1st Anthology of Horror: Wendigos And Other Atrocities

1st Anthology of Horror

Wendigos and other Atrocities

Fruitjack

Published by Xinoeph

Gay Wendigos, time-travelling Ruskies, Cows, mind-altering Nazis, and post-apocalyptic Mutants.

You'll find all that.

And obsessions! How about that dead lover who may or may not be coming back to life through a kid. Or the college degree they'll be paying for the rest of their lives. Oh, and that obscure, out-of-the-way spot a bunch of jocks always wanted to hike but didn't 'cause of all the dying. Don't forget the crazy Nazi island that both sides of the Cold War kept raving about. While you're at it, how about scratching off that doomed, cross-continent search for wendigos from your bucket list???

What could possibly go wrong in an anthology of horror?

Copyright © 2013 by Fruitjack

All rights reserved.

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Cover: Sunset in Mountains © George Spade | Dreamstime.com

Published by Xinoeph

xinoeph@hotmail.com

Preface

This book is a reprint of my first anthology, which had been titled: Anthology of Horror in F-Sharp Major. To commemorate my upcoming second anthology, Trees And Other Dystopias, and because my OCD demands that books of a series share identical formats, layouts, etc., etc., etc., I revisited my earlier work to scruffy it up a notch. The truth is I had rushed. Eager as I was to create something, anything, I plunged amateurishly and, frankly, ignorantly, into this business. It took years for me to understand this craft and I wanted the fruit of my experience to express itself fully.

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason I decided to change publishers and pennames, and maybe the day will come when that story, too, will be told.

Let me not dilly-dally. I started down this bitter & abandoned path (that all writers invariably take) toward the end of my 8th grade year. I had just bought tomes of Poe and Shakespeare and devoured them cover to cover. (I didn’t read Lovecraft until I entered college.) My initial efforts to copy my heroes were craptastic, although I’d re-visit & re-imagine many of my juvenile views later. I dipped my toe into fanfic at the turn of the millennium. Yes, yes. Oh, how people LVOE (sic) to poo-poo fanfic. I wrote and wrote constantly; and so it developed my skills. While the laws of human copyright & decency prevent their publishing, my originals (as they are termed) echo all of my favorite themes and as such my work, my art isn’t lost, just, transformed….

I quit fanfic in 2012 and – immediately – attempted to write a novel. Why? Because of course that’s what you’re supposed to do, am I rite? I did OK-ish. Wendigos was long but not long enough to qualify as a novel. Drats. Undeterred, I settled for an anthology of short(er) work. Both Akila and The Methods of Apartment H refer to ideas that resonate throughout a lot of my fanfic (they are my odes to Poe and Lovecraft respectively). Achronauts and Pawnee Buttes followed just like that. It took a year to edit everything.

Wendigos – my attempt at romancing America’s original shapeshifters. Achronauts – isn’t it weird how we’re never told what the Soviets were up to during the Cold War? Pawnee Buttes – gosh, what lovely, lovely scenery, yeah, I almost hit a cow the first time I drove by that place. You don’t forget something like it. The Methods of Apartment H – you won’t believe how long this stayed inside my head. Akila – post-apocalyptic fur vs. fur – what stuff!

Amazingly, for the output of a novice that it is, all of it was well-received. – FJ

Wendigos

Jack ran – where to did not matter – the compass danced like mad as they ventured through the Arctic and with that their sense of direction collapsed into a vagary of memory.

The earth echoed a vista of ice from horizon to horizon. The sky offered just a shroud of starlight – alien and indistinct. There was not a speck of dirt to speak of. All that remained of the universe was the urge to run, anywhere, anywhere, anywhere.... As long as he took a breath every instinct not yet smothered by doom implored the Coloradan to flee.

For a while the only sound to be heard came out of the sloshes of boots as he tread across rubble. It was the silence filling the gap – where life should have thrived – that frightened beyond what he already witnessed. That abyss, a profound reality of dread, provided the mind a canvas with which to paint evil of its own design.

God – if the ice cracked and shattered – how it would have been a welcome release.

