Oakwood Island

by Cormier, Angella; Arseneault, Pierre C;

  “You hash to help them! She said they’re trapped and it’s goins to kill them,” said Maggie as she grabbed the nurse’s arm as she approached her. This was the most coherent she had been all day.

  “Maggie, sweetie. You need to calm down. You just had a nightmare. Lay down and I’ll take your temperature again and see if we can try to get you some rest.”

  As Norah began to turn back, Maggie pulled Norah’s arm abruptly and winced as she opened her mouth to speak. Her jaw ached and throbbed with each word, but she had to convince her nurse to listen. The nightmares she was having were too real, making it so she could not hold back her own fear every time she woke up from a drug induced sleep.

  “Thersh s’no time, pleash, juss call Ryan, tell hims he hass to hurry!” slurred Maggie as drool ran down her chin.

  Norah nodded, a bit apprehensive of the young girl’s insistence. She wasn’t used to having patients as agitated as this but for her own reasons, she believed her.

  “Alright, dear, I’ll call Officer McGregor again. But he told me to tell you he’s on his way. With this storm it might take him a bit of time to get here though…” She walked over to the nurses station, dialling the police department’s general number.

  Through the open door, Maggie overheard the nurse explaining that she was starting to talk about other people being involved, and possibly still alive. The nurse hung up the receiver and made her way back to the small room.

  “He’s on his way. Now just lay back down, and try to get a bit of rest. I’ll make sure to wake you when he gets here.” Maggie closed her eyes, but sleep would not come. Her thoughts were still racing from the scene that had played in her mind just a few minutes earlier. Her thoughts, since her escape had been quite cloudy. More and more as time progressed they became harder for Maggie to understand. The hospital staff was baffled, but now she was thinking clearly. That wouldn’t last for very long.

  * * *

  Apart from a small utility knife, the emergency kit did not contain much promise for self-defence. The animal had not returned to the car for at least ten minutes. The snow was starting to cover the window again, thick in its masking. The night beyond was now unseen to the couple. Robert began weighing their options. If they stayed in the car, there was a chance this creature would devour them both. If they tried to open a rear side window, they could possibly dig out far enough to escape and seek help. They had passed a trailer home about two or three minutes before they had hit the animal on the road and descended into this surreal predicament.

  As Robert pondered what they should do the car shook violently as the beast returned once more to taunt the trapped couple. When Nancy’s scream ended, all seemed quiet. Robert, trying to look outside, took hold of Nancy’s hand and held it in his. In a calming voice, he tried to reassure her that all would be ok.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t get in. The best thing we can do is just wait and hope someone comes by and sees us.” Robert held the utility knife in his hand, a small reminder of their vulnerability. He knew it wouldn’t save them if this thing managed to break the window with its massive poundings.

  * * *

  Outside, just beyond the car, the animal lurked and studied its prey. It was determined to seek out the flesh of the attackers. It ravaged the ground with sharp claws before pouncing once more on the blood and snow covered window. It pounced so hard this time, the window gave way a little and what looked like a small crack formed. Inside, its prey began to scream with fear.

  Robert pressed hard on the horn again and held it blaring.

  * * *

  Officer Ryan shuffled his feet quickly through the accumulated snow in the parking lot of the medical centre. Norah had sounded concerned with Maggie’s outbursts and so he wondered if Maggie had possibly been remembering events that had occurred the day prior, which led to her collapse at the police department. He made his way up to the second floor. There, he found Norah at the nurses’ station. She came around and they started towards Maggie’s room.

  “Has she said anything else?” He asked as he gave Norah a glance.

  “Not since I called you. I had to give her something to help her calm down. Her blood pressure was getting very high. She is calmer now and should be able to talk to you.” They walked into the small, dimly lit hospital room. Maggie half opened her eyes when she heard approaching footsteps.

  “How are you feeling now, Maggie?” Ryan came closer and looked into her eyes. She could feel his empathy as he spoke.

