"Stalked and Stalker," Paying Patreon Compilation and Thought Process Page (Patreon)

I won a Dean Spencer story contest for one of his pieces of art. I'm now completing it with (theoretically) weekly entries. Of course, I've only managed one new entry in the 6 months. My PLAN is to go back to regular entries... let's see if I can pull it off!

This is where my Paying Patrons can read the compiled (and slightly more edited) version of the short story I am writing for the art below, “Stalked and Stalker.” Each entry will be added, but I am giving them numbers to indicate which entry they are (with (1), then (2), and so on). This should both make it easy to just hop to the new section if you want, but it also lets me mark my notes on why I wrote what I wrote specific for each section.

(1)

The sun was just below the horizon. It had been just below the horizon for hours, and would stay just below the horizon for a few more days… and then it would be night for weeks. The dull sunlight was dispersed through the thin, cold gray clouds, and then reflected back by the endless snow and frozen lake. It bathed everything in a morose dim glow, making shadows short, but dark and plentiful. The glowing gray added to the  still, freezing air and hissing silence of the wilds around them, projecting an endless, hostile aura that terrified rational humans.

MacKenzie fucking loved it.

Bundled in thick furs, Gregor MacKenzie wiped his pickaxe clean in the snow, quick before the bunyip’s blood froze on it. At least he thought the creature had been a bunyip—he’d never encountered one in the Arctic before.

Then again, he’d never found pre-neolithic stairs in the side of a mountain in the Arctic before, either. It looked like this rescue was going to involve a lot of firsts.

MacKenzie checked on Blaze, making sure she hadn’t gone any further up those selfsame stairs than she had promised. Elizabeth “Blaze” Carson had even more experience in these sorts of expeditions than MacKenzie did, but she was just a little too sure of her ability to deal with anything for MacKenzie’s comfort. But, as promised, she was only ten or so meters up the stairwell, and her lantern was clearly visible still.

While MacKenzie was scraping off blood and checking on Blaze, Alec duSeverency had built a fire with shocking speed, and was already cutting steaks from the bunyip’s flank. MacKenzie wasn’t convinced that the beast would be good, or safe, to eat. But duSeverency was a practical man, and they were shorter on supplies than they’d planned for at this stage of their search.

The fourth remaining member of the team, Professor John Soloman, was crouching by the bones sticking out of the layer of frozen blood that coating the narrow rock outcropping between the lake and the stone stairwell. Solomon had lifted a cap of blood-ice off one bone, revealing it to be a skull – presumably human – in shockingly good shape. Mackenzie walked carefully across the red icesheet, lantern held low so he didn’t blind himself, pickaxe still at the ready.

“Is it one of our people?” MacKenzie asked brusquely.

Solomon looked up briefly, his bushy beard moving slowly, a sign he was chewing on an idea as he did when deep in thought.

“You know I can’t be sure with two minutes and just a skull, Mac.”

MacKenzie nodded.

“I do know. I also know you already think you have the answer. So, give me your best guess now. If you figure out more later, tell me later.”

Solomon sighed. “Fine. No, I don’t think this is someone from the Ackerman group. It looks to me like this poor bastard has multiple wooden teeth, and tooth rot that got into the jaw. My best guess is this is someone from the late 1600s or early 1700s, maybe one of the mutineers from the Vagin/Permyakov expedition. The ice just preserved it for centuries. I think.”

MacKenzie cursed under his breath. Then he looked back at the stairwell. He didn’t like the look of it, and he did not know why. He felt like something was watching him.

(2)

“Mac?!”

Blaze’s voice echoed loudly, but calmly, from up the mysterious stairwell he found himself thinking of as ‘the trouble spot.’ MacKenzie marched carefully over to the entrance and saw Blaze looking down at him from her perch roughly 10 meters up. Her golden eyes flashed in the light of her own lantern, reminding him of the eyes of an Ussurian tiger that had once stalked him for days in the Russian Far East without ever attacking him. Like that tiger, MacKenzie was confident that if Blaze did ever attack him, it was not a conflict he’d win.

“I’m here, Blaze.” MacKenzie said.

Blaze gestured further up the stairwell.

“This goes another five or six meters up, then looks like it levels off. There’s some weird shapes in the wall and ceiling at that point, but I can’t make them out from here. I’d like to go to the top of the stairs, but it’s a little further than we agreed.”

MacKenzie slowly curled his fingers, feeling the joints in each pop one by one. He appreciated Blaze was taking his admonishments not to get too far ahead seriously, but she was obviously chomping at the bit. On the one hand, it was just another few meters. On the other hand, MacKenzie had seen too many situations go south because everyone pushed the safety concerns just a little further, each exception seeming totally minor, until suddenly everything cracked open in blood and gunfire.

On the other other hand, Blaze was the most experienced of them, and he’d asked her to join the expedition for a reason. Being too cautious about gathering information had doomed as many investigatory expeditions as pushing things too far, too fast.

“Go ahead,” MacKenzie called up. “But don’t get off the stairs at all, not even one foot onto whatever platform is up there. If it needs more looking at immediately, I’ll move us all up there.”

Blaze nodded, her lantern revealing an excited grin. The grin made MacKenzie uneasy again, but there was no point in hiring experienced experts and then refusing to let them do what they were good at. As MacKenzie turned away from the opening, Alec duSeverency approached him.

“Meat’s no good, Mac. It looks fine raw, but as soon as I started cooking it… things began crawling out of it,” Alec said.

“What things?” Mac asked.

Alec held up his Le Vengeur dagger, which had a tiny squirming shape on the end of its 17-centimeter blade. MacKenzie started to lean in to get a closer look, when Alec stopped him with a mittened hand on MacKenzie’s thick coat.

