us.”

  Wendell took off his mitten glove and rubbed the side of his face. It made him feel better, and slightly more present. “I don’t know, Dogan. It so hard to think. I’m tired and hungry and terrified of what’s out there and of never getting back home. My brain feels like mush.”

  “How much food do you have?”

  He opened his pockets and turned out what was left. An eighth of a power bar, a handful of nuts. His water supply was okay, but only because he and Dogan had been filling their flasks with snow to melt.

  Dogan assessed the situation.

  “Yeah, I don’t have much more than that, either.”

  “Are you worried?”

  “About being here?” He frowned. “No. I’m sure Gauthier will be back.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He shrugged.

  “What else do I have to do?”

  Wendell eventually fell asleep. He and Dogan had huddled close to conserve heat, and when they both ran out of energy to talk Wendell’s eyes flickered one too many times. There was the sound of the ocean, and the wind rushing past, and then nothing until Dogan shook him awake.

  “Look.”

  The snow had accumulated since they took shelter, and the footprints they had made were buried, but Wendell could still see the wedge cut into the corridor down which they’d come, and in the distance a solitary figure staggering toward them.

  “Is that Doctor Hanson?” Wendell worried he was suffering from a starved hallucination.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it what’s been following us?”

  Dogan didn’t respond.

  Whether from hunger or cold or exhaustion, Wendell’s eyes teared as he watched the limping figure. His muscles ached, trying to tense in anticipation but too exhausted to do so. The approaching shape resolved itself first for Dogan, who made an audible noise a moment before Wendell realized what—or rather whom—he was seeing. Isaacs stumbled forward, and a few steps before meeting Dogan and Wendell he crumpled and dropped to his knees, then collapsed face-first into the frozen snow.

  They scrambled to him as quickly as their tired bodies could manage. Isaacs was nearly lifeless, his left leg bent at an angle that suggested it w
as broken, but leaning close Wendell could hear his shallow breathing. They wasted no time dragging Isaacs back to their shielded depression, and while Wendell did his best to splint the leg, Dogan brushed the remaining snow from Isaacs’s face and pulled up his hood to help protect him.

  “What do you think happened?” Dogan quietly asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He looks strange. What’s up with his eyes?”

  Wendell shook his head.

  “I’m more concerned about what he is doing on Melville Island at all.”

  Isaacs breathed heavily as he lay unconscious. They shook him and called his name, worried about what had happened, but neither Dogan nor Wendell understood what he mumbled. There was something about a plane, which did not ease Wendell’s worry.

  When they were finally able to rouse him, Isaacs screamed. The piercing sound overloaded Dogan’s starved brain and he lashed out, striking Isaacs in the face. Then Wendell was between them, urging both to calm down. Isaacs shook, pulled the straps of his hood tighter, hid his face. All that was left were his large watery eyes.

  “Isaacs, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m sorry I hit you, but you’re safe. Do you understand?”

  He was a trapped animal, shivering uncontrollably.

  “Do you understand?”

  Isaacs nodded.

  “What happened?” Wendell asked. “Why are you here? Where’s Gauthier?”

  Isaacs continued to rock, hiding behind his drawn hood.

  “It’s okay, Isaacs. Just tell us what happened.”

  “Gauthier and I made it back here to the plane,” he said. Even in his semi-consciousness, he sounded terrified. “The wings were iced, he said, and we couldn’t take off. He told me to go outside with a bottle of propylene glycol and spray them down after he started the plane. He said the heat and the solution would melt everything. While I was doing that the wind was blowing like crazy. I thought I heard yelling, but I wasn’t sure. Then out of nowhere the plane was shaking. I lost my balance, and the plane jerked and started to move. I was falling and tried to grab hold of something, but the wing was slick and I was already rolling off it. I don’t remember anything after that.”

  Wendell tried to make sense of Isaacs’s story, but couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He was exhausted, hunger and the elements taking their toll, and could barely think. He looked to Dogan, who appeared just as troubled.

  “Did Gauthier say anything?” Dogan asked.

  He was worsening, and there was nothing Dogan or Wendell could do. Already his lips had turned a bizarre shade of red, and his eyes could not focus. He coughed violently and spit pink into the snow. Then he lay his head down. “I can’t. I—I don’t want to die.”

  Wendell put his hand on Isaacs’s shoulder.

  “You aren’t going to die here. We won’t let you.”

  Isaacs coughed again.

  Dogan and Wendell looked at each other. Dogan shook his head.

  “We have to find Doctor Hanson. We need that satellite phone.”

  “We can’t leave Isaacs,” Wendell said. “He won’t last without our help. And how are we supposed to find Doctor Hanson? We’ll be dead before we do. We have no idea where he is. I think we’re better off waiting right here.”

  They spent the next few hours trying to sleep in their makeshift shelter, the three men huddled to conserve warmth. While Dogan and Isaacs slept, the wind had become a gale, and it again brought with it the overpowering stench of fish and sea, so thick Wendell could hardly keep from gagging. He tucked his face into his coat as best he could to survive it.

  The men did not sleep for long, but it was long enough that when they awoke they found Isaacs had crawled away from the safety of the depression and frozen to death. It made no sense, but nothing did any longer. The arctic cold of Melville Island had upended everything. Dogan was upset and wanted to drag Isaacs back, close enough to protect his body should anything come looking for it, but he didn’t have the strength left. Neither of them did. It was then they agreed, for the sake of the fallen Isaacs, that their hunger had become too severe. But when they turned out their pockets, they found them empty. Isaacs, too, had been stripped of all food and supplies. There was nothing left to sustain them. Dogan cried, certain he’d eaten all their shares unwittingly in a somnambulistic frenzy, but Wendell wasn’t convinced. It didn’t explain the hazy footprints that encircled them.

