The Manitou Read online

“Cold. Snowing again,” he told me. “I hope Dr. Winsome doesn’t have any trouble getting here.”

  Another half hour passed. It would soon be dawn. We sat huddled on our chairs, wearily rubbing our eyes and smoking to keep ourselves awake. Only sheer nervous tension kept me from nodding off. I hadn’t slept since Sunday night, and then I had only had four or five hours.

  At four-forty-five, we heard a rustling noise from inside Karen Tandy’s room. We looked up quickly. Misquamacus still had his eyes closed, but he appeared to be stirring. Singing Rock got to his feet and picked up his bones and powders.

  “I think he’s waking” he said. There was a shake in his voice. This time, he knew that the ancient wonder-worker would have almost all his sorcerer’s powers restored. He stepped softly into Karen Tandy’s room, and we followed him, and stood behind him to give him support.

  Slowly, Misquamacus stretched his hard muscular arms, scarred with magical patterns. He raised his head, with his eyes still shut, so that it was facing directly at us.

  “Is he awake?” whispered Jack Hughes.

  “I don’t know,” said Singing Rock. “But he will be soon.”

  Suddenly, we heard a breathy noise from the bed. The blue-white lips of Karen Tandy’s body seemed to be moving, and air was hissing in and out of them.

  “She’s still alive,” said Wolf.

  “No,” said Singing Rock. “Misquamacus is doing that. I think he’s going to speak to us through her, like he did before. He’s using her like a microphone, so that he can talk to us in our own language.”

  “But that’s impossible,” protested Jack Hughes. “He’s nowhere near her.”

  “It might be scientifically impossible,” said Singing Rock quietly. “But this is not science. This is Indian magic.”

  We stood stock-still as deeper breaths began to hiss and gurgle from Karen Tandy’s throat. Then she began to whisper to us, in a faint hollow voice that froze every nerve in my body.

  “You—have—tried—to—defy—me—hisssss,” breathed the voice. “You—have—hurt—me—and—I am—feeling—great—pain. I—intend—to—punish—you—for—that—sssssssss.”

  Her dead lungs collapsed, and her lips stopped quivering. We turned back to look at Misquamacus himself. His yellowy eyes suddenly opened, and stared at us with glittering malevolence. The same smile that had tightened his face when he appeared on the cherrywood table crossed his expression now.

  Singing Rock started his incantations, and tapped his bones in a soft, knocking rhythm. But we could tell that his sorcery was nothing compared to that of Misquamacus, because the neon lights in the room began to flicker and fade, and within a few seconds we were plunged into complete darkness.

  I stretched my arms out, trying to take a friendly hand, but I couldn’t seem to reach anyone. I was terrified in case I touched the still-slimy face of Misquamacus.

  "Don’t move," hissed Singing Rock, with fright in his voice. "Don’t anybody move."

  But somebody or something was moving in the room, and it was shuffling toward us with a slow, irresistible gait.

  Chapter Seven

  Past the Dusk

  Wolf struck his cigarette lighter, and turned the gas up full, and the tall yellow flame lit the room in a carousel of hideous shadows.

  Misquamacus, with an animal grin on his glistening face, was still crouched within the medicine circle, but just in front of him, on the floor, the red and white powders that singing Rock had set down were shifting and sliding apart, like iron filings drawn away by a magnet.

  “He’s breaking it!” shouted Jack Hughes. “Singing Rock—for God’s sake!”

  Singing Rock took a step forward and stood right in front of Misquamacus—only a couple of feet away from the deformed medicine man, and with only the rapidly dispersing powders of the medicine circle between them.

  He cast more powders at Misquamacus, and drew signs in the air with his bones, but Misquamacus simply twitched and flinched, as though he were batting away midges. From Karen Tandy on the bed, we heard a soft and hideous laugh, dying away in a bellows-like hiss.

  The last of the medicine circle slithered away, and now there was nothing between us and the hell-bent Misquamacus. I didn’t know whether to stay put or run, but I knew that Singing Rock needed all of us badly, to support his sorcery, and so I stayed where I was, tingling with fear.