“They jump,” Alec said. “I don’t THINK they can jump off a knife-tip into your eye, but…”

MacKenzie nodded.

“JOHN!” MacKenzie called out to the professor, who was still doing something with the skull. As John Soloman turned his face towards them, his black skin shining in the light of MacKenzie’s lantern and the fire Alex had built, MacKenzie waved Solomon over… and shivered. MacKenzie hadn’t needed to shout just a minute earlier, and the fact he had to now bothered him. Alex moved toward Solomon, squirmy-thing-tipped dagger held ahead of him, and MacKenzie took a careful look around. The cold air made him instinctively squint, and it was difficult to see anything beyond the light of his lantern anyway.

But he forced himself to scan the larger area. Out to the tree line, along the coast beyond their boats, and across the slowly freezing lake. The sense of being watched grew stronger, but MacKenzie pushed that feeling down, for now. The wind had picked up without MacKenzie, or apparently anyone else, noticing. Letting weather sneak up on you was a common, and stupid, way to die in the Arctic. And out at the edge of his vision, MacKenzie saw trees whipping back and forth, and dull, gray clouds moving toward them… along the ground.

A blizzard. Coming in fast.

(3)

“Alec, John, Blizzard!”

MacKenzie watched the two men just long enough to make sure they’d heard him. John Soloman immediately went back to where he’d dug the odd skull out of the ice, pulling a canvas bag out of his heavy fur coat as he did so. Alec briefly turned back to Mackenzie, and waved to show he’d understood the expedition leader. MacKenzie was confident Soloman would stow the skull for travel, and duSeverency wouldn’t let him take too long in doing so.

Then MacKenzie ducked back into the strange stairwell, and called up to Blaze who was now at the very top of the stairs, crouched just short of the landing it led to.

“Blaze! Blizzard coming in. We need to move in here for shelter.”

Blaze turned to face him without rising from her crouch. MacKenzie saw with surprise she had her short-barrel Smith & Wesson Model 10 in her hand.

“Mac, I don’t think we want to shelter in here,” Blaze called down.

“What’s up?” MacKenzie asked.

Blaze shook her head.

“Whoever built this place was NOT walking the straight-and-narrow. The wall and ceiling stop looking like the cavern was found or carved once you're up here. It looks more… grown. Out of petrified… roots? Roots that kinda look like bones? And I am NOT convinced they aren’t moving every time I look away. This whole place has that spoiled applesauce feel.”

MacKenzie looked back out at the approaching storm. It was coming in fast, and looked as bad as any weather he’d seen. There was no time to build the kind of shelter he’d want to ride out that kind of severe squall… but they COULD flip the boats over, lash them together, and stake them down. It would suck… but so would running into anything further in this strange shaft that could worry Blaze.

MacKenzie was just about to order Alec to help him flip the boats, when he saw a dark shape out in the oncoming sheet of driving snow. It was only visible for a split second, and even then it was hazy and indistinct. But MacKenzie was sure of at least two things. First, it was big. Twenty feet tall, at a minimum, and given how hard it was to see details, probably larger than that. Second, it had arms. Long arms. With claws.

“Sorry, Blaze, we got applesauce issues out here too! Keep an eye out up there, we’re coming in,” shouted MacKenzie.

There were only a few minutes before the snow hit, and whatever was coming with it could arrive even sooner if it decided to move faster than the storm. MacKenzie pulled on a cord around his neck, bringing up a three-inch long whistle of nickel-plated brass. He blew into it, producing three short and one long shrill tones, the distinctive sound of a London Metropolitan Police Whistle. The heads of Alec duSeverency and Professor Soloman snapped to look at him. They knew the code well.

Danger, MacKenzie had signaled, then take shelter.

As MacKenzie moved quickly but carefully to the boats, he was gratified to see both men moving with the same experienced mix of alacrity and caution towards him. He made one urgent sweep of this pickaxe to point to the entrance to the stairwell, and duSeverency waved an arm to indicate he’d seen the gesture. MacKenzie reached the nearer boat, the one with the crucial supply packs, and hauled one of the hefty backpacks out from under its tarp.

That was when three tangled masses of branch and thorn charged out of the snow right at him.

These were different than the tall, clawed form he had seen, and that figure was now nowhere in sight. These were roughly the shape of wolves—triangular heads wide at the back and narrowing to an approximation of jaws and teeth. Each had a lean build with four long, lanky legs quickly eating the distance between them and MacKenzie. They seemed to be made entirely of plant matter, twists and swirls of branch, bark, thorn, and vine, constantly churning and lashing around some unseen center mass. The longest vines swirled around them in whiplike motions, keeping the creatures from having a fixed shape. The thorns and branches stuck out at all angles, their spinning scoring and tearing at the ice and snow of the ground even as they ran in heads-down sprints.

MacKenzie's brain froze for a split second, a primitive instinct inherited from his more animal ancestors screaming that these were predators, and he was prey, and it was time to run across the snowy beach and hope he could outrun some other member of the herd.

‘Fuck that,’ whispered the part of his mind that had seen a thousand horrors before, both man-made and occult, though never THESE creatures.

MacKenzie slung the gear pack up onto his shoulder, using the same motion to hurl his lit lantern out at the lead bramble-wolf. He did not wait to see if it hit, instead turning and running with all his strength toward the stairwell’s entrance. He saw Soloman was also already inside the stairwell, heading up toward Blaze. But Alec?

Alec was at his own pack, which he’d laid next to the fire he’d built to try to cook the bunyips. Just as Mackenzie realized Alec wasn’t running, duSeverency stood tall holding a bundle he’d taken from his pack, tossing off an oilskin it had been wrapped in. His meter-long FM MAC 24 machine rifle gleamed in the firelight as Alec slammed a 25-round magazine into the top of it.

