by David Nickle
“Ah, still got it.” Neil nodded vigorously. “Yep, still got that.”
“Boo sucks boy, you’re a bad liar.” Amoco shook his head sadly. “How’d you survive this long on a lie quotient like that? Wait—don’t answer. We did scrape you up off the tundra, after all.”
Neil reddened. “Now see here, my good man—” His voice cracked on ‘man’ so he didn’t have the heart to finish.
Amoco grinned, dropping down on his haunches next to the stove. “Damn that puberty stuff, huh? Gets you at all the wrong times. Look, there ain’t no Umberto. It’s a code word. Means something like, ‘this one’s a sucker.’ Now tell me: how’d you get stuck up here, in U.S. Navy issue cold gear, with a GPS and frostbite on your ass?”
Neil considered trying to lie again, but it probably wouldn’t work. Why not tell the truth, anyway? If he wasn’t among friends, at least he was fairly sure he wasn’t on the Soviet side of the Arctic. “It all began with Sergeant Thorpe-Wyles,” he began.
Amoco didn’t interrupt, but paced, occasionally throwing shrewd glances in the cadet’s direction. When Neil had finished, Amoco stayed silent for a minute or two, rubbing his chin. Then he said, “Flying sleds? Submarines? Satellites? You know, I’d say you were a complete loony except for one thing.”
Neil glared at him sullenly. “What?”
“That crashed machine in the ice. You say it looked like it had fallen there?”
“Well…not so much fallen. More like it re-entered, if you know what I mean. It left a long trench behind it.”
“Which way did the trench point?”
“Which way?” Neil thought about it. “North,” he said finally. “It pointed north. I remember it lined up with Polaris.”
Amoco nodded. “It adds up. Y’see, about a month after I moved here, must be, ooh, eight years ago now, there was this huge…well, put it this way. I used to stand outside to watch the northern lights. Prettiest thing you ever did see, royt? Love ’em. Anyway, this one day they’re out like gangbusters, and I’m standin’ out there watching. And they just got brighter and brighter. So I called the lads out. They’re mostly Innuit, royt, never look at the Aurora. They used to think it was just lights from campfires farther north. Anyhow, they come out, just stand there and say, ‘This is bad. We have to leave this place.’ And the lights get brighter and brighter until zoom! they divebomb the northern horizon. Just these huge sheets of light falling on some place up there. And then kaboom, the whole northern sky lights up like a nuke’s gone off. So I turn to the lads and say, ‘Too royt, let’s make tracks.’
“And for days after that, while we headed south, stuff would sometimes just fall out of the air.”
“Stuff?” asked Neil.
“Damnedest thing. Bits of paper. Ribbons. Little tiny hammer one time, just about the size of your hand. Stuff.
“Me I figure it was some Russian installation or other. The lads always did say there’s a place up there nobody goes—but the stories they tell’re so crazy I’d put it down to mythology.”
Neil was enthralled. “What stories?”
Amoco stretched, cracking his knuckles. He seemed delighted to have an audience. “They say there’s a monster lived up there. Told stories about how he would stalk the wild wastes north of where anybody lives, searching for lost travellers and luring them into a maze at the Pole. How the northern lights were reflections off high clouds of the big bonfires he’d light way up north. There’s stories about hunters waiting for seals to breach at their breathing holes, when suddenly,” and here Amoco hunched forward, making his hands into claws, “a long, bony arm reaches up out of the breathing hole and pulls the hunter under the ice!”
Neil remembered the frost-rimed creature that had lifted him out of the snow by his hair. He pulled himself closer to the stove.
“’Course,” Amoco said laconically, “those stories’re all bullshit. The lads are always making stuff up ’cause they think all us southerners are gullible. Mostly true, too—look at all those art collectors who buy those cheesy soapstone sculptures. Nothing like what the lads make for themselves.”
Uncomfortable, Neil said, “What are you doing living up here?”
Amoco sighed. “I came here ’cause I’d had a bellyful of heat. Heat, bloody heat and sand, more bloody heat and rock scorpions, and guess what? More bloody heat and snakes. That’s what I come from. This place is like paradise, mate. No scratchy palm trees and cowering grass. No snakes. No typhoons. No rain! You can’t imagine what it’s like to finally have predictable weather. ‘What’s the forecast today, Amoco?’ ‘Cold!’ Too royt.” He gazed lovingly out the dark, frost-encrusted window. “No better place in the world.”
