Wendigo

By Joseph Sweet

I

     Lynn was pushing her small white 81 Mazda slightly over the speed limit on country route 41; a long stretch of lonely highway which she found somewhat mirrored her poor excuse for a life. Abused by a family that never wanted her to begin with, her entire life had been spent trying to escape the loneliness, which in all its misery, was still her only friend.

     Ahead from the steady ominous row of sentinel pines, a figure emerged at a dead run and stopped right in her path. He frantically waved for her to stop, but she was going too fast. There simply wasn't time.

     Lynn slammed on the breaks, sending the small vehicle into a spin on the rain slicked asphalt. For just an instant, she thought she was going to hit him. In the next millisecond, however, the car swerved and skidded past the stranger, missing him by a quarter of an inch.

     A look of terror distorted the man's face, accented by a quick flash from the car's headlights, and then he disappeared once more as the car spun further out of control. Lynn was sure that look would remain etched in her mind for a long time to come, however, if she managed to survive the night.

     Straining every muscle in her left side and in both arms, as the wheel fought to spin out of control, Lynn somehow managed to hang on. She jerked the wheel a bit too harshly in the direction of the car's spin, and somehow managed to remember to pump the brakes. But despite her best efforts, the car skidded right off the road a few seconds later. Finally after what seemed an eternity, the vehicle came to an abrupt halt, lifting off the ground for a moment as it rolled over something large and then slammed back to the ground.

      Lynn sighed in relief, turning the key to shut off the engine. She let her head fall to the steering wheel with a barely audible thud that would have hurt if not for the massive rush of adrenaline now coursing through her veins. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest, causing little white lights to appear at the corners of her vision with each earth shaking beat. For the moment she had forgotten about the man in the road.

     Her mind had not yet recovered from the shock of the past few seconds when the stranger she had nearly run down flung open the passenger side door, sat down, closed it. "We have to get out of here!" he screamed. Given his appearance in that moment - in a heightened state of panic, at least three days in need of a shave, wearing an orange camouflage coat -  he vaguely resembled an escaped mental patient. Lynn felt a small current of fear surge through her. "Now!" he pleaded.

     "What the hell's going on?" she demanded to know. She could hear the fear in her wavery voice and she didn't like it one bit.

     "Just drive the fucking car lady!" he snapped impatiently, eying the darkness around them as though he expected the very forest itself to rise up and tear him from the passenger seat.

     For the first time, Lynn realized the danger of her situation. For all she knew, this guy could be the next Ted Bundy or John Gacey, his latest victim lying just beyond those trees. And who would miss her if she disappeared? She had no real friends. Anyone who had ever attempted to get close had been quickly and efficiently cut off by the cold dissociative personality which had helped her survive a hellish childhood. An image of her neighbor - 'What had been his name?' - Flashed in her mind.

     She had been bringing her groceries into the house her first day there, and he'd stopped mowing the lawn to offer his help. Lynn had immediately thrown up her defenses, telling him, no thanks, she could get it on her own - Shutting him out as she had done to so many people. Later in the house, she had backed against the wall, feeling weak and pathetic, and cried. The realization had come that there would never be anyone for her. She would never trust anyone enough to let them close.

'Should have let him in,' she thought. 'Should have at least made friends,' Maybe then, somewhere in the world right now, there would be someone who cared. Someone who cared or no, however, letting some psycho into your car in the middle of nowhere was bound to end with you just as dead. And then what did it matter?

     The stranger was screaming something then. He had been for the last few seconds, she realized, but she had been too lost in thought to notice.

"Oh God." he cried, "Oh God." His gaze shifted from the darkness beyond the car window to Lynn, and that fear which had corrupted his features in the road returned full force. He made her think in that instant of a child who had awakened to find that the monsters from his subconscious were very real indeed. Innocence corrupted by the sudden knowledge that so much true evil existed in the world.

     Then something slammed against the side of the vehicle. The tiny car nearly overturned in its wake. She grabbed the side of her seat with one hand and the dash board with the other in an attempt to find purchase in case it went over. And then her heart lurched to a near fatal stop a second later when she took notice of the huge, white, hairy beast on the other side of the passengers side window. It glared in at her and her blood ran cold. For the moment it had forsaken its original target for a peek at the situation's witness.

     The man was babbling senselessly now. He had practically crawled into her lap in his desperation to get away and Lynn was sure she heard bits and pieces of prayer somewhere in that onslaught of half formed words.

     For a few more moments the beast remained where it was, observing the two of them, perhaps enjoying their panic. Its eyes glowed softly with an unnatural cold bluish tint, yellow teeth barred in a fevered snarl. It looked like some gigantic, nightmare mixture of big foot and a werewolf, but those descriptions somehow fell a bit short of the mark. The cold, calculating, eyes in that white, hairy, face spoke of rage, desperation and madness. But they also hinted at a high level of intelligence. The mixture was something too terrifying to consider.

     Lynn couldn't move. She silently cursed her body for this failure but it still wouldn't comply.

