Bonechiller by Graham McNamee
“Not stories,” he corrects her. “They’re real as rain. If a Windigo catches you, he’ll swallow you whole.”
With a peach pie heating up in the oven, everybody pushes back from the table, making room for their expanded guts.
“You want a Windigo story?” Nick looks at me and stretches his legs out. “I got one for you. The Windigo who liked white meat.”
“Nick,” Laura says. “Not everyone gets your sense of humor like we do. We’re your family, so we have to. But Danny’s a civilian.”
He grunts in pretend disgust. “You want to hear it or not?” he asks me.
“Sure.” I mean, what am I going to say? I just hope it doesn’t end with him jumping up, shouting “Kill Whitey!”
“Way back, at the beginning of the white invasion …,” he starts off.
“Here we go,” Laura mutters, touching his hair as she passes by, making him grin up at her.
“Way back, there was a great shaman who could see the future. He told his people when the snows would come, when a child would be born, when another tribe was planning to attack. One day he was struck down by a dark vision. He had looked deep into the future and seen the end. End of the tribe, of the manitou—”
“Spirits,” Ash explains.
“End of the land itself,” he keeps going. “A great evil walked the world. And it had a white face. The shaman saw that these white men would cover the land, infesting it like lice. And feed off it till there was nothing left but the bones of the earth. So he went into the woods and asked the manitou if they would join him and fight for the land. But they told him that the only thing that could defeat such a great evil was an even greater one. And the shaman knew there was no evil greater than the Windigo.”
Ash is slouched down and stretched out just like her father. She must have heard this story before, but she’s soaking it up like I am.
“So,” Nick says. “The shaman decided to make himself a Windigo from scratch. Taking in a newborn whose mother had died in labor, he raised it to be his child, a child of the night. The shaman went out in the dark of a new moon to one of the invaders’ settlements and caught himself a white man. Then he cut him into pieces and fed him to the child. He had to chew the flesh himself because the baby had no teeth, then spit the meat in its mouth.”
“Pie’s ready.” Laura closes the oven. “How big a slice you want, Nick?”
He holds his hands wide apart.
“Danny?”
“Just a sliver, please,” I say, this story being kind of an appetite killer.
She passes out the plates.
“So,” Nick continues around a peachy mouthful. “The baby grew fat and strong, fed only on the palest of flesh. When its teeth came, they were like a wolf’s. Its fingers grew claws long as a bear’s, and white fur ran in a mane down its back. It became Windigo. When it was big enough to hunt on its own, the shaman set the Windigo loose on the white man. And its hunger had no end.”
“Sounds familiar,” Laura says, kissing the top of his head.
“But there was no end to the whites either. They bred like rats, spreading disease and death where they went. The Windigo feasted on them. But when the invaders learned the nature of this beast, they organized a hunt and set a trap for it. Using a pink-eyed, pale-skinned albino man, they lured the Windigo into a clearing in the woods. They had been chasing it for days, and the Windigo was starving. Blind with hunger. It could smell the delicious flavor of that flesh, white as new snow, and could not resist.”
Nick pauses to fork in another hunk of pie. I’ve barely touched mine.
“The Windigo ran into the clearing, toward the albino, who was tied to a post in the center. Then the men hiding in the trees opened fire, shooting the Windigo so many times its white fur ran red with blood. It escaped the clearing, and got away from the hunters. But now Death was chasing it through the night. Before, Death had been its hunting companion, ready to share in the feast of the Windigo’s victims. Now Death was the hunter. The Windigo returned to the shaman, its father.”
Nick licks his fork.
“And the shaman, seeing the future—the end of his tribe, of the manitou and the land itself—gave one last gift to his child. From his medicine chest, he took out the skin of a white man he had taken years ago, when his dark vision of the end-times had first come to him. Stripping off his clothes, he dressed himself in the white man’s skin. And he gave himself to his starving, dying child. One last meal before Death took them both.”
Laura starts to clear the table. “And what’s the moral of that story?”
As she passes Nick, he gives her butt a pat.
“The moral is—stick to red meat,” he says. “Better for you.”
She laughs. Ash smiles, shaking her head.
Nick gets up and stretches.
“Danny,” he says. “Grab your boots and come on out back with me. I want to show you something.”
So me and Ash go join him on the back porch.
“No, just Danny,” he tells her.
“Dad,” she says, in a warning tone. Then she speaks in Indian, something quick and tongue twisting.
Nick responds with more Ojibwa, sounding like he’s trying to reassure her. She doesn’t look convinced, but he grabs a flashlight, puts a hand on my shoulder and guides me across the backyard to a wooden shack with a small chimney.
“Finished it in October. Before the ground hardened.”
I hurry to keep up, shooting nervous glances to the dark edges of the snowy yard. Where anything could be hiding.
The thought strikes me, as Nick leads me into the darkness, that this guy has actually killed people. Ash told me he shot some Taliban guys over in Afghanistan. She said he got pretty twisted up over it, which is why he transferred from active duty after his last tour ended and came to CFB Borden. Where the only killing you do is killing time.
