Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “Dead? What, you chop him up too, you Rooshan bastard? I oughta—”

  I interrupt him

  “Jeff, will you just shut your trap and let Yuri tell us the damn story?”

  Jeff glares at me. There’s silence for a minute.

  “It better be a good one,” he says in the end, looking at Yuri.

  “Nothing good about it,” Yuri says, and takes another drink. And the whisky gets passed around. I figure we’re going to need it.

  2: YURI LERMONTOV

  Devlin’s Hole is my second stop of the day. Isn’t even noon when I come in from the east. Figure something is wrong straightaway. In winter, two things can kill you; too much fire, or not enough. Devlin’s had both problems. I am coming upwind and I see no smoke, so I do not land first pass. Their place is back off the lake, about quarter of a mile. So I fly low over it and what I see…is not good. Their cabin is in rocky hollow, cliffs on either side. Why it’s called Devlin’s Hole, I’m guessing. Is sheltered from wind on two sides. All trees in hollow cleared but plenty just above. No shortage of wood for winter fire. Is big stack of chopped wood up under outcrop just behind cabin. More wood than cabin has left. Burned to the ground. Very bad. Only charred timbers showing. Cannot tell from air how long ago it happened – could be day, could be week – so I swing plane round to come in and make landing. Get as far up to end of lake as I can. And get him turned round, ready to make it out quick if need to.

  Hard work, getting through snow to cabin. Is bitter cold. Breath freeze in scarf. Have to pull scarf down to call out. Careful not to take big deep breath. Lungs would freeze.

  I call out. No answer. Only own voice, echoing back off rocks. I call again, and again. Nothing.

  Is bad, I am thinking. Careless with fire somehow, cabin started burning. Accident. Cannot have accident in winter up here. Winter always trying to kill you. Never give it chance.

  Burned timbers are cold. No heat left. Does not mean much. Blow out fire, ashes are cold in an hour, less.

  But then I see something. There is arm, sticking out from under timbers. I know is dead, of course, but I try to lift up timber, see if I can uncover body.

  No body. Very odd. Just arm. Looks like has been hacked off, just below shoulder. With axe.

  No rest of body I can find.

  Have bad feeling now. Fire? Fire can be accident. Chopping off arm with axe? Not accident. I pick up arm. Frozen solid. Shirt sleeve, jacket sleeve, torn up some, lots of dry blood. No glove. Fingers curved like claws. Nails torn. More blood. Almost as if Malcolm was dragging himself away from fire. But cannot be, if arm only. Unless maybe someone moved Malcolm’s body.

  I stand there in ruined cabin. Snow drifts on wind. Only sound is my breath. I call out again. Nothing. Silence.

  I look for tracks in snow. Has not snowed for almost a week. But snow is soft and wind blows this way and that. Not easy to find tracks, but tracks are there. I follow.

  Tracks head to woods. I stand on edge of trees. Wind makes them sway, all together. Like forest is alive. Like living creature.

  No. Stupid idea. I follow trail into wood.

  I do not have to go far. It is dark under trees but not too dark. Before long I see someone. Body, resting against base of big tree. Axe in right hand. Big axe. Kind of axe could chop off man’s arm.

  I call out but no answer. Slowly I move forward. No sign of movement. I am careful. Winter can make people crazy. Maybe Kathy crazy enough to kill Malcolm. Crazy enough to burn cabin, though? Have to be special kind of crazy to do that in winter.

  Body is Kathy Devlin. Blood on her face, chin, like maybe someone hit her in mouth. Eyes are blue and cold as sky. I say little prayer.

  Makes no sense. What happened here? Where is rest of Malcolm? I think maybe they fight, she kill him, then run into wood. But what made them do this?

  I see something lying next to her in snow. Pencil. Ha! If she has pencil, maybe somewhere she has paper. Maybe written something. But wind…cold wind could have blown papers anywhere. Snow could have covered them. Is pointless to look…

  But then I see breast pocket of jacket. Folded paper sticking out.

  I take out, very careful, and read.

  3: KATHY DEVLIN

  I’m going to die out here. It’s a week until the plane is due. I hope someone will find me and read this.

  I pray God that He will take me after what I did. I pray He takes Malcolm, too.

  I didn’t want to kill him. But at the end, he just wasn’t himself. He wasn’t – I don’t know. It’s like he wasn’t even human.

