Zombies: More Recent Dead

Those Beneath the Bog Jacques L. Condor

Prunie Stefan, wearing a plaid shirt and men’s trousers cinched at her waist with a rope, toiled at flensing a fresh moose skin. Her hair was in two braids tied together across her back so it did not fall in her way. Her husband, Martin, trimmed sinews from a moose carcass hung on a crossbar in the forks of two trees. The work of trimming and flensing was tiresome, but necessary for both of them.

A campfire blocked the entrance to their campsite against marauding bears attracted by the moose kill. Prunie pushed the flensing tool against stretched skin to remove fat and fibers. The final tanned skin would be smooth as the velvet cloth sold at the Nelson River trading post.

Bot flies darted around Prunie’s head and arms so she ran to the enveloping alder wood smoke of smudge fires where she was free of the buzzing pests. Prunie used the tail of her blood-spattered shirt to wipe her watering eyes. She left the smoke and walked to the riverbank fifty paces away. Prunie scanned the lake. Something moved far out on the water. She shaded her eyes with her hands to make out the object. A freight canoe with a single sail moved far out on the water. The canoe came closer and she recognized the man at the tiller.

My Uncle Alex from Cranberry Portage, Prunie thought. Coming to visit his relatives at Reed Lake.

Wind scudded across the water and threw up spumes of white froth. The man turned the canoe into the sudden gust. The sail lofted. Prunie saw the painted clan symbol on the canvas and recognized several people in the canoe.

“Hey, husband,” she called out. “People are coming: Uncle Alex and my aunties. There are other men with him.” Martin turned from his butchering. “They smelled my moose meat over there in Cranberry.” He laughed. “I know your relatives. They can sniff meat twenty kilometers away. Am I wrong?”

“Yes, wrong. Perhaps they come just to visit,” Prunie said. “We’ll feed them, no? It’s good I shot this moose. You’re lucky your husband is a great hunter.” He planted a kiss on her nose and laughed. The woman laughed with him and rolled her eyes.

“You should get to cookin’,” Martin said. With a knife as long as his wife’s forearm, he sliced through the carcass and pried loose a section of ribs.

“I’ll roast these over a slow fire,” Prunie said. “But I need meat for stew. They’ll need hot soup. It’s cold on the lake.” Martin cut several lean strips from the belly of the moose. Prunie went to her cooking fire with her arms full of meat.

Martin walked to the rock ledge boat landing at the river’s mouth and waited for the canoe to nudge into shore. He saw the guns and the backpacks and knew the relatives were not just visiting, but hunting.

Old Alex climbed from the canoe bobbing in shallow water. The old man waded to shore. As tribal elder and leader of a hunting party, it was his duty to be the first ashore.

The old man shook Martin’s hand. “Hello, my relative.” Prunie’s cousins, both in their early thirties, greeted Martin.

“Remember me? I’m Peter and this is my brother, Freddie.” Freddie pumped Martin’s hand.

“Uncle, good to see you,” Prunie embraced the old man. “Good to see you, niece. It has been a year.”

Martin waded out to the canoe and picked up an auntie in each arm and carried them to shore. There were squeals and laughter.

“Don’t drop them!” Old Alex shouted. “They are the only ones to cook and take care of me.”

Peter tried to help the third and eldest of the aunties ashore. The old woman waved him off. She crawled out of the canoe, lifted two layers of long skirts above her knee-high rubber boots and plodded through the water. A large black dog leapt out of the canoe and splashed behind her. One of the strangers whistled a shrill command. The dog dropped on his belly on the gravel shore.

The visitors followed Prunie to her campfire where they drank hot soup and warmed themselves. The oldest woman stirred the ashes of the fire with a willow stick before she dropped in a bundle of tobacco, cedar twigs and red yarn. Her offering flared for a moment and the fire smoldered as before.

“I had to do that, Prunie,” the old Auntie Rose said. “That’s my prayer offering to Manitou. I been prayin’ since we left home. That lake is dangerous with the crosswinds rushin’ in.”

“Oh, Sister Rose, you worry too much about everythin’. You’re always praying for somethin’ or other,” Alex said.

“Somebody’s got to do the prayin’ or we wouldn’t have any protection at all.”

“I’m glad you pray, Auntie Rose. It makes me feel safer,” Prunie said. “Do you pray too, Auntie Sophia?”

“I sure do, but when Rose tells me I ought to be prayin’ to the Old Ones, I get peevish. I’m a good Catholic, Prunie,” Auntie Sophia said.

“Well I wish prayers could kill these pesky bugs!” Young Aunt Nettie swatted at a circling ring of black flies swarming around her head.

“Hard freeze works better than prayers on bugs,” Uncle Alex said.

The youngest of the aunties made a sound like “Pish” and walked downwind of a smudge fire and let the smoke discourage the pests.

“We haven’t seen moose on our side of the lake. Don’t know where they gone to,” Alex said.

“Alex is too old to hunt moose.” Aunt Sophia said.

“I am not too old,” the old man replied.

“If I say you are—then you are,” Sophia replied. “That’s why these two boys came along—to get some moose meat for us—forgot to introduce them.”