Neil thought about the white-out, and the cold which cut like knives. And then he thought about how dark it was out there, a preternatural dark whose terrors he would have laughed at only days ago.
His head was drooping and he was starting to shiver again. Amoco grunted, walked over and took the mug from his nerveless fingers. “You ought to sleep, kid. Right here by the stove. I’ll leave the light on.”
“Wait,” said Neil. “Did you ever tell anyone about that explosion?”
Amoco shrugged. “Told some NORAD people. They didn’t believe us. Nothing happened on radar, they said. And there was nothing up there, where we said the explosion happened. Truth to tell, I don’t think anybody looked.”
“I need to use your radio phone. There’s proof it happened. That thing—in the ice…” He yawned despite himself.
“Sorry, mate. Radio phone’s busted. But tomorrow we can take out the skidoos and head for Station Blue Zone. That’s only a couple days’ south of here.” Grudgingly, Neil nodded.
Amoco showed his perfect teeth in a grin. “Royt. Talk to you tonight.”
“Tonight?” Neil looked at the window. The glass was opaqued by frost, but even so he could see it was perfectly black outside.
“Sure tonight,” said Amoco. “By my watch, it’s noon.”
He couldn’t sleep. Neil even got up and turned off the light, opening the door of the stove a smidgen to let the warm fire be his nightlight. But it didn’t do the trick. All he could think about was black: specifically, the black cones of those satellites the submarines had delivered to that capering creature. The bureaucrat who had saved his life and given him the GPS had cut some kind of deal with the monster…had given him one of the satellites. He’d said the things were capable of demolishing practically anything from orbit. And that gibbering, tittering thing had one. Plus three billion dollars of good American money.
What was he going to do with all that?
Despite himself, he couldn’t help but connect Amoco’s story of a monster living at the Pole with the creature he had seen. And if there was a connection there, might there be a connection also with the strange artefact he had found embedded in the ice?
There was something very shady going on here. Secret deals, secret bases, explosions…Maybe it was something his government legitimately did not want Neil to know about. Maybe it was on the up and up. But as Augustus would say, “When you’re in the field, you’re the eyes and ears of your CO. And if you see something he should know about, you goddamn well investigate my boy, because he’s not god and he won’t know if you don’t tell him.”
Something odd was happening. If it was on the up and up, then he had nothing to worry about. If not…he had to get word out.
Neil resigned himself to sleeplessness, and dressed. He didn’t want to venture out into the cold blackness, but duty demanded it, so he steeled himself and ran for the quonset he’d seen Amoco retire to. The cold was like needles in his skin, fire in his lungs. Overhead, the stars crowded in countless thousands, almost (he would have sworn) bright enough to read by.
At the door he hesitated. Amoco had seemed anxious not to include his companions in his dialogue with Neil. That might be simply out of concern for Neil’s exhaustion, but there might be other, more political concerns there too. So rather
than simply stepping inside, Neil knocked.
Amoco poked his head out, seeming surprised. “Just a sec, kid,” he said and disappeared. About a minute later he stepped out, completely swathed in coat, hood, toque, scarf, mitts and boots. “Nice afternoon, eh?” he said without irony.
“I need a snowmobile. I’m going north,” said Neil. “To where ever that explosion happened.”
Amoco swore. “What do you think you’ll find? It was eight years ago.”
Eight years, maybe. But he remembered how the snow and ice had not lain thick on the machine or in the trench it had dug. It was like the snow instinctively avoided this abomination that had fallen out of the sky. “I’m sure there’s something there,” said Neil. “And I’m going to find out what it is.”
“What makes you think I’ll help you?”
“Nothing. My government will reimburse you for the snowmobile.” Neil bit his lip, watching Amoco’s eyes.
“You can’t go alone.” Amoco slapped him on the back. “Hell, I’m your man.”