  I think it started with the wolf. Malcolm came back with a bad bite on his hand. He’d bandaged it up but I took a look and redressed it. He said there’d been a wolf in one of the traps. It was still barely alive when he found it, and it had gnawed most of the way through its leg. He shot it, of course, right through the head. But he said it was the strangest thing; when he got to the body, the wolf bit him. It must have been some reflex, or maybe somehow his shot hadn’t quite killed it. He said it still seemed to be squirming even after he’d cut its throat for good measure. Even after he’d skinned it, it was still moving some. That’s what he said. It sounded like crazy talk but he swore it was true.

  The bite seemed to bother him over the next few days. I changed the dressings and it seemed to be healing up right but he said it felt like the teeth were still there in the wound. Which they weren’t, of course, it was good and clean. But he said it was like he could still feel the bite, all the time. And he seemed to get hungry real quick. I started making more food, giving him bigger helpings, but it didn’t help. Always hungry, he said. But aside from that, and the bite, he was still Malcolm. At least for a while.

  I don’t have much paper. What to tell. Today, maybe two weeks after the bite, he really went crazy. He woke up in the night almost howling with hunger. I went to try and see what I could find to cook up on the stove. I had my back to him when suddenly he grabbed me and – I swear this is true – he bit me. Bit me! Hard, on the arm, like he wanted to tear off a chunk of my flesh. I yelled at him to ask what he was doing and he didn’t answer. Just kind of growled, like he wasn’t a man anymore, like he was an animal. I backed away from him. He kept coming at me. His jaws were snapping. Biting. I was scared as all get out. He wouldn’t say anything, I couldn’t reach him. His eyes were just fixed.

  Really, he was looking at me like…like I was just food. Just meat.

  I didn’t know what to do. The axe was by the door. I picked it up, I think just to warn him. You know, by holding it, show him he couldn’t attack me like that. I mean, dear God, he’s my husband. I didn’t want to hurt him. I hoped maybe he’d calm down.

  But he didn’t. He kept coming at me. I just backed away at first, even swinging the axe a couple times just to keep him away from me. But he wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop. I was circling round the cabin backwards and he was just growling and snapping his teeth and he wouldn’t stop.

  I tried to hit him with the back of the axe first. You know, use it more like a hammer. I thought if I could knock him out maybe I could tie him up until he came to his senses. And if he didn’t, well, maybe I could keep him tied up until the plane came and they could take him to a doctor and find out what was wrong with him. But when I hit him, and I hit him pretty hard, it didn’t do a thing. Drew blood, sure, but he just kept on staring and snapping his teeth and coming after me.

  So I switched the axe round and hefted it up.

  And, dear God, I hit him with it.

  I got him in the shoulder. Not too hard because, you know, he’s my husband and I didn’t want to hurt him more than I had to. I didn’t want to have him bleeding to death or anything. But he didn’t even seem to notice. He grabbed at the axe as I pulled it back out. He was bleeding, bleeding hard, but he didn’t scream with pain and he should have.

  And he just kept snapping his teeth all the time.

  I think I went a bit crazy then, myself. I started hitting him a
gain, trying to knock him down, trying to stop him. I say trying but I don’t really know. I wasn’t thinking it through. I was just so scared.

  I don’t even know exactly what happened. I don’t know if it was him or me who knocked open the stove. I don’t quite know how, but suddenly his pants were on fire. I don’t think he realized it. He was still chasing me round and I was still hitting him with the axe and he didn’t seem to notice that I’d all but chopped off his arm and that he was on fire.

  He blundered around and then he wasn’t the only thing on fire. The cabin was burning and I knew I had to get out but he was between me and the door.

  Oh, God, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.

  I swung the axe with all my strength and I hit him in the neck. His head didn’t quite come off but I broke his neck and his head tilted over like it wasn’t properly fixed on and, oh God, oh God, he was still biting and growling at me! I mean there was no way he could do that. I remember just screaming and I was crying and I dropped the axe to tell him I was so sorry for, you know, for killing him, even though I hadn’t.

  He hit me in the face, then. Hard. I think he broke my nose. I fell down and he was on top of me, biting with his head all twisted off to the side. I managed to squirm out from under him and I grabbed the axe again and before he could get up I hit him again.

  I cut off his arm. It fell to the ground and he looked at the stump of the arm like, I don’t know, more like he was just curious about it. And his arm was there on the ground and I swear to holy God it was still moving. Dragging itself towards me.