“These boys are from our village,” Auntie Rose explained. “The tall one is Nikolas. That black dog is his. It’s a good duck dog. This skinny one is Ephraim. They is good boys.”

“And good hunters, too,” Sophia added.

The man called Nikolas whistled again and the black dog came and crouched at his feet. “This is River. I call him River ’cause he takes to water every chance he gets. Never go any place without him,” Nikolas said.

“You never go any place without that silly cap either,” Auntie Sophia pointed to the leather hat the man wore. It was decorated with fishing lures, bits of shell, dangling beads and animal fetishes. The hat was firmly tied under the man’s chin with leather thongs.

“He sleeps in that damned hat,” Alex said. “Come on, we got to talk huntin’.”

“You’re a pushy old man bringing up the main subject without first jest visitin’,” Sophia said.

“And you won’t let a man talk about huntin’ in peace.” Sophia kicked at Alex’s moccasin-shod foot and missed. She shrugged and walked away to join Prunie and Nettie at the cooking fire. As she passed her eldest sister, Sophia noticed that Rose held a spruce root basket in her hands and a tattered red blanket was draped over her arm.

“What you plannin’ to do with that stuff, Rose?” Sophia asked, frowning. She recognized the divining tools and knew her sister intended to consult the bones and foretell the future.

“Leave me be, Sophia!” Rose croaked. “I’m gonna go off yonder and do me some prayin’.”

“Prayin’, I don’t mind, Rose, but tossin’ around them old bones and little colored rocks is the devil’s work in my way of thinkin’.”

“Then stop thinkin’. Don’t pay me any mind and let me do my niganadjimowin divinin’ in peace.”

“Oh go off by yourself and throw them smelly old bones all over the place if you want. My advice is to toss all that evil stuff in the Grassy River.” Sophia turned abruptly and went to tend the roasting ribs.

Rose moved several meters farther away and spread her blanket. She peered inside the basket. The bones were there. The porcupine bones would tell her of hunting success and the beaver hipbone foretold the fate of all in the camp. The other tiny bones and colored agate stones and the pindjigos-san medicine bag helped old Rose with vague details of her divinations. She covered the opening of the basket with her hand and shook it seven times. She sang divination song-prayers before she turned the basket upside down and let the contents spill on the worn red blanket. Rose bent to study the pattern the bones made. She read the message:

“Ka! Kawin! Namawiya! Ka! Ka!” She cried out. “No! Oh my, no! Oh no!” and slumped to the ground.

Prunie saw her old auntie fall and rushed to her side. “What is it, Auntie?” Prunie asked.

“I think she fainted,” Nikolas said, hurrying to their side. “I’m all right you two.” Rose allowed herself to be raised to a sitting position. “The bones’ message scared me. I’m all right, but this camp and two of the hunters are in danger. Two gonna die!”

Nikolas shook his head, eyes growing wide. “Who? Which one of us is it? When? Who will die?” he asked.

“Foolish man!” Rose hissed. “The bones don’t give me a time and a place! They don’t spell out names if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”

Prunie looked up into Nikolas’s worried face and forced a smile. “Sometimes what the bones reveal never come true. Isn’t that right, Auntie? Sometimes the bones reveal things that have already happened.”

The old auntie did not answer. She gathered her divining items and replaced them in her basket.

Nikolas helped Rose to her feet. “Sometimes things you see don’t happen?”

“Prunie said that. I didn’t,” Rose said. “I might read the bones wrong—but it doesn’t happen often. I must make prayers to Manitou. The danger is from the dead ones who live. Go away and leave me be.”

Nikolas watched the old woman hobble off to pray and turned to Prunie. “What is that old one talking about? You believe in all this stuff?”

“You shouldn’t worry about what she saw in the bones. Forget about this, Nikolas. Don’t say anything to the others and neither will I.” Prunie tried to sound calm. Nikolas hesitated before nodding his agreement.

When she finished her prayers, a grim-faced Auntie Rose joined the other women. When Sophia asked Rose what was wrong, the older sister said nothing, put down the carving knife and walked away. Auntie Rose kept apart from everyone. She stared into space, silent and alone. Prunie felt uneasy and it showed on her face.

Sophia patted her arm and said, “Don’t worry, Prunie. Rose is in one of her moods. She always gets that way whenever she messes with them old bones. She calls it ‘seein’ visions.’ What she imagines she sees, I ignore. She just wants attention. She’ll get over her bad mood and be her regular sassy self in a few hours.”

Nikolas joined the men at their campfire. Uncle Alex discussed the route from the headwaters of Reed Lake to the west bank, then north where moose were to be found.

“I had good luck up at Rabbit Lake ’bout seven, maybe eight seasons ago,” Uncle Alex said.

“Then let’s head up there,” Martin said.

“We’ll need canoes,” Peter said. “Can’t get the big canoe up there.”

“We’ll borrow from my relatives,” Martin said.

“Good,” Alex said. “Here’s the plan. Martin and Peter will hunt together with me and Freddie as a second team. Nikolas will be the go-between for the two groups.”

That night Prunie walked to the lean-to where Martin rested, puffing on his clay pipe. She crawled into bed.

