Part 13 (1/2)
The local Indians denied any involvement or knowledge of the whereabouts of the settlers. Despite some intense interrogations, the Indians held fast to their denial. They had seen nothing, heard nothing.
The one tell-tale sign that the settlers met with a fate other than hostile Indians was a hastily scrawled message on a piece of stone. What seemed to start off as the simple lines to mark off the days spent in settlement ended as squiggles culminating in a fragmented sentence...
...demons from the s- And a rough sketch...
The sketch was reproduced in the booklet in pencil for the reader alongside a grainy black-and-white photograph of the original stone etching. Glen stared at it for a long time.
The first, a rough sketch of the thing Rick found. It looked like a cross between a giant crab and a scorpion. The severed tail and claw resting in his downstairs freezer would match a beast like this perfectly.
The second...a hint of a message, preserved in time in the grainy black and white photograph, the message cut off suddenly when the unknown artist met with a sudden, unknown fate.
Glen Jorgensen read through the rest of the booklet with amazement. Phillipsport County remained largely uncolonized until the early 1700s. The crew that landed in the area one hundred years before had taken their tale back to the mother country and the tale became a legend, handed down from generation to generation.
And it had remained as such. Until Paul Hackett dug up the story and published it for the local tourist trade.
Glen had heard a rough version of the story when he was growing up in Phillipsport. It was told around a Boy Scout campfire when he was eleven or twelve. An older kid told it in all the spooky tones and gestures of campfire story telling. ”And legend says that the Wendigo came down from the sky and ransacked the village, destroying all its inhabitants and pulling them back with him into the air, never to be seen again. And even now, four hundred years later, the Wendigo waits for the right moment...when an unwary boy might stray alone into the forest...like...us!”
The story had always ended on a melodramatic note, designed to shock. And it had spooked him back then; it held all the reverence of those urban legends that are handed down from generation to generation, from older brother to little brother and his friends, in turn handed down to smaller kids in the neighborhood where it grows, mutates into a story with horrifying proportions. They were the kind of stories that the teller proclaims was steeped in the truth, and he or she believed it; it had happened to his cousin's sister's boyfriend's best friend. There were similar tales of woe. b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, who appeared in the mirror-after you gazed into it in a dark room and chanted her name three times-to rake your face with her long fingernails. The Hook, who hung around lover's lanes and decapitated young fornicating couples. It bore similarities to such a legend, with the possibility of more. The Wendigo was more than just an icon in this tale; it was also an Indian legend, centering in New England, the northeast coast of Canada. Indian legend described it as a monster-a G.o.d, if you will-that roamed the woods of greater Canada and Maine, devouring human flesh and ravaging everything that crossed its path.
Glen chalked the Wendigo legend up with that of the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot-unproven, undoc.u.mented fairy tales. At least there were photos of Nessie and Bigfoot. He had always regarded the Wendigo legend as a pile of s.h.i.+t in comparison to the former two.
Glen closed the slim volume, his brow creased in reflection. The lost village story and the creatures they were dealing with now had a common thread-Paul Hackett reported in his book that shortly before the settlers vanished, there'd been an invasion of giant crabs from the ocean. The villagers had scampered inland, horrified at the sight. This had been doc.u.mented by a tribe member who'd been near the campsite when it happened. The Indian darted back to his tribe to spread the word. Legend had it the tribe retreated farther inland en ma.s.se, as if escaping the wrath of a rival tribe on the warpath.
They'd waited until the following rise of the next full moon. Just as their forefathers had done, many times before the white men had ever come to this land to build their villages. Then they returned.
This time the white man's village was ransacked. Not a soul had been spared.
Glen Jorgensen pursed his lips in thought, his mind running on auto-pilot.
A ma.s.s exodus of giant crabs. The excited shock of the villagers.
And then the town is ransacked, the villagers vanished.
The hastily scrawled message in stone...demons from the s- Demons from the sea? That would be the most plausible deciphering of the message. The settlers had obviously seen the giant crabs come up from the beach. In those times of religious persecution, when possession by devils was taken seriously and a mole on a pretty girl's cheek meant she was a witch, they very well could have thought the overgrown crabs were demons from the sea. They could have very well been scared out of their wits when the crustaceans had washed ash.o.r.e. Panic had probably ensued at a greater level than was happening now. Somebody could have scrawled the message and then been interrupted to join the fray to beat the creatures back to the ocean. But why would the creatures have come up in the first place, just as they were doing now?
