Oakwood Island

by Cormier, Angella; Arseneault, Pierre C;

  Ryan reached Maggie’s apartment at the end of the hall on the third floor and knocked softly. It was no surprise to not hear a response, as she had lived alone and nobody should have been at her apartment. But he needed to follow protocol, both job and moral-wise, and so he waited a few moments before trying the knob. Again, no surprise when the door opened, unlocked and unattended.

  He slipped into the dark apartment, and his hand reached out to the wall to locate the light switch. When he did the hallway in the small apartment lit up bright and he squinted at the glare of the sudden light. Making his way to the living room, he quickly scanned the room. Everything seemed to be in order. No signs of a struggle or anything out of the ordinary that drew any kind of attention as it being a possible location of abduction. On the small office desk that stood overlooking the living room window, there was a flurry of papers, a large manila envelope and some photographs scattered about. Ryan walked closer to the desk, when he felt something on his leg. His instincts kicking in, he gripped his gun as he did a complete one-eighty in a quickened heartbeat. His eyes expected to see some kind of disfigured man, attacking him as he had attacked Maggie. Instead his fears fell short and onto a chubby tabby, purring now as he head bumped Ryan’s boot, likely wanting food and fresh water. Letting out a nervous chuckle, Ryan petted the orange feline on the head, and glanced at the medal attached to the collar, finding the cat’s name.

  “Well, I guess you aren’t that great of an agent, Scully. What you say we check if we can find you some food?”

  Scully the cat and Ryan walked to the kitchen where cat food and water was served. Ryan took the time to scout this room too. There was nothing much to report as suspicious there either. A few dishes in the sink and an empty coffee cup, otherwise a very neat and organized countertop.

  Back at the small desk, Ryan started going through some of the papers. His eyes fell on the envelope and when he took out the contents, he was shocked to find they were photocopies of adoption papers dating back to the early 1980’s. He scanned these quickly, seeking what Maggie had been searching for such a long time. There, in black ink were listed the birth parents of Maggie. The names, not in print but in cursory handwriting were very poor and pretty much illegible. How frustrating that must have been for Maggie he thought. He shuffled a few of the papers aside and found a picture of a young Maggie, perhaps five or six, standing in front of the orphanage with a few other children.

  Suddenly, the light from the outside lamp post dimmed, and a shadow formed across the desk. Ryan looked up, his mind trying to register what was happening. He was on the third floor, so whatever was making the shadow would have been standing on the fire escape outside, in the start of a snow storm. When his eyes met those of the shadow maker, he immediately gripped his gun again, but this time he pulled it out faster than any high-noon cowboy showdown ever produced. As soon as it had come into view, the large shadow figure jumped out of view again, and over the small metal railing of the fire escape. Rushing over to the window, Ryan looked down into the alleyway and saw a blur of a figure scattering away, hunched down on all four legs.

  Standing there perplexed, it took him a few moments to gather his wits and to head out the apartment, the door slamming shut behind him. Running down the stairs two at a time, Ryan’s adrenaline was building up fast, his mind racing for answers and trying to make connections where there were none to make. What he had seen a few feet in front of him just now and what he saw had jumped three floors off a fire escape balcony, and was now running down the snow-filled street like a wild animal.

  “What the hell was that!” he asked himself, unable to produce an answer. His feet kept on doing what they had been trained to do as an officer in pursuit of a suspect, and that was to run and capture. Once outside, the strange tracks in the snow provided an easy trail of pursuit. He ran to the end of the alleyway, but here the tracks disappeared.

  Looking up, Ryan saw the misshapen figure in the distance, turning the corner and onto Water Street. Running back to his cruiser, Ryan jumped in and pressed on the gas to follow the man-creature-animal. Ryan couldn’t decide what he had seen, his mind just couldn’t process what he saw and name it, as he had never before seen anything of the sort. He turned onto Water Street and looked out at the road. The storm was now officially started though, and all he could make out was very faint dissipating tracks in the fallen snow. The snowflakes pelted straight onto the windshield, coming down fast and unforgiving. As long as he could stay on the thing’s tail though, he would be alright.