Martin blew out a puff of smoke, took the pipe from his mouth. “Did you see the look on Auntie Rose’s face when she heard we’ll go up to Rabbit Lake?” Martin asked.

“I was too busy listening to Uncle’s plans to notice,” Prunie said. “Auntie Rose has been in a bad mood all day.”

Martin gave a big sigh.

“What do you want to tell me?” Prunie asked. “Did Auntie Rose say something to you tonight?”

He phrased his answer carefully. “This is not the first time Rose talked about danger around that lake. When she came here four years ago she told me never to go there if I was alone.”

“But you’re not going alone,” Prunie said. “So what’s the problem?”

He rolled on his side and faced his wife. “Auntie Rose said she’d had visions; warnings, she called them, about some dead things.”

“If she wants to warn you, to protect you, let her do it. Old people, like Auntie Rose, are the only ones who still know how to do such things. If I knew the old protection songs and how to make amulets to protect you, believe me, I’d do it.”

“I thought you were a church member.”

“I am, but maybe there’s something true and powerful in the old ways. I want you back safe and in one piece.”

“I’ll come back safe. I’ve not hunted over that way, ever since old Rose spooked me four years ago.”

“What did she do?”

“She took me aside and said she wanted to talk. She looked towards Rabbit Lake and started talking to herself as much as to me,” Martin explained. “She said the night was full of evil spirits on the other shore; dead things walkin’ around and don’t I see ’em? I tell her, ‘No. I don’t see no dead things.’ Then she asks, ‘Did you ever hear any whistlin’ when you was over there at night?’ ”

“No.” I told her. ‘You will some day, she said, when you hear the whistlin’ you’ll know. The wanisid manitous, evil spirit things is around. Somebody’s gonna die.’ ”

Prunie lay beside her husband. She felt a chill in spite of the warmth of the heavy quilts and blankets. Memories of old legends; stories of the hairy men; the wendigo; wild men of the woods, the ganibod; the dead people who walk; the under-the-lake-people; the old tales invaded her brain like misty ghosts that wouldn’t take clear shape or form. The fear of something ancient, something terrible and deadly, some- thing she knew existed but had never seen nor heard grew within her. She shuddered and Martin, feeling her tremble, asked if she was cold.

“Yes,” she said and snuggled against him. She slept fitfully, awakening suddenly in the late night. She was jolted upright in the bed still feeling the tugging, clawed hands of some nightmare creatures, imagined dream horrors.

The camp came alive with morning activity. Supplies were pushed into backpacks. Freddie and Ephraim carried gear to the lakeshore. Prunie and Sophia helped Nettie pour water on the campfires while they waited for Martin, Peter, and Nikolas to come up the lake with the canoes borrowed from the villagers. Auntie Rose paced back and forth at the far end of the spit of land and muttered her prayers.

Shouts announced Martin’s and the boys’ arrival with three smaller canoes. Uncle Alex supervised the placement of packs and people in them. He took his Elder’s place in the first canoe before they moved towards the north bank several kilometers away.

Before the second night in the new camp, brush lean-to shelters had been fashioned to face a central fire pit where the women prepared the meals. Smaller “bear-fires” burned in outlying pits.

The third night in camp, a despondent group sat around the fire. Two days without moose sign had passed. Nikolas and his dog brought in rabbits and a goose to provide the camp with fresh meat but the moose remained elusive.

The weather stayed warm. The bushes close to camp were heavy with Manitoba mashkigimin—high-bush cranberries—and a few late fruiting pikwadjish—wild mushrooms—were found on the forest floor. With a supply of walleyes and pike from the lake, the women prepared daily meals. The hunters grumbled as they ate, and complained every night that the moose must have moved farther northwest from Rabbit Lake.

When Auntie Rose heard this, she developed another bout of sulky silence. The women hoped her moody spell would soon end. Such behavior disturbed the harmony of the camp.

Each night, campfires provided a sense of safety, holding the thick darkness of the wilderness at bay. For Rose, the shadowy trees concealed matchi manadad—very evil things, the dead who live—watching, waiting to steal forward if the fires died.

The nights in this part of Manitoba were cold, silent, and, to Rose, threatening. She listened for whispering voices or the whistling calls, but heard nothing. Rose pulled her blanket tighter and recited songs of protection for herself and the group. Her repeated chants lasted until the first gray streaks of false dawn.

On the fifth morning, a damp haze of fog hung over the forest and camp blurring the outlines of everything it touched. The men sat huddled around the central fire.

Martin spoke to Peter and Uncle Alex. “Ain’t no moose for three-day’s walk. I say we go up past Rabbit Lake. What you think?”

Old Alex rubbed his hands together and held them palms outward to the campfire. “Good idea,” he said. “That lake has a big bog at the north end. There’s a big sinkhole in the middle of the bog you gotta watch out for, but it’s a safe enough place to camp and hunt.”

Peter said, “I heard nobody goes up there.”

“That sinkhole has a bad name, that’s why some hunters don’t go there,” Uncle Alex said. “It’s called the ‘death hole.’ Been there before. It’s a strange place.”

Auntie Rose stared at Alex and shook her head vigorously in negation. Martin saw the old uncle telegraph a quick message with his eyes.

