Night of the Wendigo

by William Meikle

  Three such winters will follow each other with no summers in between. Conflicts and feuds will break out, even between families, and all morality will disappear. In Norse folklore this is the beginning of the end, even of the old gods. Another figure also comes immediately to mind, and this is Jack Frost, who personified crisp, cold weather and is thought to have originated in Norse folklore as Jokul (“icicle”) or Frosti (“frost”), or even a combination of both words.

  It is as if the native shaman tapped into the collective consciousness of the shipmates and used their own primal fears and race memories against them. Yet another who must be considered as a suspect for the roots of this story must be Skynir, a weather god of the Scottish Highlands and Islands, thought to be responsible for the coldest of winters, and greatly feared by all in the cold Hebridean islands. And overlaying these European Myths, the shaman has grafted one from his own culture; the cannibal of the northern woods, the weather master; the Wendigo.

  “To a crew of northern seafarers, the risk of death by freezing must have been constantly in their thoughts. If events truly happened according to what is related in the journal, the shaman played on these fears, amplifying and enlarging them until the crew lived in a constant state of terror and fear. It is either hypnotism on a grand scale, or one of the finest records of mass hysteria yet recorded. I must find a way of sharing what that shaman saw. It is vital if we are to uncover the meaning of what we have found here. I will know more when we separate the bodies.”

  Mass hysteria, my grandmother’s ass, Cole thought, Typical fuggin’ scientist. Once he’s seen what’s on my camera he won’t be so glib.

  He shoved the notebook back in his satchel in disgust and went back to staring at the flames.

  Some time later his eyes dropped shut and light snores joined the noise of the furnace.

  * * *

  Mina didn’t have time to say any more to Mike. The outside door of the bar crashed open. Heavy footsteps thumped down the stairs accompanied by a chill blast of air.

  “Bastards!” the barman shouted, as the first of them entered the bar itself.

  It had once been a woman, dressed in an expensive tweed two-piece suit and Gucci shoes. Now she missed one of her heels. She lurched from side to side like a drunken sailor.

  The barman gave her both barrels in the chest.

  Ice flew.

  She staggered backwards, but only for a second. By the time she came forward again three more of her kind had reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Mina felt something tug at her arm. It was Jackie Donnelly.

  “We should go now,” the archaeologist said in a small quiet voice.

  Mina nodded. She put the cell phone carefully back into her pocket…she had a feeling she might need it later.

  “Bob! We’re outta here.”

  The barman took no notice. He reloaded the shotgun from a box of cartridges on the top of the bar.

  “Goddamn street scum, think they can waltz into my bar…”

  He fired again at the lopsided figure advancing on him. The shots caught it in the upper chest, blowing off the left arm. The limb fell to the ground with a heavy thud, but the lumbering creature didn’t even slow.

  Mina retreated backwards, making sure she was between the things and Jackie. There was a door at the far end of the bar. She pushed the archaeologist toward it.

  The barman loaded for a third shot, but he never got a chance to take it. He was fumbling for a second cartridge when the creature knocked the gun aside.

  Bob raised his arm, trying to defend his face. It didn’t help him. The creature took a bite the size of an apple from his brawny forearm. He only had time for one scream before the rest of them fell on him.

  Mina took aim and shot the nearest lurching creature in the left eye, blowing a haze of frozen red mist out of the back of its head.

  It was too late for Bob. His screams had only lasted seconds before the other three found first him, then his throat.

  “Mina,” Jackie said behind her. “I really think we should be going.”

  “I know,” Mina replied. She shoved Jackie farther ahead of her and headed for the door at the far end of the bar. The two women barrelled through it at the same time.

  Jackie kept going down the corridor beyond, but Mina tried to lock the door behind her. The handle turned in position, all the way round three hundred and sixty degrees. There was no way to lock the door.

  Well, this night just keeps getting better and better.

  She backed away down the corridor. The door swung open, slowly, revealing the bar beyond. The creatures had already finished with Bob. Unblinking white stares looked for fresh meat…and found Mina.

  They shuffled to their feet and came forward. Mina fired two shots. They didn’t flinch.

  “Left or right?” she heard Jackie say. “There are two doors. Left or right?”

  “Take the left,” Mina said.

  Once more they went through the door almost together. Mina slammed it behind her, but again there was no lock to secure it.

  “Shit,” Jackie shouted at the top of her voice.

  Mina turned around. They were in a small storage room. There were no windows, not even high up. All that was up there was a single uncovered light bulb, swaying gently on a plastic cord.

  We’re trapped!

  Outside, heavy footsteps thudded along the corridor as the creatures came through the first door.

  CHAPTER 4

  Taken from a live ABC news broadcast

  “We’re here on the Jersey side of the river, trying to make sense of what we are seeing.

  “Manhattan Island, that icon to modernity, has been lost from sight, hidden by a primal force of nature that has swept in without warning to paralyze this, the greatest city in the world.

