Weirder Than Weird (5 page)

“What’d you guys find?”

Bill turned to him with a look that had concern written all over it. “Well…you’ll just have to take a look for yourself, Skip.” As he said this, his voice trailed off and his eyes were cast downward. The Skipper felt uneasy but stepped up and into the Albatross’ side door. The first thing he saw was a charred pile of material on the floor. There were remnants of canvas haversack bags and strips of parachute silk partially burned, as if someone had desperately tried to create whatever heat they could. Just to the right was the cockpit. From where the Skipper stood, he could see the back side of the pilot sitting there, a frozen statue of a man in a black leather jacket and an officer’s cap. He stepped closer. The pilot held the same terror-filled grimace that he saw from the window but for the first time, he could see the pilot’s painful blue eyes. No doubt, at one time those eyes sparkled keen and intelligent and probably mesmerized more than a few ladies along the way, but now they only looked like dull, frozen blue marbles. The Skipper oddly felt as though he was in the presence of some kind of caricature, a wax figure maybe, not a real person. He was about to search the pilot’s jacket for identification when something gruesome caught his eye. The right pant leg of the pilot was ripped open and a large portion of his thigh, down to the bone, had been removed. “My God!” he mumbled under his breath. “How could something like that happen?” There was no obvious damage to the cockpit that could possibly cause a wound like that. The Skipper was puzzled. He turned back toward the rear of the plane and immediately saw a figure slumped in the tail section, draped in parachuting. “So, the navigator
is
on board after all,” he thought to himself as he moved closer. The face was that of a man with almost boyish looks. Unlike the pilot, who must have spent his final moments in agony, the navigators face looked to be the epitome’ of serenity, as though he had only fallen asleep. What the Skipper saw next didn’t register in his mind right away, but when it did he had to fight the sudden urge not to expel the contents of his stomach.

The young man was clutching something reddish brown in his frozen right hand and as far as the Skipper was concerned, there could be no mistake as to what it was. At that moment, the crackle of the walkie-talkie startled the Skipper out of his moment of horror.

“Base to Colonel Sutcilff… come in Colonel.”

The Skipper pulled from his pocket the walkie-talkie. “Go ahead, base.”

“Colonel, the meteorologist just passed on an advisory of a category four blizzard moving across your area. This is a big one, Colonel. We’ve got to evacuate your men ASAP. A chopper is already in route to your camp site. Just be ready to go. Acknowledge?”

The Skipper had a thousand things running through his mind, but there was no hesitation. He wasn’t the kind of man to jeopardize the lives of his men.

“Acknowledge, base. We’ll be ready.”

There was no time to discuss the horror of the Albatross; the men just made a bee-line for the camp. The snow was falling much heavier now and the wind was climbing to tempest strength. A small helicopter arrived on the scene just as they approached the camp. The men ran over and the Skipper stuck his head through the door.

“What the hell is this? Where’s the Huey?”

The pilot looked stricken. “Sorry Colonel, this is the best we could do. The Huey’s got engine trouble. We just got to try and fit every body in, that’s all.”

The men piled aboard as best they could but the chopper couldn’t manage enough lift.

“Too much weight!” the pilot shouted with an ominous tone.

The Skipper looked him in the eyes. “If I stay behind, will you be able to make another trip back in this soup?”

“You bet, Colonel,” the pilot responded without hesitation. “All the hounds in hell couldn’t stop me from getting back here.”

The Skipper winked. “That’s good enough for me,” he said and stepped out of the chopper.

The men immediately protested, each offering to make the sacrifice, but the Skipper had made his decision. The chopper labored for a few moments but eventually gained altitude and disappeared into a blanket of white.