Auntie Rose slammed her hand down on the earth and shouted, “No! Never—you can’t go there. Something bad will happen!”

Prunie was surprised when her auntie spoke out with such emphatic anger. When Rose disagreed with anything or anyone, she usually turned silent and never shouted.

Alex turned to Rose. “Not the time to speak of visions and deaths.” To the other men he said, “It is nothing. Get ready to leave.”

Uncle Alex acted as if the harsh exchange had not taken place and said, “We will leave when the sun stands directly over us and camp out by Rabbit Lake.”

It was obvious that old Rose did not like this plan at all. She went silent in her sulky manner. This time her silence seemed to convey something more than just disapproval.

Prunie saw a different expression on her auntie’s face—a look of fear. It flashed quickly like a burst of flame from bear fat dropped in a campfire. The old woman’s expression filled Prunie with a sense of dread.

At noon, the men packed their gear into three small canoes. When the hunters started paddling away, Martin shouted to Rose who stood apart from the others.

“Keep prayin’ for us and we’re all gonna come back.” Martin could not hear the words the old woman whispered to the wind.

The hunters arrived at Rabbit Lake before nightfall. Peter built a large fire. The bright blaze illuminated the shelters made from tarps and branches. They ate smoked fish and talked.

Nikolas sat close to the fire ring, squatting on his haunches, his arm draped about his dog. He stared north in the direction of the bog. “Uncle Alex, you said people didn’t come up here. Is there something you didn’t tell us about this place?”

Alex swallowed the bite of smoked pike before he spoke. “Your Auntie Rose is a superstitious old woman,” Alex said.

“There was a flat space where the bog is now, a burial site for murdered Cree and Ojibwe people. Generations ago the Dene people from up north fought our people over that flat place—good hunting land. The Dene pretended to leave but came back before dawn and slaughtered all the men in the camp. Old ones say they left the bodies unburied and put a Dene curse on the corpses. The spirits of the dead were unhappy.”

“What did our people do?” Martin asked Alex.

“Stories say our people came up here and buried all they could find and built spirit houses over the graves. Maybe it was too late to calm the spirits of those dead men. I don’t know. But no one from our tribes ever came back here much after that.”

“But that happened years ago,” Nikolas said.

“Yes,” Alex said. “Right after the bodies were buried, a big fire came through and burned all the trees and brush as well as the grave houses. The rains and heavy snows created high run-off and filled the creeks to overflowing. Creeks changed course and turned the burial ground into a lake for a few years until most of it dried up. Now it’s nothing but a bog with that deep sinkhole in the middle.”

Uncle Alex knocked tobacco ash from his pipe. “Now it’s grown back. Where there’s willows and water, you got moose. We’ll have good luck tomorrow.”

Martin heard gravel crunch and saw Nikolas and his dog leave the fire and walk to the edge of Rabbit Lake. A swift gust of wind grew the fire’s embers into flame. In the sudden fire-flare, Martin saw the man and the dog clearly. What Martin saw on Nikolas’s face was terror. Nikolas returned and knelt beside his dog and stared into the fire.

“What’s the matter?” Martin waited for an answer. None came. “You think maybe bad things live up in that bog?” Nikolas still did not answer. The dog crouched at his side whined and shifted his ears.

Peter put his arm around Nikolas and said, “You’re not afraid of an old tale about some things that died there a long time ago, are you?”

Again Nikolas did not answer. He pushed Peter’s arm from his shoulder and stood up abruptly. Nikolas stepped out of the ring of firelight; his dog followed at his heels, whimpering. They faced the forest and the bog, watching and listening.

“I need some sleep,” Martin yawned. “I’m shootin’ moose tomorrow.” Martin, Peter, and Alex went to the spruce bough shelters.

Freddie stood beside Nikolas. “Don’t be payin’ any heed to long ago stories. There ain’t no such things around today.”

“What makes you so sure, Freddie?” Nikolas muttered.

“Because nobody’s seen anything for almost a hundred years, that’s why I’m sure.”

“Maybe they weren’t lookin’ in the right places, Freddie.”

“You’re actin’ crazy, Nikolas. I’m goin’ to bed. Don’t let the spooks and matchi men get you.” Freddie laughed and walked away.

Nikolas stood alone staring into the darkness. The dog growled low in his throat, lifted his ears and pointed his muzzle into the air, sniffing. Nikolas moved back towards the fire. Some innate memory struggled to access ancient warnings. His senses became acute. He heard sounds. They came out of the black night, swirling to his ears on the mists rising from the sinkhole in the bog. The sounds were high-pitched whistles, dropping in tone and fading away to nothingness.

With shaking hands, Nikolas tore open his pouch of sacred tobacco and cedar and offered the contents to the coals. He chanted his prayer so quietly his ears did not hear the words. He prayed, because he now knew the old tales were true. The creatures lived. Dead souls walked the brush forests of Rabbit Lake; the hunting party had invaded their homeland.

Ephraim tended the fires circling the camp while the women talked story by the big campfire. Rose was over her pouting spells. She told stories of family foibles and escapades, which made everyone laugh out loud. The laughter echoed back from the ringing, low hills. The echoes brought a sudden quiet to the gathering of women.

