Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  Arthur stalked cautiously into the relative cool of the barn. He could hear Hank’s breathing, the rattle of it, thick and croupy in his chest.

  “How you doing, Hank?” Arthur asked, close enough to blow the man’s head clean off his shoulders, if it came to it.

  “I’m all right. I’m handling it.” Hank looked up, and his eyes, nose, and mouth shone with a silver light, as though his head were a jack-o’-lantern, lit with a harsh magnesium bulb inside. “This is why they pay you the big bucks, eh, Art?”

  Arthur smiled. “Guess so.”

  “You ever wonder about it? How the government knows about this land, always has known? Weird ain’t it? Why wouldn’t they just warn people outright? Make it official.”

  “Easier to just have a rat patrol, Hank. Have us look after things. Just easier, that’s all.” Arthur thought of Todd Evers. Current generation of politicians weren’t even sure there was a problem – were starting to doubt there ever had been.

  “Yeah. ’Spose so.” Hank rubbed his jeans, a nervous gesture without any anxiety attached to it. More a memory of a mannerism – doing the things that Hank Dolan would have done. Arthur repressed a shudder. “You gonna shoot me, Arthur?” Hank added, “That how it’s done?”

  “Depends. You gonna hurt anybody?”

  “Maybe, yeah. I feel it, you know? Deep down, this feeling. Like I want to hurt Jeannie. Burn the house down. Head on over to Crowley’s and do some things there too. It’s ugly, but I’m still controlling it.”

  For now, Arthur thought. “You still angry?” Arthur said, referring to the mad cow disaster that had ultimately killed Hank Dolan in the first place: the desperation and the macroeconomic lunacy of it all.

  “I guess so. There’s that rage, yeah. But that’s not why It chose me.”

  “No?”

  “Nah, it ain’t interested in me. It’s using me ’cause I’m weak. Knows I wanted to see Jean again before she left for good – used that on me to get me here. But mostly It wants Jeannie. You know that’s really what It always wants: the strong. Don’t come any stronger than Jeannie. It’ll cut me loose on her if It has to, but It’s hoping to break her instead.”

  “Break her?”

  “Sure – get to her. Can’t be easy on her, seeing me again. That’s what this land does – disheartens folks, discourages ’em. Gets ’em to quit. That’s what it’s really all about. Take on the strong and beat them down. I still can’t figure why.”

  “Well, not much to figure,” Arthur reasoned. “Something doesn’t want us here. Never has.”

  “Yeah.” Hank straightened, looked around. “It’s so strange, seeing things from this side. Everything’s all bright, washed out, until you get to a building or a piece of machinery or something. Then it’s kind of shaded, like black-and-white TV. I think I can see why It hates us, just can’t put it into words.”

  “Hank,” Arthur paused, not knowing how to put it, not knowing how much longer to wait. “When you want to go, you just tell me, all right?”

  Hank nodded, face stiff, but conveying the essence of sadness in eyeless sockets, glowing mouth. “I appreciate that, Arthur. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “No problem.”

  “Arthur? You know you’re one of the strong too, right?”

  “What?”

  Hank turned to stare at Arthur, looked as though he might be struggling with the words. “You’re one of the ones It really wants. You and Jeannie.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Something’s different about you now, I can see that, and It can see it too. You’re open, Arthur, just a bit. It’s sniffing around you these days, sniffing at something It ain’t smelled on you before.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Weakness. You got a weakness, buddy. I think it’s that kid.”

  Arthur shifted his weight. He didn’t like Hank talking about Jake. Jake wasn’t part of this discussion.

  “That don’t make any sense, Hank.”

  “Sure it does. That’s how It operates. Looks for something It can use on you, then gets after you with it. Like me and Jeannie. Only you haven’t had anything It could use. Till now.”

  “Nothing’s getting after me, and nothing’s getting after Jake. I can guarantee you that.”

  “Let me do you a favour, Arthur. Let me show you something.”

  “What?”

  “Let me show you something. I’ll show you something before I go. I think you have to look me in the eyes to see it.”

  “Hank…” Arthur raised the shotgun on instinct.

  “You look and I’ll show you something. I think it’s important, Arthur. If you can’t see your own weakness, maybe you can see it through me.”