The Skipper retreated back to the tent. Once inside, he cranked up the kerosene heater and wrapped himself in a blanket. He was surprised at how quickly the temperature had fallen. He began pacing back and forth, trying to maintain the circulation in his feet,  when suddenly a gust of wind tore the back side of the tent open with a loud ripping sound and the snow poured through like a sieve. He stepped up to try and staunch the hole but a second later the wind toppled the kerosene heater, splashing its fuel and igniting the tent in a sudden burst of flame. There was nothing he could do but get out quickly. Seconds later he found himself standing alone in the middle of a raging blizzard watching what was left of the tent sizzle to oblivion. He was now without the least bit of shelter and it occurred to him that for the first time in his life he wasn’t going to come out on the good end of this one. But an idea suddenly crossed his mind. “The Albatross! Of course!” He turned and high-tailed it through a blinding torrent of snow and ice and was much relieved when he once again stepped up into the plane. It was as cold as a meat locker inside but he was grateful for the shelter. He knew he wouldn’t have lasted ten more minutes out in that storm. He tried his walkie-talkie but it only returned static. His body shivered uncontrollably and his teeth found their old rhythm once again. He draped the blanket over his head and sat down against the planes bulkhead, trying to get comfortable. The frozen navigator sat across from him not nine feet away but he tried to push the thought out of his mind.

“Mustn’t fall asleep.” He said to himself. “Mustn’t…”

It seemed like only seconds later that his wife was rubbing his tired feet as he lay stretched out on their leather couch at home. The fireplace was glowing bright in the corner of the room and its warmth felt delicious as he sipped a glass of chilled wine.

“That’s how it all happened, dear. I was truly lucky to make it out alive.”

“Oh, you poor thing!” she said as she squeezed some more aloe scented lotion into her hand. “Now you just try to relax while momma pampers her little baby.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I must say that it’s good to be back home again.” He took another long sip of his drink and closed his eyes. “Ahhh…that feels great honey, you’ve certainly got the magic touch.” For some reason, she started whistling something under her breath and it struck him as odd since he could never recall her whistling before. She stopped suddenly.

“You know dear, if you don’t feel up to going out tonight, I can easily fix something myself. As a matter of fact,” she said with a deep guttural laugh that brought goose flesh to his entire body, “I have a little something here that we both can munch on before dinner.”

At that moment he felt an icy cold object being pressed against one of his feet. He looked down and saw that his wife was holding the same frozen slab of flesh that the navigator held! A scream leapt from his throat and he suddenly found himself back inside the Albatross.

“My G…G…God!” he said to himself; his breath exhausting in ghost-like vapors. “Mustn’t fall asleep ag…again.”

“No, you should definitely try to stay awake, Colonel Sutcliff,” came a whispering voice from the tail section of the plane.

The Skipper felt his bladder release its entire contents and cover the inside of his thighs in warm liquid. At the same time, it felt like a jolt of electricity was shooting through his body as he fumbled for the flashlight that was in one of his pockets. He directed a weak beam of light on the face of the young navigator but his frozen countenance had remained unchanged. “G…get a grip, old man,” he said to himself, “You’re only hallucinating b…b…because of the cold.” A second later he began to hear whistling. He lifted the flashlight once again but the light faded to black almost immediately. He smacked it against the palm of his hand.

“You know Colonel, it was most unpleasant how you and your men have disturbed my solitude.”

The voice shook the Skipper to his very core but he kept reminding himself that it was all just the effect of hypothermia. Only, the hallucination continued.

