Scott Sigler - Ancestor

Clayton handed Tim the rest of the gear, then walked out and shut the creaking doors behind him. Sara and Tim gathered up the blankets, the case and the heater and walked toward the altar.

Tim stopped at the altar and knelt, head dipped in a silent prayer.

“Never figured you for the praying type,” Sara said.

“I’ll take whatever I can get right now,” Tim said. “That includes voodoo. Got a chicken I can sacrifice?”

Sara shook her head.

“Well, then this will have to do.”

Sara didn’t mind waiting for him to finish.

JAMES HARVEY SLID on his thick Otto Lodge parka. Happily whistling “Cowboy” by Kid Rock, he laced up his snowshoes and started toward the barn. Storm or no storm, there was work to be done.

The morning sun blazed through the blowing snow and reflected brilliantly off long white fields. He guessed another ten inches had fallen during the night. Knowing Clayton, the trails and roads would already be groomed. As soon as he finished the morning’s chores, he and Stephanie could take their sleds for a spin or two around the island.

He started the twenty-five-yard trudge to the barn, but stopped when he heard the whine of a dog. He followed the sound around the corner of his house to find Mookie, Sven’s dog, cowering and shivering.

“Good God, Mookie… what happened to you?”

The poor girl’s left shoulder was torn open, bloody and exposed. She held her left paw in the air, as if it hurt to put any weight on it. A long gash on her forehead oozed blood. Snow clumped in her fur, icy bits hung from her whiskers. Mookie limp-hopped to James and leaned her weight against the man. Her whines increased.

James gently brushed the snow off Mookie’s face. “Take it easy, girl. It’s okay now.”

In answer, a low, evil growl burbled forth from Mookie’s closed mouth. James pulled his hand back: the dog might be rabid.

Then he realized that Mookie wasn’t growling at him. She was growling at something out in the pasture. He stared out across the blazing snow, saw something black and white and red. No, the something was black and white; the snow was red.

Red with blood.

A dead cow. Was it one of his? Could a wolf have swum over from the mainland? Attacked and wounded a cow, then left? James raised his hand to block the snow’s morning-sun glare. Maybe it wasn’t dead—the prone cow moved a little with an unnatural, herky-jerky motion.

A head popped up from behind the big body. James couldn’t make out much other than some black-and-white fur, marred by the bright red of the cow’s fresh blood. Hard to tell from this distance, but the head looked… strange.

“What da hell is that thing?” he mumbled, squinting his eyes tighter. Didn’t look like a wolf. Had that thing also torn up Mookie?

The cow’s carcass blocked any view of the second creature’s body. All James could see was the wolf’s big, oddly shaped head.

Then the wolf raised its fin.

James blinked a few times, his brain trying to register what his eyes saw. A fin , rising out of the head. The wolf turned slightly, giving James a flash of bright-yellow skin streaked with reddish orange.

That’s no wolf. And that sure as FUCK ain’t no cow .

James turned and walked slowly toward the house, keeping an eye on the creature the whole way. The thing stayed behind the downed cow. Just as James watched it, it watched James. The fin lowered, raised, then lowered again.

What the hell is that thing?

He looked for Mookie, but the dog was nowhere to be seen. James reached the house and walked inside, shutting the door before kneeling to take off his snowshoes. Through his living room window, he could still see the thing in the field. It remained behind the cow, staring back.

Stephanie stood there looking at James, her hair in curlers, a white terry-cloth robe around her and a steaming mug of coffee held in each hand. Her expression was half confusion, half amusement.

“Hey hon weather looks great outside I bet da wind is dying down I made you some coffee maybe after you finish with da cows we can go for a walk in da woods and—”

“Get my Remington.”

Her half-smile faded. For once, she didn’t say anything. She set the coffee cups down, turned and ran into the den.

James tossed the snowshoes away, scrambled to his feet and followed his wife. She met him at the den door, handed him his Remington Model 870 shotgun and a box of shells.

“James, what’s happening?”

A sentence with just three words. For Steph, that had to be a record. “Something out there brought down a cow.” He quickly pumped shells into the weapon.

“What is it then a wolf ’cause there ain’t no wolves on da island anymore we haven’t seen one ever.”

“This ain’t no wolf. Call da lodge.”

Stephanie moved to the end table and picked up the handset. She looked at James, fear in her eyes. “It’s still out.”

“Fucking Clayton.”

Stephanie’s scream nearly made him shit his pants. She stared out the living room window. James turned to look and caught a glimpse of the creature he’d seen in the field—huge, all-white triangular head, bloody mouth full of long, pointed teeth, narrow black eyes and that strange fin sticking straight up in the air. Only a glimpse, because he instantly shouldered the shotgun and fired.

The window shattered outward. The creature’s head snapped back. It fell like a sack of potatoes, a misty cloud of red settling down on the snow around it. Wind blew the curtains inward, accompanied by bits of snow and a blast of frigid air.

James pumped a shell into the chamber, then strode forward.

“James, don’t!”

Just two words. Apparently Stephanie found brevity only in danger. He kept the gun shouldered and ducked past the flapping curtains to look out the window, squinting his eyes against the wind. Blood poured from the thing’s head, staining the snow, bright crimson on bright white. Despite a hamburger-red hole in its head, the creature struggled to rise. James leaned out the window, aimed carefully, and fired again from only three feet away.

The creature fell, limp and lifeless.

He cocked another shell into the chamber and peered out at the dead animal. He’d never seen anything like it. Long front arms ended in large paws tipped with wicked claws. Black-and-white fur, just like the Holsteins out in his barn. The thick creature had to weigh at least 350 pounds. Looked kind of like a cowhide-covered cross between an orangutan and an alligator. To have looked in the living room window like that, it would have had to stand on its hind legs and lean those big, clawed paws on the sill.

“James honey I’m scared like crazy and it’s freezing in here we gotta close that up right now.” Stephanie shivered, her terry-cloth-covered arms wrapped tight around her shoulders.

A subzero gust rolled through the window and caught the table lamp’s shade like a sea wind filling a sail. The lamp tumbled to the ground, the bulb breaking on impact. The curtains billowed up around his face. James brushed them aside and rested the Remington against the window-sill.

“Come to da basement with me and help me get a piece of plywood.”

Stephanie followed him downstairs. “Honey,” she said, “I ain’t never seen anything like that just what da hell was that thing?”

He heard the fear in her voice and realized just how protected their life on the island had been until five minutes ago. No crime, no threats from animals, no danger at all as long as you respected the power of nature and winter.

“I don’t know what it was, Steph.”

James pulled the piece of plywood from the stack, carefully handing Stephanie one end so as not to give her a splinter.