  Arthur looked. For three steady heartbeats, all he saw was starlight pulsing out from a dead man’s head, but on the fourth beat…

  The barn door tilted open just a bit further – rusty hinges singing out a tortured tune – revealing a figure so brightly backlit that Arthur couldn’t make it out. Then, as the figure stepped forward, it was clearly recognizable as Jake. It was Jake with his face and his yellow tee shirt covered, just drenched in blood. Only when the kid started to smile, and raised his right fist in a gesture of awful triumph, could Arthur understand. “Couldn’t have done it without you…” a voice gurgled in Arthur’s head. The sound was throaty and ragged – lungs bogged down in mucus and blood.

  Arthur staggered back a few feet, mind reeling from the vision: That wasn’t real! It hadn’t happened.

  It hadn’t happened…

  But it could.

  “Hank…” Arthur said, warning at the edge of his voice. He hadn’t seen Hank stand up from the runner, hadn’t seen him take that prowling step forward.

  “You better get to it,” Hank said. “Don’t think I can hold on much longer.”

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  The Ford’s engine idled, shaking the truck as Arthur gazed across the road at the silhouette of that old abandoned farmhouse on the low hill. Sun was setting, casting thrilling shadows around the house, spilling in golden between the cracks. House had no business standing upright after all this time, all that weather. The wood had been burned grey by seventy-odd years of prairie sun, withered by seventy-odd years of prairie winter.s

  Arthur had dispelled Hank with the Zulu knife, and Dolan had gone easy, painlessly – not wanting to fight it. Then Arthur had spread symbolic bait-squares around the barn, blessing – at least that was the term he used – the squares with the knife and memorized ritual. The words and gestures meant nothing to him – he assumed both were African, but he really had no clue. Whatever the origin, the practice would make the Dolan farm safe for a while.

  He’d had a long heart-to-heart with Jean, about a lot of things. Put her mind to rest about Hank, but also, squared things about Jake. Jean had agreed Jake could stay the night while Arthur gathered up the boy’s things. In the morning, John Lockey would drive Jake back to Edmonton, back to his mother, and away from this particularly nasty stretch of land along the southeastern border of Alberta. Arthur hadn’t even said goodbye, hoping the sting of it would keep the kid away for good and all. The look of Jake’s face, his mouth glistening black with blood, was never far from Arthur’s mind, and every time he caught a glimpse of that vision, his skin writhed enough to make him twitch.

  But Jeannie’d rattled him just before he left. “What if,” she said, after they’d gone through it all, “what if It wants you to send the boy away? What if you’re stronger having him here? You can’t trust a vision that came from…you know. That. Could be just a trick, like It does. A trick to manipulate you into giving up something that could make you even tougher than you already are. Having a kid around’s like a second chance for you, Arthur. Maybe It doesn’t want to see you happy – you ever thought about that?”

  Arthur hadn’t known what to say. The implication was that maybe all along, decisions he had made about his life and his situation had somehow been…guide
d, nudged along without him knowing, but in the end, he couldn’t get his mind around it. It was too subtle, too cute, and he didn’t have a chess-player’s mentality. He was stone steady, that’s what he was, that’s what he brought to the dance. He knew the land around here measured Its victories in inches, got to people one sadness, one doubt at a time, and It had the patience to wear a man down like rain on rock, but Arthur wouldn’t play those games. I’m still here, Arthur thought. Jake or no Jake, you still got me to deal with.

  Couldn’t take his eyes off that old house though, and truth was, he had no idea why he’d stopped. Seen the damn thing a thousand times, and countless others like it. Arthur Low was no poet – his mother quoting Blake was about as close to the stuff as he’d ever gotten – but looking at the wooden ruin with the sun going down behind it, he had what he assumed must be a purely poetic impulse…

  I’m just like that house, Arthur thought.

  So picturesque.

  So empty.

  He shook his head, felt himself blushing, wondering where the hell he’d gotten a fool notion like that. Arthur pulled his arm in, kicked the Ford into drive. He accelerated off the shoulder, headed down Highway 41 like a man with duties, responsibilities, and purpose. Behind him, something that did know a little poetry, something that was subtle, and ancient, and didn’t mind playing games at all, laughed a vicious laugh in the warm prairie wind.