The creatures behind MacKenzie let rip creaking, popping howls. Alec’s weapon barked in reply.

(4)

MacKenzie threw caution to the wind, and ran full speed toward the entrance to the stairwell. He took a slight curve in his path, to ensure he was well-wide of duSeverency’s field of fire. Mackenzie would have a LOT of questions for Alec once all danger was past—starting with ‘where the hell did you stash that thing in the weeks-long trip out here,’ and ‘was it not clear when I said no heavy weapons?,” likely with at least one “what hinky crap did you pull to keep a flipping machine rifle battle-ready in the arctic?!”

But the amount of vitriol he put into those questions was going to depend very much on how useful the weapon turned out to be right now.

Running from things totally alien to you that meant you harm, without glancing back to look at them, took a level of nerve not many possessed. MacKenzie did, and trusted that some member of the team would warn him before one of the bramble wolves reached him. He focused the entirety of his effort on reaching the questionable safety of the stairwell, but that didn’t make him blind or deaf.

He could hear the heavy 7.5x58mm cartridges from duSeverency’s machine rifle zip through the air and snow, and then the distinctive noise of them slamming into soft targets. Heavy slaps, rather than the twang of ricochets or the crack of rounds hitting stone or metal. From the corner of his eye he saw Alec duSeverency, firing from the hip and taking measured steps toward the stairwell while clearly firing for effect. The big man had no expression on his face, his gray eyes locked onto targets, the puffs of frost from his breathing even and calm.

Something behind MacKenzie howled again, this sound different from their first cries, just duSeverency began to swing his fire in a wide arc away from MacKenzie That suggesting the bramble wolves had changed course—hopefully in an effort to escape the merciless damage of the machine rifle. With a shockingly smooth motion, more like a gentlemanly hand gesture than battlefield movement, duSeverency popped the magazine from the top of his rifle, replaced it with a second magazine, pulled the charging handle, and resumed fire, the entire process taking less than two seconds.

Mackenzie had covered less than half the distance to the stairwell. There was now a flickering light somewhere behind MacKenzie. It felt like an oil light, and he guessed it was from the lantern he’d flung, though there was no hint if it had hit anything.

In the stairwell Professor Soloman had unzipped his parka and thrown back its hood. He was holding up the ornate wooden cross he always wore on a fine steel chain around his neck, and shouting something. Mackenzie couldn’t make out the cross’s details through the snow, but he knew from long association that the professor’s relic had the first word of each of 95 religious theses written on it in German, and had a single bright nail in the center of the cross. Soloman always pulled it out when facing the supernatural, and it almost never had any effect.

But… only ALMOST never.

Blaze Carson was standing beside, and a little in front of, the professor. She must have thrown herself recklessly down the stairs. She was no longer holding her compact revolver, and instead had a glass jar in one hand, into which she was pouring lighter fluid from a can in her other hand. Several pickled eggs lay broken at her feet, which told MacKenzie what the glass jar had originally held. He presumed Blaze had a specific plan for the lighter fluid… but he wasn’t sure of it. The woman liked fire.

Which, to be fair, was effective a good deal more often than the professor’s cross.

Mackenzie reached the entrance to the stairwell just as he heard duSeverency slap in a third magazine of ammunition, leaving Mac REALLY annoyed that Alec never seemed to run out of things like bullets, lamp oil, or cognac. Soloman moved aside as MacKenzie stepped in front of him, and Mac passed his heavy supply pack to the professor.

“Take it!.” Mackenzie huffed, short on breath. “Halfway up the stairs and NO further!”

Soloman grabbed the pack and began hiking up the stairs, while MacKenzie turned to take stock of the situation. Two of the three bramble wolves were down, having been literally torn apart by the automatic rifle fire. But the third had closed the distance between itself and duSeverency, its long whiplike vines lashing out at the veteran and cutting his face and forearms in long, thin lines of red. Alec was continuing to shoot at it, but as Mac spotted them, the monstrosity surged forward, its huge forepaws slamming onto the big rifle, and forcing duSeverency down into the thick snow, onto his back. The rifle bent under the assault, but somehow duSeverency continued using it to block the creature’s massive claws, and its lunging bite, and even the lashing of its thorn vines.

But Mac did not see how Alec could keep that up for long.

(5)

MacKenzie let his mind go blank for a second, not panicking, not allowing his focus to narrow on any one detail. He had a single heartbeat before he had to act, and he sensed this was an inflection point. Blaze was still pouring lighter fluid into a pickled egg jar she’d stuffed a cloth into. Doctor Soloman was still bolting up the steps of the stairwell. And Alec was still on his back, using a ruined machine rifle to keep the claws and lashes of a bramble wolf from eviscerating him.

Alec was the most lethal fighter MacKenzie had ever met… but he would not last long against the horror upon him now. Blaze clearly had a plan, she but needed time to complete it. Time Alec did not have. Time MacKenzie had to buy.

Mac was marching toward Alec and the bramble wolf before he consciously knew what he was doing. His hands dug into his parka, grabbing a Very Pistol, and a flare cartridge to fit in it. He flipped the pistol open, slotted in the flare, and snapped the pistol shut in quick, precise flicks of his hands. He stopped, just beyond the reach of the plant-beast’s lashing thorns, and fired the bright red flare deep into its chest. The creature recoiled, howled, and lunged for MacKenzie.