  Pushing down a bit harder on the gas, the rear of the car began to slide to the right. Ryan manoeuvred the cruiser back onto its path, holding his breath all the while. He could make out the dark figure against the whiteness of the snow, but it was slipping out of view, running so fast, it seemed nearly impossible to be human. Not to mention that it was still hunched down on all fours during the pursuit. Ryan turned onto Water’s Edge Road, the long road that hugged the island’s coastline. He could still make out the thing in the snow, faint but could still see it running in the snow-covered field, heading north bound. Eventually the creature cut across the field heading further away from the road, and Ryan lost sight of it completely.

  “Damn it!” he exclaimed, hitting the steering wheel hard with the palm of his hand in frustration. He kept driving northward, hoping the figure would reappear eventually either in the field or on the road, but after about ten minutes, Ryan decided it was best to turn around and head back to town. His decision came easy as the wind howled and sent heavier snow on his cruiser. He managed to get to one of the few driveways on this part of the island.

  Turning into the drive, he was just about to set the car in reverse and back out when he caught sight of the strangest thing. Up the long driveway there stood a small trailer, old and abandoned for years, it was dark and seemed to have been frozen in time for decades. What caught Ryan’s eye though, was the dark van that was parked near the trailer. The same dark van that had been mentioned in Maggie’s mad ramblings about her abduction. This was the trailer where she claimed she had been held by a monster. It had to be! There were only a handful of them on the island, and this one had the same vehicle parked in the driveway that she had described.

  Ryan put the cruiser in park, but left the engine running. He left the headlights on, shining in the direction of the trailer, to give him some help with finding his way through the foot of snow that had already accumulated. Once he arrived at the front door of the trailer, it was clear to him that he would be here awhile. The traces of blood spattered all over the door was very much visible now that he stood before it, even in this whirlwind weather. But what really grabbed his attention, were the two eyeballs that dangled from their now-frozen and bloodied nerves on the door handle. The door was slightly open, the snow filling the entrance. Ryan pushed the door and called out.

  “Police! Is there anyone in here?” Pulling his flashlight from its spot on his belt, he shone it inside the trailer. There he stood, in his boots in the snowy entrance, while the bodies of animals and a few human ones lay in the hallway, sprawled out and decomposing in their makeshift mortuary.

  Pressing down on his hand radio, Ryan blurted out, “Dispatch. I’m going to need backup. Two, maybe more, apparent homicides. I’m about three kilometres into Ocean’s Edge Road, at the old abandoned trailer just before the wood line starts. My cruiser is parked at the end of the driveway. Get Detective Burke on the phone for me while you’re at it. He is gonna want to see this.”

  Just as Ryan was stepping out of the trailer to wait for backup to arrive, his cell phone started to ring loudly. Stepping outside into the storm, he presses the answer button. “Officer Ryan here.”

  “Ryan, it’s Norah, at the hospital. I’m so relieved I got you on the first try.”

  “Norah, I’m kind of in the middle of something here. Unless this is important…”

  “Oh, it is! Well I think
it is. It’s Maggie. She says she HAS to talk to you and nobody else. That you’re the only one that can help them. We’re not sure who she means by “them” though. She’s really in a panic though and convincing enough that Doctor Kingsley asked to get you down here as soon as possible. She’s been going on, babbling about a witch telling her something now for at least twenty minutes and getting hysterical.”

  Norah swallowed hard. “Even the doc is taking her seriously, Ryan.” Norah didn’t know why the doc believed the ramblings of a woman he had referred to as crazy a few times, but she had her own reasons for taking something like this very seriously.

  Ryan turned back to look inside the trailer. He knew they weren’t going anywhere, while Maggie might be the only one left to help bring whoever the sick bastard was that did this to justice.