  She shifted her weight in the hospital bed, and looked up at him again. Her speech was starting to slur again like before, her jaw sagging a bit, but at least she was still coherent. It seemed hard for her to talk, painful, but with much effort, she answered.

  “Thosh people in the car needsh help and if nobody getss to them soons it’ll be too lates. Pleashe, you hash to do shomething.”

  Sobbing, she explained her dream of the witch that comes when she’s almost asleep.

  “The witch alwaysh comes when shomething bad ish abouts to h’ppen. I shaw her there in the car witsh them in my dream.”

  She explained it in such detail that it felt like she had been there on Ocean’s Edge Road. The dark witch’s awareness of the couple’s fear, as though she herself was in the car.

  “I’m confused. How would you know these things, Maggie? And who is this witch you’re talking about? Are you sure it’s not another one of your monsters?” asked Ryan.

  She slurred anxiously. “I sh’told you’sh what happensh to me. I’sh know how’s craziesh it’sh soundsh but it’sh the trutsh. You’sh ha’sh to do shomething to help themsh, pleash.” She broke eye contact and starred as if at nothing. “I knowsh the darks witcsh ish real’sh. She never liesh to me.” Maggie’s mouth hung open now, unable to close. She brought a hand up to wipe her chin, leaving a mixture of saliva and yellow pus on the back of her pale hand.

  Officer Ryan had a feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t put a finger on what it was, but he felt a deep concern well up inside of him. Perhaps this was what a cop’s instinct felt like. Or perhaps he watched too many movies about monsters. But after what he’d seen tonight, how could he not even look into this.

  “OK, I’ll go as far as I can down Ocean’s Edge Road to see if I can find anything. You try and get some rest now. I’ll come back to see you in the morning.”

  Maggie laid her head down on her pillow once more, relief washing over her. “Jush shurry, pleash.” She slurred heavily now as she closed her eyes. Ryan stepped out of her room and headed out to his cruiser.

  * * *

  The ice pellets pounded the police cruiser like a thousand drops of fury, encompassing the contour of the flashing blue and red lights. As was custom with winter storms in this area, the visibility was near zero and the wind swirling white clouds, darting in and out, side to side of the headlights. The wind, gusting up created dangerous snow drifts, some up to the front bumper. Officer Ryan McGregor manoeuvred his cruiser on the long stretch of open road. On this isolated part of Oakwood Island, where the fields lay outstretched on each side of road, the storm battered on. It was unrelenting in its bitter and cold quest.

  Up ahead, the dim red glow of tail lights came into view. As the cruiser approached the snow-trapped vehicle, only the back end was visible. The front was angled in the culvert and buried deep in snow. His first instinct had been to run over and start digging out the car, to get to the occupants trapped inside. He reached for his gloves on the passenger seat, and had his hand on the door handle, ready to head out, when he saw something in the corner of his eye. A dark figure, perhaps an animal, something had jumped from the front of the immobilized car and darted into the field up ahead. After everything he’d seen that day, Ryan decided to play it safe.

  “Dispatch, this is Officer McGregor, first on scene of single vehicle accident on Ocean’s Edge Road, approximately a q
uarter mile past marker twenty-two. Do you copy?” A few seconds passed before the scratchy sound of static came over the radio and Sandy’s familiar voice drifted into the car.

  “Copy that Officer McGregor. Is backup required? Over.” The last bit of conversation began breaking up. The bad weather was causing more trouble than anticipated on the Island.

  “Roger that, send backup and an ambulance.” Backup being the only few other officers the island had for patrolling. The same officers that had not made it out to the trailer after all, he thought. Nobody was going anywhere in this weather so the bodies would have to wait.

  “I will report back on medical condition of vehicle occupants ASAP. Over and out.” He clipped the hand held radio back onto its holder on the dash of the cruiser, put on his gloves, and grasped the door handle once more, with one hand on his holster. As soon as the cruiser door opened and the young cop stepped out, the wind carried its chill on his neck and sent shivers deep within the confines of his warm uniform.