Its claws flashed toward Mac’s throat before suddenly stopping short. Alec had grabbed it by the a hind leg and, muscles bulging, face flashing in rage, was hauling it away from Mac. The thing screamed, twisting to bite Alec’s head off. MacKenzie flicked another flare into place as Alec twisted the monster’s body so its jaws slammed shut just short of him. Its lashing thorned vines coiled to tear at Alec, ripping his parka apart and tossing him to the ground.

MacKennzie shot a flare into its head.

The flare lodged within the mass of thorns, teeth, and twisting roots and bark, causing it to shed flickering crimson light in all directions. Sizzling smoke boiled out the top of its tangled shrub of a skull, illuminating with what looked like actual bones and teeth flashing in the red glow. It raised itself high on its hind legs, one of its vines catching MacKenzie on his shoulder and throwing him to the ground next to Alec. The smoldering mass of angry teeth, claws, and brambles screamed and prepared to smash down on them.

Then Blaze jumped over them both, hurling a jar full of lighter fluid at its exposed underbelly. The jar was trailing a burning rag stuff into its cap, and when it smashed into the bramble wolf the jar shattered, creating a spray of flame within it. Rather than the pinpoint burns of the machine gun fire or the localized char of the flares, the flash of lighter fluid going up lit the creature on fire in a dozen places.

It staggered back on its hind feet, thorned vines flailing well above their heads. Before it could drop back to all four, Alec had rolled to his feet and smashed it in its chest with his FM MAC 24, swinging the ruined weapon by the barrel like a crude, lop-sided, meter-long club. It tipped over backward, landing on its flank in a confused mass of burning bark, vine, and thorns.

Blaze flung a jug of lamp oil she had in her other hand into the mass, close to where her egg-jar bomb was still burning. The oil was in a glass container with a metal mesh around the outside, which Blaze had clearly hoped would break on contact. But the glass was too thick, and designed to survive the rigors of a wilderness expedition. The jug’s metal mesh caught in the bramble-wolf’s matted-plant-innards, but did not crack or burn. Having loaded a third flare into his Very Pistol, MacKenzie shot that at the jug, The flare bounced off the glass uselessly, its brightly visible arc taking it thirty feet from the creature into the snow building on the frozen beach.

Alec appeared in front of MacKenzie, still holding his ruined machine rifle like the world’s most misshapen baseball bat. The bramble wolf twisted and rolled in the snow for a moment, apparently trying to extinguish the flames burning it, but the nature of its body—made of entangled vines and roots and bit of bone, allowed the flares and lighter-fluid-fueled fires inside it to survive the effort. It struggled to its feet, swinging its still-red-limned head to focus on Alec and MacKenzie. Mac slammed his fourth and last flare into the Very Pistol.

Blaze walked past the two of them toward the monstrosity, her snub-nose revolver in hand, spitting lead. The first two rounds had no visible effect, but on her third shot Blaze managed to shatter the lamp oil jug still trapped in the monster’s guts. The jug didn’t explode, but the gnarled, churning branches all around it were already burning from the lighter fluid, and wherever the lamp oil splashed on the fire, the flames leaped much higher. The patchy fires through the creature’s body flared into roaring life, a wave of heat striking MacKenzie’s face… though he noted as he raised a hand to shield himself that both Blaze and Alex were glaring intently into the writhing bonfire with no difficulty.

The bramble wolf as clearly done, though it still twitched and flopped. Blaze emptied her revolver’s next three shots into it without getting any closer to it, and without having any obvious effect. MacKenzie realized Blaze had shed both her parka and gloves as he saw her flipp the cylinder of her pistol open, load six more rounds, shut it with a flick of her wrist, and empty it into the still-burning mass. If the arctic cold bothered her, she showed no sign of it.

There were no more sounds to be heard over the crackling fire, except the howling wind of the blizzard as driving snow rapidly built toward whiteout conditions.

(6)

For long, cold seconds, no one moved. MacKenzie felt his fight-or-flight response fading, leaving him without the energy to do either… or to attempt much of anything else. His eyes kept roaming over the burning mass of bramble, bone, thorn, and fang. It was… a plant. An angry, mobile, roaring PLANT. There was no hidden predator inside using it as a complex but natural disguise. No infestation of insects moving it like a roaming hive. No cunning gears, levers, or pistons to reveal it was truly a machine. Not even a hint that it was somehow haunted.

Just the tangled roots, and vines, and thorns he had first seen, with the scattered pieces of bone and tooth he noticed only late in the fight.

His brain scrabbled for SOME explanation. He’s faced monsters, yes. Most were just animals no one had seen before, or thought long lost. Living dinosaurs in deep jungles. Ape-men far from human habitation. Squids of a scope and cunning no surviving record warned about. Bunyips… and as of today, arctic bunyips. On much rarer occasion, there had even been huge, carnivorous plants. The acid orchids of Buyan. Giant flytraps along the Virginia Dare coast. The King Cobra Lillies of Antonio Island. But none of them could walk. None of them howled. None had eyes.

And yes, MacKenzie had faced true monsters. Or at least, things he could not explain. Things no learned man he’d ever had with him could explain, without relying on theories that fell well outside accepted science. Mac had fought evil spirits, and unearthly horrors, and unspeakable things that, even when escaped, left him unable to give any description of their form, shape, or purpose.

But none of them had been running, screaming plants littered with bits of fang and skull.

These things, this pack, that had attacked with such speed and fury? These inexplicable terrors his brain has labeled bramble wolves, just so he could pretend he knew what they were? If he’d been asked a day before, he’d have said nothing like them could exist. Even now, his brain screamed nothing like these should exist. And no matter how hard and long he stared at the last of them, how doggedly his mind tried to find some pigeon-hole to place it in, some similar threat he could link it to, the burning pile remained belligerently alien to his every experience.