  Dogan and Wendell paced in the subzero weather, trudging out a trail while trying to keep themselves warm. Eventually, even the effort of pacing proved beyond Dogan, and he stumbled and toppled to the ground. Wendell knelt down but didn’t have strength to help. All he could do was stay nearby.

  “I can’t keep going,” Dogan said. “I can’t.”

  “We have to,” Wendell said.

  But Wendell knew they would never make it. They started talking then to keep themselves awake and alert, to remind each other not to give up. They talked about how they came to be under Dr. Hanson. They talked about Isaacs, about whether he had crawled away on purpose, or if it was due to some horrible mistake. They talked about Gauthier and what had happened to him. But mostly they talked about themselves, their childhoods, their lives before meeting. They talked until they couldn’t, until Dogan was delirious and stopped making sense. Wendell tried to rouse him, to keep him moving, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have the energy. So tired, he could barely keep his eyes open. They fluttered more and more until they stopped completely. Before they did, the last thing Wendell saw was something in the distance, crouching. Watching them. And then it moved.

  A slap that tore off his face woke him from death. He opened his stinging eyes, and only his lethargic malnourishment prevented him from screaming. The shrunken man’s face hung inches from his own. It was dark brown, as though deeply tanned, with lips gray to the point of blue. He did not tremble, though he was dressed in nothing more than a cloth that covered his sex, and he was perilously thin. What startled Wendell most, however, was his eyes. They were larger than any Wendell had ever seen, and spaced so far apart they threatened to slide off his skull. He couldn’t have been more than four feet tall. Wendell was certain it wasn’t a dream, but if it were it was the worst dream he’d ever suffered. He tried to moisten his mouth to get his tongue working, and when he did all he could hazily croak was, “Dogan?”

  The half-man grunted, then hobbled away. Wendell wanted to pull himself up, but discovered he had been swaddled with furs. He could turn his head, but only with great difficulty, and only enough to see Dogan similarly wrapped a few meters away. Dogan had two more of the dark half-men at his head, and they were trying to feed him though he was still unconscious. Isaacs lay face down a few feet further in the snow, a fourth shrunken man holding his lifeless arm to his gray lips and sniffing. Wendell nodded at no one in particular, and as the world grew dark once more he felt he was being dragged. In his delirium, the dragging went on and on forever.

  Something was wriggling in his mouth, trying to crawl down his throat. Wendell struggled awake, gagging, and managed to spit it out. A piece of unrecognizable yellow meat curled on the ice, while a short distance away those small dark half-men from his nightmare danced, their bare feet crunching on the snow. There was no longer anything binding his limbs but weakness, and he’d been left propped up next to Dogan. Both of them were awake and shaking.

  Only unrecognizable pieces remained of poor Isaacs.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, Wendell. I don’t know where we are, but look.” Dogan nodded his head across the ice and Wendell saw Dr. Hanson. He lay face down in the snow, unmoving, his pack beside him and torn open, equipment scattered. Wendell squinted to see if the satellite phone was still there, and in his concentration missed what Dogan was saying.

  “Do you see it?” Dogan repeated.

  “I think so. It’s right by his hand.”

  “No, you idiot. Do you see it?”

  Wendell looked up again, past Dr. Hanson and at the gro
up of five near-naked men dancing before a shorn wall of ice. It stretched out further than the end of his sight in either direction; the break no doubt formed when tectonic plates shifted the glacier. What was uncovered was so impossible Wendell would have thought his mind had cracked had Dogan not witnessed it first.

  There was a monstrous creature encased halfway in the solid ice. It had large unlidded eyes, milky white; its mouth wide and round, its scaled flesh reflecting light dully. Where its neck might have been was a ring of purplish pustules, circling the fusion of its ichthyic skull to its tendonous body. Chunked squid limbs lay outstretched, uncontrollable in its death. The air was again dominated by the overpowering odor of the sea. The shrunken men before it treated it as a god, and yet it was clear the five could not have been the ones to uncover it—with the sharpened rocks they used as tools it would have taken generations to carve that deep and that much. They peeled strips of its flesh away and ate them raw, and when they looked back at Dogan and Wendell it was suddenly evident why their features had transformed over time, their eyes grown wider, jaws shorter, skin rougher. Their fish faces stared at Wendell, expectantly. It was true he was hungry beyond imagination, but he was not so hungry that he might eat what they presented.

  The sour taste and sensation of what they had previously tried to feed him returned, and he looked down. The morsel continued to writhe slowly in the snow.

  “Did you—did they make you eat any?” Wendell asked, then realized Dogan had turned the palest shade. They had. Wendell feared for his life, and his sanity.

  “How do I look?” Dogan managed through his chattering teeth, and Wendell lied and told him he was fine. Was Wendell imagining the flesh had already changed him, already started prying his eyes apart? Was it even possible after so small a meal? But he realized with horror that he didn’t know how much Dogan had willingly eaten, nor if either of them had been force-fed in their delirium.

  “Can you move?” Wendell asked, fleetingly energized by his fear. “We need to get that phone. We need to call for help.”