  The naked Misquamacus raised himself as tall as he could on his stunted legs, and spread his arms wide. Out of his own lips, in a harsh and guttural voice, came a long Indian incantation, repetitive and involved, and then with one bony hand he pointed across the room.

  I followed the line of his finger. He was pointing directly at the gory corpse of Michael, the male nurse.

  Singing Rock stepped back quickly. “Get out of here, now!” he snapped, and pushed us toward the door.

  Just as I got out into the corridor, I saw something that literally started my teeth chattering. The bloody heap of Michael’s body was moving: exposed arteries were pulsing, naked nerves were throbbing, and his inside-out lungs, like two dripping balloons, were drawing breath again.

  By the feeble orange light of Wolf’s cigarette lighter we saw the shambles of Michael’s body rise gorily to its feet. Deep in the bleeding tissue of the inverted face, two watery eyes stared out at us—squid’s eyes, from a terrible submarine nightmare.

  Then step by liquid step, leaving behind it a trail of viscous membrane, Michael’s corpse started to walk toward us, smearing everything it touched with blood.

  “Oh, Christ,” said Jack Hughes, in a desperate, horrified voice.

  But Singing Rock was not idle. He fumbled in his pocket for his leather bottle, unstoppered it, and poured some of its contents into the palm of his hand. With wide, sweeping strokes, he sprayed a pattern of magical liquid into the air, across and over the shambling wreck of Michael’s body.

  “Gitche Manitou, take life from this creature,” he muttered. “Gitche Manitou, reward this servant with death.”

  Michael’s body sagged, and dropped to its knees, bare muscles sliding over exposed bones. It finally collapsed, and lay in a heap beside the door.

  Inside the room, Misquamacus was at work again. We couldn’t see him now, because Wolf’s cigarette lighter flame was rapidly sinking, but we could hear him chanting and talking, and tossing the bones and hair that Singing Rock had used to make his medicine circle.

  “Wolf,” said Singing Rock. “Go and fetch us a few flashlights. We must be able to see what we’re doing. Misquamacus can see in the dark, and it’s easier for him to summon his demons in the dark. Please—as quick as you can!”

  Wolf handed me his hot cigarette lighter, with its bead of diminishing flame, and ran down the corridor to the elevators. He almost didn’t make it. As he turned the corner, there was a blue-white flash of dazzling fire. It sent sparks crawling across the floor, and left a searing orange after-image on my eyes.

  “Wolf!” called Singing Rock. “Are you okay?”

  “Okay, sir!” shouted back Wolf. “I’ll be right back”

  “What the hell was that?” said Jack Hughes.

  “The lightning-that-sees,” said Singing Rock. “That was what killed your friends, Harry. I thought Misquamacus would try to get him like that once he was away from me, so I diverted it.”

  “It still went damn close,” said Jack.

  “A miss is as good as a mile,” I commented. The lighter had almost dwindled away now, and I was straining my eyes to see what was happening in Karen Tandy’s room. I could hear shufflings and bumpings, but it was impossible to make anything out.

  Darkness enveloped us again. We kept a hand on each other’s shoulders, so that we wouldn’t be separated. It also helped to concentrate the force of Singing Rock’s spells, whenever he cast them. With complete blackness pressing against our eyes, we kept our ears pricked up for the slightest sound.

  After a few moments, we heard Misquamacus chanting again.

  �
��What’s he doing?” whispered Dr. Hughes.

  “Something I was afraid of,” said Singing Rock. “He’s summoning an Indian demon.”

  “A demon?” asked Jack.

  “Not exactly a demon in European terms. But the Indian equivalent. One of the ancient ones.”

  “Do you know which one he’s calling?” I said.

  Singing Rock listened to the coarse, muttering incantation as closely as he could.

  “I don’t know. He’s using a name from his own tribal language. Although the demons are all the same throughout North America, each tribe has a different name for them. This one is something called Kahala, I think, or K’malah. I’m not sure.”

  “How can you fight it if you don’t know which one it is?” I said.

  I could imagine Singing Rock’s lined lugubrious face.

  “I can’t. I’ll have to wait and see when it appears.”

  Clinging together, we waited for the ancient apparition to manifest itself. Through the darkness, we saw pale flickers of greenish light coming from Karen Tandy’s room, and coils of pallid smoke.