It was a relief to his overwrought brain that it was fading from sight.

Fading. In the heavy snow. From the blizzard.

“Shit!”

Blaze and Alec spun and looked at MacKenzie in shock. They’d been staring at the lifeless, burning mass as slack-jawed as he had. Only his exclamation brought them out of it. Alec’s parka had been torn to shreds by the lashings of thorny vine-tentacles, and Blaze had shed hers entirely, along with her gloves. Both were shivering as hard as Mac was… which was amazing, since he was still fully bundled up and they were much more exposed to the cold. Mac would have been unable to move by now, if he faced this cold in as vulnerable a condition as either of them now was. He mentally added this to his list of ‘ways Alec and Blaze are better than me at everything.’

As far as he’d ever been able to tell, being universally superior to him was the only thing they had in common. But he definitely needed to keep them both alive, and just because neither of them was hypothermic now didn’t mean they wouldn’t be in another 10 minutes. He started barking orders.

“Blaze, grab at least two logs from Alec’s fire and get them into the stairwell. Check on the Doc. Alec, grab the rear boat with me. We’re going to sled it up to the entrance.”

To their credit, neither explorer paused, complained, or deviated from his plan. Blaze took longer than he’d have liked to pick the two BEST logs from the fire, but at least she should be warmer closer to the flames. Alec made it to the rear boat, the one Mac hadn’t grabbed supplies from yet, before Mac could join him. Alec used the spare seconds to toss a few items from front canoe into the rear one.

The blizzard continued to worsen by the second, snow piling up and winds tearing at MacKenzie’s face as he joined Alec and the two of them took positions on either side of the rowboat, propelling it along the snow toward the stairwell. The square of darkness in the snow-covered hill that was the stairwell entrance was quickly being hidden from sight by worsening whiteout conditions. Mac had seen weather come on hard and fast, seen people killed by it, but this was still TOO fast. The drag on his legs was heavier than the snow’s depth and wind’s intensity accounted for. And the boat? First gliding easily over the frozen ground, now every meter of progress was met with a drag that began to make his muscles ache.

The sense of being watched, being judged and found wanting, grew as the blizzard strengthened and the ground itself seemed to wrestle with them. MacKenzie could not explain what faction or force meant them ill, or why, or even how it was manifesting the conditions that opposed their progress. But he no longer doubted there was some intelligence working in opposition to his expedition. They weren’t just fighting the elements. They were fighting some unseen, unknown enemy.

Fine. MacKenzie knew how to fight.

(7)

Blaze stood two steps up on the staircase, holding one of the flaming logs she’d snagged from the fire over MacKenzie and Alex like a torch as they did their best to block the stairwell entrance with the two skiffs. Each boat had been turned stern-down with the interiors facing inward, and pulled up side-by-side against the opening in the hill. There wasn’t a lot inside the stairwell to attach them to, but there was a narrow sill all the way around the interior of the opening. Using the oars, anchors, and a lot of rope, MacKenzie and Alex rigged the two boats securely enough that Mac was convinced the blizzard wouldn’t tear them loose.

Whether that would prevent some dedicated creature from clawing its way inside was another matter entirely.

“Any of you hurt?” Doc Soloman asked calmly.

MacKenzie was about to snap that he’d have mentioned it if he was hurt, but caught himself. He knew adrenaline masked a lot of pain, and he was still coming down from facing the combined threat of bramble-wolves and blizzard, and then securing their markshift shelter in the stairwell. He took a few deep, calming breaths and focused on the sensations his body was giving him.

“I got some shallow cuts, Doc,” Alec said.

MacKenzi glanced at the man in surprise. There were a few scratches on his face and hands, but nothing Mac would expect Alec to tell Soloman about. But then Alec turned, and MacKenzie got a good look at his back. There were long, crimson lines showing through rips in his jacket, sweater, shirt, and undershirt. The clothing’s tears were clean, as though neatly cut by a razor. MacKenzie has seen the thorn-vines shred Alec’s parka, but hadn’t realized any of the cuts had made it through to the man’s flesh. The cuts weren’t deep, but they were long, one running from his upper left shoulder, across his spine, to just short of his right hip.

“Doc, get those checked out and cleaned,” MacKenzie said. “We have no idea if those things were venomous, or toxic, or could leave particulate spores in a wound. Alec, can you keep an eye on the entrance while Blaze and I go up to the first landing?”

Alec nodded. “Not a problem, Mac.”

Alec sat on the second step, and faced the makeshift skiff barricade. His Le Vengeur dagger was already in his left hand, and Alec drew a Browning FN M1900 from a thigh holster with his right hand. MacKenzie could see Alec’s eyes were alert, moving to check the many crevices were wind and snow managed to get past the on-end skiffs. Doc Soloman moved down the stairs to settle behind Alec, and murmured for his patient to remove his layers of sweater and shirts.

MacKenzie moved up the stairs, and Blaze fell in beside him.

“Where’s your pickaxe?” Blaze asked.

Mac stopped. His familiar pickaxe wasn’t in his hand, and wasn’t in the loop on his parka where it normally hung when not in use. He tried to think when he’d last had it. When the plant-things attacked? Okay, but when had he lost it?

“I must have dropped it when I began shooting flares into that thing.”

Blaze cocked her head, her expression one of concern.

“And you didn’t notice until I asked? That’s not like you, Mac. You doing aces?”

MacKenzie took a few more deep, calming breaths. Blaze was right. Losing any tool wasn’t like him. Losing his pickaxe was especially not like him. He must have been much more rattled than he’d realized by the bramble-wolves. That, or something else was going on. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything not packed in their stores anytime recently. He was breathing the same air as everyone else. If there was an outside force at play, it likely wasn’t pharmacological.