     In the next instant the man seemed to snap out of his fear, but there was a great look of hopelessness about him now, for he had accepted his fate. Looking to Lynn, he said, "Get out while you can. There's still time for you."

     Tortured metal shrieked as the beast tore the passenger door from the car, crumpling it in its huge clawed hands and throwing it off into the woods. It cleanly sliced through a couple of trees before slamming into another and falling to the ground with a metallic thud.

     The stranger cried out as those same immense hands then pulled him into the nightmarish darkness beyond. His eyes locked with Lynn's an instant before he was swallowed by the seemingly living shadows. "Save yourself," they screamed.

     And just like that he was gone; expunged from her life just like everyone and everything else. Only this time it had been her selfish paranoia that had done it. But hadn't it always been? Some distant fear that anyone she let in would hurt her?

"It's your fault!" Her father cursed at her from the past.

     A distant inhuman roar ripped Lynn from her paralysis.

     She tried the key but the engine refused to turn. Over and over she fought frantically with it, as though mere determination would make the vehicle start.

Nothing.

     And then she heard it.

     Thump Thump Thump.

     Titan footsteps, thundered toward her from the darkness beyond.

     She struggled with the key, turning it so hard that she feared it would break off in the ignition. It struggled, started for just a split second to turn over, and then failed again.

     THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

Closer.

     Lynn's heart was beating far faster than she imagined it ever had as she struggled with the stubborn engine to no avail. The engine revved finally, and she cried out in triumph, but it stalled two seconds later.

     THUMP. THUMP.

Faster. Closer.

     There was simply no time left. She was going to have to attempt escape on foot. The stranger had obviously been running when she'd come across him. maybe he'd had it right before getting into her car.

     As Lynn threw the driver door open, the ground rushed away from her with another shriek of protesting metal, and she lost her balance, plummeting face first seven or eight feet toward the pavement below. She managed to save herself with one outstretched arm, but it broke upon impact, allowing the left side of her head to hit anyway.

     There was a bright flash of light and then darkness teased at the corners of her vision.

     The vehicle hovered above. Only the monstrous over-proportioned legs of the beast were visible.

     Then, as though it weighed no more than a small stone, the creature raised her car over its head and launched it toward the trees on the other side of the road.

     Lynn ducked just short of being decapitated by the undercarriage, one knee slamming hard into the pavement. She watched in disbelief then as her car tore through several rows of mammoth trees before wrapping halfway around one and falling to the ground with an earth shaking thud.

     The creature seemed not to notice her yet, its glowing blue eyes glazed with mad glee at the carnage it had created.

     Lynn took her chance, forcing herself to rise up off the ground on her only good arm, and cradled the other in the least painful way possible. She ran with all of her strength, fighting the darkness which threatened with every second to take her, knowing that she had never run this fast in her life. Not even when...

     Lynn had been fourteen. She had watched her father drink himself into a rage, and beat her mother senseless at least three times a month, sometimes more.

     This time had been the last.

     She'd seen the final, inevitable blow, and known what it meant as her mother collapsed on the kitchen floor for the last time.

     Without thinking she'd screamed.

     Her father's shocked eyes locked with hers, filled with what may have been sorrow for an instant only. And then there had been only rage. "You little bitch." he snapped, and the chase had been on.

     There was no time to grieve for the loss of her dead mother. - a mother who had claimed on many occasions not to care about her one bit, who admittedly would not mourn her own daughters passing - But she was all Lynn had, and even living with the constant mental and physical abuses which were her daily routine, she had always had that. She hadn't been alone. On some level she wouldn't believe that her mother had never cared. Secretly she had always harbored a belief - no matter how well hidden, even from herself - that her mother would take her away from this man some day. But now she was gone.

     She had to run.

     It's my fault she had thought as she pushed open the screen door on the back of the house, picking up speed as she crossed the back yard. Her bruises from the night before had not yet even begun to heal, and she'd be damned if she would go through the previous nights events again. Besides, even at fourteen, she knew that this time, he wouldn't stop at beating and raping her. Tonight he would kill her for witnessing the murder.

     Lynn's mother had always blamed her for her father's abuse. She had said that he never used to be that way. He hadn't started drinking until she was born, according to her. And now the woman who had brought her into this world was gone forever.

     And maybe it was her fault.

     The path before her began to blur, as a new wave of tears gushed forth from her seemingly never-ending supply. 'God I'm pathetic!' she thought.

     The footsteps behind her grew ever closer. He was gaining.

     The neighbor's yard was coming into view then, but she knew that he was too far gone to care. Going to them would do no good.

     Half of her teachers and a psychiatrist had been convinced that she had a problem making up stories, and that she somehow needed to make her life at home seem terrible in order to gain attention from peers. She would be made to return home with him, where she'd be lucky to survive the night.

     Lynn had headed for the neighbor's barn instead.

     The footsteps behind her were closing.

     She could almost feel the breath of the beast on her neck every step of the way.

     And then she was falling. Sharp sticks and rocks scratched her knees and then her right hip. Her head thumped into the soft underbrush an instant later. And then she was rolling on her side. In all of the confusion, she hadn't noticed the steep hill before her, through the cover of trees. She rolled halfway, catching her shirt on some branches, and as it tore, something slashed her side.