  THE DEAD OF WINTER

  Brian Dolton

  1: DENNIS BARR

  Yuri’s late.

  We don’t hold much with schedules up here – running bush planes ain’t like running a railroad – but there’s one simple rule: If the sun goes down, and you ain’t back at base, you’re late. So there we all are, Jeff and Eddie and Lana and me, bundled up in the cold of a Yukon twilight, waiting on Yuri. Ain’t all the way dark yet – there’s a long two hours ’tween the sun going down and true night coming on – but we’re an hour into that and the wind is bitter and the first stars are coming out and it ain’t no lie to say I’m a worried man. Because the frozen North can kill you.

  Jeff looks worried, too, but then he always looks worried. And Jeff, well, it’s that old Curtiss Robin he cares about, not Yuri. Lana’s just the opposite. She hates them planes, but she sure loves her husband. Must do, to have come with him all the way from Russia. Her real name’s Ilyana or some such but we all call her Lana, which is a big joke because she sure don’t look nothing like Lana Turner. She has black hair and she’s thin like a rake – sure ain’t no sweater girl! Don’t get me wrong, she’s still a looker. But she’s only got eyes for Yuri.

  Don’t rightly know if Eddie looks worried or not. He’s so bundled up I can’t see his face. He’s a good mechanic but he sure don’t care for the Yukon winter. Reckon he’ll be off out and find himself another job soon as he can, back down Vancouver way. I hear it don’t freeze proper down there. Crazy, if you ask me. How do you know it’s winter if it don’t freeze hard, eh?

  And me? Sure, like I say, I’m worried. Yuri’s as good a pilot as I ever met, but if the north wants you dead, then you’re dead, and that’s all there is to it.

  Then Eddie jumps like he’s been bit.

  “You hear that?” he says. Well, truth is, I don’t hear too good, but all of us is straining to see if we can hear anything over the thin hiss of ice in the blow. And it’s there. It ain’t right; sounds like it’s struggling, cutting in and out, but could just be the way the wind works, bringing us snatches of it here and there, and throwing ’em away the rest of the time. But it’s there. Yuri’s comin’ home.

  Lana’s got her hands together like she’s praying. Jeff’s got his hands on his hips. Looks to me like he can’t wait to chew Yuri out for worrying us all like that. Some men I know, they’d do that to hide the fact that deep down they care, and they’re damn relieved. But I’ve known Jeff for thirty years and I’ll tell you this: that ain’t the kind of man he is. He just don’t like nobody.

  The plane’s sliding in with the wind across it. Shouldn’t handle like that, which means either something’s wrong with the plane or with the pilot. I know where my money is. Yuri, I tell you, he could fly a decent plane through a blizzard and land it anywhere you told him. But a plane that’s messed up? Ain’t a pilot in the world can make a broken plane fly good.

  Nothing we can do but watch. The left ski hits and bounces, then the right, which doesn’t kick up much snow. It’s broken off halfway back by the looks of it. Then the left ski’s down again and the snow’s flying up like it always does, so for a moment we can’t see nothing. Then the motor cuts out and the plane might as well be a stone, just skidding along the ice. Not that it matters much; it’s down, and it sure don’t look like it’s gonna be taking off again anytime soon. Jeff starts running towards it, which is damn stupid for two reasons. First, there ain’t much snow on top of the ice, so he’ll likely go end over end; and second, the plane’s gonna slide right on past us before it runs out of momentum.

  That’s how I’m the first one to the plane, not Jeff. And soon as I get close to it, I know there’s been a problem. Plane looks like it’s been chewed up and spit out. One of the wing struts is hanging by a thread, the whole right-hand side is scraped raw like something’s clawed all the way down it, and the door on that side is missing. How Yuri ain’t frozen to death I got no idea. But he’s there in the cockpit. I wait beside the plane while the others come up, and while Yuri gets himself out of the seat. He don’t look much better than the plane; his thick jacket is torn, he’s missing one glove, and there’s blood frozen in his beard.

