Dead of Winter (35 page)

With his fort steadily being eaten away by some strange disease, he worried how this would affect the future of his company. His Montréal partners had invested a lot of money with Pendleton Fur Trading Company and were expecting a large delivery of pelts to their fur factory come spring. Pelts from beaver, muskrat, fox, otter, raccoon, rabbit, and wolf were like gold in Canada. For over a century, a great demand for these had come from the merchants of Montréal, London, and Paris as fur became the fashion. The beaver, one of the most valuable of the pelts, was used to make felt hats. Furs of every animal imaginable were made into coats, hats, boots, purses, and blankets. Despite the decline of the fur trade since the heyday when Pendleton worked for Hudson’s Bay Company, there was still a fortune to be made. But the chief factor was already behind on his quota. With Manitou Outpost shut down and the migration of the Ojibwa tribe, there were no trappers left. He would send all his workers out to set traps if it weren’t for the pack of cannibals roaming the woods and this goddamned virus infecting his colony.

The sounds of screaming villagers still echoed through Pendleton’s mind. He couldn’t shake the monstrous face of Nadia Chaurette as she attacked people in the chapel. Another outbreak and twelve more colonists dead.

“What are we going to do, Master Pendleton?” asked Lt. Hysmith. The security officer was seated at the conference table with Walter Thain and Percy Kennicot. All three officers stared at their chief factor with forlorn eyes.

“We are bloody fucked is what we are,” said Walter, always the pessimist.

Percy said, “Maybe we should shut down the fort. Return to Montréal.”

Pendleton bristled at the thought of returning with such a paltry amount of furs. His partners would never invest with him again. “We’re staying through the winter, and that’s the end of it.”

“But we could all be dead by then,” said Hysmith. “Are you forgetting what happened to the crew at Manitou Outpost? Master Lamothe was in the same predicament as we are, and now he’s gone.”

“He’s right,” Walter said. “We can’t just stay here waiting for the next outbreak.”

“Goddamn it, get a hold of yourselves!” Pendleton stood at the end of the table. “You’re supposed to be leaders. The entire colony is already on edge. If the workers see you behaving like this, we’re sure to have a mutiny on our hands.”

“If that happens, we’re doomed,” Hysmith said. “I lost five good soldiers today, including Sgt. Cox. I only have four privates left.”

Walter and Percy sagged in their seats, brooding over their glasses of brandy.

Pendleton put his hand on the stuffed wolverine that sat on his desk. “Gentlemen, I need you to stay strong for the sake of the village. I am certain there is a way we can stop another outbreak from occurring.”

“What do you suggest we do?” asked Hysmith.

“We take measures to make sure the sickness doesn’t spread.” Pendleton grabbed his black wolverine coat. “Let’s find out what Dr. Coombs has learned about the virus.”

135

Tom was reluctant to leave Anika alone.

“I’ll be all right,” she assured him. “Makade and Ozaawi will keep me company.” Her face had hardened again, displaying her toughness. Tom hated to see the bruises and welts around her eye and forehead. She had additional markings on her arms and back. The more he had offered to talk with Master Pendleton, the more Anika defended the letch. It wasn’t just the threat of losing her dogs that made her endure his abuse. Pendleton had her convinced she deserved the beatings. They were always the result of her disobedience and backtalk. As long as she surrendered to Pendleton’s desires, he didn’t beat her.

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” she said.

“I have to meet with Dr. Coombs,” Tom said, grabbing his shotgun. “Come with me. Doc can give you some medicine.”

“I can make my own medicine.” She opened the door. “Now stop fretting over me and go.”

136

Tom entered Dr. Coombs’ medical lab. The disease specialist was peering into his microscope. The cramped room stank of rotting meat. On the center table lay Private Fitch’s half-eaten arm. The bite wounds were filled with gray pus. For the first time, Tom noticed dozens of smaller wounds. Rat bites? He still couldn’t shake the vision of the cannibal wearing a coat of living rats and flapping ravens. On another table lay Nadia Chaurette, the crazed woman who had run amok in the chapel. Her face was a red gaping hole, the effect of Tom’s shotgun blasting buckshot through the back of her skull. At the tip of each of her long fingers were wolf-like claws.