“Young Williams here broke one of the most cardinal of rules. Partaking of human flesh is one of the most egregious sins there is, Colonel. It ranks right up there with shooting the Pope; a sin that will certainly get a person an expedited, first class trip straight to hell. Yes siree… no waiting in line, no long drawn out evaluations, and certainly no comical pleading of one’s case, thank you very much. Just a one way ticket straight to Hades on the red-eye…pardon the pun. This, of course, is where I come in Colonel. Someone audacious enough to commit such an abomination will always receive a personal escort to the nether regions by yours truly, so they won’t…shall we say…get lost along the way. To be honest, Colonel, I felt rather bad for the chap. Such a nice young man, just a victim of circumstance after all, wouldn’t you agree? Of course you would, Colonel. I know you’d answer in the affirmative if only your frozen lips could form the words. It might have also crossed your mind as to why I’m still hanging around in this young man’s frozen corpse. Well, the truth of the matter is, I’m taking a much deserved holiday. You see, Colonel, hell can be a very loud and annoying place, with the never ending screams and the gnashing of teeth and all the rest. As you can probably imagine, after tens of thousands of years, that kind of thing can really get on ones nerves. When I came for young Williams here, I was taken with the place. The exquisite darkness, the deafening silence…yes, the whole ambience very much appealed to me. So, I decided to return for a little vacation. That is, until the master calls me back.  Can you really blame me? Once again, don’t bother trying to speak, your chattering teeth alone speak volumes. By the way, I must admit that your pathetic display amuses me. You humans certainly have no conception of what cold truly is. I’m speaking of a cold so penetrating that it scars the very soul. Hell, after all, my dear Colonel, isn’t a fiery pit of searing heat and caustic smoke, like so colorfully portrayed by your ignorant clergy.  On the contrary, it’s actually a dark and frigid wasteland void of any heat what-so-ever. Come to think of it--this place is quite balmy by comparison. Now let us, for amusement sake, consider the terrain found there… it is mainly composed of razor sharp rock that…”

At that moment, there came the whomp, whomp, whomp sound of two large blades slicing through the night air. “Well now, I do believe your chariot has arrived, Colonel!” Hearing the sound of the chopper, the Skipper felt relief  in thinking his nightmare was about to come to an end, but another problem quickly reared its ugly head….the urine had frozen him fast to his seat! As he struggled to free himself, he heard a slight rustling sound; this was accompanied by something that can only be described as the crackling and stretching of frozen cartilage. When he looked up, he saw two red points of diabolical light glowing back at him from the shadows

Outside, the helicopter pilot could no longer find any trace of the tent; he only hoped that the Skipper sought refuge in the Albatross. A few seconds later the chopper was hovering precariously outside its door. The wind was buffeting the chopper like a toy model but the pilot decided to remain aloft since there was a possibility that the chopper’s  metal skids would stick to the ice if he landed. He would remain outside the plane for only another minute then head back to base. A longer delay, he thought, would only be suicidal.

“Sorry, Colonel,” he finally said under his breath, “I gave it my best shot.”

He was about to leave when he noticed movement out the corner of his eye. The side door to the plane swung open, a figure draped in a blanket exited and stiffly made its way over.  A short time later they were aloft and headed back to base. The pilot turned to his passenger.

“Thank God you’re still alive, Colonel! I don’t mind telling you that I was taking a big risk coming back here and I’m not gonna lie…it’ll be nothing short of a miracle if we make it back alive.”

There was a strange silence from the man next to him and for a moment he thought that the Colonel might have died. The pilot reached over to give him a shake when suddenly there came a whistling from beneath the blanket. The air inside the cabin became foul with the stench of death and decay. “Oh, God! What the hell is that smell!” the pilot screamed.

An animal-like voice beneath the blanket croaked, “It’s not so bad Captain, after a couple thousand years you become quite accustomed to it. By the way, am I correct to assume that you don’t serve in-flight meals on this conveyance? Not to worry… as luck would have it, I brought my own.”

An arm appeared from beneath the blanket and in its hand was a gelatinous piece of rank and putrid meat, dripping with blood. The thing turned its head; the brazier points of red fire in the demon’s eyes were the last thing in life that the pilot ever saw; his face was stricken with terror and he lost all command of the helicopter.

“Oh, dear me… where are my manners,” said the beast as they plummeted toward the frozen tundra. “I’d be most happy to share my portion with you, Captain, that is… if you have the stomach for it.”

EPILOGUE

After three days, the storm abated enough to send forth a number of search teams, but mysteriously, no trace was ever found of either the helicopter or the Albatross. Before the Repatriation Team returned back to the States, they conducted a memorial service for the Skipper at the excavation site, or what they thought was the excavation site, since there was no sign of the Albatross or the twenty-five foot deep hole that was once her home. There only remained a solitary orange flag poking out of the snow, flapping forlornly in the frigid Greenland wind, proving, at least to themselves, that it hadn’t all just been a bad dream.