  “Of course, we’ve seen winter storms before on the Eastern Seaboard, but none have ever been so localized, or so darned weird, as what we are witnessing here tonight.

  “The storm appears to hang in a dome over the island. From here on the Jersey shore, we can see that there is a clear night sky above it. It is as if the snow is being generated from somewhere deep within the city itself.

  “The scientists say they have never seen anything like it. With me here I have Professor Jack Bayliss, from the National Meteorological Center.

  “Professor Bayliss, can you explain what we’re seeing here?”

  “In a word…no. It seems to be an inversion effect of some kind, but it’s nothing we’ve ever seen before…it’s nothing anyone’s ever seen before. We’re going to have to rewrite a whole bunch of textbooks.”

  “Can you tell us how it might develop from here?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. It’s not supposed to be there in the first place.”

  “Thank you, Professor.

  “By now you’ve all seen the shocking pictures that have come out of these stricken streets. Who knows what further atrocities are still being perpetrated, even as we speak. We haven’t been able to find anyone willing to talk to us about the frozen people we have been seeing on our screens. There are rumors flying all around us, saying anything from hoax to government cover-up. All we know is what we see.

  “Zombies may walk the streets of Manhattan, but it is impossible to confirm this shattering conclusion. If it is true, it may even shake the very bedrock of the world’s religious systems.

  “One thing is clear. The fallout from this storm will continue long after the snow itself has passed.

  “No one has come out of the island since the storm first hit. But someone is preparing to go in. From our vantage point we can see troops being deployed around the bridges, and I have been told that all available snowmobiles and Ski-Doos are being flown in, some from as far away as Newfoundland. One trooper has told us, off the record, that whatever this phenomenon is, it has the top brass so worried that they may be considering a surgical strike on the city.”

  From alt.wilderness.freedom

  I
t’s the UN at it again. I’ve been saying for years that they’re just waiting for an excuse to walk in and take over. Between them and FEMA it’s only a matter of time until we’re under martial law. We’ve been seeing truckloads of foreign troops coming through these last few days. They use unmarked trucks, but Jean down at the drugstore heard from somebody over the hill that they’ve been building a big camp for holding dissidents in. They’ll have to pry my gun out of my cold dead hands first.

  From usa.politics

  It’s just another smokescreen. Wait and see. Sometime in the next few days they’ll be blaming a bunch of towel-headed camel jockeys for the whole thing, and we’ll be off to war all guns blazing again.

  From alt.horror

  They’ve been saying on the television that we shouldn’t panic, that it’s a natural storm and will blow over, and that looters will be dealt with using the full force of the law. Which is all well and good, but I’ve got fucking frozen zombies banging on my apartment door. Anybody got any helpful hints?

  * * *

  Mike followed Tom’s instructions, picking his way back through the maze of crates. The goggles helped, but visibility was only a couple of yards. He jumped at every shadow, every slightest movement.

  It was worse when he came out of the container stack and onto the dock itself. The only way to figure out direction was to take a line of sight along the crates and follow it towards his best guess of where the dock gates were.

  Well, this was a great idea, Mikey.

  At least he was warm inside the survival suit. Having the flame thrower made him feel slightly less exposed as a target.

  He headed slowly along the dock, keeping the dark shape of the container stacks to his left. Just when he thought he might have misremembered the way, he saw a blue flashing light straight ahead, and a line of red and blue lights beyond that.

  He almost called out, but thought better of it. Nobody else would be stupid enough to be out in the storm.

  He approached the flashing lights slowly. He’d been right. It was an ambulance, one he’d seen earlier parked in front of the police cordon. And the keys were in the ignition.

  At first he thought he could drive it away, but snow was already piled up high around the wheel axles. He’d need a shovel to dig it out.

  Thinking that there would probably be one in the back, Mike crept round the side of the van.

  There was no noise except the soft crunch of snow underfoot.

  The back door of the ambulance lay open.

  A body hung, half-in, half-out.

  Judging by the clothes it had once been a medical worker, but now it was another black-lipped corpse, riddled with a host of frozen bite marks.

  Mike prodded the corpse with the muzzle of the flame thrower.

  It didn’t move.

  There was a mystery here that Mike didn’t have time to solve. Not everybody who got frozen came back like Brian Johnson…but he’d have to leave Mina to figure that one out.

  The shovel, if there was one, would be in the cavity under the floor…under the body.

  Mike took hold of it by the shoulder, feeing the icy cold flesh even through his gloves. The body slid easily out of the van and fell to the snow at his feet with a soft thud.

  Mike stepped over it to get to the van.

  His scrotum tightened, expecting at any moment that a cold, dead hand might reach up and tear at him. It was all he could do to stop himself torching it there and then, but he needed to save the flame…there would be other, more mobile foes, out there in the snow.

  He removed his gloves to work the latch.