Neil sighed in relief. He had been afraid he wouldn’t have the courage to go on his own. The freezing dark had almost killed him once. But as Augustus used to tell him, ‘When you get bucked you just get back on that horse, or you’ll never do it and you’ll end up a pantywaist coward, old and dribbling in your cocoa and regretting you were ever born.’
Thanks, Uncle.
A Seaton Christmas
The Seaton Family Christmas had been held at the cottage on Lake Voltaire for as long as anyone could remember, and there was no one who had ever imagined it should be any other way. For although the Seaton men maintained fine homes in Toronto, London, Kingston and Ottawa, as well as properties in Bermuda and Switzerland, the cottage on Lake Voltaire held a special magic.
Old Thornton Seaton had built the cottage in 1919, two years after he parlayed the dried-goods business he’d joined as a floor-sweeper, into the beginnings of the continent-spanning ValueLand retail empire.
The log-and-fieldstone cottage had three floors, two huge stone fireplaces and an ingenious cast-iron septic system devised by old Thornton himself that had not required a repairman for seventy-two years. Perched as it was on an outcrop of bedrock in the midst of the majestic pines and spruce trees of the Muskoka Tourist Region, the cottage was the natural focal point for the Seaton Family Christmas. Everyone from odd old Winifred and her Sri Lankan husband whose name no one could ever recall, to Mr. and Mrs. Seaton and the seven Seaton children, would gather there each year, twelve days prior to and three days following Christmas Day.
This year, however there were two disruptions to the family tradition.
A catastrophic fire in one of the 200 stores owned by the family had called Mr. Seaton away. Mrs. Seaton had informed the children that their father would be flying back in his private plane as soon as matters were sorted out in the city and they would just have to make do without him until such time. Little Albert burst into tears at this news, for he was only six and feared that his father might have perished in the terrible blaze. It was not until Mr. Seaton telephoned later that night and Mrs. Seaton implored him to speak briefly with Albert that the boy was to be consoled.
And then there were the dwarfs.
Most Christmases, the twisty coves and peninsulas of Lake Voltaire were quite deserted by December, for although the lake’s beauty was truly revealed only when its shores were covered in a pure, crisp layer of virgin Muskoka snow, most of the families who owned properties in the area had neither the funds nor the inclination to winterize their cottages by any great degree. As a result of this, one of the great pleasures the Seatons took in their mid-winter retreat to Lake Voltaire came from their long, circuitous cross-country ski runs through the silent winter landscape. The entire family would bundle up in sweaters and snowsuits, lace up their ski boots and clamp on their narrow hickory-edged skis, and spend the entire day touring the deserted properties ’round the lake. Spiff and Captain Blood, the two English sheepdogs that had been with the family since 1983, would tromp ahead, scouting for bears, they no doubt imagined—although what either dog would do if faced with a charging black bear, Mr. Seaton would often joke, only Heaven knew. Everyone would return home by sunset, cold and sweaty and happy, and retire for a cup of hot apple cider.
But this winter, the old Yates place three cottages north of the Seaton cottage was inexplicably occupied. The day before Mr. Seaton was called back to the city, he and Mrs. Seaton had set aside the day to scout out the trail for the season. When they had come upon the Yates cottage, they spotted a car in the drive.
The Yates cottage itself was a modest two-storey wood-frame affair; the only attractive feature of the property was actually the boat house, if one were to be truthful about the matter. Mrs. Seaton commented that she couldn’t imagine anyone of substance renting such a place—particularly in the winter, a season for which the Yates cottage was particularly ill-prepared. Mr. Seaton reminded his wife not to be unkind (“perhaps they haven’t the means to rent anything better,” he commented), and removed his skis preparatory to stopping in for a courtesy call.
At first no one answered at Mr. Seaton’s knock, and when the door finally opened he was on his way back to his skis. “Giwee,” said an oddly buzzing voice at his back. When he turned, Mr. Seaton first imagined his ears were playing tricks on him. For although the door stood open, no one was there. Then he saw the movement in the bottom half of the opening.
“Oh dear,” he whispered to Mrs. Seaton. A dwarf—the tiniest dwarf Mr. Seaton had ever set eyes upon—staggered out onto the expansive porch. He was staggering, Mr. Seaton saw, because he seemed to be even now entrenched in a struggle with an enormous toque which he had somehow pulled down over his eyes and face. Mrs. Seaton stifled a giggle, and her husband spared her a withering glare before rushing to the little man’s side.
