Wendigo 3

The Portal Wendigo

The Portal Wendigo Every year around the end of January four friends and I get together to do some rabbit hunting. In truth its really more of a chance to get together and get drunk. Talk about old times. Some updating is done. Generally its a chance to get away from the responsibilities of family, work and all the other things us men have to grow up and do. What better way to do it than with old friends? We meet at a different person’s part of the world every year. In 2019 Kenny’s parents were killed in a car wreck that was the other guy’s fault. The payout from the other guy’s insurance company combined with the money from both their life insurance policies had left Kenny a rich man. He still did the EMT thing but also took plenty of time off now that he could afford it. In 2020 he purchased a farm in upper Minnesota. Though the rest thought it was too cold to go hunting in Minnesota in Febuary, Kenny had promised a warm hunting lodge and he would buy all the booze if the rest would agree to travel to Minnesota. The mention of free booze was all it took. Sam lived in the outskirts of southern Kansas City Missouri. He had the beagle dogs we would use to flush out the rabbits. They were three siblings which were veterans at their art who loved their job. Cooper would drive to KC from Tulsa. Upon joining up with Sam, together they would head north and meet up with Jeff who was coming over from Illinois. The three would continue north in Sam’s four wheel drive and join Kenny and myself at the Minnesota farm. All of them were in their prime at thirty three years of age. All were at least mildly successful with Sam having hit it really big in the field of chemistry. Kenny of course, having a successful career as an EMT and then inheriting all that money. Sad it had to be under such tragic circumstances. I met his parents on more than one occasion. They were very nice people. Cooper was born with money and was doing something in his father’s corporation. Nobody knew much about that situation because he and his father were always at odds and it was a mistake to ask. Suffice to say that he would not have to worry about money the rest of his life as long as he wasn’t incredibly stupid. Cooper had an outstanding wife. I credit her with his success. Should he have any. In any case she’s smart enough to keep them both out of the poor house and he’s smart enough to listen to her. They’ll be okay. All four the men had married and all four had at least one child. Cooper leads the pack with four. Three of them are boys. He named them Kenny, Sam and Jeff. Sam had divorced and was now living single again. The rest had managed to stay hitched. All four men had attended the same high school in Springfield Missouri. Everybody but Cooper had played sports and lettered. Jeff had even been given a scholarship to Illinois State playing football for the Redbirds. Sadly he was involved in a serious car accident the summer before leaving and it ruined any chance he had of playing college ball. It didn’t stop him from being successful though. He used insurance money from the wreck to start the swimming pool store and was a success almost from the start. His own family were the ones with the least confidence. They claimed nobody would buy swimming pools from a black man. Jeff had proven them wrong. He had two sons he was grooming to take over the store. Jeff would claim he was going to retire at age fifty-five and let the boys have the business. He’d get a little off the top every month to help fund his retirement but the rest was going to them. I only saw one problem with his plan. He micro-managed everything. That was his worst and pretty much only flaw. As such it was unlikely he would be turning over the reigns to the business without a fight. In any case it was all family so it would all work out. I am Alex. I must leave out my last name in an attempt to protect the privacy of the others. Some of them have careers which could be effected if it were to get out they were involved in this story for reasons which will become apparent soon enough. I was the last of the group. I didn’t come along until after the high school years. I don’t have a wife, any kids I knew about, and to be completely frank I was the one of the five that wasn’t successful. If it wasn’t for Sam hiring me to look after his place (as he travels a lot), not too mention providing a place for me to live, it’s hard telling where I would be? Anyways I had already drove up to Kenny’s place. I brought one of the dogs and Sam was bringing the other two. I grew up with a beagle for a dog. She was the best, and so very cute. It was just coincidence that Sam had them as hunting dogs. I think the dogs thought of me as more of their master than they did Sam. I spent more time with them. Dogs are a lot like kids. They don’t understand even the best of reasons for why you weren’t there. They just know you weren’t. And my opinion is that in both cases they need you to be there for them much more than they need you to provide a nicer brand of shoes, car you drive, etc. Just my two cents. Part of why I only brought one dog with me is because I don’t feel like I can provide the proper attention that is necessary when you have three dogs. You can only do so much and trying to do more usually results in getting less accomplished. So I grabbed “Golda Meir” which is the name I like least, but it belongs to the dog I like most. Sigh. I have been just calling her “Goldie” as it is somewhat less stupid than saying, “Here, here! Come on Golda Meir!” Sam has wonderful names for the other two dogs as well. “Mandela” and “Ghandi” are the two boys of the trio. They are all three good dogs but when you get more than one of them at one time you run into behavior issues. I suspect they are due to lack of attention. Again just my two cents. Surprisingly the weather was mild for Minnesota for the last days of January. There was a foot of snow on the ground and the temperature was a toasty eighteen degrees during the warmest part of the day. That wasn’t really all that bad all things considered. To put a cherry on the cake it hadn’t been windy which turns a fifteen degree day into an unbearable one. Wind chills are notorious in Minnesota. They come in frozen from Canada and then pick up moisture coming across the great lakes. Hopefully there would be none of that while we were hunting. All of the guys were great pranksters. They shared a great sense of humor though Sam could get testy if something pissed him off. Kenny was an artist and often while sitting at a dinner table he would draw one of those drawings where the artist exaggerates some feature on the model. He was mercilessly funny when we got a waitress that was big, or that had some off-color trait such as a sneer while asking what you wanted to order. Jeff was more of a physical joker. I recall hearing about the time he threw everybody into the swimming pool when at a hotel during the state championship for the football team. Apparently there was only one guy left to get and it was the biggest guy on the team. He supposedly outweighed Jeff by thirty pounds which was all muscle. The two gladiators battled greatly but it came down to a dramatic moment where Jeff actually had the big goliath in a position where he was going into the pool. It was just a matter of whether Jeff went with him. So the guy is hanging precariously over the pool edge. However what is keeping him from going in is the fact that he had Jeff in a bear hug. Now he’s not in a position to accomplish anything but either get wet by himself or get wet while dragging Jeff into the water with him. He bragged from his losing position that Jeff would never be strong enough to break his mighty hold. That they would both, together, go into the water. Jeff seemed to consider what he said for just a second and then he stopped his attack. Instead of strong-arming his opponent into the water he simply used two fingers and said “Koochy-koochy-koo!” and tickled the guy who was so surprised at being tickled that he let go of Jeff almost out of a automatic jerk-reaction. As the guy splashed into the pool Jeff bowed to his audience. Just after they graduated when I was first getting to know all of them they took me on a tractor ride I won’t forget. The tractor had a sod harvester attached to it which provides a big area that is behind the tractor where the sod can be stacked onto a pallet. Or where a handful of drunken, just graduated kids can ride while their designated driver, (me), takes them around town. Where they just happen to meet two girls who just moved into town. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when they returned home to tell their parents that the single guys in this town cruise around on Saturday night on a tractor. The guys finished up that evening by having me swing by the local high school they had just graduated so we could cut the school initials into its front lawn. SHS. In very big letters. They had to be due to the curves in the first and last letters. The sod harvester would not make a tight turn when they created the first letter so the rest were made to match. Then there was Cooper. The best story I can give you about Cooper is the time they took him out to get drunk for his first time. Of course he passed out so they drove to the fast shop and bought a jar of Mayonnaise. Perhaps some of you males out there know where this is headed. Yep sure enough they let him wake up with that white condiment all over his face and hands and proceeded to tell him he had given everybody a bj. Oddly it was Cooper who told me the story. Fun bunch of guys. Though you may take that as a sarcastic remark it would be a mistake. They truly were a bunch of nice guys who could take a joke as well as hand one out. They would do anything for each other. Actually there wasn’t much they wouldn’t do for anybody that crossed their path needing help. Short of handing out money or be taken advantage, of course. Kenny was keeping me entertained with his comical drawings while we waited on the other three to arrive. They should be about half a day from our front door I figured. They’d have a little trouble getting to the farm because it was located on a gravel road which was not heavily traversed and even less heavily attended by snow plows. At least not while there were still blacktop roads to be cleared. Driving Sam’s four wheel drive pick up truck they would make it as long as the winds stayed weak. When the winds blew the snow drifted. Those drifts could get quite large and become impossible to get past unless you were driving a big snow plow truck. Kenny had spoke to neighbors that claimed there were years when even the big snow plows couldn’t get through. He had planned for almost any event however. There were three cords of hardwoods cut, split and seasoning in the backyard. I had brought my own version of firewood. It is called Hedge. Also known as Osage Orange. This wood burns so hot I have personally seen it warp the little window that comes with a wood fireplace insert. They are specifically designed to withstand the extreme heat. Hedge wood takes no notice however. What we end up doing is just throwing one stick of Hedge on the fire. It greatly adds heat while not becoming so red hot that metals and glasses start warping or melting. Kenny had also stocked up the supplies. He had steaks, chops, chickens. Lots of booze and probably some other stuff to get us into trouble. The hunting ground was close enough that we could sleep in Kenny’s house. His wife had gone to her mother’s and taken their offspring. Now it was just us boys waiting on more boys so they could play with their toys. I grabbed Kenny’s drawing pad while he was away doing something. Lots of funny drawings and then my eye caught something at the back of the pad that I had to see what it was about. It was anything but funny. The thing had been dead a long while based on the way its eyes were so sunken inside the skull of a deer which wasn’t quite degraded to the bone. Instead it had thin, leathery skin pulled so tightly over the skull that you might have thought there was no skin at all but for the flaps of it that were hanging off, or out, in a most unattractive way. It showed dirty teeth which had fangs stained with the color of dried blood. Antlers were perhaps the strangest thing of all about it just because you usually don’t see antlers on the head of something that looks menacing and has long blood-stained fangs. I mean you see a shark you don’t expect to see antlers on it. Or a tiger, lion, even a wolf. Whatever that is in the drawing is a predator. Not a grazer. So it might have the head of a deer but those teeth mean business and have been used plenty of times based on their stain. I was holding the drawing out away from me for a different perspective when Kenny came back from his task. His face went from beaming to a kind of guilty looking fear. “What’s up with this?” I asked innocently enough. Kenny said he could tell me while we brought in firewood from his stack. So we began hauling in first the hedge wood I had brought for the duration and then we brought in the bulk of what we would need for the coming week out of his stack. When we got to the last load and he still hadn’t said anything I gave him the look and he started talking. Kenny started by saying he was sorry. Then he let out a confession that was quite enlightening. “I have been worried I was losing my mind. All this strange shit has been happening lately. I haven’t been sure what to do about it and then rabbit hunting time was coming around and nobody had volunteered a location so I thought kill a couple birds with one stone.” His face had become clammy and there was no rosy in his cheeks despite the cold temperatures. “There are these lights that I have begun to think are not really lights at all but something much more menacing”. Sam, Cooper and Jeff rolled up the driveway at that moment. It was shortly after dark. They made a lot of noise … because they could, knowing they were in the middle of nowhere and on Kenny’s land. There was whooping and calling each other son’s of bitches and a lot of good-natured shoving. Everybody greeted everyone on a man to man basis. Each would enquire about the other’s better half? The kids? How business was going? It might sound like a lot of small talk but each was genuinely interested in what the other had to say. Hanging out with these guys was where rude came to die! They understood that to be respected, you first must give respect. As such cell phones were an unspoken no-no. Don’t get me wrong. Of course everybody checked their phones once a day, usually in the evenings but that was the extent of the distractions. It was very casual and the unspoken rules existed out of respect for each other. If someone felt they needed to check their phone more often, or for that matter keep it on their person. Nobody would have said anything. For the most part however that has never been an issue. These guys been getting together for a long time, known each other even longer and to my knowledge nobody had ever chosen their phone over their friends. I realize that may be shocking or even unbelievable to some folks but it is the truth. We actually don’t want to be bothered while spending time with our friends. Crazy guys I know. Goldie came up and gave me the nudge. Where is everybody else? She seemed to want to know. So I went with her out to the truck which had been left running and now it was obvious why? They’d left the dogs in the cab of the truck and had left it running so they wouldn’t get cold. Why not I thought? Gas was only five bucks a gallon. Mandela, Ghandi and Golda Meir all had a blast in the snow. The first thing the two boys did when I opened the door was to pile out and land right on top of their sister. That didn’t dampen the moment however as all three slipped trying to get their footing and as soon as one would the other two would topple him or her and then they’d crawl all over each other and begin the process over. I couldn’t help but smile. Siblings happy to see each other was not something I was accustomed. At least not for a long time now. I was happy these little stinkers had no idea about anything like that. They were if anything the other extreme and didn’t care who knew it. When I thought they’d spent enough time in the Minnesota freezing temperatures I called them all into the house. “Where these guys staying?” I asked looking at Sam. “I’ll take Goldie if you want the other two?” “Just me and the boys”. Sam said. Then he added, “There something I should know about you and the female?” “Yeah”. I said. “She’s a bitch.” Sam not missing a beat replied, “Just so she’s not your bitch.” “Lets just say she wouldn’t trade places with any one of you three.” then I added, “I mean, if it was up to me. The boys fart more.” Sam came back with, “What about me? You said she wouldn’t trade places with any of us three.” “Yeah. I did. Same reason.” The next morning I met Sam at the door because by sunup the dogs are ready to pee. We had little goose down vests we bought to put on them. Normally we wouldn’t do something so … silly, but its one thing to freeze your ass off if you insist on being macho, but its another if you insist on pissing me off because you’re willing to hurt or make uncomfortable an animal just to fit that image. Besides, it wasn’t me paying for it. In any case we got them in their warm vests before the door was opened and they went charging out into the morning cold to do their business. The fact they don’t want to come back in and behave afterwards is just a happy coincidence. I mean they know its true. Easier to ask forgivness than permission. So Sam and I had plenty of time to talk while waiting on the dogs to get the play out of their systems. He took a big drag off a Winston and blew the smoke out the door. I took the cig from him and took a drag and flipped it out into the foot of snow sitting on the ground. Kenny had quit a couple years back and being good friends we tried not to tease him with smoking in front of him or we would even go to the extreme of blowing the smoke out the door when he was absent so he wouldn’t smell it if he returned and be enticed to start again. It wasn’t a spoken thing. Not even an admitted thing. And push come to shove either of us would have exhaled smoke all over that room before admitting we were doing anything on the other’s behalf. No wonder we’re as much of a silly mystery to women as their over-emotional, illogical thinking is to us men. Anyway we were killing a smoke and watching the dogs play and I happened to mention to Sam about that weird drawing at the back of his cartoon pad. Sam gave me the “you know artists” look and said, “probably nothing.” “But it was something. Something we were starting to talk about when you guys arrived sounding like it was Saturday night in Tombstone.” “People in Tombstone have joined the twentieth century. In case you didn’t hear, Even Wyatt Earp is long dead now.’ “Who’s dead?” Jeff asked, just passing by at the right time headed for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and a bloody mary. The boys drank when they drank. Even for breakfast. Cooper passed by trying to catch up with Jeff. Bloody mary strikes again don’t you know. All that going on had taken our attention away from the dogs. When we looked back out in the yard expecting to see them rolling around and sliding this way and that; we instead saw where they had been playing. Then their tracks leading away from the house. Sam gave a pissed off sigh and volunteered to go get them. He shook his head in a disgusted manner and grabbed his coat off the hanger which was along the wall right by the doorway. Under it was a cap which he held in his hand as he marched out the door. He pulled it down on his head and gave the eastern horizon a glance and then took off behind the dogs. The rest of us would grab our gear and follow along shortly. Either Jeff or I’d bring Sam’s gun. He knew it was best not to let the dogs get too much of a head start or sometimes they would go in three different directions and you could end up spending more time walking from one point to the next than you did actual hunting. As long as you kept the dogs together that didn’t happen. Sam was sort of glad to be out ahead of the rest. He wasn’t as fond of drinking as some of the others. So missing out on the morning bloody mary was not a big disappointment. He participated and sometimes got drunk and enjoyed himself. Other times though he would prefer a joint and a cup of coffee over booze. The sun felt good on his face. It warmed the morning and made even a landscape frozen in a white drape seem hospitable. Though he did want to catch the pups before they ran helter-skelter there was no huge rush. They would have to get on the trail of a rabbit and then hole or tree it, or lose the scent, before giving up on it. As long as they could still smell it, they’d stay where the smell originated. Work came into his mind for a flashing second and was immediately ushered out. Sorry, if I am not getting paid then I am not spending my time thinking about stuff that is just going to make someone else rich…er. He turned and looked back to see quite a bit of ground had been covered. It was too far to see the house from this location but he heard the sound of voices carrying through the dormant Aspen trees. Sam let his mind wonder to what his ex-wife and daughter were doing at that exact moment. Probably not even awake yet. The ex might be up. If she was she was probably burning breakfast. Then he thought of little Allie, his beautiful six year old daughter and everything was better. He thought of her smiling and smiled back at her. Suddenly he could hear the dogs becoming excited. They had picked up a scent. Now came the braying and he could picture them rushing along, sometimes knocking each other over when one would stop to pick up the scent again, or perhaps because it picked up several trails and was deciding which one to follow. Then things began to sound odd. The brays were the same but the barking was beginning to sound less and less aggressive. They sounded less confident. Then came the same kind of bark reserved for when there was a stranger coming up the drive. Sam had been walking in their direction but now he hesitated, listening. That definitely wasn’t their usual agressive bark. In fact they kind of sounded scared. That didn’t make any sense unless maybe they had come upon a wolf or … do they have bears in Minnesota? The barks then turned to whelps of pain and Sam began running down the tracks left by the dogs. They were snarling but then he’d hear another yelp of pain. It spurred him onward. What the hell could it be? Cooper and Jeff were the first to follow Sam’s tracks. He was right on the tracks of the dogs which it was assumed were already chasing rabbits. All the men but Sam were leaving the house armed. Jeff carried Sam’s rifle since i had lagged behind with Kenny. The two men following behind Sam in all that white snow were wearing red flannel hats and orange vests. They stood out like a cockroach on top of a bowl of vanilla pudding. The tracks they left behind them were not really tracks at all because they made no effort to pick up their feet while trudging through the foot deep snow. If you were following them it wouldn’t look like tracks but rather more like something had been drug through the landscape with a very uneven bottom side. The sun was starting to settle in for its day long trek. Even though the temperature was not yet twenty degrees outside the sunlight was enough to slightly melt the top of the snow making the whole landscape glisten. No clouds in the sky. Zero wind. It was not only beautiful but also very comfortable considering the location and time of year. Cooper was starting to get a little warm now that he had stretched his muscles. Walking in foot deep snow took its toll quicker than he remembered. Of course there wasn’t a lot of snow in Tulsa and they never had a foot of it at one time. Not during the decade or so he lived there. Jeff living in Illinois on the other hand was quite adept to the process of walking through deep snow. Perhaps he picked up on Cooper’s slight discomfort or maybe it was just coincidence. Up to now they had both been quiet. However now he offered, “We’re lucky they didn’t get any wind with that last snow or we’d be pushing our way through drifts as tall as your tits.” Then he stopped and dug a lighter out of his front pocket and then produced a cigarette from inside his coat. “Guess I better do this before Kenny catches up with us.” He cupped the end of the cigarette with one hand and flicked the lighter with the other. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to point out that maybe you should take some inspiration from Kenny?” Cooper asked. If there was one thing Jeff couldn’t stand it was being nagged. “Not one damn bit.” He took a bigger drag off the cig and then flicked it into the wind. “Whatever.” Cooper replied and began walking again following the tracks left by the dogs and Sam. Kenny and I held up long enough to fill a couple of canteens and Kenny grabbed a bottle of peppermint schnapps which he loaded into a backpack along with some sandwiches which had been made when we were waiting on the rest of the guys to show up the day before. “So about that drawing?” Kenny held up and looked me in the eye and said, “I was hoping you guys would help me figure some shit out. That drawing. That was from a real moment right here on the farm.” “You found a dead deer that had sunken eyes and skin which admittedly was creepy looking but what do you expect when something has been dead for so long?” “It wasn’t dead. It still isn’t dead. It’s out there. I don’t know what it wants? I think it has something to do with the strange lights which I don’t think are lights at all. I know this is going to sound crazy but I think they are portals. I saw one open into the shape of a donut but the cut out part was in an oval shape instead of a perfect circle. What I could see behind the shadow creature that was crawling out of it was what appeared to be a blue sky. This was at night when our sky was pitch black dark.” “Shadow creature? What the hell is a shadow creature?” “Its a dark colored, but you can tell its not a color, its a shade and perhaps even a degree of existence. Like a hologram. You can see it but you can’t put your arms around it and feel it exists. At least I hope that is all they represent. I frankly don’t know. My old lady is edgy as hell and she doesn’t have a clue as to what extent this has reached. All she has experienced is one of the shadow people. Nothing happened, just frightened her.” Kenny reached behind them after they had stepped out the door and locked it. “That really necessary?” I asked. “I don’t know. But all our supplies, all our real guns, are in there and I’d like to keep it that way. I don’t know that there will be any sign of these weird occurrences while you guys are here but if one does happen, for once i will have credible witnesses to back up my claims so I can go to the authorities and not be laughed out of town.” “You think that locking the doors would keep out someone, or something that wanted in when you have windows? I know you don’t want to get me started on how stupid people are when they have windows that think locking their doors will keep anybody out that truly wants in? It is truly insane. Hell I could be inside someone’s house in about 3 minutes even if they had the doors and windows boarded up. I could go through a wall with a sledge hammer in about that time. Stupid people.” “I actually have covers for every window if it comes to that.” They began walking out into the completely white covered terrain that lay before them. It had a slight downhill slant to it which made it easier going out than it would be walking in. The two walked side by side following the tracks of all those who went before them. The snow was beginning to melt a little faster where the group had walked through and it was quickly becoming a trail instead of some tracks. The leafless trees that first were here and there, a little further became close enough the area could be called a forest. They harbored snow resting comfortably in their limbs. It was especially built up in the smallest of the twigs which were where the leaves on the trees actually grew. Lack of wind had allowed such a heavy build up. The end of the tree limbs were sagging with the weight. Every once in a while the sun would melt enough off to make the twigs spring back up. In that process the remaining snow on them was flung up into the air. It made for a weird happening since the circumstances for this to happen seldom came together. Of course there was nothing special about it. It just didn’t happen that often. Way out in front of everybody else, Sam ran alone towards the sounds of his dogs being hurt, perhaps killed. The forest was thick now. He weaved in and out of trees both large and small, keeping to the dogs tracks to ensure he would find them. He wanted to charge a straight line towards the sounds of them but was afraid if their yelps stopped he would not only lose track of where they were but also be forced to backtrack the whole way back to where he left their trail. So he stayed following the tracks. You see, under the mostly all pine (forest) now, there was not a lot of snow that had made it all the way to the ground. So it wasn’t completely easy to follow the dogs tracks as there were places where the snow had peppered the ground thus revealing tracks clearly but other parts of the forest floor were still bare of any snow. The tracks led to a small clearing where he came to a sudden stop. There ahead of him in the clearing were Mandela and Ghandi. Judging from the way their heads looked and the location where their bodies had been left to lay; their heads had been bashed into the side of a large boulder that was half in and half out of the ground. It was covered in their blood. Sam scoured the surroundings for what might have done this? As he did he began to call for Golda Meir. He thought for a second he heard something move under the snow but his attention was diverted to what had just stepped out into the clearing. Ten feet would not have been a terrible guess, he thought. He had to tilt his head skywards to take in the whole creature. It had the head of a deer. Sunken red eyes and its skin was too tight against its skull and body. Though it had hooves instead of feet, it stood on only the back two legs. Pieces of skin flapped against its body. It had long thin arms that had two claws on their ends which appeared to be as menacingly sharp as was the mouthful of teeth that glistened from all the saliva they oozed. It dripped from the two blood-stained fangs that wrestled hungrily between its thin drawn back lips. No secret why that mouth was so very hungry. The thing’s body was emancipated beyond belief. Still it had wide shoulders that sat atop a rib cage which showed completely. None of that was what Sam was paying attention to however. If asked Sam could not have told you what was the more outstanding trait about the creature. He could easily narrow it down to two though. The thing stunk like death and it had antlers that seemed to be alive. Just on the ends. The deer-headed creature had a rack to be envied. He was unable to resist counting how many points it actually had. As he counted he could also not help but be drawn into the way they rotated. Some clockwise and some counter-clockwise. They spun at different speeds though none extremely fast and none extremely slow. He tried to go from one to the next to continue his counting. A sleepiness and calmness came over him. He was too warm however and began removing his coat and then clothing. Then he was being helped by two dark figures with no facial features. Cooper and Jeff had stopped again so Jeff could get one last smoke in before Kenny caught up. The two had squandered enough time so to allow the laggers to catch up. They were within eyesight now. Cooper attempted to make a snow man while Jeff enjoyed the last of his cigarette with his back to Kenny’s direction. “Sam’s gonna be pissed if the dogs brought up a rabbit.” I said. “How’s that?” Jeff asked, turning to face us. “When I tell him you were busy playing snowman while his gun sat here. He’ll be pissed.” I stated, kidding of course but not to show as much. “Eh”. Jeff replied. Some days you just can’t get a response. The four friends continued down the path of tracks left by Sam and the three dogs. It was a long hike. Uneventful the entire way unless you counted the spot where the white barked Aspen stopped and the pine trees began. They intermingle for about a length of three football fields but soon the army of barren Aspen surrender to the much larger and year-round prevalent pine trees. The atmosphere goes from a blinding white to a very dark forest floor with minimal sunlight escaping the canopy of pine needles that looked down from above. Their eyes had barely adjusted to the difference in contrast when they found Sam. When they came into view of Sam it was through