Skookworks Inc

It was not that I could not move my limbs. I could not think about moving my limbs. The notion of standing would drift into my consciousness and then fade before I could grasp it much less implement the action. I sat on the floor. I don’t know how long I sat. I had lost the awareness of time along my ability to command my body. 

At last the doctor returned. Two nurses, both brunettes, in crisp white uniforms accompanied him. Their precise appearance made a sharp contrast to his rumpled one. The taller of the nurses wheeled in a metal table upon which lay a variety of medicine bottles and syringes. The bottles were arranged by height, tallest to shortest, the syringes by needle length, longest to shortest. 

Raymond Largo was not a tall man but he was a large one. His shoulders were broad. His stomach ample. The wild black curls atop his head and the two feet of beard below his chin only added to the appearance that he filled more space than the average fellow. Yet he was clearly smaller than his shipmate. The Atlantean was at least seven feet tall and gangly. Neither of them looked happy to see me. 

Largo said, “We picked you up up more from curiosity than because we’re good natured. If you want to stay you’ll need to hold your weight. No body rides for free.” 

I gave him a hard stare.

He shook his head. He said, “We won’t be asking that of you. I’ve got a wife and Al, well, Al’s a fish.”

Marszalek tossed the desiccated body off the balcony and spun to face me. I raised my hammer. His face, once so open and expressive was now blank, closed and inhuman. A wet whistling hiss issued from his mouth. I took one step forward.

He turned and, all limbs moving, scuttled over the railing. 

In three steps I stood where he had been. I looked down. He was clinging to the wall, already thirty feet away and moving fast. 

The soldiers’ bodies were weeks old but not old enough for a tree to have grown through a rib cage. Yet one corpse stood at attention, held up by a small pine passing through his trunk and exiting at his throat. The flesh was sampled by neither animals nor insects. It was green and puckered as if by mold and fungus. 

“What is your name?” I asked.

The boy stared at me, uncomprehending. Was my German so bad? Or did he speak another language. His arraignment indicated that he was either not a local or that he had raided a wardrobe of a century past. I repeated the question.

“Werner Hoerst”, he barked. He looked at the mud then cautiously raised his eyes to me again. “I think I am very, very lost.”

The sheep had been torn asunder. There appeared to be four carcasses but, with the fog and their scattered state, I could not be sure of the exact count. I squatted to examine a nearby leg. 

Jane Liverly covered his mouth and closed her eyes. Through her hand she said, “It can’t have been dogs done this. I know all the dogs for twenty miles. It’s got to be a wolf.”

I frowned at her. I said, “I would assume that you would know if there were a wolf in England.”

I held up the leg and pointed to the bite marks. I said, “Whatever did this killing had fangs but did not have a wolf shaped mouth.” I pointed to the gore soaked mud and said, “It also walked on two legs.”

All conversation stopped. Joe put his huge hands upon the table. Scars and callouses added a surprising dignity to their appearance. Those hands had seen much use and strife and still moved with grace. 

Leroy tested a cautious smile. He said, “I didn’t mean nothing, Joe. I was just joking. Sometimes my mouth works before I think and say stuff that ain’t really funny.”