“Quite a spectacle, isn’t she, Inspector?” Dr. Coombs said with a grin.

Tom kept his distance, as if the faceless she-beast might suddenly spring to life and lash out with those razor talons. “Why wasn’t her body burned with the others?”

“I wanted to do a full autopsy. Don’t worry, Inspector, I’ve taken measures not to touch her.” Dr. Coombs placed a glass slide of saliva with the sample of blood under the microscope. He peered into the lenses and made a groaning sound. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“What do you see?” Tom asked.

“Normal blood.” The physician slumped against a table. “I’ve studied samples from four people who were infected. There are no viral cells, no mutations, nothing to indicate a physical disease.”

“What do you mean there’s no virus?” spoke Master Pendleton from the doorway.

Tom felt a rash of anger as the chief factor entered with Lt. Hysmith. Pendleton was dressed in his black fur coat and top hat, which he removed and set on a table. “Something caused Jean and Nadia to turn into beasts.”

Dr. Coombs said, “Whatever the catalyst was, it’s not showing up in their cells.”

“Is it possible we took the samples too late?” Tom asked.

“No, immediately after death there still should have been signs of a strain. I half expected to discover an advanced form of rabies, but even the saliva offers nothing.” Dr. Coombs scratched his beard. “Gentlemen, I’m befuddled. There seems to be no scientific explanation for these physical aberrations. Unless…” The doctor went over to his bookshelf and ran his finger along the volumes. He pulled out a book titled
Mysterious Ailments
. “There
have
been cases throughout European history of people turning feral and cannibalistic.” He flipped through the pages. “The most recent documented case was of a woman in a village in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. She murdered three people at a farm and mutilated several sheep. A group of hunters found the woman naked and covered in blood. She was described as behaving like a wild animal, with nocturnal eyes that reflected light, territorial, and highly aggressive. It took several shots to finally kill her. The woman’s head was removed and her body burned. The local doctor tested her blood, but found no virus to indicate a physical disease.”

“Does the book offer any explanations?” Pendleton asked.

“It offers one. However this theory stems more from folklore rather than proven science. In all these documented cases, the wild cannibal was believed to have turned into some kind of lycanthrope.”

“And what the bloody hell is that?” Pendleton asked.

Dr. Coombs grinned. “A werewolf.”

137

“Werewolves are nothing but creatures of fairy tales,” Tom said.

Dr. Coombs said, “I would have agreed with you entirely, Inspector, until I witnessed the cannibals you killed. Now that I’ve ruled out a virus, I am willing to entertain that our disease is a form of lycanthropy, also known as
melancholia canina
.”

Pendleton said, “What do you know about it?”

Dr. Coombs smiled, “I know volumes about the subject, actually. Lycanthropy, which means ‘man-wolf,’ derives from Greek mythology from Ovid’s tale
Metamorphoses.
In one interpretation, Zeus turns a king named Lycoan into a wolf as punishment for killing humans and eating their flesh. In the medical field, lycanthropy is typically diagnosed as a mental illness, where people behave like wolves because they believe themselves to be the animal. They run wild through the woods. They kill livestock. But in reality they are humans who have simply gone insane.”

“That I can believe,” said Tom. “But how do you explain the cannibal growing claws and canine teeth?”

“All I can do is postulate from previous cases.” Dr. Coombs set the
Mysterious Ailments
book on the table and opened it to an illustration titled “Werewolf,” created by the artist Lucas Cranach der Ältere back in 1512.

“Since Ovid’s Greek myth,” Dr. Coombs continued, “werewolf tales have spread throughout Europe, and the man-turned-beast has become a thing of legend. The French call werewolves ‘
loup-garou
.’ In the Shetland Islands of Scotland, the woman I described earlier was called a ‘
wulver
.’ Here in Canada, the Indians believe in shape-shifters. They call them ‘
wiitigos
.’”