  I hit him once more in the neck. His head came off and rolled away. His body stumbled, dropped to its knees, but it was still moving too. That’s when I knew he was dead and a demon or something had got into him. I just started praying and praying, saying everything I could remember from the Bible. And the cabin was really burning now. And there was his body on its knees, flailing around, and his head off to one side still biting, biting, biting, and his arm crawling towards me.

  I guess…I guess I hoped that if I couldn’t kill it with the axe, maybe fire would do it. So I ran out of the cabin and I ran to the woodpile and I swear to God it was the only thing I could think to do. I just took an armload of wood and I threw it into the cabin to burn that damned thing that had taken my husband from me. And I just threw it on in, more and more of it, until the cabin was just a roaring furnace and I couldn’t get close enough to do any more.

  I just picked up the axe and waited.

  Nothing came out. I waited some more and then I turned and walked away. I was crying for my poor husband and I was crying for me because without the cabin I figure I’m probably going to die out here. And I hurt where he bit me – like I can still feel his teeth – and where he broke my nose and I hurt down inside worst of all because maybe God won’t believe me and maybe I really did kill my husband and Lord knows that’s a sin, Lord knows that’s a sin, but I swear all this is true and it’s real, even though it sounds crazy.

  So I sat down in the woods and figured I’d best make my peace with God and write down what happened and I swear every word of this is true as God is my witness no matter how crazy it sounds.

  It’s strange. I should be freezing but I don’t really feel cold. I don’t feel cold at all.

  I’m just so very very hungry.

  4: YURI LERMONTOV

  Is crazy story. Maybe Kathy went crazy. Would not be first woman to kill husband with axe. Maybe did not mean to burn cabin down. Maybe hoped someone would find her before cold killed her. Maybe thought story would help when police came asking questions.

  Maybe.

  Kathy’s body frozen hard. But she is not big woman. I can get her across shoulders, bring her back to plane. Have done this too many times before. Winter. It kills, I bring them back for proper burial. Is right thing to do.

  Is already late. I put Kathy in passenger seat. Legs stick up off floor so I have to tilt her forward. Much pushing and shoving. But in she goes and I strap her in place. I know, sound stupid. Is habit, I think. Then I go round to pilot side. Shout once more. Not sure why. No answer. Just wind. Just cold.

  I climb into plane and start up engine. Cough, splutter, the usual. Then turns, and we start along lake. Trail spray of snow and then up in the air. Hands are frozen, but engine makes much heat. Soon, warm enough to take off hat, scarf.

  I look to my right. Frozen Kathy sitting there. Beginning maybe to melt a little. Drip of water from tip of chin. Pink water, because of blood on face.

  I stop looking at her. Check ground, check compass, check instruments. All good. Heading home.

  Noise beside me. Like little gurgle in throat. I look at Kathy again. Almost jump out of seat; she is looking back at me. Eyes still frozen, but head turned. After moment, I laugh. Heat from engine is thawing her out some. Neck must have been at odd angle, has thawed, head has turned. Nothing to worry about.

  Then she makes noise again. Opens mouth. Tries to bite me.

  I am shouting. Do not remember words. Bad swears, I think. I push myself away from her. She cannot reach me. Body strapped in place. But I hear teeth snapping, like angry dog.

  In shock, have forgotten where I am.

  Have let go of controls. Not good. Is windy. Plane slips sideways and starts to drop. I grab stick. Have to fly plane. Pull back, bring back up level. Crash would likely kill me. If not, cold would finish job double quick.

  Kathy moving in seat next to me. Growling, like some kind of animal. I hit her in face. I do not care if she is woman. She is dead and tries to bite me. Anyone do that, I hit them in face.

  She bites. I am wearing thick glove. Is good; if not, maybe she bite off finger. She bite very hard. I yell and pull hand free, out of glove. She shakes glove in mouth, like cat shaking mouse.

  She still have axe in right hand.

  I reach out, grab it, try to pull it from her. Maybe first I am just afraid she might hit me with it. But then I think of Malcolm and severed arm and think maybe axe can chop her up like she did him.

  I hear teeth, snapping, right next my ear. I don’t want being bit. But I need axe. So I hit her with elbow, try to get time to grab axe from her. She move slow. Mostly still frozen, I think. Just barely starting thaw. I pull axe and hear her arm crack, like snapping frozen branch. She still hold on, though.

