Dead of Winter (50 page)

The antler-horned windigo shrieked, then turned and disappeared into the mist that surrounded the island.

Tom’s heart filled with heat. He woke up to find Anika’s warm body entwined with his. He embraced her.

224

A week later, at the village on Otter Island, Tom stepped out of a wigwam. He was feeling whole again. His body had returned to its normal size. His stomach was full from a delicious breakfast Anika had made him. She joined him, taking his hand. They walked together to the river, where several braves were packing a long canoe. Father Xavier stood at the shore. He looked ten years younger.

Tom put a hand on the Jesuit’s shoulder. “Thank you, Father. I owe you my life.”

Father Xavier smiled. “I owe you just as much. You, too, Anika. Tell your grandmother I said thank you again for my new hat.” He patted the coonskin that covered his bald head.

As the priest climbed into the center of the canoe, Tom asked, “Is the nightmare really over?”

“For Gustave’s legion…
Oui
.” Father Xavier set his black bag at his feet. “But the battle against evil is far from over. Satan has many legions.”

“We will be ready,” Anika said.

The brigade paddled away from the shore. Father Xavier waved goodbye. “Tom, if you ever find yourself in Montréal again, you know where to find me.”

Tom put his arm around Anika. “Thanks, but my life is here now.”

Part Twenty-Two

The Four Winds

225

As Tom spent the remaining winter living on Otter Island among the Ojibwa, he learned that the Four Winds bring upon the change of seasons. In the dead of winter, the tribe always migrates to stay clear of the hungry windigos. The evil manitous have been around since the beginning of man and will still be here long after man makes his journey to the afterworld. But winters come to an end. And with the coming of spring, the tribe returns to their northern village to enjoy all the riches that the sacred land has to offer. Friendly manitous appear in the forest to help the tribal people find good places to fish and hunt and harvest rice. These manitous become their totems that connect them with the spirits of Father Sky and Mother Earth.

At long last, the sun shining in the bright blue sky warmed Tom’s skin. The snow melted. All up and down Beaver Creek, ice fell into the trickling water. A herd of deer drinking at the stream watched the Ojibwa walking through the forest. Tom walked among them, dressed in buckskins and moccasins. He had a full beard now, and his hair had grown well past his ears. Anika walked beside him. Her belly was already starting to show. By autumn, they were due to have their first child. Anika, who was still just as stubborn as ever, had never looked happier. While Tom was looking forward to being a father again, he would never forget his first born. Thinking of Chris now once again brought Tom’s grief to the surface.

The tribe gathered around the burial ground, where small spirit houses covered the graves. Grandmother Spotted Owl led the ceremony, chanting a native song. Anika, Swiftbear, and the other shaman joined in on the singing. Tom watched with teary eyes as a group of braves set a spirit house over a body wrapped in fur blankets. Then everyone fell silent and looked at Tom. He pulled out the flute that he and his son had whittled together.

From the forest came a hooting sound. A white snow owl was perched on a branch above the burial ground. As Tom pressed the flute to his mouth and played sweet music, the owl spread its wings and flew upward, into the clear blue sky.

About the Author

Brian Moreland writes novels and short stories of horror and supernatural suspense. In 2007, his novel
Shadows in the Mist
, a Nazi occult thriller set during World War II, won a gold medal for Best Horror Novel in an international contest. The novel went on to be published in Austria and Germany under the title
Schattenkrieger
. When not working on books, Brian edits documentaries and TV commercials around the globe. He produced a World War II documentary in Normandy, France, and worked at two military bases in Iraq with a film crew. He also consults writers on how to improve their books and be successful. He loves hiking, kayaking, rock climbing, and dancing. Brian lives in Dallas, Texas, where he is diligently writing his next horror novel. You can communicate with him online at www.BrianMoreland.com or on Twitter @BrianMoreland.

The dead still hate!

Forest of Shadows

© 2011 Hunter Shea

John Backman specializes in inexplicable phenomena. The weirder the better. So when he gets a letter from a terrified man describing an old log home with odd whisperings, shadows that come alive, and rooms that disappear, he can’t resist the call. But the violence only escalates as soon as John arrives in the remote Alaskan village of Shida. Something dreadful happened there. Something monstrous. The shadows are closing in…and they’re out for blood.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Forest of Shadows:

They screamed.

And impossible as it seemed, George Bolster was grateful for his family’s unbridled cries of terror as they masked the other unearthly sounds that ghosted their every move.

Whump. Whump. Whump.

The steady beat of an unseen giant’s footsteps up the stairs.

“Into the bedroom, now!” George shouted at his panicked wife and sons. They scrabbled into the room at the end of the hall while the floor quaked beneath their feet. Once inside, George slammed the door shut and braced his back against its oak frame. His sons, Cory and Matt, clung to Sharon’s sides, their eyes wide and terrified, darting around the room, looking for death in benign shadows.

“Sharon, push the dresser over.”

Stifling a sob that made her entire body shudder, she reluctantly pulled away from the boys and ran over to the large dresser. George grunted as the unseen force in the hallway pounded against the door.

“Hurry!”

Matt leapt to his mother’s side to help push the heavy piece of furniture across the floor and against the bedroom door. Cory, who was only six and barely forty pounds, could only curl up into a corner and whimper. A clap of thunder made the entire house quake and they all shrieked in unison. George still pressed his weight against the door while Sharon and Matt gathered as much bulk as they could find and piled it as high and as fast as they could on top of the dresser.