     And then she was at the bottom. For the moment the creature was nowhere to be seen.

     She noticed a cave up ahead and went for it, hoping that he would pass by while she hid. She failed to think, in her moment of panic and confusion that she was leaving a trail of blood now. Not that the creature needed it.

     Once inside she realized her mistake.

     The cave was filled with bones; so many of them.

     She had time to realize with horror that only a small percentage of them were animal bones. The most frightening realization was that despite the sheer number of corpses in this cave - human and otherwise - a great percentage of them still had blood and meat on them. And they didn't look very old. 'How much does this thing need to eat,' she wondered.

     In the corner, atop a large pile of bones, was the corpse of the hunter she'd seen and almost run over in the road.

     Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. She tried to think of something that she could do, but there was obviously nowhere to go at this late point. This was its lair. She quickly ran to the body and lifted it as best she could with her broken arm. It amounted to heaving into him with her good side to push him out of the way. She quickly threw some bones from the spot where the dead hunter had been lain, and burrowed in. A moment later - just seconds before the creature returned - she grabbed his left arm and pulled him with all of her strength, causing his body to fall back from its side onto his back, where his full weight slammed into her.

     No sooner had she done that - stifling a cry of pain from his sudden weight on her arm and sharp bones jabbing into her from multiple angles - than the creature entered its cave, nostrils flaring as it sniffed the air. Her scent was still fresh, no doubt.

     It looked all around, as if in disbelief that she was not here. And then its eyes rolled back in its head, it gave a deep guttural growl and dropped to the floor.

     A glacier of ice melted off her heart, sending ice water coursing through her veins. Her heart seemed to be beating at near light speed. He was following her trail of blood. Surely he would find her like this and all she had managed to do was corner herself. After all I have survived,' she thought, 'To die like this just isn't fair.'

     The creature stopped. He was right in front of her and the dead man now, obviously confused. Then he buried his nose in the corpse, and she had to fight screaming as sharp pieces of bones - once just poking her uncomfortably - began to actually pierce her flesh in a few places now.

     An instant later, however, just when she was ready to cry out in pain and give up, the monster backed away and ran out of the cave. Obviously it thought that she had somehow escaped its lair, or that he had been confused by the scent of the hunter's blood.

     Lynn waited only a few minutes before pushing the man off her with her good arm, which seemed to take only half the effort as last time, and got to her feet. This action alone took a couple of minutes with a broken arm. She was aware that the adrenaline now pumping through her veins was the only thing keeping her from collapsing. Each movement was a new lesson in pain as sharp bones pulled out of her body from multiple angles. Most of the ones to have pierced her flesh had been attached to something heavier in the pile, but she had to physically reach down and pull part of an antler out of her right thigh with a grunt of pain.

     In the next few seconds she noticed some guns piled near the entrance. Most likely these were the weapons of hunters this thing had killed in the past.

     She picked up a shotgun, single handed, just as the beast lurched back through the cave entrance.

     It roared as it saw her. An unmistakably human look of satisfaction drifted over its animal face, for it had her trapped. It was very human-like in appearance, in fact, except for all of that fur. It looked emaciated, as though it hadn't eaten in months. That, she realized, must have been the reason for the look in its eyes when she'd first seen it. 'But how could that be?' she wondered, 'with all of this food?'

     All of this occurred to her in the space of a second. And then the beast was moving toward her and she cried out, stepping backward. She tripped over something in the next instant and toppled over onto her back, knocking the wind out of her lungs. The creature moved in as she began gasping for breath. With only moments to spare, she raised the shotgun and fired. Her aim, with no second hand to balance the weapon was sloppy, but it hit home, nonetheless.

     The creature cried out - an unearthly shriek - and then started to move toward her faster; only angered by the wound, not slowed.

     Still holding her left arm against her body, she braced the gun quickly against her chest and cocked it with her good arm. A doglike snarl formed as her finger wrapped 'round the trigger again, but she was rewarded only with a dry click.

     A sudden horrible realization filled her then. She was going to die here in this cave, and no-one was ever going to know what happened to her. 'Hell,' she wondered, 'would anyone even know to come looking?'

     Suddenly, in frustration, she turned the rifle around, with only perhaps a millisecond to spare, and thrust it at the beast. The stock of the weapon hit it right in the side of the head, and it staggered backward.

     She took perhaps her only chance and scrambled between the thing's legs as the now useless weapon crashed to the floor of the cave. A moment later, she was on her feet once again and running for the exit.

     In seconds she was running through the woods again, her father screaming at her from somewhere in the past. "It's your fault, you little bitch." and she was transported back to that night so long ago.

     Lynn had made it to the open double doors of the barn just in time, slamming and bolting them moments before her father reached her.

     "Open it." he screamed from outside, banging on the old wood with all of his might.