  The chill came not only from the coldness of the storm, nor the icy feel of the pellets stinging his face, but had seemed to spring from the car itself, departing its occupants, and onto Officer Ryan. The blood soaked prints on and around the trapped car solidified his growing instinct that danger was near, and that it had its gaze set upon him. Pulling out his revolver, Ryan scanned the area to see if he could spot whatever had left the blood trail. Once he established the coast was clear, he hurried to the back of his cruiser to get the emergency shovel he had in the trunk and began to dig away at the frigid tomb, trying to get at the doors.

  The car was trapped in an embankment about six feet high, much of which was drifted snow. The island’s ever present crosswinds coming off the ocean created massive drifts all along the coast. Ryan peered inside the back window, which held at least a dozen crevices, creeping in all directions. The glass appeared weak, tired, and beaten but still intact. The crimson liquid spread in the spidery lines on the glass. He moved from the side of the car where he had started digging out the back passenger side door and looked inside. Darkness within. He took out his flashlight from his uniforms’ side pocket. He glanced around and up over the drift. The gloom was speckled by swirls of darting snow. Not able to make out anything in the dark field, he called out.

  “Can anyone hear me in there?” He shone his light into the window, waving it back and forth. In this new light, he could see that among the blood stains, there were bits of fur stuck into some of the seams and cracks that had opened around the tempered glass. About three inches long, thick and dark, the strands were definitely of an animal, but he knew of no animal that would cause this sort of damage to a vehicle.

  From inside, he recognized Robert’s voice calling out. “We’re in the front seat. There’s something out there, hurry!”

  Ryan bent over, cupped his hands to shield any glare and looked inside the vehicle. He wiped away some of the fallen snow, blood and fur. He could make out Nancy and Robert in the back seat. “Stay put, I’m going to bust the back window to get you out.” Ryan got up on the trunk of the car, and began bashing his left boot against the weakened window. After a few firm strategically placed hits, the window shattered into thousands of pieces. Ryan knew had he been a few minutes later, the glass would have given way completely and he would have found bodies instead of living beings.

  “Do you have a coat you can put on the seat?” he asked. Robert removed his coat and covered the broken glass as he helped Nancy out of her seat and onto the opening in the back of the car. Ryan took her forearms and pulled her out into the dark night.

  Once she was on the ground, she called out. “Hurry, it’s still out here, I know it is!”

  Ryan’s eyes darted towards the field again, straight ahead, before he helped Robert out. “What is out here?” he asked Robert once they both got down on solid ground.

  “Honestly I have no idea but one thing is for sure, it wants to get us.” They ran to the cruiser, shielding their faces from the onslaught of wind and snow and got in.

  Ryan, still perplexed by Maggie’s apparent precognition of these events, reported back to Sandy. “Dispatch, this is Officer McGregor. Cancel backup and ambulance. Two occupants were pulled from the wrecked vehicle. Minor injuries. I am leaving scene of the accident and transporting them to the emergency centre. Over.”

  Sandy’s crackling voice came back within seconds acknowledging the message. As the cruiser’s tail lights inched further and further away from the scene of the accident, the dark creature jumped atop the trapped car and uttered a long, distressed growl. It grew wrathful with each passing moment.

  * * *

  The next morning, the sun rose in streaks of orange and gold, making the previous night’s storm but a memory. On the second floor of the medical centre, Maggie was slouched in a wheelchair, head to one side. The attending psychiatrist had administered a powerful anti-psychotic medication, following her barely comprehensible account of events that had led to her escape and eventual arrival at the police department. Her nurse, Norah, was pushing the wheelchair down the hall, towards the elevators. Maggie would be admitted to the Daye Psychiatric ward for at least a month, until it was assessed if she was fit for release.

  Earlier that morning, once the roads had been cleared, the police had gone to investigate the claims made by the patient, regarding the old trailer on Ocean’s Edge Road. The same one Ryan had stumbled onto. What they found on site was disturbing. Five corpses of yet unidentified victims, several dead animal carcasses, decaying alongside the human remains littered every room of the trailer home. When Ryan reached the hospital, it was too late. The drugs had already been administered, and she was unresponsive to questioning. It would be a while before they would get their chance to question her more about their new crime scene.