“I think I’d better get to bed before I laugh myself to death,” Nettie said.

“Nobody ever dies laughin’,” Auntie Rose grumbled. “Death ain’t funny at all.”

Young Nettie stopped giggling abruptly. “That was a dumb thing to say, Sister Rose.” She hurried away.

Prunie put her arm around Rose. “We all say dumb things sometimes.”

“You think I’m just a foolish old lady when I tell you what the bones show me. Huh?” Rose sniffed.

“No Auntie. I don’t think that.”

“You don’t believe what I tell you?” Rose followed a spark’s skyward flight from the fire with her eyes.

“I didn’t say that. It’s just that—”

“It’s because you’re one of these modern Indians hanging around Wekusko or Flin Flon, listening to what white people say. You believe their stories more than our old stories? Our stories kept Ojibwe people protected more than a hundred generations.”

“Auntie Rose, it’s a different time.”

“Don’t I know that? Four generations separate you and me.” The young girl touched the weathered hand of her old auntie. “But I do listen, Auntie.”

“But do you believe? What I’m gonna tell you now, about things in the bog, you gotta believe. They are real livin’ creatures out there that are waitin’ to kill someone. I had visions. They are dead things but still alive and eatin’ living flesh.”

Prunie stiffened at the thought.

She paused and formed her words carefully so as not to anger the old woman. “Auntie, those bog things that could kill our men . . . What are they?”

“Like a man, but not a man. They are all nibo, dead—for long, long time, but still alive somehow. Got hands like ours, but with claws. They are mask, ugly gi-mask, disfigured.”

“Now you’re trying to scare me with those old stories about the wendigo boogeymen of the woods,” Prunie said.

“I’m not tryin’ to scare you, child!” Rose pulled away. “I just want you to know there are dead things that walk.”

Prunie whispered, “Auntie, don’t you think if something like that did exist, we would have seen them?”

“They been seen, but those who saw them never lived to tell about them. The dead men live in the cursed bog by Rabbit Lake.”

“Well, every one of the men has a rifle. If they see any of them up there, they can shoot them and kill them.”

“There are some things that can’t be killed—by guns, anyway. It’ll take more than bullets to kill them bog creatures.”

“Why do they live in a bog?”

Rose leaned towards Prunie. “They den in the bogs like beavers and muskrats.”

“How could they do that?”

“They go down under the water and dig dens into earth banks at the edge of deep water.”

“How do they get out in the winter when the ice freezes thick on the bog?” Prunie asked. “Wouldn’t they be trapped with nothing to eat?”

“Them creatures take moose and anything else that wanders into their bog, then stores the meat up for winter. Just like a beaver does with green poplar branches.

“They got holes and tunnels dug up into the woods. They sneak out and roam around whenever they want. Don’t make no nevermind if the bog is frozen over or not.”

“I see,” Prunie said. She smiled at her eighty-eight-year-old auntie and leaned over and kissed her on both cheeks and smoothed the old woman’s straggles of coarse white hair back under her floral-printed babushka. “I love you, Auntie Rose.”

“I love you too, Prunie. I wish you would send Ephraim to talk the men into comin’ away from that bog.”

“They’d laugh at us for worrying. The men plan to get winter meat and think that’s the place to do it.” Prunie stood. “I’m going to get us each a mug of hot coffee. It’s getting chilly. Aren’t you cold, Auntie?”

The old one shook her head. “I will have a cup anyway.” Rose reached for the spruce root basket of divining bones.

She shook the basket vigorously before she dumped the bones on the blanket folded into a square.

“Waugh!” the old woman cried out. “Again it is two who will die!”

At daybreak, Martin found Nikolas curled up in a ball, next to his dog, his special hat pulled down over his ears, sleeping by the embers of the fire.

When the group woke him, he seemed to be surprised that he was still in the encampment and said, “Waugh! I am still alive!”

The men chuckled. A light dusting of snow in the earliest hours of the morning powdered Nikolas’s clothes.

Nikolas shook his head, brushing off the snow with his hands.

“This is good. Snow helps us track moose now,” Alex said. “Today I don’t hunt,” Nikolas said. “It was foolish of me to fall asleep outside. I couldn’t shoot straight today. I’d spoil your hunt. Go without me. Maybe River will help me get some ducks or geese.”

“Geese are good eatin’, too,” Martin offered.

“You get us some geese, Nikolas,” Alex said. “We stay with our plan. I go up the east side of the lake with Freddie. Martin and Peter can take the west shore.”

Freddie and Alex climbed into their canoe. The pair paddled into fog. Martin and Peter followed in the second canoe. They drew abreast of Uncle Alex’s canoe.

“We will return with meat,” Peter whispered.

“We’ll get two moose apiece,” Martin whispered just as Peter had done. Prey could hear a hunter’s plans and so they must keep their voices low. The two canoes separated and headed to opposite sides of the lake.

Nikolas sat by the fire and watched the sun dissipate the fog. The sound of geese honking low overhead brought him to his feet. River jumped up, whining and wagging his tail.