  “Visky” is the first word out of his mouth. Now I know what folks say about Russkies and booze, what with their vodka, but Yuri ain’t much for drinking. If the first thing he needs is hard liquor, something bad happened.

  “What the hell you done to my plane, you Rooshan bastard?” Yep, that’s Jeff. All heart. Yuri’s clambering down onto the ice and, hell, if his right ear ain’t hanging off the side of his head. Looks like it’ll fall off if you give it a sharp tug.

  “What happened? You all right, fella?” I ask him.

  “Visky!” he growls, emphatically, and he fixes Jeff with a glare that don’t look like he’s inviting no argument. Yuri ain’t a big guy, not like those cartoon Russkies built like bears. He ain’t much taller than Eddie – hell, even Lana tops him by an inch or so – but I seen him fight and I’ll tell you this: I’d take him on my side against pretty much any man in the territory. So Jeff just steps aside, but he ain’t paying too much heed to Yuri. He’s looking at the plane and I can see him tallying up what it’s gonna cost to get it back up in the air – money and time both.

  Asshole.

  So Lana’s jabbering on at Yuri in Russian, and Eddie’s almost hopping up and down alongside him wanting to know what the hell happened. I figure I’ll catch up to them by the time they’ve found the whisky and Yuri’s knocked back a shot or two, so I stay back with Jeff.

  “Must have flown it through the treetops,” Jeff says. “Jesus. Every last cent this is gonna cost comes outta his pay.”

  I shake my head.

  “Reckon there’s more to it than that. Yuri ain’t no tree-clipper.”

  “It’s dark,” Jeff says. “Could have come in too low.”

  “How ’bout we let Yuri tell us what happened? Come on, Jeff. Ain’t like we’re going to work on this till morning.”

  He still has his hands on his hips.

  “Coming out of his pay, I swear it,” he says. I’d kinda like to deck him but he’s the boss so it’d be a bad move. So I just clap him on the shoulder and turn to head on back towards the office. Jeff stays out there. The hell with him. Plane can be fixed; Eddie and me, we could put the damn thing back together if you chopped it up with an axe. Pilots, not planes, are what really counts up here.

  By the time I get inside the office, Yuri’s sitting there practically on top of the stove, tin mug in his hands. Lana’s fussing over his ear, still jabbering on in Ru
ssian. Yuri’s hands are shaking – the one with the glove on as well as the one without, so I figure it ain’t just the blood getting back into them.

  He’s a scared man.

  “Look like you seen a ghost,” I say, trying to sound like I’m joking, “but ain’t no ghost beat up that plane. What happened out there, Yuri?”

  “You von’t believe it,” he mumbles.

  “I’ve heard some tall tales in my time,” I say. “When I was a kid, old Bill Lemmon told me about a winter that got so cold even the flames on the fire froze solid, and he snapped them off one by one. Your story better than that?”

  Yuri takes a swig of whisky. As he’s swallowing it down, the door opens and Jeff barges in.

  “You want to tell me what the hell this is?” he asks, tossing something at Yuri. Yuri jumps like a whipped dog. The thing lands right by the stove and we all stare at it.

  Darned if it ain’t a severed human hand.

  Eddie swears, and Lana mutters something in Russian, and me, it feels like my eyes are going to bug out of my head. Yuri looks at the hand like it’s going to jump up and throttle him, then he shuffles slowly towards it and kicks it across the room, into the farthest corner.

  “Where in God’s name did that come from?” Eddie asks.

  “The plane,” Jeff says, his voice clipped, taut. “Clinging to the left-hand strut. Had to pry it off with a knife; frozen hard. Yuri, you better have a damn good explanation for this.”

  “You von’t believe it,” he says again.

  “Just tell us, you sumbitch,” Jeff says. Now like I say, he ain’t much for being pleasant to folks, but I can tell that frozen hand’s got him shaken, too. It don’t make no sense.

  “Whose hand is it, Yuri?” I ask, gentle, kinda like I’m talking to a kid.

  He takes another gulp of whisky.

  “Kathy Devlin,” he says.

  “You chopped off Kathy Devlin’s hand?” Jeff asks. I feel like slapping him. “Fella, you’re plumb loco. When Malcolm finds out…”

  “Malcolm’s dead,” Yuri interrupts.