”G.o.dd.a.m.n,” Glen Jorgensen murmured as it came to him. He'd just put two and two together when the thought occurred to him to take a peek outside and see what was happening.
He placed the chapbook on the shelf and hurried out of the study and up the stairs. The attic took up the entire floor of the house and had been renovated into a recreational room. Glen had done all the work himself. He moved across the room, past the pool table and wet bar, to the telescope perched by the port window that looked out over the east side of the town.
He moved the telescope over the horizon, his right eye up against the lens, scanning the scene. The storm was still unleas.h.i.+ng her fury, blowing rain against the window, blowing the trees into a frenzy. He scanned the town over the peaked roofs of the Victorian style buildings and homes, over trees and telephone poles to the beach and pier.
To the scene that was unfolding below.
Chapter Seventeen.
Rick and Jack hit the first house they could find, a cute little white bungalow with blue trim perched on the corner of Main Street and the entrance to the pier. Rick pounded on the door until the occupant opened it with a grimace. ”What the h.e.l.l is going-”
”We have to get out of here,” Rick almost shouted. ”They're invading the town, they-”
The man at the door was middle-aged, late forties, balding with strands of long gray hair spilling off the back of his head and down his back, stained white T-s.h.i.+rt over a huge paunch. He was wearing horn rimmed gla.s.ses with lenses that were so thick they resembled the bottom of c.o.ke bottles. ”What the f.u.c.k are you-”
Jack interrupted him. ”I know it sounds crazy Earl, but the beach is being invaded by a ma.s.s of huge crabs.”
”Huge what?” Earl looked at the two as if they were experiencing a bad acid flashback.
Jack c.o.c.ked a thumb toward the beach. ”Take a look.”
Earl peered over their shoulders. His eyes widened.
”What the f.u.c.k?”
Rick risked a glance behind him. The Clickers were cresting the sand and had reached the parking lot of the beach. They were heading right toward them.
He turned to Earl, pus.h.i.+ng his way inside the house. ”We've got to get out of here now.”
Earl scrambled back as Rick and Jack fumbled inside. Jack slammed the door shut as Earl moved toward the window, his eyes as wide as saucers. ”What the f.u.c.k are those things?”
”Clickers,” Rick said, moving to the kitchen. It ended in a laundry room, which in turn led to the backyard. A white picket fence lined the backyard, which led presumably to the neighboring house. ”Got any guns in the house?”
”Earl? What the h.e.l.l is going on?” A short, squat woman wearing a yellow-stained, white nightgown emerged in the hallway. Her gray hair hung in greasy clumps over her eyes. She was fat. She wasn't wearing a bra, and her t.i.ts hung down her chest like pendulant udders beneath the frayed nightgown. Her bloodshot eyes moved from Rick to Jack. ”Who the f.u.c.k are these guys?”
”Shut up!” Earl barked to the woman, his gaze still trained out the window. ”Jesus Christ, them things is heading this way!”
”Don't tell me to shut up you f.u.c.king a.s.shole, f.u.c.k you, Earl, you fat f.u.c.king slob of a pig,” the woman bawled. Rick moved past the woman to the bedrooms, looking for weapons, a gun, anything that would help fight these things off. Moving past the woman was scary enough; the heavy smell of body odor and booze permeated the air around her.
Jack found a deer rifle in the hall closet. He opened the slide. Five rounds left. He joined Earl at the window.
”This thing work?”
Earl seemed to notice Jack for the first time. ”Yeah. Hey, I got more guns in the bedroom.”
”You ain't gone go shootin' critters in this storm!” The woman yelled at him.
Earl turned his jiggly bulk toward the woman and screamed at her. ”Shut yer trap, Maggie, just shut up! There's things out there coming at us and-”
”No, you shut up Earl, you fat sack of slime s.h.i.+t!” Maggie was screaming, blowing snot and crying at the same time. Rick emerged from the bedroom with two rifles and a box of sh.e.l.ls. He nodded at Jack, who was gritting his teeth. Why the h.e.l.l did they pick this house? Christ, he felt like shooting both of them.
”Gimme that rifle!” Earl barked. He took three heavy strides forward and plucked one of the rifles from Rick's hands and turned back toward the window. He opened the window and cradled the rifle to his shoulder, aiming at the beach. The barrel of the rifle kissed the mesh of the screen. Maggie was screaming hoa.r.s.ely next to Rick. If she didn't shut up soon, by G.o.d, he'd blow her stupid brains out himself.
”These f.u.c.kers are all over the place!” Earl said excitedly, and then he fired.