Tom remembered the day he investigated the killings at the Ojibwa village. Kunetay Timberwolf had slaughtered ten people and all his dogs and dragged them into the woods where evidence showed a pack of cannibals had gathered to eat. Chief Swiftbear had called them
wiitigos
.

“I’ve heard stories about them,” said Hysmith. “Mostly campfire tales. The voyageurs call them
windigos
.”

Tom said, “Doc, tell us everything you know about these windigos.”

“Ah, the windigo legend is a fascinating one,” said Dr. Coombs with a gleam in his eyes. “The Indians of the Great Lakes region believe that a shape-shifter roams the forest each winter. They claim it is a spirit that can rise from the ground as a sudden snowstorm. It can shape-shift into animals or walk bipedal like a man, often in the form of a skeletal creature that has long claws and fangs like icicles. In its most monstrous form, the windigo can walk as high as the trees. The beast has a ravenous appetite that can never be satiated. So it devours every animal and man it comes upon. Hunters have claimed that the sound of the windigo’s scream can cause a man to get confused, and if the hunter escaped he would become a windigo himself.”

Pendleton said, “Doctor, I want answers, not legendary tales.”

“But what if the creature the Indians fear exists?” asked the doctor. “Not a spiritual creature, but an anomaly in nature. Some sort of wolf beast that carries the disease. From everything I’ve seen, I’m willing to entertain the possibility that what we are up against is an ancient form of lycanthropy disease that is causing people to mutate through some kind of metamorphoses. One that causes them to behave like wolves and hunger for human flesh. If so, gentlemen, then perhaps the time has arrived that science and legend have reached a meeting point.” Dr. Coombs closed his book and grinned. “This discovery could be a breakthrough in the studies of evolution.”

Tom said, “All very good theories, Doc, but none of them tell us how to stop another outbreak.”

“To do more studies, I’ll need another specimen. Preferably alive.”

“Out of the question,” Pendleton said. “I didn’t bring you here for a science expedition. I just want to stop this disease before it runs rampant.”

138

Werewolves and windigos.

As Tom sat alone at his kitchen table and wrote the day’s events in his journal, he didn’t quite know what to make of Dr. Coombs’ outlandish theories. Tom had always thought of man-turned-beasts as nothing more than folklore and myth. But he couldn’t deny the evidence. A month ago he had found Percy’s wife, Sakari, mauled to death by an animal that had left large bipedal tracks and claw marks high in the trees. Anika had feared a beast more terrifying than a bear, more spirit than animal. A windigo? Did the disease that turned people into ferocious cannibals originate from a spiritual beast?

In his diary, Father Jacques had spoken of a predator that was stalking Manitou Outpost, killing anyone who ventured into the woods. The sickness had spread through the fort, starting with Master Pierre Lamothe’s oldest daughter, Margaux. In a matter of a week, the entire fort turned cannibal. Down in the cellar they found the remains of Father Jacques, his head mounted on a post. Wenonah Lamothe attacked the soldiers. According to Lt. Hysmith, she had grown in height by at least a couple of feet. The rest of the Manitou trappers were thought to be roaming the woods as a pack. Zoé, who somehow escaped, had brought the plague to Fort Pendleton. Tom had witnessed the Indian girl and Doc Riley changing into long-boned monstrosities with jackal faces. Tom had seen white-eyed dogs and goats turn on one another. And today, he shot two more colonists who had become infected. Jean and Nadia Chaurette had each grown claws and fangs, every tooth as sharp as a wolf’s canines. They had displayed uncanny strength and swiftness.

Had they become werewolves? Tom noted in his journal that not one infected cannibal had grown fur like the werewolves of myth. Nor did it take silver bullets to kill them. If they weren’t werewolves then what were they? And what was the source of this disease they carried if not a virus?

Tom wanted to toss out Dr. Coombs’ theories as pure rubbish, but there was no denying that people were turning into beasts.