  “Ok Norah. I need to wait for my backup to get where I’m at, but as soon as they get here I will come down. Tell Maggie I’m on my way!” He hung up the call before she could reply and headed down to his cruiser to wait for the other officers to show up. Little did he know, his night was only just starting.

  Chapter 3

  Frozen Fury

  January

  Earlier that night, Nancy and Robert Stuart had gone into town to celebrate Nancy’s thirty-eighth birthday with supper at the Old Mill Restaurant. The snow had started falling lightly when they had left home, but according to the weather forecast, the storm still had several hours before making it to the island. The Stuarts had a drive of about twenty-five minutes from their house over to town when the weather was good. Eleven years prior, they had decided to build on the isolated and remote side of the island. As a professional artist, Robert had taken inspiration from the fresh sea air and the panoramic views that were offered from this secluded area. Though separated in distance from the rest of the community, the closest neighbour a good fifteen minutes away, the peaceful quietness and solitude made it very much worthwhile.

  Partway through the main course at dinner, Nancy glanced outside the long bay windows and noticed the lashing of the snow against the windowpanes. “Looks like that storm is here earlier than expected, Rob. Think we should take dessert to go?”

  Robert shot a glance towards the windows and then back to Nancy. “It’s just a bit of snow, nothing we haven’t driven in before. Let’s enjoy our meal and not worry about what’s happening out there.” With that said, they finished the delicious meal that had been prepared for them, followed by dessert and coffee.

  As Shelley was ringing in their bill, Nancy asked. “So what’s this Ryan was saying about Maggie being in the hospital?”

  Shelley looked up from the register and looked her straight in the eyes. “Honestly, I wish I knew. There are all kinds of stories going around. Rumor has it that Ryan found her on the steps of the police department when he went in for his shift this morning. She’s at the hospital now, under observation.” She glanced around to make sure no one else could hear her. “They think she had an episode of some kind, she’s saying all kinds of crazy nonsense about some guy that abducted her and his eyes glowing, like some kind of monster. Doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  Nancy shifted nervously from one foot to the other, adjusting her scarf, pulling on her grey wool coat, and finally slipped on her gloves.

  Robert paid for supper and casually spoke. “Well, whatever happened to her, we know she’s in good hands now. Surely they will be able to piece together what happened.”

  Nancy was a nurse at the health centre where Maggie had been admitted. “I’ll make sure to let her know that everyone at work is concerned and wishes her a quick recovery.” With that said, Robert opened the door for his wife, and they stepped out onto the snow covered sidewalk. The freshly fallen snow sparkled like millions of little diamonds in front of them. Robert dusted off the snow starting with his wife’s side, getting her out of the cold, while he cleaned off the rest of the car.

  Fifteen minutes later, Nancy was clutching her seat belt with her right hand, and Robert was white knuckling the steering wheel as they inched on towards their home. This stretch of Ocean’s Edge Road was bordered by open fields on each side. On the left, flat land spread out for a few kilometres, where the road eventually looped back. On the right, about twenty metres of field, then a forty-foot drop to the ocean below.

  The storm carried on, and with every little bit of road that they managed to complete, the snow drifts seemed to gain height and jutted out into the road. Robert was manoeuvring his car around one of these drifts, when suddenly Nancy gasped as Robert tried to regain control of the vehicle. Something stood straight in front of their car, perched on all fours, frozen in the road. Robert struggled with the steering wheel, but the ice under the tires decided it wanted to play some more.

  The back side of the car spun towards the thing in the road at increasing speed. The driver side back bumper thumped the animal with an abrupt motion, sending it flying into the night air, over to the field bordering the ocean. Nancy and Robert were now caught in a tailspin of whirling snow and their spinning car, pressing them down further into their seats, their bodies rigid from the anticipated impact that would follow. The car continued spinning, until it hit the field, where it abruptly encased itself into a large snow bank.

  “Are you OK?” Robert called out to Nancy.

