Tandem of Terror (27 page)

Ben knew he had to make a "ghost" of this
man. He was a true fan of Mortam's work and the chance to speak
with him was not one Ben was going to pass up. "Ghost" technology
had been around for a long time and Ben often used it when life
alone on the Eveningtide simply got too much for him and he needed
someone to talk to. Making a "ghost" was easy enough. All it
required was hooking Mortam's neural system up to the station's AI
and running a program which would allow the AI to recompose a
hologram of the subject from the lingering electro-traces in the
subject's brain combined with a download of data gathered about the
person during life. Of course, Ghost technology was banned
throughout Corp controlled space but Ben had learned to do it back
when he served in the military out on the rim.

Ben left the other seven bodies the drone
dropped off in the docking area after the drone departed and rolled
Mortam's torpedo shaped status unit into preparation room four. He
shut down the field which kept the corpse in kind of a temporal
limbo and popped open Mortam's container. The man looked nothing
like he had in life. Death had stolen his timeless charisma from
him. His body was thin with the flesh stretched tightly over the
bones. His green eyes were closed beneath a head of silver hair
which had lost its luster.

Ben hooked Mortam up to the AI and took a
seat at the room's computer terminal. Smiling, Ben fired up the
"ghost" program. The room's lights dimmed and then went out. Red
emergency lightening flashed on as Ben's terminal erupted in a
shower of sparks and hurled him from his seat to the floor. "What
the ... ?" Ben muttered. This had never happened before. He sat
stunned as Mortam's image flickered into being in front of him.
Mortam appeared not as he had in life, like almost all "ghosts" do,
but as a spitting replica of the corpse lying inside the status
unit.

"
Ben Samuel Hall," the image
rasped as the old man glared at him. Any worries Ben had over the
power surge were erased from his mind with those three simple
words. He hadn't downloaded any info on himself or the Eveningtide
into the "ghost's" makeup. The old man
shouldn't
know his
name. Ben leapt to his feet, dusting himself off and tried to make
the best of the situation as he tried to understand what was going
on.

"
Welcome to Eveningtide
station, Mr. Mortam," Ben offered, "I hope you'll forgive me sir,
but I am huge fan of your work and I couldn't resist the urge to
speak with you before I tucked you in for your rest."

Mortam's image smiled. "I know and you are
quite forgiven young man. Why if not for you, I would still be
dead."

"
But you are dead, I am
afraid, sir," Ben corrected him, "You're not really you, just a
kind of after image I've created."

Mortam laughed so deeply it echoed off the
room's walls. "You've quite a nice home for yourself here Ben. No
one to bother you and yet so many souls to keep you company."

"
Thank you, I guess," Ben
answered looking over the blown out terminal. Mortam's image was
really creeping him out. He wanted to shut it down, needed to check
on the cause of the power surge, but with the terminal destroyed
there was no way to do either from this room.

"
Look, Mr. Mortam ..." Ben
started but the old man cut him off.

"
The Eveningtide is fine
Ben. There was no damage outside this room. I am merely redirecting
the station's power for a few moments."

"
Redirecting...What...Why?"
Ben stammered. "You shouldn't be able to do that."

"
You don't understand yet do
you Ben? I am as alive now as I ever was. Tell me, Ben, why do
stations like the Eveningtide exist?"

"
To preserve the dead. To
keep them safe until science conquers death and the great minds and
figures of the past can rejoin us."

"
That time has come, Ben. I
am its beginning. I am the new Alpha and Omega and I give life unto
those here who would have it now as I offer it!" Mortam
screamed.

With that, Mortam's image flickered to
nothingness as the station's power leapt back on-line. Alarm
klaxons seemed to be blaring everywhere. Ben raced out the
preparation room to the nearest access terminal. He called up a
diagnostic of the station. Every single containment unit abroad had
been breached by whatever the Mortam ghost had done. Worse, every
body inside them had been fried as an energy backlash had poured
over them. Ben flipped from the view of one mangled corpse to
another as he began to realize just how much trouble he was going
to be in when the next Corp inspection ship dropped by to check up
on him and the Eveningtide. There was no way in Hades their scans
would fail to pick up internal damage on this scale.