“Stragglers heading to the far end of the lake,” he told his Labrador. “They’re tired. Let’s go get us some geese, River.” The excitement of a hunt pushed the fears of the night from Nikolas’s mind. He slid the canoe into the water and River jumped in. He paddled in the direction the geese had flown. Nikolas pushed his leather hat with all its trinkets and totems firmly on his head and bent into his paddling, propelling the canoe forward.

Peter and Martin paddled the shoreline. No tracks were visible from the shore into the bush. They stopped paddling and let the canoe drift. They searched the willow thickets near a bend. Peter made a sudden hissing sound and pointed to the thick brush near a flat point of beach jutting into the water. The hunter made another sign for “listen” and cupped his hand to his ear. Martin did the same.

Both heard the sound of breaking twigs as something moved quickly away from their canoe. Martin pulled towards the thicket on the shoreline. A louder crashing followed as the something took off running at top speed through the brush.

“Moose,” whispered Martin, and beached the prow on the sand. Peter grabbed his rifle and leapt onto the shore. He made signs telling Martin to go upwind and frighten the moose back where he would be waiting. Martin understood and back-paddled. He moved the canoe forward in silence some two hundred meters up the shoreline, jumped from the beached canoe and started inland, making noise to scare the moose back towards Peter.

Taller hemlocks among the spindly spruce created a thick canopy of interlocking branches. There were no tracks. Peter could hear the snapping of branches and crackling of twigs. He thought more than one animal hurried away. Suddenly the sounds stopped. Peter stopped, dropped to one knee and pointed his rifle in the direction where he had last heard sounds. Peter listened. The sounds he heard were like whispers children make. Over the whisperings came a series of short, low whistles.

Martin checked the rifle he had slung over his shoulder. He released the safety and began to walk towards his hunting partner. He saw or heard nothing as he sneaked through the thick brush and deadfalls.

Peter held his rifle at the ready for some time. The animals in front of him had not changed position. He had heard no sounds of movement, just murmurs. The muscles in his left forearm twitched with the strain of holding the heavy weapon. He lowered the rifle to relax his arm.

There was a snap of a twig behind him. Before he could turn something hard and heavy struck the back of his head and he pitched forward, unconscious.

When the hunter came to his senses he was being carried by the grasping hands of many strong creatures that moved at great speed. The creatures held him by the arms and legs and made whispered, lisping sounds and murmurs. As they ran, they called to each other with low whistles.

Martin heard the sounds of running animals directly ahead. They seemed to be going away from him. He heard murmurs, soft burbling sounds and whistles and could not imagine why, or how, any running moose could make such noises.

Alex sat on a fallen log and wondered why he had failed to spot any moose.

“The moose is hidin’ from me,” he told Freddie. “I’m wonderin’ where they went, Uncle Alex.”

“Freddie, walk along the shore and see if you can find any tracks. I’ll sit here and wait for you.”

Minutes passed and Freddie came back. He stood in front of Alex and shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t figure it out. I saw moose tracks and they all led up to that bog—the one with the big sinkhole in the middle. Didn’t see any moose, though. I did see lots of moose bones and three sets of skulls and antlers all bleached out white.”

“Was the tines on the antlers all chewed up by porcupines eatin’ on ’em? Was the bones scattered like bears and wolves had got to them?”

“Nothin’ like that. They was all stacked up neat-like. The leg bones in one pile, the skulls in another and the ribs in another pile.”

“Why’d anybody stack up moose bones like that?”

“Beats me,” Freddie said.

At that moment two shots from a twelve-gauge shotgun rang out.

Martin stopped in his tracks. The sound of the gunshots echoed. It was Nikolas’s shotgun. He pushed his way through the willows towards the gunshots. Martin heard a muffled scream. The tangled branches pulled at his clothing, as if trying to prevent him from reaching Peter.

Peter could not scream again. One of the creatures pried open his mouth with insistent claws and forced a chunk of lichen-moss into his open mouth. The creatures scurried through the willow and aspen growth towards the bog. Peter’s eyes bulged in fear and panic. The choking moss barred the air from his lungs.

Peter heard the whistles grow in volume and the lisping sounds increased to an excited pitch as the creatures dragged Peter into the water. He felt the cold splash against his legs and back as the creatures propelled him feet first into the sinkhole.

The grasping creatures swarmed over his body, forcing him upright in the icy water until only his head remained above surface. Suddenly the whistles reached a crescendo and the things that held him pulled his head under the water. Peter gulped in a last breath of air and choked on the lichen and brackish bog water that rushed in. The grasping claws pulled him down, down . . .

Martin pushed on through old deadfalls to the border of Rabbit Lake. He stopped and listened for sounds that might direct him. He heard a sudden series of whistles from the direction of the bog. The whistling rose in volume and then stopped abruptly.

Loons? Could it be loons so late in the season?

He moved down a slope towards the far end of the lake. The water here was dark and looked deep. Martin experienced a brief jolt of unexplainable fear. The water’s surface was still and placid. No loons swam there to disturb the black-mirror surface.

Nikolas heard the gabbling of geese at the far end of Rabbit Lake. He used his canoe paddle to test the depth of the water and found it less than half a meter deep. He pumped the paddle up and down; solid rock was beneath the canoe. He gave his dog a signal to stay.

