The year was 1998, and I was but a mere 10 year old lad playing cards with my brother in the cabin of our boat. We were tied to the Newcastle Island docks just off the coast of Nanaimo and it was a standard west coast night – kind of wet, a little windy, and sort of cold. Any warmth that the small electric heater had generated was instantly dissipated as my father and his friend entered the cabin.

They were speaking about a man named Bob (I use the name as a generic placeholder, having forgotten the original, although I think it might have actually been Bob). Neither of them had really known the man, just heard his name mentioned and occasionally saw him around the docks, as he used the same marina as us. From the little information I have been able to gather about him, I can say that he was pretty much your average middle aged man, and you know what is common for middle aged men? Heart attacks. Just a couple days prior, Bob had been working on his boat alone in the evening when he was struck down by a heart attack. Now, heart attacks aren’t usually instantly fatal, however if you are like poor Bob and you fall into the ocean while having a heart attack you are completely ruined. If the story of Bob ended there it would be kind of sad and unremarkable to the point of not worth sharing. It doesn’t end there however, in fact it only serves to set up the real story.

The next morning the body was found washed upon the shore of Newcastle Island, the very same island that we were now docked at. Even though the remains of Bob were quickly retrieved before the crack of dawn, they were too late to get him before the wildlife could give him a hard time. As the coastguard zodiac pulled into Midden Bay they found the corpse near the shore surrounded by albino raccoons. In the glare of the spotlight the raccoons eye’s flashed red before they ran off into the woods. As Bob was placed into the boat to be brought back into the city, they noticed that a lot of him was missing. The albino raccoons of Newcastle Island had eaten much of the man, and even scarier, had gotten themselves a taste for human.

-Wolverox