The feeling of being watched was still with him. The sensation was weaker, as though it wasn't looking directly at him, but the feeling behind it was—if anything—more malevolent.

“I’m shook, Blaze,” MacKenzie confessed. “I have a bad case of both the heebies, and the jeebies. I don’t think those thorned horrors were random, or alone. I think something sent them after us. Something we haven’t seen yet.”

Blaze nodded. She has long learned to trust MacKenzie’s instincts. If he said there was something unseen working against them, she immediately believed him.

“Okay,” she said, “How does that impact procedure? Do you really want us at one end of the stairs and John and Alec at the other end, if there might be something waiting and watching to ambush us while we’re separated?”

That was a great question.

“Change of plans,” Mac said down to duSeverency and Doc Soloman. “We’re all sticking together, and proceeding on the assumption we are under observation by a hostile force. We have all the gear packs. We don’t need our parkas in here, but you should each gear up on the assumption we’re in enemy territory. We’ll proceed once Doc is done with Alec.”

(8)

MacKenzie turned to Alec.

"While we have a moment, got any more surprises you'd like to mention, mon ami? Like, say, a machine rifle hidden gods-only-know-where?"

Alec smiled, and looked not a bit embarrassed.

"I have my Star Model 14 with two spare magazines and two boxes of rounds, a Winchester 1897 97 Mod 12 trench gun with heat shield and bayonet lug, and the bayonet, and two boxes of shells. About a dozen yards of four-point two-braid barded wire. One Tissot mask and its chest unit. Three F1s, with Billant fuses. And... about a kilo of Schneiderite, packed in wax, and four detonators."

"Gods wept!," exclaimed Blaze, a split second before MacKenzie could do something similar. "Alec, what the hell? Three grenades and a kilo of high explosive?!"

Alec met her gaze, showing no expression even as Doc Soloman began sewing stitched into the longest of the cuts on Alec's back.

"Better to have it and not need it, Blaze."

MacKenzie shook his head.

"Not with Schneiderite, Alex. Or grenades for that matter. At least not with telling everyone where you have it stowed. Point them out to Blaze. Blaze, check them out, make sure they're still stable."

Alex looked ready to object, but MacKenzie gave him the very best version of The Look he could muster while shivering. Alec met the Look with an emotionless face... then grinned again. MacKenzie nodded, and let Alex and Blaze get on with checking the explosives for signs of damage or instability. But he really was going to have to talk to Alex about keeping heavy weapons, explosives, and barbed wire secret. ... Later.

For now, MacKenzie stepped a new steps up the stairs, still in arm's reach of Soloman, and focused on the area some fifteen meters up. Illuminated only by the burning branches Blaze had dragged in, the walls and ceiling of the landing were almost impossible to see. They flickered and writhed in the firelight, and MacKenzie did NOT like the feeling he got when he stared at them.

"I'm out of flares," MacKenzie said to the group below him. " at those things during the fight, and I saw Blaze used what I suspect was all her lighter fluid and lamp oil."

Blaze nodded, while slowly unwrapping a small brick of what MacKenzie presumed was Schneiderite.

"So, what do we have for light sources? I'm down to my Zippo and an Orilux."

Blaze spoke without looking up.

"I have two Everreadies and spare batteries for both, a Buddy electric lantern but no spare batter for it, fifty or so taper candles, and my Ronson, but no more fluid to refill it,"

"I have an Everready, my small hanging surgical lanterns, and my Radium line-reader," said Doc Soloman.

Everyone looked at Alex.

"One Everready, spare batteries, my Trench Lighter, 250 ml of spare lighter fluid, a Nernst lamp, and a 5-second Dynamo jacket-light," added Alex.

"What, no floodlamps or kerosine lanterns?" The sarcastic tone of Blaze's voice was perhaps a bit sharp, but when she and Alec looked at each other, they both grinned. Well, at least MacKenzie didn't have to worry about keeping them apart... not that he physically could if either of them decided to make a point of it.

"Okay, okay. Look, I want everyone to have their own light. We may have to conserve batteries later, but for now it's not far up to the landing and I want as much illumination coverage as we can manage. Doc, how do those cuts look?"

Doc Soloman neatly clipped the threat from his last stich with a tiny pair of scissors, and tucked them back into his rolled-up medical kit.

"No sign of any spores, toxins, parasites, or infection, and nothing too serious overall. I'll take another look whenever we settle for camp, to make sure they aren't turning on us."

Alec stood nodded to Soloman in thanks, and rummaged around his pack for a spare shirt, which he pulled on quickly and tucked into his pants. Alex then pulled out what appeared to be a bedroll, but as he rolled it out a bayonet, shotgun, box of shells, and Everready flashlight were revealed. Alex worked the shotgun's action once then, crouching, began loading shells into it.

Blaze held up three grenades.

"These F1s are all fine. I recommend we bring them with. The brick of Schneiderite is dry and stable, but frozen solid. I don't think we could cram a detonator into it, and I don't like the idea of trying to warm it by the fire. If it were my call, I'd wrap it back up and stick it a couple stairs up, away from any of the gear or the fire."

MacKenzie looked over at Alec, who was attaching his Everready to the bayonet lug on his shotgun. Alec nodded once, at which Blaze began wrapping the explosive back in its wax covering, and then several layers of canvas. As she did, MacKenzie opened the belt pouch with his Orilux, turned the electric lantern on, and focused its lens for a narrow, long beam. He tucked the Orilux back into the pouch with its cover folded back to the light shot forward from his belt unobscured. Doc Soloman had his Everready in hand and switched it on at the same time.