  Despite the bitter cold in his fingers, he let out a whoop of joy when he found, not only a shovel, but a set of snow chains in the cavity.

  It took fifteen minutes of hard work, all the time looking over his shoulder into the swirling snow, but eventually he had the ambulance free.

  The engine coughed, twice, but when he pressed the accelerator the van moved off, slowly but smoothly. He couldn’t see more than five yards ahead, but it certainly beat walking.

  Hold on Mina. I’m coming.

  * * *

  Mina threw her weight against the storage room door.

  “Find something to wedge it. Quick.”

  She locked out her legs and leaned into the door, trying to put her weight just over the handle.

  Something heavy hit the other side, hard enough for the door to open by two inches then slam shut again.

  Behind her she heard clattering and smashing.

  “If you’re going to do something, now would be a good time,” she shouted.

  The door slammed against her shoulder, opening almost three inches this time.

  “Let it open farther next time,” Jackie said at her shoulder.

  “Open farther? Are you mad?”

  “Trust me. I have a plan.”

  The next time the door slammed against her, Mina let it open slightly wider.

  Jackie stepped forward and threw something through the gap, something that smashed in the hallway beyond.

  Mina put her shoulder to the door and slammed it shut. This time Jackie helped her.

  “Okay,” Jackie said. “Now I need your lighter.”

  Mina managed to dig inside the sealskin suit and came up with the lighter.

  She handed it to Jackie.

  “If I say duck, don’t ask ‘Where?’,” Jackie said.

  The door slammed hard on Mina’s shoulder. Her feet slid on the floor as the door opened, six inches, then nine. A blue hand with black fingernails gripped the door’s inside edge.

  Mina heard the distinctive sound of her Zippo being fired up.

  “Duck,” Jackie shouted.

  Mina ducked. Something flew past her ear, something that burned yellow.

  The hall beyond the door exploded into flame.

  The arm fell away from the door.

  Jackie moved quickly to close the door and put two thick planks of wood under the handle. Even though the door was closed the smell of cooking meat seeped through the gaps.

  “Good plan,” Mina said when she’d caught her breath. “What did you use?”

  “Sugar, soap and gasoline,” Jackie said. “It sticks and burns like…”

  “Napalm,” Mina said. “I remember. But how does an archaeologist get to know stuff like that?”

  “Two older brothers and an inquisitive nature?”

  “Whatever it was, I’m glad you thought of it,” Mina said.

  “Don’t thank me too soon,” Jackie replied. “If I used too much gas, then the whole hallway is ablaze by now.”

  Mina put her hand on the door.

  It was cold to the touch.

  “We’re okay. For a while at least.”

  She looked around the tiny room.

  Jackie had trashed a wall of shelving. Smashed bottles of ketchup, maple syrup and BBQ sauce lay smeared on the ground.

  “It smells like a rib dinner in here,” Mina said.

  “Looks like one after I’ve been,” Jackie said.

  Mina realized that Jackie was trying to keep things light, trying not to think of what might be beyond the door.

  She knew how the other woman felt. Deep down there was a part of her that felt like putting her hands to her ears and screaming like a teenager.

  But no one is ever going to see that.

  “Is there more gas and soap?” she asked.

  “Gallons of the stuff,” Jackie replied. “And there’s a load of empty bottles as well.”

  “Get going then,” Mina said. “You’re now our official Molotov cocktail maker. Just don’t blow us up. You owe me a beer and I’m planning on collecting.”

  Jackie moved to the right-hand shelves and filled bottles from a gallon container of gasoline.

  Mina listened at the door.

  There was no sound from out in the corridor. She took out her cell phone and was about to dial Mike when it rang.

  Outside in the corridor something hit the wall, h
ard.

  Mina answered the phone, speaking in a whisper. “Mike? Is that you?”

  The answering voice came through loud and clear.

  “Mina? What’s up? I can hardly hear you.”

  It was Jon from the morgue.

  “Jon. Keep it down will ya. We’ve got a situation here?”

  The man’s voice dropped a notch, but he sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “What kind of a situation?”

  “Oh, the usual: blizzards, zombies, damsels in distress…you know, that kind of thing?”

  “Blizzards? Zombies? Mina…have you been drinking?”

  “Not nearly enough. You mean to say you don’t know about the blizzard?”

  “What blizzard?”

  The morgue was a sealed environment, in a deep basement. Jon had been known to spend days at a time down there. Although they had access to the outside world by phone and Internet, Jon preferred his own company, and liked having the use of the equipment in the lab all to himself.

  “Look, I don’t have time to fill you in right now. Just stay where you are. I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” Mina said.

  “Are you okay?” Only now was Jon starting to sound worried. Not for the first time Mina wondered what it would take to make him lose his cool.

  Probably a naked woman.

  If Jon had been there in person, she might have taunted him.

  “Right as rain,” she said. “Why did you call me?”

  “I got a result on the DNA,” he said. “But that can wait. What’s…?”