So I’m a little nervous about what he wants to show me. And why Ash had to stay behind.
He reaches the shack and flips a wooden door latch. “Watch where you step. Floor’s kind of rough.”
Nick gestures me in first, shining the light into the cramped interior. I find benches jutting out from the walls.
“Sit.” He squeezes in and sits on the bench opposite me. It’s tight in here and our knees are touching. There’s a strong pine smell in the shack, undercut by a deep smoky odor.
“What do you think?” He plays the light around.
“I think … I don’t know. What is it?”
“A sweat lodge. A midget one. But still, up to Ojibwa code.”
I see a pit at the rear and some large flat rocks. There’s a big empty pot next to it.
“Ash uses it when she needs to make weight, or work out some knots. I use it to … clear my head.”
He switches off the flashlight but leaves the door open. I can make out the bulk of his shadow, but not his face.
“So,” he says after a brief silence. “You and Ash? What’s that?”
“I—I don’t know,” I mutter, half wishing I could see his face, half glad he can’t see mine.
“I see how you look at her. She feel the same?”
“I guess so. Maybe.”
His knees bump mine as he shifts on the other bench, making me flinch. I can feel his eyes on me. Does he call this a sweat lodge because he brings people out here to sweat them?
“What’s said in the lodge stays in the lodge,” he says. “Clear?”
I nod, then realize the gesture is invisible in the dark. “Sure.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, sweating me.
“I always wanted a boy,” he says, finally. “Laura wanted a girl. But instead, we got Ash. I took her hunting, took her to the fights. Put her to bed with war stories. Laura got cheated, never got the girl she could go shopping with, dress up and do—you know, female stuff.”
It’s so close in here, maybe it’s better not being able to see each other. Like confession.
“So,” he goes on
“She knocked me stupid. My brain didn’t clear for days.”
“Yeah.” I can hear him smiling. “That’s good. So you know who’s boss?”
“Like she’s going to let me forget?”
Nick snorts, then gets to his feet. The flashlight comes to life. He’s shaking his head, grinning.
“She’s going to eat you alive.” He laughs, reaching over to squeeze my shoulder. “Hey, you’re freezing, Danny. Better get you in, get you warmed up.”
“Yeah.”
Stepping out into the snow, I feel a blast of winter wind. I’m sure the wind chill’s subzero, but for me it’s like a summer breeze.
I’m a stubborn guy, but there’s only so long I can stay in denial. Something’s definitely wrong with me. Howie asked if I felt changed. But changed into what?
What did that freaky thing do to us? And why?
Pike said maybe it was just playing with its food.
As I follow Nick’s boot prints in the snow, I look up to see Ash and her mother moving around in the warm light of the kitchen.
If I’m going to get eaten alive, better if Ash does it. I can think of worse ways to go.
NINETEEN
It’s real late. The deep dark dead of night. I’m fighting sleep, pacing my room, scared of what’s waiting in my dreams. I’ve got so much caffeine pumping through my veins my heart’s banging off my ribs like a caged animal.
Dinner at Ash’s place was weird. But not bad weird. Being with Ash and her mom and dad, I saw how they fit together. The way they move around each other, the little touches. How they fill in the spaces between the other’s words, finishing their thoughts. Making fun, inside jokes, speaking in their own code.
Sitting with them after dinner, it hit me—this used to be mine. Me, mom and dad. We had this.
There’s a line from a poem we read in class, something like: “When people die, worlds die with them.”
I shake my head, trying to lose this feeling.
When I got back from Ash’s, I found a bright red envelope on the kitchen table. Obviously a Christmas card. From Aunt Karen, Mom’s kid sister.
“Came this morning,” Dad said, sipping his beer.
He was crashed on the couch watching some Clint Eastwood Western. They’re all pretty much the same—man with no name rides into town, kills bad guys, rides out. He lives nowhere, owns nothing, always on the move. Sounds familiar.
Dad was doing his trick where he rolls a bottle cap over his knuckles, like you do with a quarter. Back and forth, as a gunfight blazed on TV.
I turned the envelope over and over. Finally, I tore it open. A Christmas card. Harmless enough. But something slipped out, falling on the floor in front of the couch. We both looked down.
A photo. My heart skipped a beat. Dad stopped rolling the cap. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then Dad picked it up.
A summer snapshot of a day at the beach back in Toronto. I remember it so clear, like I just stepped off that beach a minute ago. Me and Mom are taking turns diving off Dad’s broad shoulders into the cool water of Lake Ontario. He’s standing neck-deep, letting us use him as a platform.
It’s Mom’s turn. The camera catches her laughing hysterically, balancing on Dad’s shoulders. All eyes are on her. You can see the back of my head as I dog-paddle nearby. Dad’s got his hands on her calves, keeping her steady. He’s looking up at her perched there. She’s shiny wet in the bright sun and squinting against the dazzle off the water. His mouth is open, telling her to—
“Jump,” Dad mumbled to the photo, caught in the same time warp as me. The ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Dad held the photo tight, bending it.
Then I noticed a spot of red on his other hand, a drop of blood trickling from his closed fist.