  “Yes, yes, Robert, are you?!” Robert nodded as her shocked expression gave way to tears. They both eyed the windshield and their side windows. Snow covered the vehicle on each side. The only window that wasn’t buried was the rear one. Robert tried his door handle, it wouldn’t budge.

  “Nancy, try to open your door.” Her efforts were also in vain.

  “It’s stuck, Rob. It won’t open.” Nancy’s tears were now streaming down her face. Robert managed to pull himself over the drivers’ seat and into the backseat. He tried to push open the doors, but they also wouldn’t move.

  A loud thump and darkness suddenly covered the back window. Robert tried to look out the window but couldn’t see much through the still falling snow, then there came a growling sound, permeating the compressed air of their vehicle. Nancy froze. Something moved outside the rear window and Robert scuttled away from it and back into his front seat with his wife, their eyes fixed on the creature. It then jumped away from the buried car, but not before it left a series of bloody streaks where it had been perched seconds before.

  Nancy shuddered as a thought came to mind that they had been marked, like some kind of primitive, perhaps a territorial indicator. Like in that book she was reading about a monster that hunted a tiny village. Or perhaps it was merely a wounded animal.

  Whatever it was, it was circling the vehicle. They could hear its growls surrounding them, closer to the front of the car it came. They could hear it atop of them, but the snow was thick here, thick enough to muffle the sound of its growls. The dark thing moved about on all fours, but did so with such speed and agility, the couple had to wonder what kind of animal they had the misfortune of wounding.

  “Your cell, Robert. Call for help, quick!” Nancy pleaded with her husband, panic setting into her voice as the shock slowly wore off. He reached for his coat pockets, patting them down; he found his mobile phone in the top left pocket. He pressed the menu key and dialled 9-1-1. He waited for the cell to dial the number, waited for the ringing sound. Five seconds passed, ten, fifteen. The ringing never came. He glanced down at the brightly lit display. In the top left corner of the screen, no bars were visible.

  “No signal! What the hell....” Robert ended the attempted call and threw the cell on the seat.

  “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Nancy had fresh tears rolling down her face. “Oh Rob, I’m so sorry...we should have stayed home....now we’re trapped here....” She wiped the tears away but twice as many replaced them. The car shook violently as the beast rammed strongly onto the rear window.

  “Oh my God!” Nancy shrieked
, grabbing Robert’s arm. He pulled his wife closer and stared down the creature that was but a few feet away from them, separated only by the bloodied and icy window. The animal looked like a wolf, but its body seemed too large for a wolf. Both its hind and forelegs were muscular and heavy, thick with dark brown fur. Each strike it took against the window caused the car to shake for several moments.

  In between attempts to break through the barrier, it peered inside, its snout flaring nostrils, mouth partway open, baring its teeth at the couple. After half a dozen attempts to come through the window at full force, Robert instinctively turned and pressed down hard on the horn of his car. The sudden loudness of the horn caused the creature to jump away from the source of the noise and dash off into the darkness beyond.

  “That won’t hold it off forever.” Nancy was staring at the darkness, expecting to see it dart right back into the glass. She shivered from the cold and the fear that was setting within her.

  “I know,” said Robert. “But it will have to do until we can figure something out.” He opened the dash and began searching for something to use to defend themselves.

  * * *

  Across the island, on the second floor of the Oakwood Medical Emergency Centre, Maggie awoke screaming from another nightmare, drenched in a cold sweat. Her pain medication seemed to be lasting less and less since her teeth had fallen out and her jaw seemed to have dislocated on its own somehow. She could still move it, but it was painful. She had received a few more doses of pain killers, way more than what a woman her size should normally take. But when the doctor saw the handful of bloody teeth and pus, he knew this was an out of the ordinary circumstance, and so he made a decision to try and make her as comfortable as he could until they figured out what was causing these strange symptoms. She had been running a high fever on and off all day. Norah, the attending nurse that evening, rushed in when she heard the screams coming from her patient’s room.