     A small bit of light filtered in through large cracks in the door, amplified by the dust which had been stirred up by her entrance and from her father's rage inspired pounding. Suddenly they didn't seem strong enough to hold this man out. She knew from personal experience how strong he was and she had trouble, in that instant, putting any confidence into the feeble ancient boards before her.

     Lynn backed against the first post she came to, and froze in fear.

     "You little bitch!" he shouted, "Just making it worse."

'How could it be worse?' she asked herself, and then decided that it couldn't.

     Lynn fought the vision. She didn't want to remember. It continued however, regardless as trees rushed past her on all sides.

    The pounding was getting worse, and there was no doubt in her mind that her father would soon break through. Lynn shuddered, her hands falling to her sides, and her fingers found something there, leaning against the same post.

     She reached down and pulled it forward.

     What happened next had been forgotten; suppressed by sheer will to move on.

Until now.

     She saw her hand reaching out and pulling the board from its place, in effect unlocking the door. The full intent of these actions was hidden even to her until only moments later.

     The pounding stopped as if in anticipation.

     She backed into the shadows as the doors were thrown wide.

     Lynn swung upward with all her might.

     The last thing her father saw, were the metal spikes of a garden rake on a collision course with the right side of his head.

     The rake stuck partially in his temple and forehead, and her unwillingness to let go immediately, sent her reeling forward as he fell backwards.

     For a few moments, Lynn lay sprawled over her father's spasming body. Then a warmth on her legs became obvious quickly for what it was as her father pissed himself and the smell of urine replaced that of hay and other farm smells. And then the full weight of what she had done fell upon her and she threw her hands to her mouth. To her surprise, however, instead of guilt or disgust, she found laughter fighting to surface; a harsh bitter laughter that had no place coming from a girl her age. There was a bit of insanity there as well, perhaps, and within seconds Lynn was laughing so hard she feared it would never stop.

     Some distant part of her noticed the pool of blood forming beneath her father's head, soaking into the collar and shoulder of his shirt. But this only made her want to laugh harder.

     Images began to invade her vision then. Visions of him on top of her, Him beating her mother, her mother lying bloody on the floor, Him beating her, her mother's whimpers, only barely audible, from the

other room, before and after.

    Voices now, both mother and father, "Bitch ... You aren't worth anything ... Never wanted you to begin with ... It's your fault ... Your fault." The voices echoed over and over, blending together in one maddening cacophony of taunts.

     Lynn cried out in rage, tearing the rake from where it was still embedded within his skull with a strength that was unnatural for a child her age. She began beating him relentlessly with it, shouting obscenities, and laughing hysterically throughout it all. Soon his face became less and less recognizable in a mass of torn and bloody flesh that had once been her father and she became aware that she was covered in his blood. She could taste it also from where some of it had splattered her face and gotten into her mouth. A part of her had liked that, she remembered now.

     Slowly, Oh so slowly, the voices and images faded along with everything else, and she retreated to a place in her mind where there were no fathers and mothers, for surely all of them were evil.

     There she had remained until a psychiatrist had finally been able to reach her a few years later.

     During the whole thing, apparently the man who lived on the property had come outside to see what was going on and called the police. He then went to get her mother, only to find her there on the kitchen floor, dead.

     Lynn had been institutionalized for a short time and then released. Never once had she been able to fully recall the events of that night, however, until now.

     Currently the trees were trailing past her with the surreal texture of a dream, and Lynn knew she wouldn't make it much further. Just as hope began to dwindle, however, a small building appeared over the next rise. It seemed aglow in blinding magical light after the darkness of the night forest. In seconds her weary mind - delirious from sheer exhaustion and blood loss, as well as traumatic resurfaced memories and events of the past half hour - recognized that glow as light from the sun attempting to break the relentless grasp of the horizon. Somehow she knew deep down that if she kept moving until the sun rose, everything would be okay. Had she been able to pause for a second to look around after clearing the trees, she would have realized that this tiny guest cabin was just across a semi-large piece of property from a larger one. And there were lights on inside. but the beast was just behind her and there was no time.

     Lynn reached the door quicker than imagined, and had it locked seconds before the beast reached it.

"Open it you little Bitch!" her father cursed at her from somewhere in a memory that would not be forgotten. 'It's him,' she thought, delirious. 'Finally gonna get me.' Some tiny part of her had always wondered if she had been meant to survive that night all of those years ago. That part constantly whispered to her that she would not have had to suffer for all of this time if she hadn't. Could she just give in right here and now? Just open the door and let it take her? Let it be finished after all of this time?

     The banging stopped, however, and she snapped out of her momentary suicidal state. No sounds attempted to penetrate the dead quiet. The birds, which by all rights should have been chirping away at this hour, had fallen silent in the wake of the abomination outside. A chill moved steadily down her spine and caused an involuntary shudder to move throughout her entire body.

     Glass shattered behind her and she realized with sudden horror that she had been slowly stepping away from the door.

     Intense white-hot pain surged through her back, as the monster attempted to grab her, ripping through her blouse and tearing flesh in the process. She fell to her knees and then to her side.

     She had nothing left.

     The creature was now in her path of vision, still attempting to crawl through the window as everything began to fade to gray. She prayed for just a little more strength; just enough to get up and run to safety.