At length Jack wandered onto a part of the field formed by the junction of two vast sheets. The divide between them gave the appearance of a cliff that snaked to a fragment of island strong enough to raise itself out of the ice. If the worst was to be, that oasis beckoned with the promise of its shelter. Yet he chose to go where the campsite waited. He needed to know if there was any chance of hope ... to escape at all.

The cliff stood in spite of the elements that attacked its features. Softened, as it were, fractures spread at its crest from head to foot throughout the span that could be seen. Were it not for the gear he carried he could have used those notches to climb its face. He turned to the ropes – they still clung at its side where they had been spiked.

It was not an hour ago that they dangled at the ends of the ropes when their last leg of misadventure unfolded.

He screamed – was it the first or the last shriek? – while at the edge of the cliff he felt ... something ... at his ankle. It could have been natural – a response by the boot to that awkward sort of ascent. The very lack of knowing – knowing who or what was to blame – transformed the innocent into the frightful.

Free of the cliff he wanted to turn and see – until the call to reach the campsite extinguished that impulse. Safe – as safe could be – he fled again. Again, it was the visage of calamity he saw that fueled his escape.

Could it be blotted out of memory?

The Boss – a bundle of gray armed with a pistol – staggered to a target with determined and inexhaustible persistence. Following, closing and closing, was Kit – the scout. The man paused to look at Jack, then at their leader, then at Jack – shaken as how to react. Then, with a gasp spurred by fear, the scout surged toward the Boss. Together, the Boss at the front, the scout at the rear, they reached a part of the field that seemed to be too flat.

Andale! shouted the Boss. We have the creature.... Do you hear me? We have the creature!

Kit, waving the shotgun with a hand naked to the Arctic, approached the spot where their leader faced into shadow and darkness itself.

Where is it, Jefe? he asked. Damn it – I need a wide open shot....

Jack inched away, fingers clutching at freezing chunks of ice.

The creature, he uttered with shock as he jumped into a fray of his making, I cannot believe it.... Are you ready, Kit?

The scout cursed then ran into the struggle engulfing the Boss.

There was a shriek then – its source unknown – and that was not everything.

Jack recoiled at the vision.... Of the Boss struggling with his pistol. Of the scout waving his shotgun. Of the mêlée that ensued. Meanwhile, forgotten, he continued a slow, agonized retreat as a crack appeared and that field rumbled. With a shot, the crack parted and spread like a mouth forming a grin round and round and round – the onyx of ocean burst through to clash against the ivory of ice. Another shot and the sheet shattered as if deatomized. Kit could not be seen. Only the outline of the Boss continued its fight until the Arctic swelled up and swallowed down.

The kid stopped to catch his breath.

At a wall of ice were various eye like slits through which they passed. The ropes had been spiked at their edges. Suddenly, a rope stretched, then another, then another. The ropes crawled as though they were tugged to the side. It could have been the wind but he was not about to risk sanity and know for certain. Instead, he launched into a slit.

The cackle – were did it come from?

The creature ... the Wendigo … it was there... there ... there....

Chasing.

Hunting.

The only thoughts at that revelation were to reach the campsite – to find Koda.

Perhaps he did return? It was a few days ago that he set to the village – two or three or four days ago. What was time and space anyway? The village could not be too far by sled. Perhaps he did not return? Yes, god, the terrain was too rough. There was no way. There was no way. There was no way. Even a tracker as skilled as Koda could not traverse its course so quickly. It would be days if, indeed, he returned.

He pictured the mountains and valleys of home resigned that they would not be seen again. He, too, was lost. Alone. Exposed. Colorado – its plains afforded more places to hide (and survive) than that sea of ice he flung onto.

Tired, and nearer to exhaustion than to campsite, it felt as if sanity was shred to tatters.

How did they survive with their provision so scarce? They should have stayed another day at the village. Then Koda would not have retreated to fetch supply. But – no – no – no – the Boss found too many tracks to ignore. And nobody said ‘enough’. By then the party was whittled to too tiny a faction unable to resist the will of such a figure as their leader. What did it matter to the Boss that the trail led into the void? He wanted to go and that was that.

