It wasn’t until the wheels of my Cessna 185 touched ground, plumes of snow erupting from either side of the craft like salmon leaping upstream, that I exhaled. Dusk had fallen, and the gale that battered my craft for the past hour had seemingly come out of nowhere. Hands trembling, I released the yolk and dug into the pockets of my worn sheepskin coat, fishing for the flask of whiskey I kept there. The darkness and the solitude had a way of playing with a man’s mind, I rationalized. The hum of the aircraft and the quiet was different at fifteen thousand feet. It did things to a person. As I strapped on my jacket, and prepared to tie down the plane for the night, I replayed the image again in my mind.
The sudden, unexpected blizzard.
Me, looking at my map for a forgotten runway on which to wait out the storm.
The flash of lightning.
The shadow that seemed to rise and then sink below the churning sea of grey clouds.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen or heard something strange I couldn’t quite comprehend. Voices in the Northern Lights. Aircrafts that seem to be flying next to you one minute before disappearing straight up into the sky the next. The reflections of deceased loved ones in the windshield glass… and yet there had been something different about this. Something seemingly more… concrete. It felt real enough that, when I identified the old Juniper runway tucked beneath the Wrangell Mountains, I decided to descend. The wind batted the aircraft back and forth but I finally managed to touch her down. Forty years and this old girl had about seen it all. Still, it was more than the weather that had set my nerves on edge.
I’d just finished hammering down the final tie when the hairs rose on the back of my neck. Lord knows I’d spent plenty of nights alone in the bush, listening to the huff of a bear as he plodded past my tent. This was it, that thrumming sensation one got when a pair of eyes were on their back. Turning, I thumbed the hammer of the .44 Frontiersman revolver strapped to my side.
The man stood ten feet back from me. He was bare from the waist up, and was lashed with scars that were somehow a shade of ivory lighter than him. His irises shone bright in the moonlight, and below his sunken eyes and crooked nose was a long, thin beard that swept around his shoulders and neck like seaweed. Over his shoulder I caught a glimpse of something that had been obscured by gusts of snow and ice. It was a small cabin, a hundred meters away at the edge of the wood. A tongue of yellow light glowed in the window. The pale man beckoned to me, a voice that shouldn’t have been audible above the wind.
“Come.” He spoke. “It is cold… grows colder still.”
He did not speak again, but instead turned and staggered away. I looked back at my plane and thought about the long frigid night I would spend huddled in the cab, and when I turned the man had all but vanished. The shadow in the sky still imprinted on my mind, I snapped open one of the side storage compartments and grabbed my survival pack before turning and struggling through the knee deep snow after him. The man’s tracks had been swept almost clean by the gale, and all I had to follow were slightly sunken imprints until the cabin was once again in view.
It was a humble affair, a one room shack with a small table, two stumps of wood presumably used as chairs, a fireplace, a shelf with one book, and a cot. He was already carrying one of the stumps over to the fireplace as I entered the hut, and after sitting upon it began removing his lace-less, ragged boots. He nodded his head over at the table as I clomped the snow from my boots on the threshold.
“Bear meat,” he wheezed, “and whiskey.”
“Thank you kindly,” I smiled, the warmth of the fireplace already blooming on my wind whipped cheeks. “But I’ll stick to my own whiskey. Goods are hard to come by out here.”
The stranger shook his head and again gestured to the table.
“Guests… so few.” He said. When he spoke his voice was dry and husky, like the strings of a guitar long forgotten in a closet. “It would… do me the… honor of being a host.”
I looked down at the table and there, sitting across from each other, were two bowls, one full of meat and broth, the other empty.
“Is there someone else living with you? I don’t mean to intrude,” I began but the man shook his head and held up a hand.
“Torngarsuk provides… for all his guests,” he said.
“Well again, I appreciate you greatly Torngarsuk,” I said. I walked over to the man and put out my hand “Billy Alder.”
A gust of wind roared through the valley, strong enough to raise the hushed sighs of the trees to a thunderous exhale. The walls of the cabin shook. When it became apparent the man wasn’t going to take my hand I walked back over to the stump and sat at his table. I picked up a hunk of meat and tore off a corner before lifting the bowl and drinking some broth. It was steaming, and I could feel it make its way past my lips, down my throat, and into my stomach. The man whispered gently into the fire, and then carried his stump back over to where I sat.
I ate in silence. I tried to bury my growing unease in the warmth of the food and the sharp, homemade whiskey Torngarsuk had offered, but my mind kept returning back to earlier that day… the sudden winter storm… the looming shadow. I tried to avoid the fact that it felt like the man was watching me by diverting my eyes to the walls of the cabin.
There were no pictures or pieces of art, just a single bear pelt with strange Inuit markings on it. The head and claws had been removed.
I’d never liked killing bears. It wasn’t the killing I had a problem with. Skinning them, however, was a different matter. Once the fur was off, if you avoided the mandibles and four inch claws, they almost seemed… human. The one on his wall was smaller in stature, almost man-sized.
“So… What’s the deal with the runway? Last time I landed here there was more of an operation going, a family sort-of-deal. There was a boy… he had a little stuffed teddy I remember… and the little girl with French braids… They leave with the last flight out?”
The man did not immediately speak. I offered him a pull from the jug of amber whiskey, but he held up a hand and objected.
“They never left. Cold… food…” the man gestured indifferently to the room. I took a sip from the cup of whiskey. It was hot and almost metallic tasting, but it warmed the stomach and settled my raised hackles.
“That’s a damn shame. It wouldn’t be the first time the Klondike took a few unfortunate souls though. She isn’t forgiving.”