Nikolas pulled his favorite hat down tight on his head and tied the thongs beneath his chin in a double knot. He did not want to lose the hat when he pushed through brush.

The cackling and the gabbling of the geese lessened. Nikolas crouched low, held aside dangling willow branches and peered through the peephole in the leaves. Nikolas’s jaw muscles tightened at what he saw.

A sunken ring of earth, edged with a circle of rock ledges and moss-covered gravel, held a round, dark expanse of water several meters in diameter. A circle of water stared back at him like a giant cycloptic black eye. On the surface, six geese circled in a small bunched flock of frightened birds.

What the hell happened to the rest of the flock? They couldn’t have flown away! I would have seen them. He raised his shotgun to fire as he pushed through the willows.

When the remaining birds flapped across the water in rising flight, he fired two shots. Both shots hit the targets and two geese fell into the dark water of the sinkhole.

Nikolas whistled to the waiting dog. River came bounding through the willows and leapt into the water to retrieve the geese. Nikolas watched River swimming at his top speed towards one of the birds.

Now what in the hell happened to the other one? The damned bird is gone. Geese don’t sink when you hit them, not right away anyhow. Before Nikolas could concoct an answer, he saw River falter in the middle of the sinkhole. The dog let the bird fall from his mouth and gave a terrified yelp before he was pulled under the surface.

“River!” Nikolas shouted. “River! Hold on, boy!”

The man dropped his gun and slid down the mossy incline across the wet gravel and fell into the water. He swam only three strokes towards where the dog had gone down when something clutched at his ankles. The swimming man was held fast in the water. More and more clutching hands tugged at his legs and lower body.

“Oh God!” he cried out just before he was yanked under the black surface.

When Martin heard yelping and sounds of splashing, he turned to his right towards the sounds. He ran up a slight incline and skidded to a stop. Below him yawned the “death hole.” He scanned the area in all directions.

The first thing he saw was Nikolas’s hat floating two meters from the pool’s edge. Then he saw the dog cowering in a stand of willows. The animal quivered with fright and gave out a keening wail.

Martin hurried around the rim of the sinkhole to the dog. “Hey there, boy. Where’s your boss?”

The dog raised itself on its bleeding forepaws and bared its teeth in a menacing snarl.

“River. What’s got into you? What chewed you up like this?”

The Labrador dropped on his belly and did a wiggling crawl backwards through the willows. Martin pushed through the brush and saw the dog, tail between his legs, howling and running as fast as his wounded legs could carry him down the trail to the camp.

He moved back to the sinkhole. Nikolas’s hat had floated to the very edge. Martin knelt down to retrieve it. It felt heavy in his hand, as if snagged on something. He set down his rifle and used both hands to pull the leather hat from the water.

The hat gave way suddenly, and Martin fell on his backside onto the slick moss and gravel. Nikolas’s severed head, the hat still firmly tied to it, fell into his lap. Martin scrabbled sideways away from the horrible object.

He raised his head and yelled as loud as he could. “Peter! Goddammit, Peter, get over here! Quick!”

Martin moved backwards through the willows just as the dog had done and ran as fast as he could down the same trail.

Fifteen minutes later, Freddie and Alex knelt looking at moose tracks leading to the edge of the circle of black water.

“Uncle Alex. This is what I wanted to show you.”

The old man looked down at the mud. Freddie pointed. Alex saw three sets of tracks; one set made by a big bull.

“That’s a big moose. See how deep he sinks into the mud?” Alex said. “That other set of tracks is a cow moose. Her hooves ain’t as pointy as the bull’s.” He moved a few feet to his left. “Look here, Freddie, the cow had a yearling with her, too.”

Freddie studied the bull’s tracks. His mouth felt dry and he moistened his lips with his tongue. “Somethin’ ain’t right here. Come and look at this.”

Alex looked where Freddie touched the slurred tracks with a willow stick.

“These tracks are real deep and messed up. See how they are bunched up close together with the dew-claws showin’ in the prints?”

“I see that.” Alex said. “What does that tell you?”

“It tells me it was a damn big bull moose, and that he was pullin’ backwards trying to get away.”

“Trying to get away from what?”

“From whatever was tryin’ to pull him into the sinkhole.”

“Whatever was pulling him in had to be monstrous big,” Freddie said.

“Maybe it was several things all pullin’ together,” Alex replied.

“What?” Freddie scratched his head at the thought.

Alex studied the other tracks. “Something pulled the cow and the yearling calf into the water. Look around, you won’t see no tracks comin’ out!”

“What do you think happened?”

“I think somethin’ got the three moose we been huntin’ before we did.”

“Whaaat?” Freddie dragged out his question.

“And now I think we best get away from this place fast as we can.”

“What about the canoe?”

“Forget about the canoe. What killed them moose will kill us, too. Let’s go. Rose knew what she was talkin’ about!”

Old Alex started down the trail away from the bog at a wobbly trot.

“What are you talkin’ about, Uncle Alex?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back to camp. You’d better get a move on if you want to keep livin’.”

Martin heard the padding of feet behind him. When he turned, he saw the willows were shaking. He cocked his rifle and held it at waist level, the barrel aimed at the spot where the willows moved.