A week at that ice and their folly came to fruition. Their supply would not last them until the return to the village. Jack and Koda volunteered to go fetch a fresh batch of food but the Boss would not spare half of the crew. Then Kit volunteered but their leader would not spare the sharpshooter. Then Jack volunteered again and again he was rejected as inexperienced. The Boss hesitated but settled with Koda, the thought was that he would be the best to deal with a village of natives.

Now, his heart sank ... entering the campsite and finding it as it had been left, the site was like a memory frozen into stasis. Not a stir of life was to be found. Of course, Koda was not there. And, thus, without a doubt, he was left an alien to an alien world as equipped to survive it as a fish thrust onto land. Where was he to run? To go? To do? But there was not a chance to waste.

The creature was there – it killed the others and he would be next.

His weapon, a pistol, was gone. Given to Koda. He might as well throw a snowball. He braced himself then for what was about to happen. He readied himself to run – and run – and run – until everything ended.

Beyond the campsite, the field was littered by debris. Beyond the field, the ice was shaped by crests. The vista spread and rolled from peak to peak as if hilly.

He realized the need to reach that ground in order to find where Koda trekked. He ran and step by step regained a familiarity with the area. Amid its course, he found a trail, fresh, carved by the ruckus of dog and sled.

To find Koda – it was the thought that encompassed everything.

How foolish they were to entangle themselves with that business. Their life at the homestead was paradise and they did not realize it. Literally, it was another world away – thousands and thousands of miles away – past the power of that creature to find. Even if the chance that escape was possible, were they ever to see the Rockies again? Without the Boss, and the funds he took to the depths, what were their options?

Resigned that life would be measured by terms of breaths, Jack planned a retreat to Colorado, to spite that situation.

Perhaps they were fated to roam the wilderness – and live as the Inuit who thrived there for generations. People found a way to survive that environment; certainly, they could have survived it too. They could have settled about and lived off the land not unlike the manner of their stay at the homestead. Away from settlers and their civilization, if such was the outcome of their folly, it was not altogether unattractive.

Could they escape the creature? The Wendigo? Would it know of them and hunt them to the ends of the earth – as it did to their leader?

It was at the middle of imagining how to endure the Arctic that he stepped onto a ledge. The ledge cracked and he slipped. A short though violent fall and he tumbled onto hands and knees – and he skidded. The slick, wet ice carried him into a patch where a boulder lay embedded at the sheet.

He clung onto its face and stopped. Instinctively – and futilely – he reached for the pistol. Then – still prone – he slithered at the side of the boulder. That was where he noticed a pool of blood.... Masses of flesh coated by fur. Piles of bone weathered by teeth. The sled was turned upright nearby.

No. No. No. Koda!

Jack was too exhausted to shriek – the words merely escaped like a whisper.

A hand clutched his shoulder and he froze, confused by it all. The grip was unmistakable. Although something of its familiarity was fading like the shimmer of a mirage.

I am sorry, Jack.

Koda?

The kid was at once relieved and at once afraid....

A dog had been killed, eaten. The sled had been attacked. Yet – he was sorry?

"Why do you fear? You do not need to fear – anymore – Jack?"

Koda remained out of sight. The only physical connections were the touch and the voice. The warmth of his breath against his cheek felt as real as anything. It was his friend and companion. Koda. Through thick and thin. Still – he could not force himself to turn and see.

"I was so hungry. There was such an inflection that Jack shivered. Do you not feel the urge to feed? Are you not caught by the hunger? Ah, can it be, that you do not notice it, yet, Jack? Come.... Notice it. Realize it. Here.... I saved you a bite."

You save me a bite? he found himself asking.

Was it Koda?

Was it the Wendigo?

The grip released and Koda – rather, a figure the size and shape of Koda – appeared to rise and scramble. It rummaged about the sled then flung the carcass of a dog to a spot in front of the kid. The meat was butchered and the style of the cut was like what they employed when they hunted.