a series of pine trees that became thinner in numbers the closer you got to the clearing where he was located. He was knelt on the snow covered ground wearing only his underwear. Arms at his sides, hands unclenched. He was unresponsive when they tried to talk to him. His body was shaking uncontrollably from the bare skin exposure to the cold for such an extended period. Kenny took charge. This was very unusual for the other guys. He barked orders and we obeyed. They quickly covered him with their own coats as his clothes were nowhere to be found. Cooper grabbed Kenny and Cooper’s rifles so they would be free to carry Sam back up the trail. The long trail. They needed to get to the house and the warmth it provided. I said I would be along in a minute and stayed behind long enough to really look the scene over. The first thing I found upon venturing further than where we found Sam was not a pleasant discovery. It was the two male dogs. Both were dead next to each other. Strange there were no other tracks around them. What we hadn’t noticed was that on the other side of this little clearing where the rock stood half in and half out of the ground, hiding the bodies of the two male dogs, were some tracks that while not being close enough to the dogs to have smashed their heads against that rock, they were of course still very suspect. Really weird tracks because they looked like they were from a deer. A deer that walked on two legs. It appeared that it walked out into the clearing and then departed the direction in which it came. As I began to follow the tracks it occurred to me what had probably happened at least at first. Sam heard the dogs in trouble and came running. I can’t guess whether he saw the dogs, or if they were even dead at that point, but it was obvious he experienced something either right before or right after the dogs were killed. What happened beyond that is still a mystery. I turned away from the bodies of the dogs and was going to head down the trail left by that deer when I found it no longer necessary. It had found me. The first thing you notice about it is the stench. The kind of stink that is beyond what many might imagine in their mind. The dead body covered in maggots and their parents buzzing around looking for a place to land and lay more eggs. No, that is bad but it pales in comparison to the stench that accompanies a dead body once the flies have finished with it. What remains is a shell of fur and bones. The stench it has accumulated from laying there degrading all that time is legendarily contageous. If you touch it, your hand will stink, and so will everything else with which your hand comes in contact. An unbearable odor that once experienced, cannot be forgotten and if not experienced, cannot be properly described using words or pictures. The closest I can come to describing it is the words “gaggingly vile”. Then the antlers. As freaky creepy as the deer head is, with the sunken red eyes, its tall stature and very wide shoulders towering over an extremely emancipated lower body with rib cage exposed and those flaps of skin hanging off its body in various places were nothing compared to the way those antlers towered over you and there were so many and I actually thought I saw them start to move. I had a strong urge to count the points. Suddenly I could hear snarling and growling, then instantly came the realization I was attacked at the ankle. I woke out of whatever dream-state I was in to see Goldie tearing at my leg. Then as sudden as it started, it stopped. She looked up at me, barked and took off for the house. Looking back, I surprise myself at how quickly I took the hint. Despite feeling confused I was lucid enough to know that Goldie had risked a lot to try and save me. I bet I wasn’t two seconds behind her. I never looked up at the creature or at those things which were helping it. I just took off running for my life behind Goldie. When we caught up with the guys they were just entering the house. Goldie was shaking from both fear and possibly the cold. Her barking also brought Sam back around. The guys finished carrying him in the door and he immediately started fighting their efforts. “I’m fine. Leave me alone you bastards. Then he looked around and at himself covered in their coats and added, “What the hell happened anyway?”. Then he remembered. He more than remembered. He knew. He was about to start explaining when Goldie and myself came through the door. Sam reached down and petted Goldie. “I thought you were a gonner for sure.” Goldie looked back with her big sad eyes. “You must have been that noise I heard that was coming from under the snow. Smart girl. Did you hide under the snow?” “She saved me. Came out from nowhere, maybe she was under the snow. I was getting ready to fall into the same kind of trance you were in. I found some tracks and was going to follow them but didn’t find it necessary. I met your friend at that point. It had me in a bad position and I think I was very much headed for whatever fate it had planned for you. Except this little gal was having none of that. She didn’t mess around either. Little bitch bit me on the ankle. Saved my life in the process.” I couldn’t help but cut loose a laugh. “But she wasn’t waiting around to see if I took the hint. She bit, barked and headed for home like her ass was on fire and the only extinguisher that could do the job was back at home”. That got a laugh out of everybody and some attention thrown Goldie’s way. “Where’s your gun?” Jeff asked. “Shit, I don’t know. I mean I do know. Its got to be back there.” I didn’t relish the thought of hiking all that way back but I guess it had to be done. “Might as well have some lunch before you get going.” Sam said. He seemed fine now. Though he was still complaining of being cold to anyone that would listen. Which was none of us. “While you’re here you can listen to what I found out about that thing. It hypnotized me. Once I was connected however, while it was doing to me what it was going to do: I saw opportunity. Perhaps that is why it was able to gain control so easily. I let it. I wanted to see more. I could see some about it but i had to give in to get in. So I did.” The room was quiet. All attention, even from Goldie, was on Sam. He continued. “So when we were fully connected I understood a lot. first, it didn’t care that I was able to see what it is about because it fully expected I would be in no condition to tell anyone anything. Second, its completely evil. It came here on its way to another dimension, or world, I’m not sure which. It has what could be called a lay-over before it can enter into the other world. It had no plans of doing anything in this world but we came along. A chance to do evil. Oh, and they hate dogs.” Goldie got lots of pets from that statement. She was obviously mourning the loss of her two brothers. For all we know they gave their lives to save her. One thing i am sure of is that if not for Goldie I might not be hearing all this. “I’m never calling you a bitch again. Not even in fun.” I said, and gave her a big hug. “That isn’t all. It has help. Two creatures that I am aware. They are faceless shadows that can make tangible contact.” Sam grabbed a sandwich from the plate Kenny was going around offering. “Don’t forget about those antlers. Tell them.” I said, taking a mouthful of my own sandwich. “The antlers are what put me in that trance. You will be drawn to them. The way they tower over you. Then you will feel an urge to count them. As you are counting them they begin to do things. After that you are connected. When it has connected to you, it controls your movements. But it doesn’t control the rest of your mind. At least not that I am aware.” Sam finished by saying, “I’m sure glad you guys came when you did. I fully was counting on you when I made the decision to see more. I’m not sure how I knew, but I knew that if I made that trade, alowed it in, that maybe I was not going to be strong enough to fight my way out. What I am telling you is that if you encounter the thing that even if it gets you into a position of being connected that you still have the opportunity to fight. I can’t say if you’d win, but it didn’t take me that easily. I allowed it.” Everybody sat around eating and contemplating what Sam had said. Then he added one more thing which came as a surprise. “We should try to kill it.” He opened the fridge and grabbed out a beer. It was barely noon. Sam drank the whole beer and wiped his mouth and said with a flushed face. “It kills. It prefers the young but will kill whatever is available when it doesn’t have the luxury of choice. It eats its prey. And has an almost never-ending, never satisfied hunger for human flesh.” “Shit.” Cooper said, somewhat under his breath. Sam continued, “And it has been doing it for a very long time and will continue for a very long time. If somebody doesn’t stop it first.” Then he opened the fridge, grabbed another beer, and downed it. When he looked up at his friends, he said, “And it doesn’t even know if it can be killed.” He took time to look each person in the eye and finished by saying, “Which means if it isn’t sure then we might not be able. The million dollar question is: could we kill it? I mean its obviously on many levels already dead. The stench is eye-watering awful. If there is any actual living tissue on that emancipated walking bag of bones and antlers … I can’t think of where it is located?” They finished their lunch in silence. Chapter ——————————— The three married men were on the phone to their wives and kids after lunch. After Kenny hung up from his better half he opened up a gun closet that would never have allowed our rabbit guns to enter. He had twelve gage semi-automatics. A pair of old 870s. A 30-06 lever action Henry which may have seen action in the wars against the native Americans and a Winchester 30-30 which looked to be the new kid on the block. He also had two pistols, an automatic nine milimeter and a .44 magnum Smith and Wesson revolver. “Are you fucking kidding me? Dirty Harry’s gun? Man you have been out here by yourself for too long!” Cooper accused Kenny. “Hey I can afford it. I wanted it. So I bought it. That simple.” He hesitated and then added, “I have never shot it.” Kenny had his drawing pad out and was busy drawing Cooper with Foghorn Leghorn’s body holding a big gun which had a flag hanging out the end that said, “Bang!”. “I would hope not. Thing would probably break your wrist.” I shook my head at him and continued, “Dude where is your head? Did you get a tank too? Little napalm in case we need to clear some foliage.” “That’s agent orange.” Kenny interrupted. “They are not the same thing.” “You’d know wouldn’t you Rambo.” I countered. It got a little laugh from the gang. “FYI – they were used for the same thing. Just one burned you down on the spot and the other got you later, when you thought you were safe.” Kenny reached in past the ammunition which he kept on the shelf above the guns. He pulled out a bag of some kind of smoke. The bag looked to be very old. “Geez I had forgot all about this until you mentioned Rambo. That’s what I nicknamed this stuff way back in the day. I thought I had lost it but when you said Rambo it reminded me I had hid it in behind the ammo because it made perfect sense to remind me. You know, Rambo, ammo.” The other guys shared a look. “They rhyme.” he said, looking at the others like they were stupid for not getting it. The guys shared another look. Then Jeff chimed in, “Sure. Makes perfect sense. Just one question. Why didn’t you remember such a perfect plan to remind you?” “And how many times have you moved this gun cabinet since you ‘lost’ your killer redbud?” Kenny thought for a second and replied, “Moved it about 7 times. In answer to your other question: I had confused the words Rambo and ammo for Braddick and attic.” I searched that attic a hundred times. All this time it was Rambo, not Braddick. Understandable mistake. Remember? Sly’s movie came out about the same time as Chuck’s Vietnam movies. I just got them mixed up. Thus the good stuff was not lost in the attic. It was behind the ammo.” I thought Sam was going to fall out of his chair. Jeff was shaking his head and Cooper was smiling. “Artists!” I said. We rolled up two joints of Kenny’s redbud from way back when and though it was stale tasting, it still did its job in pristine fashion. We were wasted. It truly was a blast from the past. “I’ll go with you to get your gun.” Jeff offered. He grabbed one of the twelve gages and started loading it. Then he reached across Kenny and grabbed the magnum. “Somebody ought to shoot the damn thing at least once to see if it works.” He said, smiling. “God bless, hallelujah and pass the ammunition brother!” Kenny handed him the forty-four shells. I grabbed up the old Henry just out of sentimental sake. Then I remembered I would be carrying back a .22. I opted for the nine millimeter automatic. Kenny had a holster for it which I also borrowed and then Jeff and I made one last stop at Kenny’s fuel tank to drain out a gallon of gasoline. Then we headed back for that strange place in the woods. Chapter ————————— “This thing scary looking?” Jeff asked. “I forgot to get a look at it from Kenny’s drawing. Say it looks like a deer head with big antlers?” “That’s all you’ll see from his drawing. He just did the head. The body is as fascinating if not more so, than the head. It has a wide set of shoulders that set atop a bunch of ribs that reminded me of an emancipated animal. It has a really tight, leathery looking skin around it that seems to have some flapping off like it was dead flesh hanging on that should have been cut off by a doctor. When I saw it the sharp teeth housed in its mouth were swimming in saliva which then collected and dripped down the length of its blood-stained fangs. It had thin tightly stretched lips which were pulled back in a snarl and its breath steamed out of its nostrils in regular intervals in the same manner as exhaust fumes leave a car’s muffler. Its just such an odd thing to have appear in the woods. A deer that walks on two feet. Antlers that move on their own accord.” While the two gun retrievers were walking and talking, back at the house Sam was being interrogated by Kenny, as Cooper listened closely along. “Do you remember or did it say when the window of opportunity for it to move on would come?” “It doesn’t work that way. It isn’t words that are spoke, or that I understand and take away. It is a feeling, a knowing. I wish I could explain it better than that.” Sam thought for a while, not saying anything. When he did speak, it was this, “Remember when you would go into the church as a little kid, and you could just feel this was a good place. This was a place where people were kind and good?” Cooper and Kenny nodded. Cooper was catholic so he knew all about going to church. Kenny was just nodding to get him to go on. “It was like that only in reverse. The opposite. That thing is oozing evil and it has been for a long time. We obviously risk danger, even death. If we choose to hunt it.” Sam got another beer out of the fridge and this time nursed it. “I’m not afraid of it. At the same time I totally respect its ability to kill. I have total confidence I wouldn’t be here now if you guys didn’t come along when you did. By the way, some of the things I saw, or felt, however you want to word it, were beyond awful. It craves flesh. It is never satisfied.” Sam took another drink and went on, “it was once a shaman. An iIndian witch doctor. It, he, allowed himself to be charmed by dark spirits. They told him to eat the flesh of his enemy. When he did, he was changed into a creature of great power, but because his heart was not pure and he sought to keep the power even after his enemy was defeated, the great spirit said keep your power, you will need it to satisfy your hunger which is to match your desire for power tenfold. As such he is forever the Wendigo. The flesh eater. The ravaged one.” Cooper said, “I think I’ll make a drink. Anybody else want one?” Two hands went up. “You got all that from a feeling?” Kenny asked. “Its not just a feeling. Its very hard to explain. You are in its head so you just know things. You don’t have to ask and the only way to avoid knowing what it knows is to choose to not enter. I chose the opposite. I felt like it was an only opportunity and that I should take it no matter how afraid, or how much I risked my own death. It was like something was driving me to go. But it wasn’t anything to do with the creature. The creature was busy using its mind to corrupt me. Control