That was when a most curious thing happened. As Mr. Seaton set hands on the bright orange and green toque, the tiny man let out a high-pitched wail:
“Giwee, ye skeewigilly varminte!”
Mr. Seaton recoiled as though he had been struck, and as he did so the little man regained control of his headgear and flipped the wool from his face, while simultaneously pulling it down farther over his ears. The dwarf’s eyes, preternaturally large and green, glared out at Mr. Seaton, as though he were a common brigand. The little man pointed to Mr. and Mrs. Seaton with an incongruously narrow and bent finger.
“Giwee, I till ye! Else fyyl ye’re dyume!”
That evening, Mr. Seaton announced to the family that this year—and only this year—the traditional Seaton ski expedition around Lake Voltaire would be cancelled. This was greeted by groans of disappointment all around, but he lifted his hands so as to say he was not yet finished. “As well,” he said, “I fear I must forbid you children against playing around any of the cottages to the north of here, and particularly in the vicinity of the Yates cottage. You may go where you wish along the southern properties, but a family of unpleasant dwarfs has taken up residence at that particular cottage and I should fear for your safety if you ventured very near there.”
It was, everyone at the Seaton cottage agreed, turning into a very odd Christmas indeed.
The morning following Mr. Seaton’s departure for the city to deal with the terrible fire in the Thornhill ValueLand, young Albert set out with Captain Blood to do some exploring. His elder sister Haephasia was meant to be watching him, but she had become so engrossed in her book that Albert finally gave up on her and crept off on his own. He pulled on his snowsuit, velcroed shut his snowboots, met Captain Blood behind the woodshed, clambered onto his back and ordered the big dog to take him somewhere interesting.
Together, boy and dog set off into the woods.
Emily awoke very suddenly and with a terrible headache, thinking for only an instant that she had just had a nightmare. It had been years since she had last dreamed of the Toy Mill and her terrible year with the Claus, but she had heard about recurr
ing nightmares. The fact that she appeared to be tied up in the back of a windowless panel van travelling along a rough and bumpy road, however, suggested to her very abruptly that this was no dream.
“Where are you taking me?” Emily shouted, for the elfs had not bothered to gag her when they wrapped packing tape around her wrists and ankles.
All of the elfs appeared to have crammed into the two seats up front. One looked back around the driver’s seat, and four of them poked their heads overtop of the passenger seat. From where Emily was tied, she could see that the windshields behind them were equipped with tinted, two-way glass—which was a very lucky thing for the elfs if not for her.
How was she going to get out from here? Nine years ago, Emily had wanted nothing more than to become an elf; now, she wanted nothing more than to be away from the hateful little degenerates.
“Wyyl, lyk who’s gittin oota beddy bye,” snarled one, jumping down onto the seat and pulling an enormous bowie knife from his boot. The thing was as long as his arm.
“Answer my question, you—” Emily found herself searching for the words Claus would have used, overseeing his Toy Mill like some twisted robber baron “—you bloated little maggot.”
The elf raised his eyebrows and stepped forward with a terrible grin on his face and the gleaming knife wavering in front of him. “Ooo, Missy girlee’s gittin’ ippity, is she?” he drawled.
“Leave ’er bye, Sylerphayne,” shouted one of the elfs in the driver’s seat. “Come byk hyre ’n helpum wiff the gas pedal. Ilky’s gettum tired.”
The Sylerphayne narrowed his eyes at Emily, and slid his knife back into his boot. It came up to his hip, looking for all the world like a sword scabbard that some idiotic duellist had fastened at the ankle rather than the hip. Emily managed to keep a straight face as the weapon flopped along behind the elf.
Her good humour was short-lived, however, as she recalled the spot she had seen on television back at ValueLand. The spot that had described how her house on Tamarack—her auntie’s house—became obliterated by a blue light from the sky. Auntie wouldn’t have been home—she couldn’t have, mustn’t have been home. She was on shift at the Hospital until seven, and it wasn’t later than six-fifteen when everything started to happen…