As MacKenzie looked up the stairs, Alec moved up to him, and pressed a Star Model 14 pistol holster into his hands, a spare magazine sitting in the holster, and a box of 7.65mm Browning rounds for it.

"I got the shotgun, you take this."

MacKenzie strapped on the holster and pocketed the spare ammo as Alex moved past him while turning on the Everready on the end of his shotgun. Blaze had re-rigged the holster for her revolver to her left shoulder, and had her electric lantern firmly in her left hand. MacKenzie fell in behind Alec, Soloman behind Mac, and Blaze brought up the rear, moving sideways so she could easily swing her more powerful light forward or back.

"RIght," said MacKenzie. "Let's see what's up there."

(9)

Alec kept his shotgun pointed up at roughly the same angle as the stairs themselves, and managed to keep it's illuminating beam steady rather than bobbing with his steps. MacKenzie's own belt light did bounce around as he moved up the stairs behind Alec, but that wasn't where his eyes were focused. From long practice, MacKenzie could keep track of the rise and run of the uneven stairs from memory after seeing them just briefly illuminated in Alec's light. Rther than focus on any of the lit areas, MacKenzie kept his own gaze focused up the stairs, beyond the well-lit path immediately ahead of them. He looked for anything in the dim gloom beyond--the glint of a secret panel sliding back, a shimmer not visible when seen head-on, the shine of a curved blade held in wait. MacKenzie did not expect any of those old threats to be present here, but they had taught him the value of seeking clues in the darkness, and leaving others to watch the light.

The group roughly halfway up the stairs when Alec's light DID catch something in the gloom, a brief flash of something shiny.

"Hold," MacKenzie called, and to their credit all three of his companion took not one more step. MacKenzie DID appreciate working with veteran professionals.

Mackenzie grabbed his Orilux out of its belt pouch, and played its tightly-focused beam over the glint he had seen. It was on the wall by the top of the stairway, where it leveled out onto a platform or tunnel, and was clearly part of the rootlike structure Blaze had spotted earlier. While there had been a sense of movement in the glint he'd spotted, the wall-root was absolutely still now. Still a few meters down the stairs, MacKenzie could not tell if it was an actual bit of plant matter, a relief carving in the tunnel wall, or something else entirely.

"Yeah, it's all like that up there," Blaze said, clearly following the focus of MacKenzie's light. "Even the floor. It gave me the jeebies, but I didn't have a lot of time to examine it."

MacKenzie's eyes were again focused on the area beyond his light, and he was also getting the 'jeebies.' While the the spot his orilux was now lighting up was totally still, there were tiny glints in the area beyond that. Changing glints. Definitely signs of movement. Pretty sure he knew what would happen, MacKenzie swung his focused illumination to spotlight one of the larger flashes of shifting light he'd caught. There was a big rootlike structure, thought the root was segmented and its joints did look too much like bone-ends for him to be happy--and it was absolutely still.

Alec snorted. "I think they're shy."

Blaze's tone was sardonic. "I think they are carnivorous Boche vampire vines that are waiting for us to get close enough to suck out our eyeball juice."

Soloman sounded confused. "You think they're German?"

MacKenzie turned to Blaze and Soloman, and Blaze closed her mouth, whatever reply she had for the professor left unspoken.

Mackenzie struggled to keep his voice from revealing his annoyance.

"Blaze, we are stuck here until the blizzard passes. Give me your gut opinion. Are we better off huddling at the bottom of the stairwell and hoping whatever's up here leaves us alone, or moving forward and trying to figure out what we're dealing with?"

Blaze paused, squinting to look up ahead, and then swinging her electric lantern down, to look at the base of the stairwell, where small flurries of snow were still coming in through the makeshift barricade of the boats. She looked back at MacKenzie.

"I don't like being stuck in here, But since we are stuck in here, I want to know what's in here with us. But, Mac? Maximum caution, okay?"

Makenzie gave Alec an even look.

"You up to max caution, Alec, or do I need you to bring up the rear?"

Alec had the temerity to look offended.

"Mon bel esprit! I shall be the prince of caution."

"I'd rather you be the peasant of caution, Alec. Nobles tend towards unconscious boldness. Remember we aren't all... you."

Alec gave Mackenzie a wide grin, but also ducked his head to acknowledge the point. Mackenzie considered for a moment later, then slapped Alec's shoulder one, indicating for the tall, lean man to continue with the lead. Alec nodded, and began moving up the stairs again, the rest of the group trailing along. It was just a few meters to the top and when he reached it Alec... stopped. Cautiously, MacKenzie moved up to be just one step behind Alec, and looked out over the tunnel that stretched out from the top of the stairs.

It was definitely organic. The tunnel had a roughly circular cross-section, and for some reason mackenzie's brain decided it was more a shaft than a tunnel. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all lines with masses of the rootlike material. It almost looked like thin, petrified bamboo, except it was not as straight as bamboo, with bends and gnarls and splitting branches. It reminded Mackenzie far too much of the bone-lined ossuaries under Paris.

What he could see was bad enough, but what it was impossible to catch by looking directly at it was worse. There was a constant sense of motion in the walls, but never at any point Mackenzie was looking at. Only at the peripheries of his vision was it obvious the rootlike structures were moving. Sliding past one another. Writhing. Pulsing. But never, ever while he was directly looking at any given root. The hairs on the back of Mackenzie's neck tingled, and he felt the primitive ape part of his brain screeching in warning. Danger. Predator.

"Mac."