Alex and Freddie came through the willows and stopped in their tracks when they saw Martin in the trail with his rifle pointed at them.

“Martin! Don’t shoot!” Freddie yelled.

Alex saw the fear Martin struggled to hide. “So you know about the bog things?” Uncle Alex said.

“Something killed Nikolas—in the death hole place.”

“Let’s get as far away from here as we can. Come on. It’s a long way to run.”

“What about Peter, we can’t go off and leave him up there.”

“Pretty sure the things got Peter, too.”

“Why would you think that? We gotta look for him!” Martin said.

“Old Rose said two people would die on this hunt. It’s too late to save Peter. He’s gone. Them dead, flesh-eatin’ things—those damned creatures took him or we’d have heard from him by now.”

“Martin. Let’s go! I wanna get outta here.” Freddie ran down the trail.

Rose sat staring up the trail. Uncle Alex hobbled to his sister. The others rushed to greet the hunters. The group encircled Auntie Rose. The old woman’s eyes were open but not seeing. “Rose,” Alex said. There was no response. “Rose?” The old woman’s eyes fluttered shut and she began to moan.

Alex shook his sister. “Answer me!”

Sophia explained. “Yesterday, a little time before noon, I heard her scream. Prunie heard it too, and we thought a bear had come into camp.”

“About an hour ago, that black dog came runnin’ in here. His legs were all chewed up but he wouldn’t let anyone get near him,” Prunie said.

Ephraim said. “Rose just been sittin’ there and mumblin’.”

“She began to say words that frightened all of us,” Nettie said.

“What in hell did she say?” Alex demanded.

“She called Peter’s name. She said. ‘Matchi wanisid manitou got him.’ And the words: ‘They pulled him under. Madagamiskwa nibi; gi-nibowiiawima manadas matchi ijiwe-bad—wissiniwin, matchi! The water is moving, he is dead, just a body now; the evil ones are eating!’

“I thought she’d gone crazy.” Sophia swallowed hard and continued. “Next she hollered, ‘Nikolas! Look out! Get away from there!’ ”

“I don’t understand what’s goin’ on,” Nettie whimpered.

“I do,” Alex said. “What she saw in the bones came true. Peter is dead and Nikolas too. We have to go back to Cranberry and give them the sad news.”

Rose exhaled a great breath and shuddered and opened her eyes. “I have seen it all,” she said.

“It is finished,” the old man said.

“No. It is not finished yet.” Rose struggled to her feet. “Are you ready to listen to me now?”

“Say what you want to say, Sister,” Sophia said.

“Strike camp and pack up. We must be gone from here before dark comes.”

No one doubted the old woman’s words. They hiked the trail to Martin’s hunting camp, where there was shelter. Uncle Alex and Ephraim coaxed the wounded black dog to follow.

Alex, Freddie, Sophia and Nettie packed the freight canoe for the return trip to their village. Prunie and Martin insisted Old Rose spend the winter at their cabin and Rose agreed.

Two weeks later, a flotilla of seven canoes from Cranberry Portage made their way to Rabbit Lake. Forty men from Prunie’s village carried cans of fuel oil and gasoline two miles inland to the sinkhole.

The men did as Old Rose had instructed them. They spread oil and gasoline on the black surface of the death hole, dropped in a sealed case of dynamite with a timed detonator and hurried down the trail. The resulting explosion was heard miles away. The fire burned for several days, but died out beneath the heavy rains of mid-September.

When the first heavy frosts crusted the ground, four young men from Flin Flon appeared at Martin’s cabin. They told Prunie and Rose they intended to hike to Rabbit Lake and see what remained of the sinkhole.

“There is nothing there. It is finished,” Rose said. “You should not go.”

The boys were polite to the old woman but paid no attention to her words. They left that afternoon, promising to return the next day. Snow clouds massed in gray billows overhead began to drop light flurries.

Rose made her way to a dark corner of the cabin.

The boys found the dynamite and fire had obliterated the sinkhole and left meters of burned brush and scorched trees. Farther away from the ruined bog, the taller trees and leafless willows were untouched by the fire. The boys moved into the shelter of the trees and set up a lean-to of canvas and spruce branches before exploring the area.

“Hey, Lucas, look over here. There’s a whole bunch of trails and tracks,” a slender boy said.

The tracks were barely visible in the quickly melting snow and the slanting late afternoon sun muddled their shape.

“Looks a little like black bear tracks,” the slender boy said. “Some prints have claw marks.”

“There sure are a lot of them,” the boy called Lucas said.

Four days later, the boys had not returned. At Prunie’s urging, Martin and a neighboring Cree man went to search for them. The first snows of the season had melted and the tracks and trails in the forests surrounding the old bog were no longer visible.

What the men found was the collapsed and destroyed lean-to shelter. The white of the canvass was spattered with rust-red stains.

The boys’ backpacks were ripped and scattered about. Two rifles, their stocks broken and the barrels stuffed with chunks of lichen-moss, lay near the campsite.

Martin and his neighbor searched farther into the forest and found four neat piles of human bones. The skulls in one pile, the leg bones in another and the ribs placed in two mounded stacks.