me. Kill me.” His last words came out in only a whisper. Kenny gave Sam a pat on the back. “Give yourself a break my friend. Its not every day a devout atheist shakes hands with the devil.” He finished his drink and opened the fridge door and pulled out a beer. “I guess we better start drinking light until this is over. I’d hate to sleep through some excitement.” Sam replied, “Yeah, that’s true.” Then he added, “One thing I do know for sure is this is no fake. The things I became aware were beyond horrible. One thing I don’t understand is if it came from here or somewhere else. I mean I know it came from somewhere else during this trip but being a native American lends thought to the fact that he started out in this world. Then again, it is quite possible that the world he came from is one very similar to our world. There are a million possibilities. I would love to know how many worlds or dimensions it has visited? How many exist? How it became capable of finding or summoning these portals of light. There are so many questions it could answer but despite my extreme curiosity, knowing it like I do; I would say kill it immediately. It is unfathomably good at escape. Can change into many shapes. Can mimic any voice or gesture. Many have tried to kill it before us. All have failed. Most died by its hand or the hand of one of its minions.” Sam walked down the hall to the bathroom leaving the rest to talk. “Screw that!” Cooper said. “I didn’t sign up to hunt the supernatural. I say we just stay in and get drunk for this hunting trip.” “I would be right there with you if I knew the thing was going to move on before my wife and kid come back. Now that we have fallen into its radar more than ever I want to know its not going to come after us.” Kenny said while grabbing another beer out of the fridge. He took a big swig and set it down on the table so swiftly it caused the beer to foam up out of its container. The concerned husband and father of one grabbed a towel off the counter and wiped up the mess. Sam rejoined the conversation. “I am not asking anybody else to go hunting that thing, but for me, I’m going.” “Sam as much as I want to see this come to an end you are the one person that I would argue should be out there. You’ve already fallen victim to it once. How do you know it won’t be able to do it again? Perhaps this time around, even more easily?” Kenny’s face showed gratitude and concern. “Maybe it installed one of those … hypnotic suggestions. You know like on tv when the hypnosis guy tells the guy who is under that when he hears the word ‘purple tomato’ … he clucks like a chicken.” Then he mimed the way a chicken walks with its head bobbing out in front. It made Cooper chuckle. Sam slid past Kenny and opened up the fridge to grab a beer. Then he sauntered over to the table where Cooper was sitting. He couldn’t hold it in any longer and let out a good laugh that all the others followed without resistance. One thing about this bunch was they would keep their sense of humor throughout. And Kenny does do a pretty funny impression of a chicken. Jeff and I were probably the shadiest of the bunch if you wanted to separate us based on who was the most legit. We had done some illegal things over the years. Nothing I found to be immoral mind you. Just illegal. I happen to be a big believer that government, while necessary, has proven over and over that it cannot be trusted. It abuses its power to the extreme. And most of all, has no business telling someone what they can or cannot do to their own body as long as it isn’t hurting anybody else. As such we were not above doing a little smuggling or selling of items which were all about effecting the mood of one’s own body. We had an unspoken bond that there was no reason to involve the others in our affairs. This policy had proven both effective and efficient. There were not many men in this world in which I would enter into such endeavors but I could trust Jeff not to shoot his mouth off, and he could me. We saw more of each other than the rest, but of course they were unaware. “I brought a sample of the new batch.” Jeff said. “Its good as ever. We get down here into the trees a little further and I’ll let you try it.” I replied, “I’m ready. Drinking from the time you get up in the morning takes a toll. Kenny and I indulged a little last night and as such I got little sleep. Waking up after what seemed like an hour of sleep to a bloody mary is getting harder to do every year. You remember when we used to go from Friday night to Sunday night without ever sleeping? Seems like it was another life time ago.” “Yeah I’m feeling my age too. I guess we better party harder if we wanna get it all out of our system before its too late huh?” Jeff smiled and then looked ahead of them into the woods to see what might be waiting. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a very small glass container with a rounded end. He twisted it a bit and handed it to me. I gave a good sniff and let the white powder rush into my senses. I did it one more time up the other nostril and handed it back. Jeff followed suit and put it back in his coat pocket. “You ever see what that one comic’s face looks like? The one that snorted too much?” I asked. “Yeah. Its a worry. Funny how it worked out. I would have thought it would cave inwards. Not have a swollen look. Know what I mean?” Jeff reached the part of the woods that were much thicker. Another ten or fifteen minutes of walking and we would reach the clearing where I had left the .22 rifle. The forest turned from mostly Aspen to mostly pine here. It made for a lot of darker, deeper shadows especially now that the time was well into the afternoon and the sun was no longer directly overhead. “Am I gonna sound like a pussy if I say this place just got a lot more spooky?” I asked, as I entered into the darkness created by the pine trees shading. “Yeah.” “Good thing I asked then. I wouldn’t want anyone to accuse me of that.” “Yeah.” Jeff turned around looking back at me and smiled. “I’d be more worried but I’m with you.” “Well thank you sir. I do try to …” Jeff cut me off. “Yeah as long as I’m able to outrun whoever is with me .. I don’t worry too much about bears or anything looking to kick ass.” “Funny stuff buddy. Funny stuff.” We got quiet after that. Both of us knew we were nearing the clearing where that thing had made an appearance not once, but twice. Both times it had been well on its way to having one of us for lunch but both times we got lucky. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up. I felt like I did the time I was back in high school smoking pot with a chum while skipping a class and the principal came into the gym where we were partying behind the bleachers. We knew he was just one wrong sound away from busting us. He walked down the middle of the gym and when he got to mid-court he smelled the grass. He immediately started walking towards one end of the bleachers. We were going to have to work our way through the bleacher supports and get out of the gym before he reached the other end and could look down and see who we were. My heart was thumping against my chest. I don’t recall ever being so anxious. Walking through that dark forest which housed the Wendigo just nudged that clear off the table. Jeff stopped and reached into his pocket for the ammunition to the .44 magnum. The clearing was just ahead now. He loaded the revolver and put it back into its holster. Motioning with his hand we continued forward. Jeff kept the twelve gage pointed ahead of him. This was where the Aspens no longer dotted the shadows with their white bark. It was all pine in here. I drew the nine milimeter and kept my eyes ranging from Jeff’s left then to his right. Two times of that then I would check behind me. I kept up that regime all the way to the edge of the clearing. Jeff trudged into the clearing where the snow was much deeper than under the pine trees. I followed and then past when he stopped to check where I had been woken by good old Goldie. “Here’s your gun.” He said. “Be just a minute.” I said. The bodies of both Ghandi and Mandela were placed out into the middle of the clearing where I emptied most of the jug of gasoline over their bodies. I suppose some would have said something over them but it just seemed unnecessary. I unceremoniously lit a pack of matches and threw them on the bodies. “Not much chance of starting a fire today.” Jeff said matter-of-factly. “None at all.” I replied. “No sense in wasting time here. When the gas burns off the fire goes out in this deep of snow. We can head back.” It was said with a sad tone. I had taken care of those dogs for the past five or six years. They were as close to family as I currently had, in terms of who I spent the most time. I felt lucky Goldie was still with me. Hell, she was the reason I was still with me. When we got out of the dark part of the forest Jeff stopped long enough to squeeze off three shots of Kenny’s forty-four magnum. I passed on the opportunity to shoot it. We still had a long ways to go for this vacation and the last way I wanted to do it was with a broken or sprained wrist. I know those guns have a kick and frankly I am not sure I am man enough to handle it. Jeff laughed at that and said it wasn’t that bad. You just had to be a little extra prepared for it after you pulled the trigger. I was happy to take his word for it. We stopped and snorted a couple more bumps before heading back in to join the others. Chapter ——————— “You can’t go alone so I guess I am going with you.” I told Sam. It was getting late in the day. Kenny had brought out his drawing of the creature and had told us all he knew about it. Apparently the orbs of light were if not more active during the night hours then they were at least more visible. He wasn’t sure which. Sam only needed to hear that and he was loading the nine millimeter and grabbing some slugs which he loaded into the twelve gage. “Hell I got nothing to do. I’ll go too.” Jeff offered. “Give me that other eight-seventy. I’ll take the number four buckshot.” Then he reached over into the box of slugs that Sam had pocketed and put a few in his pocket giving me a wink and a look like ‘what the hell?’. He grabbed a considerable more number of shells with the buckshot in them and used some of those to load the gun. “I don’t know why I bothered to unload it.” “Good policy. That’s why. But you know that and that’s why you unloaded it when we got back. So just us three?” I dumped out some coke and started chopping it up. “You know I am in.” Kenny said. “Yeah, I knew. Just was wondering if anybody else was going?” I said. Then I cut out four lines. “I’m going.” Cooper said in resignation. Then his demeanor perked up. “Give me one too.” He popped up from his chair and slid across the room to the fridge. Grabbing a six pack out, he handed out beers and we took turns snorting a line of coke and then chased it with a cold beer. “Actually what might work best is if we leave you here which we’ll term base, and then split up into two teams of two. We’ll take the walkies with us and leave you as our back up if we need it.” Jeff said. “If one team gets in trouble the other will immediately work towards their location while Coop stands by to see what is needed. He can come at least part of the way in the four-wheel drive and pick us up. Hopefully that won’t be necessary.” There were no objections to that approach so we finished deciding who was gonna shoot what and then made sure the proper ammo was distributed. Goldie would of course be staying with Cooper. Sam and I were split up because we had both fallen under the creature’s spell once before and as such we may end up proving a liability but that was exactly why we would be hunting in pairs. Walkie-talkies were given new batteries. Then checked to make sure they were working. The temperature outside was completely agreeable at a toasty eleven degrees. No wind again however and that was all the difference between a bearable night out in the cold and one that was unbearable. There was almost a full moon which combined with the snow covered terrain to make it a very visible night for hunting creepy dead deer-headed creatures. “Did you bring your little bottle?” I asked Jeff “Got it right next to the big bottle of schnapps.” “Bring anything that would make sense? You know, like water?” “Brought my lighter. Can boil snow if we need water.” He smiled. “Course, we’d have to drink the schnapps so to have something to boil it in.” “Lead on Chef Boy-ar-dee.” We started out into the darkness. “You and me.” Sam said to Kenny. Kenny also had a backpack to match Jeffs. Two bottles of schnapps is better than one. They followed us as we trudged through the snow towards the clearing where we had first seen the creature. When we reached the area where the Aspen collect to a point where it could be called a forest, any light from the house was long behind us. Everyone had a strong flashlight attached to their heads but nobody had one turned on. There was really no need and it would alert anything ahead of us to our arrival. When we reached the area where the pines overtake the Aspen it was unnecessary to tell anyone not to talk. Everybody used hand signals. When we were just about a football field away from the start of the clearing Jeff signaled to Sam and Kenny that we should split up and come into the clearing from two sides. Great care was taken by all to not step on a branch or brush up against one of the smaller pines which would knock all that precariously perched snow into a cloud of white dust alerting anything in the area that something was close by and on the move. Quickly we were out of sight of the other team. Jeff was out in front with his buckshot filled shot gun and it occurred to me there was still time to turn around get the hell out of there. Now the clearing was very close. We slowed down on our approach being even more careful to not make any noise. Kenny and Sam carefully stepped their way through the dark forest towards the clearing and the light it provided. The pines were getting smaller the closer they got. Sam was in front and when he came through a pair of smaller pines he was greeted at face height by something so foul smelling that at first he thought it was the creature. It was just a split-second however before his eyes were able to fully make out the bodies of his two dogs, Mandela and Ghandi. What was left of their tales had been tied together and what was left of their charred bodies were draped over a small pine that had been bent over to accommodate the weight of the two burned animals. He had involuntarily cried out “Shit!” when he came upon the dog bodies and we heard him from our position on the far side of the clearing. “Jigs up.” I said to Jeff and pushed out to side him as we entered into the clearing. “You okay Sam?” Jeff asked somewhat loudly. “Yeah.” Sam replied as he and Kenny entered the clearing from their location, also side by side. They took a few minutes looking around the clearing. I walked over to the spot where I knew I had burned the bodies of the dogs only to see their bodies were gone. There were no tracks leading up or away from the spot except the ones I had made earlier. “The dogs. their bodies are gone.” “No they’re not. I know where they are. Something burned them.” Sam replied from across the clearing. “That part was me. I guess I should have stayed and made sure they burned to ashes. That’s on me.” I replied, while thinking back to that moment when I poured the gas over their bodies and then set them on fire. It was not a memory I would cherish but also one I would not forget. I loved those little guys. It made me want to kill that thing so very badly. I flipped on my flashlight and looked around again using it to peer deeper into the surrounding forest. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing going to bring them back. Doesn’t really matter what happens to them after their dead. Us either for that matter. Everybody should remember that if things go bad and one of us gets it. Heroes are great but they can’t bring back the dead. They can however end up dead.” Sam turned his flashlight on as well and began searching the darkness in the shadows of the taller pines. We spent a couple of hours out there. Jeff, because he likes to keep a low profile, slipped me the coke and I gave everybody a bump. We finished one of the bottles of schnapps and then decided to head back to the house. When we got back Cooper was fast asleep sitting in a chair with the walkie-talkie in his lap. He was woke and everyone retired to their bed. We slept the remainder of the night and I was the last to wake up the next morning. It was nearly noon. “Must have been some good dreams.” Jeff said when I finally made my appearance. I pushed past him and fell into a chair. “Beer?” “Mary please.” I replied. “Kenny’s grilling steaks. We’ll have you back in fighting form in no time.” Cooper said, coming in from outside where Kenny was standing over a grill with smoke drifting up into the sky. I couldn’t help but notice the wind had picked up. They sky was not blue. Instead it was a combination of light grey and the occasional patch of dark grey. The wind was coming from the north. If stories were true about Minnesota winters, there could be a full on white-out blizzard before nightfall. I walked out to join Kenny and wish him good morning. Kenny was in the middle of flipping a steak over when he stopped. He was holding it over the grill but he wasn’t setting it back down. I stepped beside him and following his gaze. Way down where the Aspens start giving way to the pines, I could see what had his attention. It was an orange colored ball of light. It was dancing along the top of the Aspens going back and forth and after a while it stopped the back and forth and began to brighten and get larger. About that time Sam came wandering out and soon had joined Kenny and I watching the ball of fire. Only he didn’t stay to see how it was going to end. He quickly disappeared into the house. I watched the ball of fire first grow larger and then it opened up its center so that it looked like a donut with an oval cut out instead of a circle. Inside the oval it was dark but in the darkness I could see some light. It looked like light coming out of a window. Then I saw something black start crawling into the oval. Sam came running back out and he had the thirty-thirty which he handed to me and then he swung the other rifle up and aimed it at the ball of light. I started to say something to Sam and he cut me off. “Not now! That thing is gonna try to climb into that black hole and when it does I am gonna blow its stinkin’ head off. I’d appreciate it if you did the same.” I put a bullet into the chamber of the thirty-thirty and aimed it at the black hole which was inside the orange ball of light. Sure enough that thing appeared and started into the portal. Sam fired and I fired right after him. We saw the creature lurch forward and then it leapt into the black hole followed by another black shadow which twinned the one to go through the portal first. “We got it! I saw it lurch forward. I know at least one of us hit it.” I exclaimed. “Did we kill a Wendigo?” Sam emptied his gun of its ammunition and I followed suit. We each pocketed the shells and brought the guns back inside to be put into their cabinet. Kenny came in just after us. “Do you think its dead?” “Who can say?” I replied. “We don’t even know if it can be killed?” “Its not dead.” Sam said. “What makes you think that?” I asked. “Don’t know. I just don’t think its dead.” Sam opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. “I think it’ll be back.” “That coming from the part of you that was inside its head or just a gut call?” Cooper asked. “I just think it might be back. Soon.” He took a drink of beer and set it down on the table. “Honestly I don’t have any kind of inside information this time. But for lack of a better word to describe it; the thing has pride. A part of it is proud of the fact that it has killed everything that has tried to kill it. Everything, except us.” “Maybe the smart move would be to get the hell out of here while we can. I should say, while you can. I never took a shot at it.” Cooper said while playing with the beer in his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.” Sam replied. “I’m hoping it does come back.” “We should prepare just in case.” Kenny said, getting up from his seat. He passed by the fridge and walked over to the kitchen window. The lock on it was still in place. He went from room to room checking everything to make sure it was locked. When he was finished and returned to the kitchen the boys had all the guns out and were cleaning them. Jeff got up and walked outside. I joined him. We snorted a couple of lines and watched the sun slowly begin its decent to the other side of the world. He reached into his coat and produced two cigarettes. They were smoked in silence. Suddenly I could see the ball of light hovering over the tops of the Aspens. It slowly allowed itself to sink downwards until it was just a few feet over the ground. We watched as it slid under the canopy of the tall pines and disappeared into the darkness their shadows provided. We were about to head back inside when there was another ball of light. This one was more yellow than orange. It wasted no time coming down to the level the previous ball of light had achieved before darting into the darkness of the pine tree shadows. We stood there looking at each other and then back at what we had just seen. Does that mean there are more than one creatures now in our world? Yet another ball of light came and headed directly for the same spot and height as the others before it. This one had a greenish tint to it. The thing followed the same route as the others, back into the shady pine trees. I had been paying so much attention to the balls of light that I had failed to notice the weather. The wind had picked up considerably and snow flakes were dancing in the wind. It came out of the north and had a sharp bite. We started to go inside again but took one last glance down towards where we had seen the other balls of light. To our surprise, or perhaps better said, not to our surprise, another ball of light, this one with a red tint, was beginning its way into the pine forest. A fifth ball appeared just as the one before it went out of sight. I had reason to wonder if perhaps it was the same ball of light but was just changing the tint to appear different. Judging from the extreme distance that separated the two locations, where we were at and where the balls of light had entered the pine forest, was not difficult. We knew the height of the Aspen trees which were right out front of the area where the lights were entering into the pine forest. As such I was able to conclude the balls were about six feet in height. Being balls then that meant they were six feet in diameter. That estimate might be a bit over-estimated. I say that based on the memory of watching the creature which we shot. It had to duck its head down before it leapt into the other world. So I kinda think the balls might be slightly less than six feet in diameter. Maybe five feet of clearance area or otherwise known as the oval-shaped part that shows another world inside it. From one outside edge to the other outside edge, yes, they are probably six feet across but there is only about five feet of area open to the other world, or dimension. We hung around outside for another thirty minutes to see if any more balls of light were going to show up. None did. In that short time the temperature probably dropped ten degrees. Throw in the wind chill and it felt like it was about ten degrees below zero. The actual temps were probably nearing single digits. I had to tug on the door to the house to get it to close. The wind was blowing so hard it didn’t want to shut. Inside the boys had the guns cleaned, their ammunition was sitting on the table ready to be loaded. Kenny was drawing a cartoon that showed a bunch of playboy bunnies standing in the snow wearing bikinis creating a half-circle around Cooper who is dressed as Santa Claus with a machine gun in each hand and he was mowing down deer that were standing on their back legs. The caption read: I killed Dasher, and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. As replacements I am opting for bunnies. Hef don’t need ’em any more anyhow. Jeff stepped past the others and walked over to the tv set and turned it on to the weather channel. Everybody got up and left the kitchen and joined him in the living room where the tv set was located. An anchorman was standing in front of a map of northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and two of the great lakes, Michigan and Huron. He was making a sweeping motion with his arm over the whole area and then held his hand up around his waist. We were in for three feet of snow. A blizzard complete with high winds and bone-chilling temperatures. Outside the late evening gave way to complete darkness. It seemed to be driven out as the winds made themselves at home. Outside the warmth of the house we could hear the wind howl. It seemed to proclaim it had arrived and was hungry. Snow flakes had increased in such numbers that it was getting hard to see the vehicles which were parked just feet away from the doorway. When the snow did let up enough for us to see that far we were surprised to see they were almost completely covered in it. There seemed to be a never-ending supply. I tried to look as far out into the dark night as possible but could see only more of the same. There was nothing to do but get f-ed up so I disappeared into my room and came back out with a nice pile of coke. We hadn’t eaten yet but nobody had even mentioned supper and it didn’t feel like anybody was going to any time soon. I cut out lines for everybody but myself. Odd, as I was usually the one least likely to abstain, but I am a slave to my hormones so I passed. A deck of cards came out about ten o’clock. Everybody joined into a game of poker and we played for a couple of hours. Noses were powdered. Glasses refilled. Chips traded back and forth across the table. I can’t speak for everyone else but I had actually forgotten about the deer-headed creature. The dark shadow entities that accompanied it. Even the balls of light. Why not? Outside there was a blizzard going on. A whiteout as far as I was concerned. That was all the protection we needed. I began to feel some of the alcohol and was thinking about getting a line when we heard the first voice calling from somewhere out in the whiteout. It was a female’s voice. She was asking for help. “I’m so cold! Please someone come and find me.” It was very faint but all the same undeniable. The same line repeated about every thirty seconds. In the house things had become very quiet. Our eyes went from one to the other. We sat listening, not moving or speaking. Finally Jeff spoke and broke the silence. “Its a trick. It has to be a trick. We’re in the middle of nowhere. How could a woman be lost out there? I mean, how could she ever have gotten here to be lost out there?” “I agree. Its that thing. I told you it could mimic any voice or any gesture. It wants us to go out there looking for that voice.” Sam spoke in a soft voice like he was worried it might hear him. “We don’t stand a chance against it out there. We will have to make it come to us if we want to survive tonight and have any chance of killing it.” “So you think we can kill it?” I asked. Then I added, “There’s something you should all know. Just before the storm moved in Jeff and I were outside and we saw several of those balls of light appear. They all appeared above the tree line of the Aspens and then they danced across the sky to a place where they all lowered the height which they hovered until they were just a couple feet off the ground and then they disappeared into the pines in the direction of the clearing.” “You didn’t think that was important enough to mention?” Cooper asked, obviously upset. “The storm was moving in. We stayed out there an extra thirty minutes watching to see if anything came of it but there was nothing. What was the point? You guys already know about the balls of light. And about everything else there is to know. We watched for any sign of something that would be worth reporting but it never came. I’m telling you now because it might be helpful.” “There were four or five of the balls of light.” Jeff added. “Each was a little different in its aura. All were the same size. None opened up while in our viewing presence. There. You’re up to speed.” “Its so cold. Find me.” “I wish that thing would shut the fuck up!” Kenny exclaimed. He grabbed the forty-four magnum off the table and walked over to the door. He reached for the door knob and then jumped backwards like he had been shocked. His fast action caused all of us to look his direction and in time to see a black human-shaped form just outside the door. It quickly disappeared. The house had several doors leading inside. There was the front door facing north that entered into the welcoming room. On the opposite side of the room was a back door that let out to a deck. Then there was the kitchen which attached to the previously mentioned room on its east side. It had its own pair of doors. One facing north and the other south. There was also a door which led to the garage on the east side of the living room which had one door that led into the garage. West of the welcoming room were where the bedrooms could be accessed via a long windowless hallway. There were four in all, two on each side of the hallway. There were windows in all the rooms. Kenny had created a cover to go over every window. He had them stacked up in the garage. There were also covers for the windows in the kitchen and the living room. The guy really had planned for almost any situation. The window covers each had a couple of small windows cut into them and each had a handle attached to it that would allow one person to cover the window while another took the drill and secured it with long screws. Those covers would hold out anything short of a tank. The guys wasted little time in getting the window covers in place. The whole time we were in those bedrooms came the same plea for help from that poor lost woman out there. “Its so cold. Find me.” “I’ve got it!” I exclaimed. “That voice. It is so familiar. I couldn’t place it until now. I am amazed somebody else hasn’t put it together.” I looked at Sam just as Jeff and Cooper came walking into the room, having completed their tasks. “I recognized it right off. The thing must not know we divorced.” He laughed and then said, “Wow. Just mentioning I recognized the voice and I felt it move into my head. Its searching for something. It is telling me to open the door and go find her. She is waiting…” Sam’s voice fell off at the end. “I’ll be damned. He’s in a trance.” Kenny said with interest. “Lets get him back into the kitchen. The covers are in place. This house is secure.” Just as he was putting his hands on Sam to help get him into the kitchen Kenny instead reached over and slapped me on the shoulder in a ‘atta boy’ gesture. “I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure it would be safe out here for the family so before I ever brought them out i created those window covers. I have Alex and his rants about how stupid people are when they think they are safe behind a window; to thank for being prepared for this. God bless brother!” Kenny and Cooper ushered Sam into the kitchen while Jeff and I went ahead just to make sure there weren’t any surprises when they got there. We got him sat down in chair where he seemed to be okay, just in a trance. Then Sam got up from his chair and began to walk across the room towards the door. Cooper and Kenny jumped up and restrained him. I peered out into the blizzard but all I could see were billions, perhaps trillions of snow flakes racing with the wind at their backs, across the already snow-covered terrain. Nowhere did I see any sign of the deer-headed bastard or its shadow friends. But I knew they were out there. “Obviously we have to do something about Sam. I’ll take your spot Kenny. See if you can’t find some rope or better would be a long chain and four or five combination locks. If you don’t have those then a regular padlock and key would suffice. Actually several would be better.” I grabbed ahold of Sam while Kenny slipped past me in direction of his garage. “Better go with him Jeff. We got this here.” Jeff grabbed the nine milimeter off the table and followed Kenny. Cooper and I were holding Sam but he had stopped trying to reach the door. Now he was just standing there slightly humped over. I was certain if we moved he would again try to open the door. We ushered him back to his seat and helped him to sit down. Then I had an idea and called for Goldie. She came up to us and I pointed her towards Sam and told her to speak. Goldie let out a loud bark and Sam rejoined the living. “Did it happen again?” He asked while checking himself by running his hands over his body. “You know it did. I’m sorry Sam but you tried to open the door. We’re going to have to