Ben slumped to the floor, leaning with his
back against the wall, with his head in his hands. His head snapped
up as he heard a thump from down the hall. He got to his feet and
walked down the corridor to investigate. It seemed to be coming
from storage locker 18.

The door to the locker dilated open as he
approached and he stepped inside just in time to see one of the
stasis chambers burst one and spill a charred corpse onto the
floor. The corpse thrashed about like a fish out of water in some
kind of seizure. Ben backed out of the room and locked the door as
it closed behind him. He turned to head up to main control and came
face to face with a mob of burnt and naked bodies. The smell of
burnt flesh hung heavily in the air and made him gag.

They watched him, unmoving, as he stared at
them. Ben spun and bolted in the other direction only to run
straight into another mass of the creatures. He felt their cold
hands grabbing him and pulling him to the floor. One of them opened
its mouth as if to speak but only a hollow, hissing noise came out.
Then they were all over Ben. Their fingernails dug into his flesh
and their teeth gnawed through his skin. He watched, completely
numb from shock, as one of his legs was torn off and passed through
the crowd. The last thing Ben saw was Mortam's wrinkled face
staring down at him from the view screen on the wall terminal above
him. "Now, it begins at last," Mortam's voice whispered through the
station's AI speakers into every corner of the Eveningtide.

Wendigo

Eric S. Brown

"
Jacob?" Margaret whispered
into the darkness. He stood at the house's only door peering out
into the night. "Is it still out there?"

Jacob turned to look back at his wife,
motioning her to silence. Whatever it was, it was still outside.
The cattle were quiet now as were the dogs. Jacob guessed they were
dead. He clutched his Winchester .73 in his sweaty palms and
gripped the rifle so tightly his knuckles turned a deep white,
knowing he should do something. Anything was better than waiting
for whatever was out there to make the first move. He nodded
towards the oil lantern which hung beside the door. Margaret ran to
his side and lit it as he swung the door open and stepped outside.
She followed in his wake.

"
Lord almighty," Jacob
muttered as he nearly walked into Luke's corpse. The dog had been
skinned alive and hung upside down by his intestines, still
thrashing with the last rementants of life, from the porch's
ceiling. Margaret screamed trying to cover her eyes, dropping the
lantern. It shattered spreading its flame across the wooden porch.
"Margaret!" Jacob shouted snapping her back to her senses. She ran
inside the house in search of water. As Jacob saw it for the first
time. It stood just outside the cattle pens to Jacob's right,
nearly seven feet tall and dressed in the tattered clothing of a
man but Jacob knew it was not human. No human could do the things
it had done tonight. The things eyes glowed a feral yellow in the
flickering light of the flames. Its skin pale and sickly, though
its body rippled with well-honed muscles. Its blood smeared lips
open in a smile that chilled Jacob to the depths of his very
soul.

Jacob swung his rifle to bare on the thing
but before he could even finish his turn the thing was upon him. It
ripped the winchester from his hands, crushing the metal of its
barrel in its grasp and threw the weapon out into the grass. Jacob
felt the thing's hand close around his throat as it lifted him from
his feet and slammed him into the wall. Jacob tasted the irony
copper of blood in his mouth as spots filled his vision. Its other
hand tore through his stomach and emerged with a handful of his own
entrails which it smeared into his face as he shouted to God for
help. The last thing Jacob heard as his body sagged to the floor
was Margaret wailing at the top of lungs.

The sun was high in the noon day sky as Frank
held a cloth over his mouth wiping away the vomit. "What...What
could do this?"

Doc Grover looked up from Margaret's remains
and stared at him without saying a word. Margaret had been split
from her groin to her chin and her insides pulled out and
apparently carried away.