Mackenzie glanced at Alec, whose face held none of the cheerfulness of a minute before. Alec had his shotgun seated firmly against his shoulder, and jerked his chin to indicate something at the end of his flashlight's beam, farther down the shaft. Mackenzie focused his attention on it, a lump, or perhaps tumor, sitting on the shaft's floor some twenty meters down. Alec's flashlight didn't illuminate the mass well enough to make it out, and it was well out of range of Mackenzie's Orilux.

"Blaze, gimme your Buddy."

Without comment, Blaze passed her electric lantern forward and pulled out one of her Everyreadys once Mackenzie took the Buddy. The hefy lantern was by far the most powerful light any of them had, and in its harsh glare the object ahead became most distinct.

Distinctly a body. At least, most of a body.

The rootlike structure of the floor had grown up and through the body's ribcage and skull, with one looping through the mouth and burying itself in the left eye socket. These roots were not sky about moving even when clearly illuminated. They pulsed, and Mackenzie had a sense of them feeding, the pulsing apparently moving from the tips of the roots down their length, into the floor. There was still a fair amount of meat on the body, and it minded Mac of a carass a few days after a big animal kill. There wasn't any flesh left in or around the eye, but the root jammed into the socket was feeding on something. Probable the poor bugger's brain, the logical part of Mackenzie's mind offered up.

"Well," Mac said, his voice dry. "I don't know if they're German, but score one for eye-fluid drinking vampire vines."

(New entries weekly! For real now!)

(Art by Dean Spencer)

(1) This was my original entry to Dan Spencer's short story contest, based on his amazing tock art piece "Ithaqua."

I wanted to touch on the main elements of the art, but I also wanted to add the character of Blaze Carson, who clearly doesn't match anything shown here. So, I had her already exploring up the stairs, which meant I was dedicated to a specific moment in my story.

My goal here was to introduce the characters, their goal, and hints of weirdness, fast and in a captivating manner. My mind went straight to early 1900s explorers n a mission, then running into (and not being surprised by) supernatural/occult elements.

The Vagin/Permyakov group I mention at the end of this section is an actual Arctic expedition from the mentioned timeframe. I like researching what actually happened for stories I set in versions of our world, and dropping some of that into the story helps ground it in believability... for me, anyway.

(2) I didn't bother to write an outline for this story when I wrote the contest entry, since I knew I was busy enough it was unlikely I'd finish it unless I won the contest (which I did, yay!), or Patrons expressed strong interest in seeing more. I figured if either of those things happened, I could do the outline at that point.

But I DID have a strong idea where I wanted to go with this. I hate stories that start strong but have rushed or hackneyed endings, or even just lose the thread entirely. So before I wrote section 2, I did a rough but functional outline, with 1-3 sentences for each entry I expected to do. That said, I only got halfway through my 'Section 2' outline with this entry, so while I had planned on doing this in 6 parts, I now suspect it'll take 12-15.

I did more research than I care to admit about what kind of dagger Alec should be carrying. I'm really happy with the end result, as it's a French WWI close combat knife, which both tells you something about when this is happening, and where Alec got some of his experience.

(3) I came REALLY close to breaking from the building action here to do a flashback to MacKenzie getting hired for the rescue mission, or him putting together or briefing his team. But, I decided, that was a BAD instinct. Flashbacks can be great narrative tools, but I see them used badly a LOT more than I see them used well. And this is a short story--I feel the writing up to this point has been pretty clear the protagonists are searching for a missing group, and it would both be a needless "tell don't show," and "treating your readers as idiots" to spell it out with a scene that interrupts the pacing.

Once again, I took too long researching the weapons used in this segment, but knowing exactly what gear each character has and why helps ME get a feel for them. If I was reading this instead of writing it, I'd appreciate that kind of detail as long as it's done in passing, rather than becoming a major focus of the prose.

I also almost ended this when the bramble-wolves burst out of the now storm, but I decided it was much more fun to get the fight started... and THEN stop.

(4) I had a very clear vision of this fight in my mind when I outlined it. This isn't it. The split second I started writing it, I discovered characters in my outline often ended up in weird places at weird times. While Alec duSeverency's ability to produce and fight with his battle rifle is intentionally so convenient even MacKenzie wonders at it, in general I am very aware that moving or doing things in a fight takes time. So I just let the muse direct me on how this fight played out, and I like the result MUCH better.

Professor's Soloman's wooden cross obviously has ties to Castle Church and Lutheranism. Honestly, I suspect that's as much as I'm going to say about it in this story.

(5) This is pretty close to the end I had in mind for this fight when I began writing it in section 4, though not how I had originally intended to get to it. Overall, this fight took more wordcount than I had planned, which makes me wonder how long this short story is going to end up.

(6) It is RIDICULOUS how long it took me to come up with calling the canoes 'the rear canoe' and 'the front canoe.' For a long time, it was 'the canoe MacKenzie has already taken a pack from,' and 'the canoe Mac hadn't removed supplies from yet.'

I have specific origins for both Alec and Blaze. They're very different. They just both end up coming off as better than Mac at everything. Poor Mac.

(7) And suddenly the canoes are skiffs. I made that change when I looked back over the art that’s the inspiration for this story, and realized the two boats it depicts aren’t canoes. I have no idea how I missed that before. But it makes a big difference on how the boats would/could be used to try to block the entrance to the stairway, so I went ahead and switched to ‘skiffs’ here. When I am done with the whole story I’ll make a continuity pass through the whole things and make sure I always describe them as skiffs and/or rowboats.

(8) I wanted to be really clear to the ready about who was holding what. That ended up turning into a loadout scene, and I'm okay with that.

(9) Given how much longer each previous section has been compared to the outline I was surprised how quickly the trip up the staircase went. On the other hand, this is, like, the fifth sentence in the outline, so what do I know about how long each scene will take?!