     Then the sun breached the horizon, and the creature let out a shriek that could surely have driven anyone mad with ease. But not Lynn. She felt the same hysteric glee that she had felt the night she drove a garden rake through her father's skull. The same laughter fought to surface and probably would have; but the creature was gone and now might be her only chance.

     She tried to get to her feet, but the pain was too intense. Sheer exhaustion alone would not allow it. Darkness tugged at the corners of her vision once more and this time prevailed.

     "Help." she managed before drifting away, though she was certain no one would hear.

II

     Jack was fighting with his imagination. Every word on the small computer monitor, he had struggled to put there, and the story wasn't turning out to be that good so far. He'd struggled along anyway, telling himself that they sometimes weren't that great at first, but he knew inside that he was just fighting a losing battle with writer's block. When it wasn't there, it wasn't there. Trying to force it was just a waste of time.

     Pat rubbed against his leg, gently arching her back, begging for attention as only a cat could.

     "I know," he said, petting her, "been ignoring you again haven't I?"

     She looked up at him, and meowed accusingly, as if to say, "Yup."

     Jack had given up on relationships and most friendships a long time ago, realizing after a while that women wanted a guy who could be around all the time, and not shut himself away for days, weeks, and sometimes months to write. Writing was a gift, but also a curse. Deep down he knew that he'd have it no other way, though.

     He'd tried several kinds of pets over the years, seeking a companion of some kind to have around. He'd purchased birds, fish, and a ferret. But none had quite the personality of a cat or dog, and he'd finally decided on Pat at the SPCA.

     A high pitched inhuman shriek pierced the night just then, and an unnatural quiet settled over everything. Pat let out a startled meow, and dove for cover.

     "Jesus." Jack exclaimed, and moved toward the window, looking out on the small cabin on the other end of the property. "What the hell?"

     Pat was nowhere to be seen.

     Jack was opening the front door before he knew it, his overactive imagination calling up images of everything from big foot to T-rex at the sound of that. Little did he know how close to the truth a few of those images actually were.

     Halfway across the yard, he saw it, an immense beast three times the size of the biggest bear. It was emaciated and sick looking as though on the verge of death from sickness or starvation. Long white fur covered its body and two bright glowing blue eyes stared back at him from a face that was eerily human-like, but for all that hair in places that didn't grow on humans. Its coat was smeared with blood in some places, and the smoke rising from it made it seem more spirit than physical in form.

     Its eyes locked with his for a couple of seconds. There was a promise, he thought, in that gaze: A dangerous one. I'll deal with you later, they seemed to say, but then he did have a pretty large imagination. 'Am I dreaming?' he wondered.

     It scampered off suddenly, moving on all fours as it picked up speed, almost like apes he had seen on national geographic videos.

     Jack was frozen in his tracks, a mixture of fear and awe holding him in his paralysis. Words formed on his lips, but he made no sound. "WENDIGO" It was of course a Native-American legend in most of Northern America, and parts of Canada, forgotten over the centuries, kept alive by vague fairy tales and folklore. Though the legend was widespread among tribes, historians credited the Ojibwa for starting it. Some believed it a fairy tale to warn against cannibalism.

     He knew of it because of a story he had once wished to write and then decided that no-one would read.

     And then, just barely audible even in this unnatural silence, he heard someone cry for help.

     Forgetting about the creature, if that was possible, he rushed toward the cabin, and what he saw when he came to the smashed window, he at first mistook for a corpse.

III

     Lynn screamed. Her father was standing over her, his eyes glowing blue; his black hair had gone pure white. "It's all your fault!" he cried and lunged for her.

     "It's alright," someone tried to assure her but she wouldn't be comforted.

     Then finally the last remnants of the nightmare faded and she found that she could not identify her surroundings. A brief panic set in. "Where am I?" For the briefest of instants, she forgot about the chase through the woods and her collapse in the cabin.

     The stranger – around 5' 8" brown eyes, short hair - stepped back from the bed where she had been laid, and said, "You're safe. Just relax." He paused then, as though he had just thought of it, "Are you hungry?"

     Lynn wanted to say no. She knew that after what she had witnessed, it'd be a miracle if she could eat, (not to mention that she was in some stranger's house and she had never been trusting of men, especially strange ones) but she heard herself say, "Yes, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

     "Good." he stated, a warm smile replacing the worry that had been there moments before. "I'll be back in a few. You just rest."

     She fell asleep almost as soon as he left.

     Twenty minutes later or so, just as he had promised, he was back with soup, crackers, and a can of diet cola, gently nudging her to wake up.

     "Probably not the best thing for you right now," he commented, handing her the drink, "but unless you want water, this is all there is. I meant to go into town yesterday and buy some groceries, but I've been trying to beat a bad case of writer's block, and I sort of confined myself to the house."

     "You're a writer?"

     "Well, I try to be."

     Lynn suddenly realized that she was in this man's house. "Why didn't you take me to a hospital, or call an ambulance?" she asked, on the verge of panic.

