Chapter 7

"Good Lord," he blurted out a few minutes later, standing over the beaten up machine as Waneeta swept the snow off.

"I know! Ugly, eh? Kevin and Uncle Rob bought it years ago at a Crown Assets Auction. It belonged to the military. Kevin drives the newer one he’d just bought."

"Looks like a locomotive!" Thomas eyed it suspiciously, unsure if she should touch it at all. Made of white painted iron, sitting on a tread of black rubber, with two skis in front, this was a 'Skidoo'? Waneeta seemed confident she could handle it, but it listed badly to one side, and she would need help righting it. He quickly shed his snowshoes for the task. Dubiously, Thomas grasped it and finding it heavier than it looked, heaved it to set it right.

He scanned the area. "Is this where you saw the meteorite?"

Waneeta looked around and pointed to a tree. "It was up there. It flew over that way." She turned and indicated east to west.

"How far away did it land?"

"Not too far. Less than quarter of a mile. I think a chunk fell not far from here and the rest a ways further on. Though I couldn't find it when I dropped it, so we may not find it now."

Thomas stared over the horizon line. It was hard to believe it came so close to her when none of the trees showed any scorching. But her 'Skidoo' must have, if her strange suit did. They'd need to brush off the snow first.

Meanwhile, Waneeta scooped up a shiny black helmet half hidden in the snow, and then walked toward Thomas. "What's the matter? I know it's old, but it runs well. It'll need some cranking, I imagine. I just hope the gas hasn't all drained out, but I don't smell anything."

He couldn't imagine such a small locomotive, but there it was. Did it run on a boiler? Or was it one of those internal combustion engines he'd heard of? He wasn't an engineer, so he refused to speculate. But still, he cringed inwardly. No doubt it would sound like the devil himself when it finally started to work.

He watched Waneeta don the helmet, a hard metal bowl like nothing he'd seen before. Out of her pocket, she then drew a set of tiny keys and dangled them in front of him.

"Help me turn it around, first, please. I know the ski is bent, but I should be able to drive it into the village."

He helped her, and then backed off to stand near the uprooted tree that had hindered her progress two nights ago.

"It'll be fine. Don't worry." She smiled encouragingly at him, but he continued to stare oddly at the machine. Waneeta shoved the key into the ignition. "It always takes a bit of cranking to get the thing going, but it does run well."

Thomas stepped back. This he had to watch.

As she cranked the engine, Waneeta wiped off the seat. Under most of the snow was a fine layer of dust. Meteorite dust, which soon smeared with the snow and she briefly wondered if she should be saving the stuff for posterity.

Then she felt it, a peculiar sensation as it flooded over her. That same indescribable nausea she'd felt watching the meteorite crash and burn. It was so intense that she closed her eyes, hoping it would pass quickly.

Finally the engine caught, and Waneeta found the vibrations easing her queasiness. Finally, as the Skidoo settled into a quiet idle, the nausea faded away.

Taking a deep breath, she turned to face Thomas.

He was gone.

Waneeta glanced around. "Thomas?"

Leaving the idling Skidoo a moment, she walked over to the uprooted tree close to where he'd been standing. Something was wrong. Reaching out her hand, she touched it. It was the twisted wreck of rotten roots, shrunken and decayed nearly beyond recognition. Just a moment ago, it had seemed freshly uprooted and covered thickly with new snow. Thomas was just standing here, having backed off when she was about to start the engine.

Waneeta turned around and spied another tree. One of the original old growth trees, it stretched up high above her, forked right in the middle. The top of it was charred and broken. The meteorite had grazed it on its descent.

"There, Thomas, look!" She pointed and twisted about, but she was still alone.

Alone. In fact, Waneeta had never felt so alone.

She shivered in the quiet. Suddenly, it was as if she was the only creature left on earth. Fear crawled through her, and she automatically stepped back, looking down the path that led to the cabin. Skidoo tracks veered to the right through the trees, but the trail she and Thomas took only minutes before was yet untouched this winter. All that threatened the pristine snow today was a good melting from the warm day.

Warm?  It hadn’t been this warm out a moment ago.

And that tree! With determined steps, she plowed through the soft snow until she smacked the tree trunk and looked up. She squinted against the bright sky as she scanned the century-old timber.

This tree was far too old...

Her skin crawled. One wicked storm had hit yesterday, but the tracks around her were still well-trampled by snowmobiles. Two nights ago, she couldn't find this trail because the snow was so pristine. Now it was packed hard and crystallized from late winter thaws and freezes.

What was going on?

A shivering fear scraped the length of her body like claws on a chalkboard. Her gaze flashed around, but the trees were unfriendly, laughing at her as they bent in the breeze that had suddenly whipped up. For one absurd moment, she thought they'd stolen Thomas, like evil Wendigos stealing lonely hunters. Above her, tree tips pirouetted rhythmically, their rustlings like heavy, hypnotic wheezing.

Nausea roiled again, this time borne of panic. Her heart pounding, she leapt on her snowmobile and without looking back, she raced down the trail that would take her to the village.