restrain you.” I said, holding back the worst part of the news until I had to deal with it. “Tie me up?” Sam looked a combination of confused, rebellion, disbelief but over all that, resignation. “You’re right. What happens if all goes wrong and those things get in here and I am the only one left?” He knew the answer to that question as well as any of us. It didn’t change the fact that we couldn’t trust him not to fall back into a trance and do their bidding. To Sam’s credit he was not disagreeable. He wasn’t happy about it either. A few minutes later Kenny returned with several bike locks. They would work perfectly. “The combination to the lock is on the packaging. I don’t know any of the combinations any more than do any of you. I guess you should memorize one of them and use that one to restrain Sam.” Kenny offered. He gave Sam a nervous glance as he said it. “There’s nothing to anchor the bike lock to that he couldn’t drag over to the door so I I thought of this.” He walked into the garage and came back with a drill and some big screws and a bit that was the size of the screws. “We can screw the cable of the bike lock to the floor. Should do the job.” Jeff took the drill and began to drill four holes into the kitchen floor. The cable of the bike lock was secured to the flooring and then the other end we wrapped around Sam’s leg and locked it on there using the combination lock. We took the paper the combination was written on and placed it in a drawer that would be out of Sam’s reach. Then came the discussion about whether he should be given a gun? It was concluded that as long as things stayed in their current status that there was no reason to arm him. Sam was agreeable to that. Remember it was as important to his survival as ours that the creature not be able to get inside. The lights went out. We still had the light provided by the fireplace so we could still see, but things went from being able to see everything clearly to there being a lot of shadows which danced around whenever the fire decided to do so. More firewood was placed on the fire and flashlights came out which were placed strategically around the room to light things up. It only took a couple of seconds for us to realize the flashlights were going to do more harm than good if we kept them on our persons because we would constantly be blinding each other whenever we looked at each other. By placing the flashlights in stagnant position we eliminated that problem. Next came the windows. They were smashed out but of course we had the plywood coverings screwed into place so the only thing that was getting in was the cold frost of the white out. It came rushing into the little windows Kenny had cut into the coverings that we had placed over the windows to keep out whatever was trying to get in. I briefly worried that the shadow creatures could perhaps get into our side through the small window cutouts that Kenny had made thus being their reason for breaking out all the windows but then I remembered Sam said they were tangible so I thought perhaps that was going to work to our advantage. Time would tell. It was quite possible they broke out the windows just to expose us to the cold. That was of little worry because we had plenty of firewood stacked inside the garage including my hedgewood which would keep us toasty even with the blizzard blowing through the house. “Strike two Mr Bad Guy! You only get one more swing you bastard!” Kenny screamed out one of the little windows. He was refering to the fact that the effort to get Sam to open the door had failed, and the breaking out of all the windows and cutting the juice off had also accomplished very little. “Fuck you! You lousy piece of shit! Come around trying to get in here and I will blow you back to the world you came from! Come on! Try me you fuck!” Cooper yelled through one of the windows cut out of the plywood that was covering the kitchen window on the north side of the house. Then he raised the thirty-thirty and fired off two rounds into the sea of white swirling snow flakes that were whizzing by in such numbers it gave the impression of just whiteness. Like you were looking face first into a pile of cotton. “Don’t waste your ammo.” Jeff said. “Besides that, its just going to make things more tense in here.” “I can’t argue with that advice”. I said matter of factly. “Yeah, well … I’m just ready to kick some ass.” Cooper said aggressively. Then he mellowed and added, “You’re right. Sorry I lost my head.” “All good my friend.” Jeff answered. “I was thinking about doing the same thing. Now it knows we’re serious. Just no reason for wasting any more shells though.” Cooper nodded in agreement and went back to looking out the window he was standing by. Sam sat resignated on the couch. He finished off his beer and asked for another one. “I’d do another line too, if you got one handy.” “Coming up.” I replied and started cutting some lines out of the coke pile. “I bet its mighty cold out there for mister bad guy. Better put some more wood on our fire.” I said to Kenny. He disappeared into the garage and quickly returned with an arm full of firewood complete with a couple of sticks of hedge wood. They were placed on the fire which was roaring again quickly. “The thought crossed my mind maybe one of those shadow things would try to come down the chimney but I don’t think they’ll be trying that as long as we keep it plenty hot.” “Agree on that.” Cooper exclaimed. “I will take one of those too.” He added, sliding down to a seat next to me at the kitchen table. “Everybody gets one.” I cheerfully replied. “Even Sam.” I winked at him. Sam replied with a smile and a look like, ‘what you gonna do?’ That brought a laugh out of everybody. I finished my task and handed the mirror around to everybody. When it came time for Sam’s turn he took it and announced he was partying hard tonight because after this vacation he had decided to quit his bad habits and was going to try and better himself. Beers were handed around and everybody held up a toast to Sam’s upcoming sobriety. “Hey something is up. Shit! There’s five of those things out there.” Cooper shouted as he raised his gun to shoot through the little cutout window. “Hang on!” Jeff ordered. “Lets see what they want?” He stepped over to an available window to look outside. There were five of them alright. They stood in a line and in front of them were the shadow creatures, which stood two deep in front of the Wendigos. “What do you want?” Everybody but Sam was peering out the little windows Kenny had cut into the plywood. Jeff barked at Cooper to watch our six. Cooper obeyed without comment and stepped over to the south side of the kitchen and took up position on one of the windows from that side. All he could see was blizzard however. Back at the front of the house we could barely see through the blowing snow but they were still there. Still in that weird position of two shadow creatures in front of one Wendigo. The antlers of the Wendigo were above the height of the shadow creatures and were clearly visible, that is, when the blizzard let up enough to allow us to be able to see anything beyond a few feet. The antlers began to take on a faint aura, each of a different hue just like the balls of light had appeared. Their ends began to turn, some one way, the rest turning the other way. “Don’t look at their antlers!” I bellowed, not realizing how loudly I had spoke. I was saying it to myself as much as to the others. The urge, perhaps better said, the desire, to count them was overwhelming. Then I heard my mother’s voice calling. Out of desperation I raced across the room to the bike locks and grabbed one up and quickly locked myself to the cable that held Sam. Then I ripped off the combination that was written on a paper attached to the bike cable, wadded it up and through it out of my reach. For my last act I pushed my gun out of reach of my hands. The others had broken off any attention to the outside world to watch me. I made quite a scene and felt like I had made an even bigger fool of myself than I had, because nothing came of it. I didn’t fall into a trance. I didn’t exhibit any of the traits that Sam had; but I thought I might. Next came the question of whether i should stay chained? “Right now we are secure and it appears we will stay that way as long as we do not allow them entrance so I think it is better to err to the side of caution.” Jeff looked me directly in the eyes. “No offense pal. But I think you gotta stay where you are. You’re actions back up my conclusion.” I couldn’t argue with that logic. Hell I wanted to survive the night as much as anybody else, so I wasn’t against the idea. While we were discussing what to do with me, something began to change outside. Jeff watched the group of Wendigos and shadow creatures disperse into the night only to see two of the shadow people over by Kenny’s fuel tank. “Shit!” Jeff cried. “Put some lead into that fuel tank quick!” Cooper came from across the room and took up a position on the front side of the kitchen and began immediately joining Jeff as he began firing at the fuel tank which was about thirty yards from the house. “Aim for the spicket where the gas comes out of the tank and goes into the hose!” Jeff said, or started to say when his shot set off the gasoline lighting up the whole sky and throwing everyone that was standing up down on the ground from the blow of the blast. It shook the house and when the initial explosion had subsided there was gasoline fire all around. It was unclear as to whether it killed the two shadow things that were there when it blew up. “What the hell did you do that for?” I asked. “They were going for the gas. Think about it. If they had poured some of that down the chimney we would all be toast.” Jeff continued, “They may not be carrying matches or lighters so they couldn’t light the gas but with us having the chimney blowing full steam … it would have been a disaster. I concluded the only safe way to prevent that was to blow up the fuel.” “Smart fellow.” I said, genuinely impressed. “That would be the last way I want to leave this world. On fire.” Cooper and Sam nodded in agreement. I didn’t know if you would be successful pouring gasoline into a chimney that was blaring hot, of getting any of the gas to actually reach the destination desired, but I also know I am glad I never had to find out. I thought Jeff had made the right decision. I could see through the little cut out windows that the fire was beginning to settle down a little bit. Beyond the hissing of the fire coming from outside I began to hear something new. It sounded like gears being shifted and a truck revving its engine in an effort to go forward but was having a tough time at it. Then I was sure I heard an air brake. “Did you hear that? I thought I heard an air brake.” I said to anybody that might respond. “Yeah. I think I did hear something.” Kenny replied. There we sat, the five of us. Two of us chained down to the middle of the floor. Two of us looking out the little windows that Kenny had cut into the plywood that we screwed into place over the windows and the last doing the same through the little windows on the backside of the house. The guys looking out the front had some light provided by the fire that was still burning where the fuel tank had once been. Cooper, who was watching our backside, had only darkness to view. The strange new sound was growing louder. Then Jeff saw a new light source coming up the gravel road. As it got closer he could distinguish a yellow flashing light coming from behind the original source of light he had seen. They were headlights. That had been an air brake. Then he could see there was another set of lights behind the original source. There was a red tint to the aura that shrouded the first set of lights and the yellow flashing one. What the hell was coming now? Kenny was the first to offer an explanation of what was happening. It was a gleeful one. “Its a snow plow truck and it looks like it has a cop right behind it. I can see the red lights flashing.” Kenny’s voice was the happiest I had heard it since the first day I arrived. “They must have seen the explosion and came to find out what happened.” Sam figured out loud. “Yahoooo! We’re saved! Don’t ya love a happy ending?” Cooper exclaimed. He was actually jumping up and down. “Watch what you do with that thirty-thirty my friend.” I said, happy to be alive and wanting to stay that way. “Oh yeah, sorry bud.” Cooper replied, and began unloading the weapon which once accomplished he leaned into the corner of the room. The other guys did the same with their weapons and then everybody began to relax and there was a lot of high fives and then I asked everybody if they could look around for that piece of paper I had wadded up and thrown out of reach, that had the combination to my lock. While doing that we heard the sound of the big snow plow’s air brakes announce they had arrived. Through the cut out window I could see the snow plow’s yellow flashing light come racing into the room and then leave it just as suddenly. When it wasn’t shining through the window I could see a faint glow of red lights somewhere in the background. A few minutes went past and I began to get a bad feeling in my stomach. Jeff must have had the same thought at roughly the same time because he was moving towards the front door window before I was able to request he do so. “Fuck!” he said in a tone remindful of the time he accidently dropped his keys down a drainage grate. In fact this sounded a lot worse than that time. “You won’t believe it. The thing has both the snow plow driver and the two cops that were in the car behind the snow plow. They’re stripped of their clothes and kneeling on the ground out in front. Blizzard conditions, I would suspect they won’t last more than a couple hours. Probably not that long.” Things just turned into a roller coaster ride. A minute ago we were saved. Feeling like you might die to feeling like you were saved to feeling like things were now worse than ever. Emotional roller coasters are the worst. They steal your hope and replace it with dread and then do the same thing over and over. The human mind is not made to endure that kind of stress. Add to that the guilt and stress of what to do about the men who are dying right in front of our eyes? Jeff watched through the window feeling the freezing temperatures blow coldly through the window slats cut into the plywood and considered what those poor men must be going through outside. His mind raced through scenarios trying to find one that would allow a rescue attempt for the men who were outside, that didn’t involve risking the lives of everyone inside. With two of the five of them being restrained he just didn’t see a way to attempt a rescue that didn’t involve risking more lives than they would be trying to save. The room was entirely quiet. We had all been made aware of the situation. We had to be practical not emotional. Obviously that was what the Wendigo was counting on. For us to act emotionally. It was probably at this very moment very frustrated that we hadn’t already went charging out into the blizzard to free our fellow humans. Sorry Mr Bad Guy. We are a little more practical than that. Its not a matter of being a coward nor of being a hero. Its a matter of whether the task can be accomplished? All we get done by opening the doors and going charging out there is to expose ourselves to the same fate. So far the only facts we know for sure are that this creature has been able to take over every situation which it has encountered except the time Goldie saved me. Quicky Jeff raised his pistol, the forty-four magnum, and fired off a round towards the direction where the snow plow man and the two cops were lined up kneeling on the ground in their underwire. Their bodies had begun to uncontrollably shiver as they were slowly freezing to death. “I saw one of them appear in the background so I took a shot.” He smiled. “No pun intended.” “Any luck?” I asked, still unable to go anywhere. “Can’t say.” He gave me one of those, ‘if it is any consolation’ looks, and then added cheerfully “he’s not there any more. Could be a good thing.” “I am sure it was an effort worth the resources spent.” I said very ambassador-like. At least we were still keeping our sense of humor. It was getting harder though, now that there were people dying just outside of our fortress. “I wish I could think of some way to save them. What if they die and we survive? What are we going to tell the world? They are not going to believe us when we say that if we had left the house we would