     "One, I don't have a phone. And two, I don't have a car." He seemed to be cutting his sentences short and to the point as if there was something more important he wanted to discuss. "The closest house is two hours if you walk fast, and you needed treatment right away. And to be completely honest, well I guess I'm just trying to make sure I'm not going crazy, but what attacked you? Could it have been a Wendigo?"

     "Did you see it?!" she sat up excitedly, almost spilling her soup, then winced at the pain all over her body, and relaxed a little.

     "Easy," He said, looking a bit concerned. "I was hoping you could tell me how you came into contact with it."

     Lynn hesitated at first, only half believing what her memory swore to be true herself, then let the whole thing spill, leaving nothing out.

     He listened carefully throughout it all, never once seeming to disbelieve a word she said.

     When she was through, he asked, "You say it was intent on killing you?"

     She became distant for a second or two, remembering the chaotic joy which had shown in the creature's eyes after destroying her car. "I think that's all it knew how to do." A great depression settled over her then, "You don't believe me, do you?"

     "No, I believe you. Shit, I saw the damn thing. How could I not? It's just that the legends create an entirely different image." he paused, "Well, some of them… Some tribes believed that they were once human, turned cannibals, and then became the wendigo, while some actually believed it was a protector of nature." He looked her over for a minute, then added, "But given what happened to you, I'd say it was that first one.

     "Wendigo." she repeated doubtfully.

     "Well, I'm not an expert or anything, and I've never seen one before, but what I saw this morning sure as hell fit the description - well, one of them, anyway."

     "I mean," she started doubtfully; "It sounds familiar. Like something I may have heard of as a child."

     "So you tell me," he started with just a touch of sarcasm, "What exactly do you think half killed you out there? An eighteen ton polar bear with rabies?"

     Lynn closed her eyes. She wanted everything to just go away. She needed somehow to deny all which she knew in her heart to be true. Nevertheless, his comment had caught her off guard, and she found a smile fighting to surface despite her.

"…Or the Easter bunny on steroids?"

     She gave up and smiled, marveling all the while on how strong the human spirit was. To have seen what she had, should by all rights have driven her over the edge, yet here she was laughing about it, having accepted what happened, because there was only one explanation at the moment. It had happened, and that was all there was to it. Well, either that or she was completely bat-shit, but she preferred to believe the former for the time being.

     "I'm sorry. All I'm trying to say is that what we saw out there was real, and you have the wounds to prove it. There's no denying." He stood then. "I have to go get some wood from the shed. It'll be dark soon. I'll be back in a bit. If you're feeling up to it tomorrow, we can walk to the Somer's place so you can call someone."

     'No.' she wanted to tell him. 'Stay and talk' she wanted to say, but didn't know how to convey it in a way that wouldn't sound pathetically needy. So she kept quiet and suffered.

     Just before he left, he turned and said, "Name's Jack, by the way."

     "Lynn." she stated, and a strange rush of energy surged through her, causing an involuntary shiver.

     Jack stopped. A comical look of shock and maybe a little fear passed over him. And then he just walked out. No nice to meet you, or see you later. He just left, looking as though he'd seen a ghost.

*

     "Name's Jack, by the way." he'd said as he turned to face her.

     "Lynn." she had replied, then shivered, and Jack couldn't be sure; it might have been light reflecting in her eyes. But he swore that for a couple of seconds Lynn's eyes had glowed blue. An image had come to him then of the beast he had witnessed earlier that morning and he could think of nothing to say. Instead he turned and walked out; hoping that what he had seen was just one more display of his overactive imagination.

     Fifteen minutes later, Jack watched as the sun slowly disappeared over the trees.

IV

     A half hour later, Lynn sat bolt upright. Something jack had said was bothering her, but she couldn't remember what it had been. She struggled with her stubborn mind for nearly five minutes, but with no results, and then it just hit her.

     'It'll be dark soon,' he had said.

     A whole day had passed as impossible as it seemed.

     Lynn looked frantically to the window, but it was already too late.

     Darkness had fallen.

     "Shit!"

*

     Jack had just finished filling a cart with wood, and was heading for the house when an overwhelming feeling of being watched threatened to send him into a superstitious fit.

     He stopped, surveying the shadows all around him, then continued along.

     Four more steps and it hit him again; he almost broke into a run for the house, but held himself in check. 'Damn imagination.'

     'But,' he reminded himself, 'it's that imagination that allows you to live in a nice cabin in the middle of nowhere.'

     "Jack." A voice whispered from somewhere off behind him.

     He spun that way quickly but all he saw were trees.

     "Jack!" the voice whispered with more urgency, but this time it came three times, each one from a different direction.

     This too, he recognized from collected lore on the Wendigo, and he knew that he would have to be cautious. In stories he'd read, the Wendigo often confused hunters by seeming to be calling to them from multiple directions at once, stunning them into confused inaction. Then, when the moment was right, it would attack.

     There were many different ways in which the creature was said to have attacked. Some said it would swing in from the trees and lift you into the air and carry you away. In some stories, it would spring from the bushes and devour you. Having seen the creature earlier, if that was what it truly had been, he somehow thought the latter more likely.