  “Is the place on fire?” asked Dr. Hughes.

  “No,” said Singing Rock. “The manitou is being formed out of that smoke. It’s like ectoplasm, you know, in European spiritualism.”

  The green light faded, and then we heard more noises from inside the room. There was a sound like scaly claws scratching the floor, and then we heard Misquamacus talking. He spoke for at least a couple of minutes, and then, to my horror, I heard someone talking back to him. Someone who spoke in a grating, unearthly voice—guttural and cruel.

  “He’s telling the demon to destroy us,” said Singing Rock. “Now, whatever you do, keep hold of each other, and don’t try to run. If you run, you’ll be out of my protection, and he’ll get you.”

  Two lines from The Ancient Mariner suddenly pounded through my brain—about the man who looks back and then no longer turns his head "because he knows a fearful fiend doth close behind him tread."

  The scraping of claws on the floor of Karen Tandy’s room began to move toward us. Through the gloom, I began to make out a tall dark shadow standing in the doorway, facing us across the corridor. It seemed to be like a man, and yet completely unlike a man. I squinted into the darkness, and made out things that looked like claws and scales.

  “What is it...” hissed Jack Hughes.

  “It’s the demon we called Lizard-of-the-Trees,” said Singing Rock. “He is the evil manitou of forests and woods and all trees. I think that Misquamacus has chosen him because he knows I am from the plains, and I have less control over the manitous of the forest.”

  The dark being in the doorway started to move toward us, uttering a thin insect-like piping in its throat. Singing Rock immediately cast powders and liquid at it, and rattled his magic bones.

  It could only have been two or three feet away when it stopped.

  “You’ve done it,” said Jack. “You’ve stopped it.”

  “It won’t kill us, because my medicine is too strong for it,” Singing Rock said breathlessly. “But it refuses to return to limbo without a sacrifice.”

  “A sacrifice? What the hell does it want?”

  “A small piece of living flesh, that’s all.”

  I said: “What? But how can we give it that?”

  “Anything,” said Singing Rock. “A finger, an ear.”

  “You can’t be serious,” I said.

  “It won’t leave without it,” Singing Rock replied. “And I can’t hold it back for very much longer. It’s either that, or we’ll be torn to shreds. I mean that. This creature has a beak, like an octopus, or a pterodactyl. It can rip you open like a sack of beans.”

  “All right,” said Dr. Hughes quietly. “I’ll do it.”

  Singing Rock took a deep breath. “Thank you, Dr. Hughes. It should be quite quick. Stretch your hand out toward it. Give it your little finger. Fold all the rest of your fingers right back. I will try and keep most of your hand within the circle of my spell. Once it’s bitten, take your hand away at once. As quickly as you can. You don’t want it to take any more.”

  I could feel Dr. Hughes shaking as he reached out his hand toward the shadowy bulk of the Lizard-of-the-Trees. I heard razor-like claws scraping on the floor as he stretched nearer and nearer, and that thin piping sound as the demon breathed.

  There was a horrible excited rustle, and the claws skidded frantically on the corridor floor, and then a crunch like I never want to hear again.

  "Aaaaahhhhh," shrieked Dr. Hughes. He abruptly sagged and collapsed between us. I felt warm sticky blood pump over my legs and hand as I reached down to help him.

  “Aaahh, shit, shit, aahh, shit,” he screamed. “Oh God, it’s taken half my fucking hand! Oh Christ!”

  I knelt down beside him and whipped out my handkerchief. Working as well as I could in the dark, I bound up the bitten flesh. From what I could feel the demon’s beak had scrunched off at least two or three fingers and half his knuckles. The pain was obviously unbearable, and Jack Hughes was twisting around and weeping with agony.

  Singing Rock knelt down too. “The creature has gone,” he said, “It just faded and vanished. But I don’t know what kind of spirit Misquamacus will summon up next. That thing was only a minor creature. There are far worse manitous than that.” “Singing Rock,” I said, “we’ve got to get Dr. Hughes out of here.”

  “But we can’t leave Misquamacus now. I don’t know what he’ll do if we let him alone now.”