have ended up the same as the ones who died. We’ll be branded cowards. The worst kind of humanity. Plus it will be even worse than we are thinking because odds are the world won’t believe there was ever anything out there. I mean we’ll have no proof. Hell they might even accuse us of having caused the deaths. In a weird way they would be correct.” Jeff looked about a hundred years old when he said that to us. It made me realize what an incredible toll this had already taken on the five of us. “We need time to think.” I said, but I knew there was very little time to work within. “I’m gonna go get some more wood for the fire. Its starting to die down and freezing our asses off won’t help those guys outside one bit.” Cooper said. He placed his gun on the kitchen table and went out to the garage to get some firewood. When he came back he had an idea. “We don’t know for sure but it stands to reason that the shadow creatures are susceptible to the pain caused by fire. Otherwise they probably would have come in through the chimney. That make sense so far?” “Yeah.” I replied. The others agreed. Cooper continued. “We know the Wendigos use their antlers to get us into a trance. For that to happen, they have to get us to look at their antlers. If we are blind, they won’t work on us. But I suspect that is why they travel with the shadow people, creatures, whatever they are. If someone blinds themselves then the shadow people step in and handle things from their way of doing things. I have no idea what that is, but I suspect it is as lethal to the blinded as the Wendigos are to the seeing.” “Okay say you’re right. How does that help us or those men outside?” Jeff asked, beginning to lose patience. “Stay with me a minute longer.” Cooper said. “What if the shadow people are not only susceptible to the pain of fire, but they might be very flammable. In any case we do know they are likely to shy away from hot things. So what if we were to send someone out there blindfolded. With a rope on them so they could be pulled back to the house if necessary. You see the Wendigos made a mistake when they had the men kneel down so closely to the house. We know it takes them at least a couple of seconds to get a person into a trance. That usually works because the victims are not aware to shoot on sight. We are. So if one of the Wendigos appears we shoot immediately.” “And what keeps the guy who is blindfolded safe from the shadow creatures?” Sam asked. “Fire.” Cooper answered. “The one who goes out blindfolded with carry with him a torch. He continually waves it around his body as a means of keeping the shadow creatures at bay. Plus the blindfolded guy will have a walkie taped to both sides of his head. That will allow you to hear our directions on where to go. Plus it will help keep out anything the enemy tries to do through your hearing.” “So the blind guy goes out waving a torch, in whatever direction the walkies tell him. Then he follows the walkie instructions on how to reach the men. Once he reaches them he brings them back one at a time. If necessary he could tie the rope around the victim and have us pull him back to the house, with the blinded guy keeping a hand on the rope so he can also be led back to the house.” Jeff looked at Cooper in a manner of ‘is that about it?’ Cooper replied with a shake of his head. “Its bat-shit crazy but it might work.” Kenny observed. “Who’s going to be the blind guy?” “First I think we better figure out what to use as a torch? Remember its blowing snow out there like a sandblaster. What kind of torch is going to hold up to that sort of attack? If the wind doesn’t blow it out the moisture from the snow probably will.” Sam thought about it for a minute and then added, “Plus it will have to stand up to being whipped around at the fastest speed because the blind guy may need to do that in order to keep a shadow creature from getting to him.” “If only we knew whether the shadow creeps are flammable?” Cooper said. “The two that were over by the fuel tank when it went up. Did anybody see what happened to them?” I asked. There was nobody that spoke up so we were left wondering. Then I had an idea of my own. It would answer our question as to how much fire bothered the shadow creatures. I asked Kenny if he had anything flammable in a liquid? He walked out into his garage and came back a few minutes later holding the gas tank to his push mower. I opened it up to see there was about a third of a tank. Plenty for what I had in mind. “I think I see where you are going with this.” Jeff said. “Kenny, you remember when you grabbed the pistol off the table and started to walk outside but jumped back because there was a shadow person outside the door?” I asked. “Sure. He was right on the other side.” “Right. What if we crack the door open and pour this gas out so it runs and sits just outside the door. And then we have you or Coop do another scene of cussing at them and then march over to the table and grab a pistol off it and then head to the door. With any luck one of them will rush up to position itself in the same way as it did before. And that’s when we light the gas. We’ll have someone sitting on the floor next to the door so that when you open it up they immediately light the gas and then you slam the door. Then we’ll see how fire effects our dark friends from another realm.” “I like it!” Sam said with enthusiasm. Next we took Kenny’s chainsaw and cut some slats down the length of the plywood that was acting as the window cover for the north side of the kitchen window. It already had a small window cut into it so we could see out but we wanted something different for this. The slats were cut just wide enough to allow a rifle barrel to be aimed through them. Three were cut about six inches above and below each other. What we were really wanting to do was to make the window big enough so they could see inside when Cooper went into his act. Before turning the saw off we cut a small square out of the front door which would be used to feed the rope through. A few minutes later Cooper went over to the newly fashioned slats that were cut out of the plywood window covering and he began to cuss at the creatures in a fury of hate. Then he marched over to the table and grabbed up one of the pistols, loaded it, and headed for the kitchen front door. Having no idea how strong these things actually were, we couldn’t risk leaving the door open for any longer than a split-second or they might be able to strong-arm their way in. So there would be no opportunity to see if they had fell for our trap. We just had to light the fire and see if we caught anything in our net. Cooper picked up the pistol and marched over to the kitchen door and began to open it. When he did Kenny flicked the lighter and I could hear the hiss of the fire as the door was slammed shut. Kenny rolled over and jumped to a position where he could see outside the doorway. An orange color flashed brightly outside the doorway and Kenny could see the outline of the shadow creature for a split-second and then it too flashed a bright orange and was gone. It had went up faster than a Kleenex soaked in rocket fuel. A cheer went up from inside the house that put goosebumps on me. I felt a warm rush and was revalorized. The others must have experienced the same or similar because the mood went from dismal to confident in the time it takes to … light a shadow creep on fire and watch it burn. The conversation immediately went to who should be the one blindfolded? There was logic in the argument for both sides. Should it be someone who was already exposed to the creatures? Or someone that had not been? The points for someone that has were short but pragmatic. If the creatures were able to put the guy into a trance then we simply pulled him back inside. The points for someone who had not been exposed were pretty much the same. The exception being that the newbie might be able to prevent going under their spell for longer but you could make the same argument that perhaps those already exposed would know what to look for and therefore be more able to fight it off. In the end we could not come to a reasonable conclusion so we did what any intelligent thinking man would do under such circumstances. That’s right. We drew straws. Jeff won. Or lost, depending upon how you looked at it. He was also the one to hold the straws and he went last. I will always suspect he cheated, keeping the small straw in his thumb as we drew. I think the others suspected as well but nobody was gonna call a hero a cheat. We fashioned a nice torch out of cloth and for its handle we used a burning piece of hedge wood. Even if the torch went out in the onslaught of snowflakes and high winds, it would still be smoldering at a very high temperature. Based on how fast that one shadow creature went up there was little doubt that one touch from the hot end of that torch would send one of those things into smoke instantly. The blindfold slash walkie-talkie helmet we fashioned out of Kenny’s old football helmet was a work of art and the silliest thing you ever saw. I mean who covers the front part of a football helmet so you can’t see what you are doing? Then as added insurance we blindfolded Jeff before putting the helmet on him. Duct-taped to the ear holes of his helmet were two of the four walkie-talkies. Just before we lowered the helmet onto his head he said, “Wait.” Then he glanced through the window to try and memorize exactly where everything was before he allowed us to lower the helmet and place the torch in his hand. We had already discussed the fact that once we put the torch in his hand his other was on the doorknob so he could get himself outside with that torch before he burned down the house not being able to see what he was doing with it. “Godspeed.” I said as Kenny waited for him to open the door and when he did the torch was lit and Jeff stepped outside into the blizzard with a rope tied to his waist. Another rope tied in a big loop was held in one hand while the other was whipping the torch this way and that. Cooper gave instruction over the walkies as Jeff quickly walked the estimated 9 paces to where the first man was located. His body had begun to shiver uncontrollably from the exposure to the freezing temperatures but Jeff was able to find him quickly while continuing to whip that torch around his body. He placed the loop over the man’s body and we pulled the loop tight. Jeff hung onto the rope and began following it back to the house walking backwards and continuing to whip that torch around. The shadow creatures appeared but they kept a respectful distance from that torch. We tried firing bullets into the shadow people but they passed right through. Jeff reached the door and we quickly pulled him inside and then began pulling the first man back to the doorway. He slid across the snow and we had him inside the doorway before any of the shadow creatures made any advances towards him or the doorway. When the door was slammed shut and locked we began trying to warm the nearly naked man by placing coats upon him and having him sit next to the fire which was plenty warm. He was still in a trance but we brought out Goldie and had her bark and sure enough, he came around. He told us he was the snow plow driver and that he had seen an orange flash happen from our direction so he radioed in to the police there was a possible explosion out at the old Mcmann homestead. The town sheriff came on the radio asking if he could escort them out to where he thought the explosion had happened. The snow plow driver had replied yes and well, we knew the rest of the story. It was the sheriff and one of his deputies that remained out in the blizzard. “I’m sorry to have to do this sir but we are going to have to restrain you because you have been under the influence of that creature out there and it is possible it could take control of you again and have you do something detrimental to the well-being of both yourself and the others here. I hope you understand?” The man was really in no condition to refuse. As such he chose to not make things any harder than they need be, and gave in to having me lock him up with a bike chain lock just like myself and Sam. We tried to position him so that he could help pull on the rope along with the rest of us when Jeff went back out for the second man. Everything was done like before. Jeff blindly made his way out to where the two men were at. Both remained in the position in which the Wendigo had placed them. Jeff placed the lasso over the first man per Cooper’s instruction and then we pulled the rope tight and began pulling the cop in while Jeff followed the tight rope back to the house. We brought him in and then the cop. Though we knew those things meant business it never really sinks in on something like that as when the horrible actually happens. The men were not located far from the house. Only about ten steps in fact. The blizzard however had made it nearly impossible to be able to see what was going on at all times or for that matter what sort of condition the captives were in. We simply had to operate on the assumption of what we did know. Sadly we discovered the police officer had been hit in the head with most likely a rock and his skull had been crushed. He never woke from the trance. The question now was what about the last guy? Common sense said he was as dead as this guy was but what if we were wrong? “I say the question now becomes is it worth risking someone’s life to go after another that is almost certainly dead? I say not. In fact I will object violently if Jeff tries to go back out there. Its not that I am uncaring, or that I hate cops. But it is just bat-shit crazy to think that those things would kill this guy, but not the other one. Hell they had no idea which one Jeff would go after first. So if you didn’t want any more rescues then you kill them both. Not too mention that the guy is probably already toast from the elements by now even if he was not killed at the same time as this one. But you guys know he was.” I was beginning to wish I hadn’t let them chain me up. Push to shove, I couldn’t do shit chained to this floor. “He’s right. You would be a moron to go back out there after seeing this.” Sam said to Jeff. “Don’t be stupid.” “I agree hundred percent.” Cooper chimed in. “Only a sap would risk his life for a dead cop. I mean be honest, odds are that cop would be more likely to shoot you Jeff, than anything else.” “Beyond that shit.” I cut in to keep Cooper from saying something that he would regret later. “The dude is dead. Jeff. Dead. And yes you would be a stupid fool to risk going back out to rescue a corpse. Hell you went out and got his partner. Its not like you didn’t risk your life. I’m just saying don’t risk your life stupidly.” “They’re right.” It was the snow plow man. “Son you’ve done everything that any sane man would ask. Now its time to think of yourself and your own survival.” Maybe in the movies the hero says screw it and goes ahead and does the unthinkable but when you’re looking at a dead man on the floor, there’s a blizzard whining by outside, where in the darkness you don’t have to wonder if evil waits, you are assured, you get real and do what anybody would do. You choose not to risk your life for something that is unobtainable. They carried the body out to the garage and covered it with a blanket. Then everybody that was free to roam… joined those of us who were not for a discussion about the immediate future. “Its not gonna work. I have to go see if that last cop is dead.” Jeff said. There was no use fighting with him. I knew when he had made up his mind. “But we’re gonna do it a bit different this time. I’m going out there without the blindfold. You guys will still have the rope around my waist. If I get in trouble you just pull me back in. Besides its 10 paces. I am going to rush out there and see if he is alive. I’ll bring the second rope with me and secure him for pulling in. There’s no sense arguing because I am going. You guys can either help me or not.” “Wait. Lets do this right if you’re bound and determined. Take a torch with you too. It won’t take that much extra time and might be the difference.” I watched as Kenny went out into the garage and grabbed another piece of hedge wood. When he returned to the kitchen – living room he placed just one end of the piece of wood into the fire. Ten paces from the front door may not sound like much as you are sitting in your comfortable chair and safe home but that night you couldn’t see what was happening three feet from the front door. Ten paces was like traveling to the