*

     Everything began to go gray, and then slowly, very slowly, Lynn realized that she was moving. No, not her, something else, she realized. 'I'm seeing through something else's eyes.' It broke through the bushes and a man came into view.

'Jack,' she thought.

     Jack stopped, seeming to sense its presence, then continued along, taking only a few more steps before stopping again.

"Dammit, run." she screamed inside her head, but couldn't form the words out loud.

     He continued along.

     Lynn fought to make the words surface to warn him in some way, but they wouldn't come. And then the image faded, and she was instantly back in the small bedroom.

*

     Jack had almost built up the courage to begin running back to the house when a scream pierced the night air, raising the hair on the back of his neck and causing him to stop dead in his tracks.

"Jaaaaaaack!"

     He looked up to see Lynn in a dead run from the house. 'God she must be in pain, running like that.' he thought, remembering the tortured look which had passed over her when she had sat up too fast.

     The feeling of being watched never left him.

     Jack quickly eyed the forest in every direction, finding nothing. Then Lynn was by his side, pulling his arm. "We have to get out of here," she pleaded.

     Jack turned his attention to her, temporarily forgetting everything else. "Are you alright?"

     Lynn seemed to freeze, her hand going immediately to her side, where the ribs had been broken, and then to her bandages. She ripped the one off her arm, and Jack watched in wide eyed disbelief as unwounded flesh was revealed. The bruises on her face were gone as well. She took the sling off, and moved her arm around as though it had never broken, and then shot him a bewildered look.

     A sudden look of knowing passed over him then, and he surveyed the surrounding trees. "We need to get back into the house." he said, "You think we can make it?" He nodded toward the large cabin on the other side of the property.

     Without another word, they both broke into a run for the building and only as they came within a few feet of it did they hear the creature behind them. The footsteps which seemed to shake reality itself were getting closer and closer.

     Lynn realized then that no walls in this building could keep it out if it really wanted in. She followed Jack anyway, needing to keep alive the illusion of safety that the house presented them with.

     Once inside, she was taken back to that night long ago. Only this was not her father, and there seemed to be no escape.

     She wondered then if it wasn't all fate catching up with her for letting her mother die. Perhaps she had not been meant to survive through that night in the barn.

     She waited then for the pounding, as it would fight to get in, or maybe it would just smash through the side of the house and kill them both, but it never came. It was waiting.

*

     After moving several of the largest pieces of furniture against the door, drawing the blinds, and turning out the lights, they sat in the center of the room, waiting.

     "Why did it stop?" he asked.

     Lynn didn't answer.

     "Lynn?" he asked, concerned suddenly.

     Keeping her eyes shut, she said, "It's going to kill you."

     It took only a split second for him to realize what she had said. Not, "It's going to kill us," but rather "It's going to kill you"

     "What do you mean?"

     "It's too late for me, but, I'll protect you as long as I can." she said, for she could already feel her body changing. A hunger such as she had never known was beginning to take her over and she knew that she would have to get out of here quickly, for Jack's sake. He had done nothing but try to help her and she knew that she couldn't trust herself, even now. Already, her heart was growing colder by the second and she found a steadily growing part of herself wondering why she should feel the need to protect him in any way. Soon that part would overpower any loyalty she felt for this man.

     Jack took her statement at first as hysterics. Then the rooms light changed slightly

     Lynn was crying now, looking down at her hands, and as he followed her gaze, he saw that her hands were beginning to transform; the nails growing outward and curving into sharp claws, the hair on that arm growing longer by the second, and her eyes were glowing the same unnatural cold blue that he had seen in the creature that morning.

     "Dammit," he said, "Fight it." Standing, unsure that he even believed what he was seeing, he found himself saying. "You can fight it."

     "No," She stated simply, "I can't."

     "Look," he pleaded, "The native Americans believed that if you even dreamed of the Wendigo you would become one, and you encountered one in real life, but there has to be a way to fight it. They claimed to have ways to cure people."

     She stood, reaching out to him, and caressed his face with the back of her hand, which was now beginning to grow white fur. A hand that she had to restrain suddenly, for it wanted to gut him on the spot and make a meal of his bloody corpse. There was no way to explain to him that she didn't want to be cured, if that was even possible. It had already changed her that much.

     "You're a sweet man." she said, and meant it. But the woman from whom that statement had come was fading away, maybe forever. And that wasn't so bad, was it? Her life had been mostly pain and disappointment. And it wasn't as though she was leaving anyone behind.

     For a moment Jack was certain that he would be lost in those glowing blue orbs as she seemed to contemplate something, and then she blinked.

     "There's nothing you can do for me," she said, and walked past him toward the door.

     All the furniture was suddenly flung from her path, as though by invisible hands.

     The door opened a moment later, much the same way.

     "You helped me, and I will make it right by you." Lynn said, not looking back, but she wondered. If she survived through what she now had planned, would the creature she was becoming stay away from him?