  I hit her again in face. Is not nice to hit woman. But she is not woman. She is like some kind of monster. Like vampire or demon or some creature, I don’t know. So I hit and hit and hit and then I grab axe again and this time it comes free and I have axe.

  Is good to have axe. But plane is not flying itself. I have to grab stick, work rudder, everything. I am doing this and I feel pain in right ear. I yell and turn and she has got left hand holding my ear. Fingers are like pliers. Ice-cold pliers. She is trying to pull me close so she can bite me, I think; her mouth is going all the time, teeth snapping like she is hungry, hungry, hungry. I pull away. Feels like I leave some of my ear behind.

  I want to push her out of plane. But body is strapped in.

  Heh. I have axe.

  I swing best I can. Cockpit small, not easy. Do not want break instruments. Only want to break strap. Well, maybe strap, maybe Kathy too. No. Is not Kathy, like Malcolm was not Malcolm.

  But if I break strap, maybe she can reach to bite me. I do not want to be bitten. Maybe if bitten I will become like Malcolm, like her. I do not want this.

  So first thing, I must get door open on her side. So I can push her out of plane. Is not easy. She is still most frozen, stiff, but left arm is clawing at me, trying to get hold. I use handle of axe, push it across her, try to open door. Does not open at first. I say little prayer and maybe God is listening because of how close I am and I push and door opens. Plane lurch, tilt to that side. Is exactly what I want.

  I pull axe back, switch it round, and swing hard at strap. It break. I tilt plane even more. She try to hold on.

  I push her out of plane.

  I am very happy
for moment. Then over sound of engine, over sound of wind, I hear click-click-click.

  Teeth, snapping, open and closed, open and closed.

  She is holding on to wing strut. One hand. Good grip, just like grip she had on axe.

  I swear some more. Prayer, swear. Shrug. It is how it is.

  She is still clinging to strut. Plane is tilting, swinging. I am half in wrong side of plane. Losing control. In danger of falling out.

  I swing axe one more time. I hit hard.

  Something breaks. Kathy falls. Plane still swinging. Wind strong. Hand, face, frozen. I think for moment I fall out after her. But then get good grip with left hand. Brace right leg. Pull. Push.

  Back in plane. Trees very close. Haul on stick. Plane crashes through tops of trees. Branches break, maybe bits of plane break. Haul on stick some more. Nose lifts. Plane climbs.

  I circle twice, big wide circles as I climb and try to get bearings.

  Then fly home.

  5: DENNIS BARR

  Yuri looks at the mug on the desk. Eddie reaches for the whisky, but Yuri shakes his head.

  “That’s one hell of a story, Yuri,” Jeff says. “Now, you want to tell us what really happened?”

  Yuri stands up. His fists are bunched, he’s angry and I can’t say I blame him. Sure, it’s a crazy story, but he ain’t crazy. Just pissed as all get out.

  And that’s when Eddie suddenly lets out a yell and points at Jeff. And Yuri’s eyes bulge and Lana swears in Russian and I look over; at first I don’t see nothin’ but then Jeff leaps to his feet and he brushes at his arm and something drops to the floor.

  We all stare at it. It’s moving like some big, slow spider, but it ain’t no spider.

  It’s Kathy Devlin’s hand. The fingers are reaching and curling, dragging it across the floor.

  For a moment we all stare. Then Yuri stomps on it, just like you’d squash a bug. His big boot comes down on it once, twice, more. I hear what might be bones cracking. But it keeps on moving. Be pitiful if it were some critter, dragging itself along with a broken back. But it sure as hell ain’t getting any pity from me.

  “Open the stove!” Yuri says, and I realize then what he’s thinking. I’m looking round to find something I can scoop the damned hand up with, ’cause there is no way on God’s earth I’m touching that thing. Moment later, I got my mug and Yuri’s, and together I reach down and scoop up the hand with ’em, my arms stretched way out in front of me to keep that thing as far away as I possibly can. Lana’s got the front of the stove open and I just toss the lot in, mugs and hand and all. Yuri kicks the stove shut and we all just glare at it. I can see it, in my head; the fingers twitching as the flesh starts to crisp up, starts to burn away. See it trying to claw its way out of the fire. But there’s no chance. That stove is hot as Hell, which I figure is kind of appropriate, because there sure ain’t nothing godly about any of this.