"
Hey, Frank!" Jeff shouted.
The deputy stood in the burnt out house shifting through the ash
and blackened wood. "I think I found Jacob!" He held up a human
thigh bone and waved it at them for Frank to see.

"
Thank the Lord, they didn't
have children," Grover muttered more to himself than
Frank.

Frank's other deputy, Marcus, walked up to
Frank and handed him a bent rifle that looked like someone had
crushed under an anvil. "Found this in the yard. Looks like Jacob
tried to stand up for himself after whoever it was killed his
cattle and old Luke."

Frank shook his head in disbelief at it all
of it. This was the third murder like this in as many days. "We
gotta find whoever's doing this, Frank, Marcus said fingering the
butt of the .36 revolver which hung in a holster on his belt, his
face twisted with disgust and rage.

Still carrying the bone, Jeff made his way
over to where they stood. "She-itt," he laughed, "This was worse
than the last place."

"
Put that down!" Grover
ordered, "Don't you have any respect for these poor people? They
were good folk. Nobody ever spoke badly of Jacob around these
parts. They didn't deserve this."

"
No, they didn't," Marcus
agreed staring out into the cattle pens where dozens of bodies lay
rotting in the sun in a sea of feces, blood, and organs.

"
Get David! I want him up
here now!" Frank yelled.

"
What? I ain't workin' with
no half-breed!" Jeff shot back.

"
If you want to keep that
badge of yours son, you'll do like I tell you to." Frank
warned.

Jeff spat on the ground but kept his mouth
shut as Marcus headed towards the horses and took off for town.

"
You really think he can
help, sherriff?" Grover asked as Marcus disappeared over the
horizon.

"
Don't know, Doc, but I
gotta do something."

Time seemed to crawl. Doc Grover packed up
his things and headed back to town too. There was nothing he could
do for the dead. As the evening sun crept behind the surrounding
moutains, two riders made their way towards the house. Frank sat on
a stump beside the remenants of the house, rolling a smoke as
Marcus and David rode in.

Frank noticed the air of nervousness, right
off, about the young tracker. "David. Relax son, we didn't bring
you up here to hang you."

David dismounted and followed Marcus over to
where the sherriff and Jeff sat. "Then why did you have your deputy
haul me up here sherriff? I am still a free man aren't I?"

Frank appeared hurt by David's accusation
while Jeff glared at the half-breed with out right hatred. Born to
an indian shaman and a white woman, David was a mix of two worlds.
He had been well educated but clung to the beliefs of his father's
religion. He wore civilized clothing but kept his jet black hair so
long that it hung in a ponytail nearly to his waist. He was a
paradox unto himself.

"
Look around you David. This
is why I brought you here. These murders have to stop. You're the
best tracker I've ever heard tell of and I am hoping you'll help me
find the men responsible for this."

"
He ain't gonna help
sherriff. Send him back to town and let's get on with it," Jeff
stood up, dusting off his hands.

David stared at Jeff, his eyes blazing with
hatred, but said nothing.

"
David, please." Marcus laid
a hand on the youth's shoulder.

"
No human did this sherriff.
Even if I help you find the being responsible for these killings,
what makes you think you can stop it?"

"
Faith," Frank answered,
"Someone has to try... What makes you think it was only one
man?"

"
I can feel the evil here
sherriff, lingering in his wake. Have you ever heard of the
Wendigo?"

Frank shook his head as Jeff laughed.
"Win-de-go! Ha, what's that some kind of heathren myth?"

"
Yes," David nodded, "But
the creature is no myth. Get your gear ready. Let's get moving
while the light of day still shines."

Marcus and Frank hopped up, readying the
horses.

David led the way, but it was Frank who
pushed them all to their limits. He insisted they keep moving long
after the sun had set. Somehow David was able to track the killer
even in the darkness. No one asked how. Even Jeff kept his mouth
shut for once. Finally Marcus spoke up.

"
Frank, we can't keep going
like this. We need rest."