Graham Masterton - Revenge of the Manitou

Neil lifted himself from the floor. Gradually, through the broken window, the light of the moon began to shine again, soft and white at first, but then with the same strength and clarity as it had before. He stumbled over to the bed, where Susan lay with the crumpled sheets on top of her, moaning and whispering under her breath.

He clutched her close, stroking her hair, kissing her cold forehead. He mumbled,

“Susan, oh God, I’m sorry. Susan, I’m sorry.”

She opened her eyes and saw it was him, and then she began to sob uncontrollably.

He held her close, trying to soothe her, and he turned toward Toby, who was still standing by the end of the bed, his eyes shining with hateful amusement.

“You bastard,” Neil said, between his teeth. Toby’s expression remained unmoved.

“It is no worse than what the white pony soldiers did to our daughters in times gone by,” he said in his distant voice. “It is far more forgiving than what they did to Tall Bull at Summit Springs.”

“Damn you, Susan wasn’t there at Summit Springs. She’s never met an Indian in her life, apart from the few that come down here to help in the summer. You can’t punish generation after generation for what was done in the past! It’s over, it’s too late!”

Toby slowly shook his head. “For those Indians whose territories were stolen and whose people were killed, it will never be over. They live on the reservations now with the memory of what was done, and they will never forget.”

Neil held Susan tightly against him. “Some of them have forgotten already,” he retorted. “Some of them can’t even remember what the day of the dark stars is supposed to be.”

“That doesn’t matter,” replied Misquamacus. “Their life as outcasts in their own land is enough to remind them. And none of them has ever forgotten Misquamacus. The name of Misquamacus is an Indian secret that has been held close to their hearts for more than a hundred years. Now, it will be revealed to the white man, and the white man will never regret knowing an Indian secret so bitterly.”

Toby’s face seemed to change, and the hostile glitter in his eyes began to dwindle, like the burned-out wicks of kerosene lamps. He raised his small hands for a moment, and then he collapsed onto the floor. Neil quickly but gently laid Susan back on the bed, and crunched across the broken glass to pick him up. Toby’s face was pallid, and he was breathing heavily, but Misquamacus didn’t appear to have hurt him.

“Toby,” whispered Neil. “Oh my God, you poor kid.”

He laid the boy back in his bed, and drew the covers up to his neck. Then he went back to Susan, who had stopped sobbing now, and was lying staring at him with a shocked, glassy look in her eyes.

“What happened?” she asked, in a haunted voice. “I don’t understand what happened.”

Neil looked down at the bloodstained sheets, and in a fit of rage and frustration he dragged them off the bed, and tried to rip them with his bare hands. He didn’t do very well. They were pure cotton, with double hems. Finally, panting, he tossed them across the room into a corner.

Susan said shakily, “There was a man, Neil. A tall man with necklaces and feathers.

He didn’t have any clothes on.”

Neil sat down beside her and held her. “It was nothing. It was just a nightmare.”

“But he seemed so real. I could even smell him. He was covered in some kind of oil.

He got on top of me, Neil. I tried to stop him. He got on top of me.”

“Susan,” he hushed her, “nothing happened. It was nothing more than a nightmare, that’s all.”

Frowning, still stunned, she reached her hand down between her thighs, and then raised her fingers to her face. They were dark and sticky with blood. She looked at Neil in total horror and desperation, her eyes pleading with him to explain it, to make it safe, to say that whatever had happened was a freakish dream, and to prove it, too.

“I’m hurt,” she breathed. “I’m hurt inside.”

He pressed his hand to his eyes in exhaustion. ‘Til get Doctor Crowder,” he told her.

“Just relax, honey. Stay where you are. It can’t be anything too bad.”

He crossed the room, glancing only briefly at Toby.

His son was fast asleep, breathing evenly and quietly, and the color was back in his cheeks. Neil closed the bedroom door behind him, and went downstairs as quietly as he could. He picked up the phone and dialed Doctor Crowder’s number.

At the kitchen door Doctor Crowder belted up his overcoat and put on his hat. Neil handed him his worn leather bag, as old and faithful as a pet spaniel, and gave him a brief, tired smile.

“I want to thank you for coming out,” Neil said. “I guess we’ve been keeping you awake lately.” Doctor Crowder pulled a weary, resigned face. “Is it very serious?”

asked Neil. “I mean, it’s not going to spoil Susan’s chances of having any more children, is it?”

Doctor Crowder shook his head. “The vaginal tissues are lacerated, that’s all. It’s an injury we usually associate with cases of violent rape.” “Did Susan tell you what happened?” Doctor Crowder looked away. “She didn’t seem too clear about it. She seemed to think you must have had some kind of argument.”

Neil went cold. “Argument? What are you talking about? We didn’t have any argument! What does she mean, argument?”

“Well, it’s not for me to put words in her mouth,” said Doctor Crowder, “but you must admit that the room was land of busted up.”

Neil stared at him. “Do you want to know what did that? Lightning. That’s what did it.”

The old doctor wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I see,” he said heavily.

Neil seized his shoulder. “Doctor-you don’t believe me, do you?”

Doctor Crowder wouldn’t answer.

Neil said, “You think I’m crazy. You think I set fire to my house last night, and tonight you think I raped my own wife. That’s it, isn’t it? You think I’m a head case!”

Doctor Crowder tried to pull away, but Neil to8k hold of both his arms and turned him around to face him.

“You think I’m going out of my mind, don’t you? You see my bedroom all busted up and immediately assume I had a fight with Susan. You see blood on the sheets and you think I’ve assaulted her. You don’t stop to think that I might actually be telling the truth, do you?”

“The truth?” asked Doctor Crowder, shakily. “What truth?”

“The truth that Toby is possessed by the greatest Red Indian medicine man who ever lived. The truth that he called down lightning to smash up the room, and a wind that you couldn’t even stand up hi. The truth that he had Susan’s own sheets and bedclothes rape her in revenge for the way the white men used to rape Indian women.”

Doctor Crowder could only stare at him. There was a long, awkward silence. The pine railroad clock on the kitchen wall ticked away the “hour of three and chimed.

Eventually, the old doctor opened the kitchen door, and said, “Look out there, Neil.

What do you see?”

Neil wouldn’t look at first, but then he glanced sideways and saw the dark, quiet night.

“I see my own backyard,” he said huskily.

“That’s right,” nodded Doctor Crowder. “And is it raining out there?”

Neil shook his head.

“Is it snowing out there? Is there thunder? Is there lightning? Is there any wind at all?”

Neil said, “It’s a warm night.”

“That’s right,” Doctor Crowder told him. “It’s a warm, still night. No lightning, no wind.

Not even a breeze. And you’re trying to tell me that your bedroom was wrecked by an electric storm?”

“It was magic!’ yelled Neil “It was done by magic’

Doctor Crowder looked embarrassed. But he took Neil’s hand and shook it, and said,