  The elevator doors slid apart with mechanical ease. They rode down to the admissions office on the first floor, to drop off her file so she could be transferred to the psychiatric ward.

  In the lobby, the wheelchair squeaked through, passing Robert and Nancy Stuart who were sitting in the cafeteria with an officer, giving their official statement. The statement they gave felt neat and tidy. Though they had been unsure of what they had seen the previous night, they felt that it was in both their best interest to report that it surely had been a bear attack, and nothing more. With their reputations on the line, they would not recount to anyone what they had truly seen, standing on their car. The officer took some notes, thanked them for their time, and offered to drive them home. They gladly accepted the offer, and on their way they went, to their isolated home on the other side of the island.

  Maggie’s eyes stared at them, her head unable to follow their gaze. Her eyes began pulsating from within; she could feel the pressure coming forth. They shone a bright yellow for an instant then returned to their natural state. Nancy Stuart glanced at Maggie and smiled briefly. Inside her mind, Maggie cried out, forewarning that it wasn’t over. The witch told her so just now. But no one could hear her cries, her voice trapped inside her drugged and useless body. A tear slowly made its way down to her chin as the elevator doors opened and she was led away.

  * * *

  In the field where the Stuart’s vehicle was trapped, Lawrence Watson and his son Eddy were towing the car away. It had taken nearly half an hour to free the wreck from the snow, but they were now driving off. Just beyond the field, where the land cut down into a deep and treacherous cliff, the animal began moving northward, picking up a scent on the wind. It was growing bolder, mostly from the need to feed soon; its last meal having been so long ago.

  * * *

  The ocean waves crashed like the thundering hooves of a thousand horses that night. Although the snow had ended the previous evening, the winds had kept their strength, and had set itself on course for the Stuart’s home. It swung around the openness of their wrap-around porch, made its way up to the second story, whist
led and wept around and through the tiniest slits in their bedroom windows. The house was immersed in total silence. Only the wind was brave enough to defy the much needed peace the couple required.

  Slumber having finally settled in their bedroom, they lay side by side, holding each other. They both faced the laced curtained windows. They had spent many days admiring the glittering sun dancing atop the waves of the ocean just beyond these very panes. Many nights they had stood with their telescope, finding constellations or gazing at the full moon. Tonight however, they slept in complete bliss, their bodies tired and aching from the previous night’s turn of events.

  The window began to rattle as the wind picked up. Nancy stirred, but Robert opened his eyes. The noise was increasing, so he slid over to the side of the bed, got out from underneath the covers and stood up. He stood looking at the window for a moment, hesitant to approach it. Unsure of the reasoning to his confusion, he took short, quick steps to the window, parted the lace curtains to the side, and put his hands on the windowpanes of the old windows, in an effort to readjust them and end the sleep-depriving noise. Two eyes, glowing crimson in the night, reflecting onto his now pale face, and before he could utter a single sound, the beast came crashing through the window.

  Broken glass pierced Robert’s face, neck, and chest. Caught in the lace curtains his hands held no defence against the animal’s murderous claws. Dark, thick blood spurted out from the gashes the claws left on his body. As Nancy jumped out of bed, screaming, the animal began gnawing at the man’s neck, exposing bone after just one mouthful. Robert’s eyes stared dimly at her. She stood near the bed, staring in shock and disbelief. As she began to back away, the enraged animal pounced at once onto her, ripping shreds of her scalp with its long, sharp teeth. Seconds later, her body lay limp at the foot of the bed as the monster swallowed chunks whole before a noise startled it making it turn and jump out of the window where it had entered. It leapt through the air and down to the yard below. In the snow it left a set of wide prints, bloody from the feast it had enjoyed seconds earlier. The prints were of only two fur covered paws as it darted upright, running on its two hind legs. Out to the edge of the Stuart’s property, it descended over the cliff, disappearing once more in the darkness of the island night.