It killed the Boss. Kit, too. And it chased me.

Oh? Ricardo del Hernandez y Diaz, he replied with his typical if uncanny delivery of Spanish. "He only chased his reflection; there has not been a creature since the lodge. There is so much of this world you do not know and how I yearn to share it with you. Jack – it is all right to be afraid ... but ... let it pass, let it pass ... through you. You have always been aware of what goes unseen. Yet you did not notice it? You did not feel it? The change."

The figure returned into view only it was altered – thinner, frailer.

Jack did not want to see it. Every instinct fought against it. Instead, he gazed at the meat, then at the boulder, then at the horizon. Anywhere. He just would not look at the figure. He would not acknowledge it. Accepting even that it existed as a silhouette would have made it real.

The carcass – its blood, its flesh.... Revulsion gave into.... God, what was changed? What was different?

We are not in danger?

No – never were or will be.

You are to call me Koda – that will be your name for me.

Jack sipped the cup of water that had been offered by the tracker.

Is it cold enough? he asked.

Yes – yes, it is, thank you.

Koda smiled as he gazed at the kid – wrapped like a gift – atop a mattress. He brushed the palm of his hand against the brow of his head. The youth’s scalp of long yellow curls dripped with sweat, its flesh throbbed with fever. He took the cup, as it was empty, and set it aside.

Thank you, Koda, Jack said – meekly – the fever’s ache consumed such energy that even to speak proved to be a drain.

The abode that had been carved by Koda appeared as if it were cloaked by a veil of onyx despite the noon that penetrated its hatchway. For a while, a sharp, perfect azure reigned through that entry yet it failed to illuminate the area beyond its vicinity. At length a fog that brewed at the twin Spanish Peaks slumped onto the vista and swallowed everything that could be seen at the hatchway. Its void of gray plunged the rest of the chamber into oblivion.

You are good to me, Jack, I will be good to you.

The tracker settled against the wall by the mattress.

Daylight – intermittently strong and weak – continued to filter through the fog and entered the abode with a welcome, cool air.

Jack had been apprehensive when his parents left him at the care of Koda.

Although the tracker was a constant figure in and out of the homestead, the kid felt odd with Koda. It was a sense that just came at the youth almost without a trigger yet did not exert itself as either good or bad only different. Something of it was impelled by the mystery of his background – simply – that he would not speak of his background.

Throughout their stay at that area of Colorado – a swath of its south east canyons – they encountered many, different people. Koda defied classification as a native. Their own (late) kin considered the tracker to be Navajo. The Ute of Archuletta would not agree with that assessment. The townsfolk could not fathom out of which tribe he descended.

Other facets of inconsistencies emerged from time to time.

Koda spoke English to a degree that should have been unnatural – and used it only with Jack. To the family he communicated with awkward assemblages of signs. To the rest he did not transmit an iota.

To Jack that English came without a trace of Spanish. Anglos were not a stranger to that region but the majority of its natives spoke Spanish if they spoke anything out of their own Indian language. Rare was it to find English. Rarer – to the point of curiosity – to find so perfect a speaker. The skill could not have been learned through the channels with which languages were exchanged. It was built through years of usage.

I trust you, alone, Jack, Koda declared all of a sudden.

Trust – it was the only time he allowed anyone into that abode.

Looking about, as much as shadow and darkness allowed, Jack examined the architecture of that lair. It had been excavated out of a pocket then amplified by stages into a chamber and numerous other antechambers. A ladder extended from the floor to the ceiling where its last few rungs stood free of the hatchway that restrained it. Timbers braced the walls and formed its arrangements. Gravel mixed with sand provided the floor at the base of the ladder.

At a corner he spotted a heap – they were implements used to hunt. Around them waited their bounty. Furs that were stretched into frames. Skulls, scattered and bleached, completed the effect. Skins, though, dominated that and other aspects of the abode.

Where did he find the time? Jack wondered.

Underground that air was cool and it soothed the fever. Peace of mind softened those particulars of cultures they did not share. Peace of body hardened as they drew comfort from each other. And,