“Dad. Your hand.”
Took a second before he saw the blood. As he opened his fist, I saw where the bottle cap had bitten into his palm.
I grabbed a box of tissues and handed him a wad, taking the picture from him. I slipped it into my pocket, out of sight.
While Dad soaked the blood up, I got him a fresh beer and me a Coke. We watched the rest of the movie, even though I knew how it was going to end. We didn’t talk much. Just sat there, getting through the night together.
Now, I put the photo with some others I keep buried in a drawer. I only take them out when I get scared I’m going to forget something about her. Something small but key. I can’t look at them too long.
On the back of the beach shot, Aunt Karen’s written: Here’s a piece of summer to keep you warm this Christmas.
I pace over to the window. The glass is frosted with a thin skin of ice. I lean in close to steam the window with my breath, to melt the frosting so I can see out. And as the ice crystals dissolve under my breath, I forget where I am.
I remember breathing on another window, forever ago.
It’s spring, and Mom sits by the living-room window of our apartment in Toronto, looking out at the new leaves on the trees. So new they’re still unfolding from their buds. The window is shut tight. Mom goes from sweating to shivers so quick I can’t keep up, piling blankets on, taking them away.
She’s right up close to the glass now, breathing on it. Her exhale breaks into a racking cough that makes me cringe.
“Danny?” she says in a voice like a croak.
I go to her. “You cold? I’ll get you your comforter, fresh from the dryer.”
Mom likes the blankets just out of the dryer, all heated up. We’re doing laundry every day. Mom can’t keep anything down and messes up her sheets, pajamas and things. “Not cold,” she whispers. “The glass. Fog it up for me, Danny Boy.”
“Ah.” I smile, realizing what she wants.
I lean over beside her and steam a patch of the window with my breath. Mom draws in the mist with her finger. She’s kind of slow, so I keep fogging it back up. When she’s done, she leans back to consider her masterpiece.
There are two small stick figures, side by side, holding hands. One is Stinkboy, my alter ego, with his pointy teeth and squiggly stink lines rising off him. With him is a longhaired version, with matching smell squiggles.
“Who’s that with Stinkboy?” I ask. “He got a date?”
The doodle is starting to fade so I exhale, bringing it back to life.
“That’s the other me.” Mom’s pale lips curve in the tiniest of grins. “Stinkgirl. They’re made for each other.”
She squeezes her eyes shut with a shiver.
“Cold,” she whispers.
“I’ll get the comforter. Be right back.”
I rush down the hall and grab it. When I get back, Mom’s leaning her head on the window.
“Here.” I lay the cover gently in her lap. “Nice and toasty.”
Her cheek has wiped off some of the fading doodle. Reaching to pull her away and set her back into her chair, I sense something’s different. She feels … empty somehow.
“Mom?”
I take her hand and press my fingers against the inside of her cool, frail wrist. I feel for the smallest flutter, the faintest beat. I wait and wait.
“Mom?”
So quick. In the half minute it took me to get her comforter. She was just speaking to me. She said my name. I can still hear her saying it.
Kneeling on the floor, I don’t want to do anything or call anyone, don’t want to leave her side. I lay my head down in her lap.
It’s warm, from the comforter. But also, I need to believe, warm from her.
Now my breath on the icy glass has melted the white frost so I can see out into the night.
I back up and collapse on the bed, suddenly too weak to stand.
It’s so dumb. Me and Dad have spent all this time runn
Fog it up for me, Danny Boy.
And all our running brought us here. Somewhere to hide. Somewhere safe.
Right!
TWENTY
“So, what did you come up with?” I ask, sitting down beside Ash on the foot of Howie’s bed.
Pike drove us over here after school, saying Howie needed to show us his latest discoveries. He’s been home three days now, getting an early start on Christmas break. Now we’re all off till the new year. If we make it to the new year.
I don’t think Howie’s even left the house since he got back from the hospital. He’s spending all his time researching online.
“I’ve got tons of stuff to show you.” Howie rummages through his desk. Books piled five deep, papers scattered.
“What happened to that megawatt X-ray lighting you had in here?” Ash asks. “It’s kind of dim now. I thought you needed it for your seasonal disorder thingy.”
“Seasonal affective disorder.” He shuffles through the piles. “Guess I’m cured. Can’t take the light anymore. It hurts my eyes. Another symptom.”
Even though I got a head start, getting bit a few days before Howie, this “infection” is hitting him harder. He’s always like that, catching every cold, flu, strep throat and pinkeye in the county. Somebody gets the sniffles at school, Howie gets pneumonia.
He swivels around in his chair, a bunch of pages in his lap. “This will blow your mind. Remember all those missing-persons articles I downloaded? I kept digging and found even more. But here’s the thing—there’s a pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?” I ask.
“Get this. They all involve victims between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. And all of them went missing in the winter months.”
I think back to the pages he printed off for me. I’d noticed they were all teenagers. But the winter thing slipped by me.
“So?” Ash says. “Maybe they ran away from this armpit of a town. Winter’s a bitch up here. Can you blame them?”