The door shook as it was rammed again and again, so hard that the arch above the doorway began to crack. It wouldn’t be long before the entire wall would collapse and then where could they go?

A deep thrumming emanated from beyond the door, a sonorous hum that was not so much heard as it was felt. It hurt like hell. They felt it vibrate their chest walls, disrupt the hammering rhythm of their hearts. It crept up their spines and exploded in their skulls, threatening to liquefy their brains.

So they screamed. Fighting fire with fire. The pile of debris stashed against the door shook as the pounding on the door continued. Staggering on jellied knees, George peered out the sole window into the moon bathed woods outside. It was only a drop of twenty feet or so. Maybe, if he jumped first, he could catch them one at a time and they could run into the woods. But it was so damn cold, well below zero, and they didn’t have a coat between them. Could they possibly navigate their way through the snow steeped forest to their nearest neighbor a mile away?

Suddenly, everything stopped. The pain ceased and they all dropped to their knees. What sounded like a thousand tiny claws ticked across the hardwood floor of the hallway, retreating to the other end and descending the staircase that lead to the living room below.

George shook his head and went back to the window.

“Is it gone, Daddy?” Cory whispered.

“I don’t know. Everyone stay quiet.”

He kept his eyes on the faintly illuminated yard and his ears tuned for any sounds within the house. Matt and Cory muffled their cries into their mother’s breast.

“What are you thinking?” Sharon mouthed.

George pointed out the window and used two fingers to simulate running. It was their only chance.

“George, we’ll freeze to death.”

One look from her husband ended any protest. Gently pulling the boys from her sides, she went over to the dresser and found two blankets, several pairs of sport socks and one wool hat. She worked in silence, wrapping the boys in the blankets and putting an extra pair of socks on their shoeless feet. Cory, being the youngest and frailest, got the hat.

George gathered his family by the window.

“I’m going to jump into the snow out there. Matt, I want you to go next, then Cory, then Mom. Once we’re all out, I want you to stick close and run as fast as you can. We’re going to try to make it to Glenn’s house.”

“But that’s really far and it’s so dark out,” Matt protested.

George hugged him and felt close to tears. “I know, little man, I know. But we have to get out of here and Glenn’s house is the closest to us.”

“Maybe it’s gone away,” Cory said. They all looked towards the door. The entire house had been silent for almost five minutes now.

Sharon placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “It might not be a bad idea to wait a while and see.”

George wanted nothing more than to run like hell from his house. Freezing to death was a welcomed option to the thing downstairs.

“I’m not sure−”

The floor exploded just five feet from where they sat as the assault recommenced, this time from below. A fist-sized hole opened up between the splintered wood. A maniacal rush of thrashing and clawing blasted from the fresh portal as the floor shook from repeated efforts to widen the gap.

“Everyone up!”

George threw the window up hard, shattering the glass. Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped out into the cold night. He landed in a three foot pile of snow that cushioned his fall. His right leg throbbed a little and his lungs hurt as he sucked in his first draft of frigid air.

“Okay, Matt, jump!” he shouted.

Sharon plucked her youngest son and aimed him into his father’s waiting arms. George caught him and they both fell back into the snow. He was back on his feet by the time Cory had himself perched on the windowsill. Cory looked back at his mother, afraid to leave her alone, even if it was only for a moment.

“Go, Cory. I’ll be right behind you.”

The opening in the floor grew wider as more shards of wood shot out of the hole like lava from a volcano. Cory sprang into the air and almost sailed past his father. After a quick tumble in the freezing snow, George was back up and waiting for Sharon.

Heavy moaning filled the room. Sharon’s bladder lost control. Something was trying to find purchase on the jagged edges of the hole. Something huge, black and evil.

“Sharon! Come on!” George and the boys were shouting to her from the yard. Momentarily mesmerized by creeping fear, she turned back to the window and placed a foot on the sill.

As she prepared to jump, a trio of shadows stretched from the trees like a sentient ink spill and engulfed her family. One second they were there, calling for her to jump, and the next instant they were gone as the shadows retreated back into the forest.

“Nooooooo!”

She never noticed the presence behind her.

Dead of Winter

Brian Moreland

A predator stalks the frozen woods.

At a fort deep in the Ontario wilderness in 1878, a ghastly predator is attacking colonists and spreading a gruesome plague—his victims turn into ravenous cannibals with an unending hunger for human flesh. Inspector Tom Hatcher has faced a madman before, when he tracked down Montreal’s infamous Cannery Cannibal. But can even he stop the slaughter this time?

In Montreal, exorcist Father Xavier visits an asylum where the Cannery Cannibal is imprisoned. But the killer who murdered thirteen women is more than just a madman who craves human meat. He is possessed by a shape-shifting demon. Inspector Hatcher and Father Xavier must unravel a mystery that has spanned centuries and confront a predator that has turned the frozen woods into a killing ground where evil has come to feed.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Dead of Winter

Copyright © 2011 by Brian Moreland

ISBN: 978-1-60928-649-1

Edited by Don D’Auria

Cover by Angela Waters

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: October 2011

www.samhainpublishing.com