     "No!" Jack cried, moving toward her, prepared to restrain her if necessary and she wished that she could explain to him what was happening. How hopeless the situation truly was. But there wasn't enough time.

     She was outside before he could reach her and the door slammed shut.

     Jack tried the handle but it wouldn't budge.

     Outside Lynn shrieked, a long steady scream which suddenly changed in pitch toward the end, becoming an inhuman roar, which reverberated throughout Jacks' very spirit, sending chills down his spine.

     There was another inhuman cry, and another. The ground shook again and again, as though the Gods of Greek mythology had all turned against each other and were tearing the heavens apart, in a battle which would most likely destroy reality itself.

     Jack could stand it no longer. The phrase, "Curiosity Kills," entered his mind as he went for the shotgun hanging over the fire place. Not that it had ever been used for anything other than a decorative piece since he'd completed his research for a novel, years ago, but he had shells for it.

     There was a loud thud and the house shook, knocking him off his feet. Pictures fell from the walls, and dishes from the cupboards in the kitchen.

     Standing once more, Jack prepared the weapon, sliding a shell into the chamber. He cocked it and fired at the door handle.

     The handle and a large section of the door vanished.

     He kicked the door as hard as he could, but it wasn't even jarred. Stumbling backward as though he'd just kicked a concrete wall, he loaded the weapon and fired again, this time taking one hinge off, but the door still didn't budge.

     Another shot removed most of the bottom hinge, and this time the door nearly fell outward. Whatever magical force had held it closed was obviously weakening now.

     One more shot removed the middle hinge and most of what remained of the door casing on that side, and it finally fell outward.

     He quickly reloaded and walked out into the night.

     Two Wendigo were not far away. One of them spotted him, letting out a roar, and began stomping his way.

     He raised the shotgun.

     The other tackled the first one.

     They took swipes at each other.

     One took a chunk out of the others midsection with its claws.

     The wounded Wendigo shrieked in pain.

     It was over in seconds then. One was on top of the other, though it was impossible to tell which one of them was Lynn. The one on top ripped the others throat out with its teeth, and then stood, glaring at Jack. It's face smeared in blood, and upper body splattered here and there from the spray of severed arteries, making it look far more terrifying, (if that were possible) than before.

     Jack aimed the shotgun again, uncertain.

     The beast faltered, looking down at itself, at its claws, and then at Jack. Then it turned and ran into the trees, letting out a long sorrowful cry.

     "Lynn" he whispered.

     The beast on the ground before him twitched.

     Jack took a step back, keeping the shotgun on it.

     A voice echoed through his mind just then. At first it was an intrusive explosion of painful noise that nearly sent him to his knees, and then drained quickly to a whispered voice. Lynn's voice.

"It's not dead yet."

     "What do I do?" he cried out.

"You have to get its heart."

     Something came back to him then. Something he had read once while studying the Wendigo. Some of the myths said that it had a heart of ice, and that it would have to be melted to kill the creature.

     Jack quickly ran back into the cabin, looking around and finally finding a can of kerosene.

     As he started back out, the creature began to sit up.

     Jack quickly opened fire, cocked, and fired again, then reloaded. The first hit took a piece of the monster's stomach; the second hit it in the chest.

     It fell back, but was still groaning.

     "Hold still sparky," he said as he began to pour kerosene all over the creature's chest and head. "This is going to hurt a little."

     Cocking the shotgun, Jack aimed and fired point blank into its chest, then poured more kerosene into the wound.

     Without another word he lit the screaming Wendigo on fire.

     A few seconds later bright light enveloped the creature, and tiny particles of darkness began to form which devoured the body on contact.

     Within seconds there was nothing left, and the lights dissipated once again.

     Jack took a good hard look around the property, but Lynn was not in sight. He could feel her watching though.

     Certain of nothing more than how physically and mentally worn out he currently was, Jack gave up and returned to the house.

     Refusing to indulge a sudden urge to write, he went straight for the bedroom, undressed and went to bed, silently reminding himself that he should board up the front door and secure the rest of the house.

     He was sleeping a few seconds after he lay down.

V

     Jack was awakened instantly by a thud somewhere in the house. He sat up in bed and waited, listening for another sound.

     Just as he was about to attribute it to nerves and imagination, the doorknob began to turn.

     As the door slowly opened a chill slid deep into his spine and settled there, refusing to let go.

     It was Lynn.

     Jack sighed in relief.

     She entered the room naked, sliding under the blankets.

     Jack quickly accepted a kiss before he fully realized he was doing so.

     Lynn moved on top of him.

     Jacks left hand slid up her body to her right breast; his right slid round her waist to her ass and squeezed, then moved up her back.

     No matter how strange it was, he wanted this.

     Lynn's eyes began to glow blue.

     In an instant she transformed into the creature, raising one razor clawed hand into the air, and let out an inhuman roar as she prepared to tear him apart.

     Jack awoke in a cold sweat with a startled cry, feeling much like a child who has awakened from a nightmare and is now afraid of every shadow. He wondered briefly about his decision to go straight to bed and not secure the doors.

     There was a thud outside his door just then.

     The handle slowly turned.