  “Dr. Hughes is in terrible pain. If he doesn’t have that hand attended to, he’s going to die. It would be better to lose Karen Tandy than Dr. Hughes.”

  “That’s not the point,” said Singing Rock. “If we let Misquamacus alone now, he’ll destroy the whole place. Hundreds of people could die.”

  “Oh God,” wept Dr. Hughes. “Oh God, my hand, oh God.”

  “Singing Rock,” I snapped, “I’ve got to get him out. Look, do you think you can hold Misquamacus off by yourself for a few minutes? Keep that fire away from us while I take him up the corridor, then I’ll get him to a medic and come straight back.”

  “All right,” said Singing Rock. “But don’t take your time about it. I need at least one other person on my side.”

  I lifted Dr. Hughes up to a standing position, and wrapped his injured arm over my shoulder. Then step by step, I helped him down the corridor toward the elevators. He groaned in pain at every move, and I could hear his blood dripping on to the floor, but I found a new surge of strength to carry us on.

  There was no lightning, and no attempt to stop us. Perhaps this was what Misquamacus had wanted—to get Singing Rock on his own. But as far as I was concerned there was no choice. Dr. Hughes was too badly hurt to stay in the corridor, and that was all there was to it.

  We finally made the elevator. Its small red light was still glowing through the darkness, and I pressed the button for UP. After an unbearable pause, the elevator arrived, the doors opened, and we flopped inside.

  The light was so bright after the gloom of the corridor that it hurt my eyes. I sat Dr. Hughes down on the floor, with his bitten hand across his lap, and crouched down beside him. We rose swiftly up to the eighteenth floor, and I helped him out.

  There was quite a reception committee waiting for us in his office when I carried Jack Hughes inside. Wolf was there, with a party of male nurses and medics, all equipped with flashlights. Two of them carried guns, and the rest were armed with crowbars and knives. A red-faced balding doctor, in a white coat and spectacles, was standing with them.

  When I came in, they gathered around and gently lifted Dr. Hughes off my shoulder, and laid him down on a couch in the corner of the office. Wolf called for a first-aid pack and antibiotics, and they gave Dr. Hughes a quick shot of novocaine to ease the agony.

  The red-faced doctor came up to me and introduced himself.

  “I’m Winsome. We were just about to go down and help you out. What the devil’s going on do
wn there? From what Wolf says, you have an insane patient or something.”

  I wiped the thick sweat from my forehead. Up here, in the calm light of the early morning, everything that had happened in the fetid darkness of the tenth floor seemed totally unreal. But Singing Rock was still down there on his own, and I knew I had to get back with help for him.

  “Pleased you could come, Dr. Winsome. I can’t explain it all now, but we do have a very dangerous patient down there, yes. But you mustn’t come down with all these people and these guns.”

  “Why not? If there’s an emergency, we need to protect ourselves.”

  “Believe me, Dr. Winsome,” I said shakily. “If you come down with guns, lots of innocent people are going to be hurt. All I need is that influenza virus.”

  Dr. Winsome sniffed. “This is ridiculous. You have a wild patient down there, injuring our doctors, and you want an influenza virus?”

  “That’s all,” I said. “Please, Dr. Winsome. As soon as you can.”

  He stared at me with bulging eyes. “I don’t seem to recall that you have any authority in this hospital, sir. It appears to me that the best solution is for me and these other gentlemen to go straight down there and catch this patient before he tries to take bites out of any more of us.”

  “You don’t understand!” I shouted wearily.

  “You’re right,” said Dr. Winsome. “I don’t understand at all. Wolf, are you ready with those flashlights?”

  “Right away, Dr. Winsome,” said Wolf.

  “Wolf,” I appealed. “You saw what happened down there. Tell them.”

  The male nurse shrugged. “All I know is, Dr. Hughes got hurt by that patient. We ought to get down there and sort it out once and for all.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I turned around to see if there was anyone else who could help me, but everybody in the office was ready for a vigilante raid on the tenth floor.

  Then, from his couch, Dr. Hughes spoke up.

  “Dr. Winsome,” he said hoarsely. “Dr. Winsome, you mustn’t go. Believe me, you mustn’t go. Just give him the virus. He knows what he’s doing. Whatever you do, don’t go down there.”