“No. He is not,” the strange man whispered. I tore another piece of meat from the slab on my plate. In truth it was stringy and sweet, but I swallowed it out of courtesy. I’d had my fair share of black bear and besides, it was food. The wind shrieked again as it slammed against the side of the cabin, and somewhere off in the forest I thought I heard a tree fall.
“Speaking of unforgiving,” I said, taking another gulp of whiskey. I gestured with my cup as I swallowed. “This storm might be one of the strangest I’ve ever seen. Built almost right over the mountain and came out of nowhere. I’ve seen this sort of thing over the Aleutian Islands but this… over the mainland…” I trailed off to allow Torngarsuk to speak and momentarily thought he wouldn’t fill the conversational void. He turned towards the only window in the cabin, gazed out into the maelstrom, and spoke.
“Torngarsuk is near.”
I set the slab of meat back down in the bowl and wiped my chin. The hairs on the back of my neck had begun to rise again, and the sense that every pilot has when they see a storm cloud on the horizon filled my stomach with lead.
“Is someone else coming? I was under the impression that you are Torngarsuk.” I felt the weight of my six shooter on my hip.
“I am Torngarsuk. This-“ He gestured to the air around us, “-is Torngarsuk. You… are Torngarsuk.”
“Billy Alder,” I said, shaking my head and gesturing to myself. “Torngarsuk is…?”
“The Bear King. The Eye of the Forest-”
“And this is his season? Is that what you meant by ‘he’s near’?” I let go of the grip of my pistol and relaxed. The man across from me swayed a little and I glanced away from him. The room was illuminated by the dancing flame of a single kerosene lamp and the low glow of the hearth. Despite the dim light from the fireplace the heat was warm, and that, combined with the spirits, made my head feel thick.
“When man was more connected to the Earth his soul was more connected to the gods. In that time they were as… tangible as you or me. They walked among us, towering overhead, a deity to behold.” I turned my gaze back to the man and found that his silver irises were locked with mine. He was unsmiling and the room turned sluggishly again. “But when man turned his back on the Earth the gods found that their power… too… was fading. They became shadows, then whispers. And the power of balance fell to man. It was his duty to protect their home mother.”
The storm outside grew violent. The wind moaned through the cracks in the door and within it I thought I could hear four distinct voices. Mother. Father. Son. Daughter. The earth trembled below us as if something terrible and monstrous were approaching. The man across from me raised his hand, and made a sign with it upon me. My visions swam, and I placed a hand upon the table to stable myself. The other one fumbled at my hip for the pistol.
“To restore the balance of power, sacrifice must be made. One hundred souls, bound to the Sky God Torngarsuk, to draw him forth from his mighty slumber. A pact… made of consumption and sacrifice. Flesh and blood. Received and gifted.”
Torngarsuk rose from his chair. The scars on his body seemed to glow bright in the growing darkness, and as I gazed upon his many lacerations I saw one, in particular, more raw than the others. A chunk the size of a fist was gone just below his rib. My stomach turned and I fell backwards from the table. The room expanded and contracted, swaying back and forth as Torngarsuk approached. I found the iron on my hip and drew it from its sheath, but my aim faltered as the room spun and darkened around me. There was the eruption of a gunshot in the growing dim, and the last thing before I left consciousness was his eyes, glowing like moonlight on a winter lake.
***
When I came to, the world was still. The trees that had previously been bent and trembling under the breath of the wind stood erect, forming shadows of jagged teeth around the edge of the runway. I sluggishly tried to move my arms and legs, but found them drawn out taut to posts on my left and right. The sky was ink in milk. It swirled and churned as I fought against the dull pool my mind swam in and the leather straps that bound me to those two warped, wooden posts. My mind cleared, and in the stillness I heard a sound.
It was a slurping and sucking and tearing. The sound of feeding.
In front of me, a trail of crimson led from the nearby woods to where I was drawn. I followed its path as it led to myself, and when I looked down I found Torngarsuk, the man, kneeling at my feet. In his hands was a bowl, thick and steaming, filled with the innards that spilled from my open abdomen and, as if feeling my eyes upon him, he looked up at me, his mouth dripping and red.
When he spoke it was of words not of man’s knowledge. They were guttural and ancient, the language of the gods long forgotten.
I felt something then, as the warmth left my body and something new, cold and dreadful took its place. It was the sensation that something was approaching, that a storm lay just on the horizon. I drew my gaze forward, and there, looming above the forest, was a terrible shadow. It stood sixty men tall and yet it made not a sound as it waded through the forest. Below Him, and just as silent, the other three waded through the snow. Mother, son, and daughter. All as pale, as scarred as the father.
Beneath the sickly green and gray sky the bear god approached, the absence of light save for one all-seeing eye in the center of His head. A force of being. A terrible will. To look upon Him and His form was to know true madness, and that was when I began to scream, my voice echoing in my head and yet dying silent upon the land. I screamed until He too fell upon me and began to feed. Bowl passed from mother, to son, to daughter, and they fed as well. The world faded, and I knew all.
***
I sent out the S.O.S the next morning, when the sky was gray but still and the sun had not yet climbed to the top of the trees. The first plane to arrive would do so by sundown, with fuel and a shovel or two to help dig me out enough to move my plane. We would work, and then they would feast, and when the time approached so would I. Bound to the mountain, bound to His being, we would clear the runway of snow and debris. And as more and more were drawn to Him by storm and wind we would take them all in, offer them our body, our blood. At night we would present the Great Bear ourselves. Our offerings. And with every sacrifice, draw the world closer to the gift of His true form.
Genre: Horror
Event: A Detour
Character: An Airman
The Word and The Song 