next state. As we prepared Jeff for his ‘fool’s journey’ the wind howled relentlessly and I felt a cold chill that motivated me to ask Kenny if he minded running back out to the garage and grabbing some more wood? Kenny was happy to do it and quickly had the fire going good again. The piece of hedge he had put in on one end was ready. “No on the torch. Yes on a shotgun.” Jeff was explaining his preference for weapons of defense to Cooper who was standing there holding the torch. “You forget that the gun won’t work on the shadows?” I asked rather surprised he was opting for the gun. I gave him the look and he returned it. “What the hell does that mean?” “What the hell did you mean?” Jeff replied loudly. “I was refering to the fact that you better take the torch if you want to have any chance at getting back here. And that’s not too mention this is an incredibly stupid thing to do in the first place. That cop is dead. Period. Going out there to drag back his body is bat-shit crazy! I’m just sayin’!” Crazy bastard! I thought but was also incredibly impressed and touched by his courage. Then it crossed my mind how that is just exactly the kind of man you do everything in your power to protect. Even if from himself. “I’ll be fine. Relax. You guys can pull me back in if it comes to that.” Jeff consoled. “You be counting in your head. You get to ten and haven’t given the impression that you are on your way back then we are pulling your ass back. Expect it!” “You’re a good friend, Alex. All you guys are. On the million to one chance this goes bad, on me.” Jeff took the time to look each of us in the eye and then grabbed the torch out of Kenny’s hand. “Godspeed.” I said, and was echoed by at least a couple of the guys. Jeff threw the door open and slammed it behind him. Outside the frozen snow flakes stung the few areas of bare skin exposed to its fury and slammed into his eyes almost blinding him. He thought how ironically funny. None of us considered the snow being so cold it would be frozen and as such be a blinding element that would have protected me from the Wendigo regardless of whether I had blindfolded myself. He was stepping across the snow covered driveway towards the spot where he expected to find the third man, alive or dead. In his head he had reached ten paces but wasn’t seeing the man. He was waving the torch around his body while looking for the third man. He saw him. They were right. He was dead. Jeff decided against trying to bring back the body and instead pulled on both ropes, the one around his waist and the one he was going to use to bring in the body and was almost pulled off his feet it was pulled back to the house so violently. Instead he just let his body go with the motivation provided by the ropes. He swung the torch around him as he felt his body being pulled to the ground. He pushed with his feet in that direction as he went to the ground. He had to be only five paces at the most from being back in the house. The blizzard raged all around him and he realized he had lost track of which way to go? Then the ropes became tight again and he felt them pull him to the house in one quick yank. His body slid across the snow and as he went he thought he saw the shadow creatures rushing at him. He swung the torch with renewed vigor and used his feet to push in the direction the ropes had intended. Seconds later he heard the house door swing open and he pushed with his feet until he felt his butt slide over the threshold. When he reached that point he felt hands grab his body and he was yanked into the house followed by the sound of the door slamming shut. Jeff was in flight or fight mode. His eyes were wide but he quickly settled down. “He was dead. You guys were right. I had to know though.” Kenny brushed off the cold snow and he and Cooper ushered Jeff over to the fireplace. “I’ll grab you a beer, buddy.” Cooper said, slapping Jeff on the back. “Good job! Now its time to relax and catch your breath.” “Agreed.” I said. “You’re very brave son. I’ll tell ’em when we get out of here too!” The snow plow man was obviously very grateful for having been saved. “That man’s death is not on you. You should be looking at it as having been lucky to save me. I know I am thanking God.” “He’s right Jeff.” Kenny said, while standing by with a dry towel if Jeff wanted one. A banging began, it was coming from the direction of the bedrooms. Cooper, Kenny and Jeff walked down the hallway and were able to conclude it was likely the shadow creatures trying to gain entrance through the plywood window covers. It was three quarter inch plywood. They were not getting through that. Kenny had thought things out well. He had provided extra long screws to keep the covers in place. They weren’t getting in. Cooper pushed past the other two saying, “I’ve got an idea!” He came rushing back past them holding the long fireplace lighter and a can of some sort of aerosol spray. Kenny was almost back to the kitchen when it dawned on him what that can was: starting fluid! “Shit!” Kenny exclaimed as he pushed past Jeff headed for the bedrooms at a trot. He hollered back over his shoulder, “He’s got the starting fluid. Idiot’s gonna burn the house down!” Cooper rushed up to the plywood window cover and waited to hear the banging again. Sure enough it began again. He stuck the long lighter out through the little window that Kenny had cut out of the plywood so we could see outside, and then he aimed the starting fluid to one side and began spraying at the same time as he lit the lighter. It only needed the spark to set off the ether. There was a flash of orange and you could hear Cooper’s joy all the way to the other end of the house where I was chained along with Sam and the snow plow man. “Wahoo!” Cooper exclaimed. Then the sound of his laughter echoed through the house. He went over to the plywood and yelled into the cut-out window, “Fuck you assholes!.” A second later a tree limb came jabbing through the little window and hit his face with such force it knocked him over backwards breaking his cheek bone. He got up holding his face and belligerently hollered back through the window but this time from a side position so to not become victim to anything coming through the little window, “Missed me Goobers!”. He laughed as he left the room but was careful not to step into the firing line of what could come through the little window. He walked back to the kitchen triumphantly. “Damn what happened to you?” Sam asked when Cooper came into the kitchen. “Killed another shadow creep. Maybe two of them. Couldn’t really tell they go up so fast.” Cooper motioned his hand which still held the lighter. “They do that to your face?” I asked. “Collateral damage.” Cooper replied. Then he stepped over to the fridge and grabbed two beers. One to drink and one to hold to his face. He went over to the table and sat down, nursing both the beer and the cheek. “Well if you got at least one then that cuts down the enemy to a paltry eleven, if my math is correct.” Sam said. Jeff was looking out the front door into the blizzard. Everything was dark again the fire from the fuel tank having died out 45 minutes previous. The wind continued to howl and showed no sign of moving on or letting up. Then from almost point blank range Jeff saw the little window he was looking out become a solid sheet of white that made looking into the blizzard seem like he was peering into the clearest july night you could ask for. He jerked backwards away from the window just in time to hear a very loud bang and then saw the plywood window cover bow inwards but it held. Jeff jumped back to his feet and rushed to peer out the little window. It was Sam’s four wheel drive. They were not able to start it up thank God but they did manage to get it into neutral and then must have pushed it into the house. He couldn’t see anything past the front windshield and there was nobody or nothing behind the wheel. Then the truck began to rock and then was pulled backwards away from the house only to immediately go back crashing into the kitchen window. It was slowly destroying the kitchen. It might take a half hour but eventually they would compromise our fortress and it seemed there was nothing we could do about it. Jeff began frantically searching the floor with a flashlight in the area where I had tossed the combination to my lock. I concluded what his intentions were and said, “You don’t need mine. I’m chained to Sam, not the floor. You can free all of us by grabbing the combo out of the kitchen drawer.” Jeff wasted no time in getting across the room to the drawer. He barked out the combination to Sam and the lock was opened. A crack opened up across the top of the Kitchen window. The cold blizzard wind rushed through it like water entering a damaged submarine. Chaos ensued. “Grab the guns and the ammo. Get them and some water and maybe some food and anything else you can think we might need and move everything and everyone into the back bedrooms.” I didn’t wait for a response. I had to trust they would get the job done. I grabbed Jeff and he followed me into the garage where we picked up another sheet of the plywood and carried it back towards the bedrooms. “Lets grab one more and that way we can fortify at the mouth of the hallway and if that fails we can use the last piece to either fortify a bedroom or the other end of the hallway.” Jeff nodded in agreement and we pushed past the immigration coming from the kitchen. I grabbed Cooper and requested he bring the chainsaw. He followed us into the garage and we quickly grabbed what we needed, including some nails and a hammer, and brought it all to the back bedrooms. We placed a man looking out each bedroom window. If the blizzard hadn’t been coming down so fast and hard I would have been able to see Sam’s truck from my viewpoint. However all that could be seen was the darkness and the snowflakes that would fly close enough to the little window for me to be able to see them. “Don’t stand in a position where something can hit you if it is jabbed or thrown through the little windows.” Cooper announced to everyone. The consequences for ignoring his warning could be viewed by looking at Coop’s face. The plywood had been cut to fit into the mouth of the hallway and then we both nailed and screwed it into the surrounding house. A small window was cut out so we could see what was on the other side. Then a couple more even smaller windows were cut into the plywood at different heights so to allow us to shoot through them. There came another loud cracking sound and it was no stretch of the imagination it was the kitchen wall or window giving way after providing a proper defense ultimately buying us enough time to retreat and fortify our position. “You bought a fine home.” I said to Kenny. “Aye it did turn out to be a fine place. And all is not over yet.” He said with defiance. “We still have plenty of ammo, and even more fight, so …” Kenny stepped over to the side of the little window where he was stationed and bellowed into the blizzard, “its gonna be a mighty long and expensive night for the Wendigo. So come on assholes!” Each room had at least one flashlight positioned in it from a stagnant location. Every man, including snow plow man, had a flashlight to keep on their person but they were to be kept off except for emergency because they so easily blinded whoever you were looking at (if you had them in their headbands) We could hear from our location in the back bedrooms that Sam’s pickup was either already through the kitchen window or was very close. There would be a loud crack and then we could hear them rocking the truck back out away from the house only to push it back into the house again. If the blizzard were to let up, from my viewpoint I could see the shadow creatures lined up to push the the truck. I got an idea so I ran to the bedrooms searching for something to make a bow and arrow. I found balloons in the kids room so I grabbed them and then i searched for arrows. Kenny happened to have a closet full of wire hangers. They should work perfectly. I grabbed a handful of them and ran back to the bedroom on the front side of the house furthest from where the pickup was being crashed into the kitchen. The window from that room provided enough angle to get a good shot at the shadow people. I poured out a trash can and picked all the paper and flamable things to put back into the trash can. Then I lit it on fire. Next I had Cooper and snow plow man help me to straighten the wire clothes hangers so that we could go back through and find the straightest part of the wire and cut it off at the most strategic points to provide as straight of an arrow as possible. Next I placed them down into the fire that was going in the trash can. Jeff and Sam came in from their positions in the other rooms to see what was on fire. We put their minds at ease. “Just warming up a little surprise for our shadow buddies while they try to push Sam’s truck through the kitchen. You see this bag of balloons? In a minute I am going to hand them out and I want everybody to grab an arrow when the ends in the fire are glaring orange, and I want you to place the cool end of the wire arrow into the balloon. Before you do that please take a piece of strong paper of thin cardboard, and roll it up into a tube the size of the balloon neck. Slide the balloon onto the tube so that there is enough balloon on the tube to allow you to hold it in place with one hand. Now is when you will want to pick up an arrow and place the cool end of the arrow into the tube and feed it back to where you can pinch it with your fingers along with the back part of the balloon. Treat it like you would a sling shot. Keeping one hand on the tube and holding the balloon neck in place you can pull back on the arrow by pinching the back of the balloon. Try to get as much on it as you can because when you let go it has to travel the twenty-five or thirty feet necessary to touch one of the shadow people. It should be enough to set them ablaze. Lets find out.” “Yeah but we can’t see them to aim.” Cooper said. Jeff was able to fill in that blank. “Dude we know where the kitchen door is right? So you just figure about a pickup truck’s length back from the kitchen door. Aim for that general area and let launch. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” “Exactly. I figured we got nothing else to do right now except twiddle our thumbs. Why not take a shot. You guys seen how fast those things go up if they get near an open flame. We better get to it though. They’re almost through plus the fire in the trash can is dying. I would suggest you grab a beer and poor it on the cool end of the arrow before you put it into the balloon. If its too hot the balloon will just melt on to it. So what you want to make this work is a cold end going into the balloon and an orange-hot end to shoot. Fire at will.” Everyone got to work putting their slingshot together and then they grabbed a beer followed by an arrow which they followed Jeff’s lead which he opened his beer and then set it down next to his spot at the window and then he grabbed an arrow and placed it cold end into the beer and the hot end was facing upwards. Everyone waited about three seconds and loaded their wire arrows with the glowing hot ends and took aim and fired into the darkness of the blizzard and were rewarded when they saw not one but three bright flashes of orange. The only possible conclusion was that they had hit three of the shadow creatures and now they were ashes. “That bring their numbers down to about eight doesn’t it?” Jeff asked. Everyone was quite pleased with themselves. Nobody was happier than the guy who had the idea. “Yes sir! Five of the deer heads and only three of the shadows left.” I was proud to say. “You know something boys. I didn’t think we were going to get out of this but now I am beginning to change my mind.” Snow plow man said with more vigor and hope in his step than he had exhibited all night. “That was a clever idea indeed. Taking out three of the enemy at a time when you should have been able to accomplish nothing is game changing. It might sound crazy but to an old man like me that doesn’t have a lot to live for anyway … well I’m glad to be here. Proud to be fighting evil with such fine men.” Suddenly there was a crash outside the window. We shined the flashlights through the slats that we had cut out using the chainsaw. Apparently there were no longer enough of them to be able to push Sam’s pickup so they had resorted to throwing things at the plywood we had used to replace the glass windows. Whatever it was it bounced harmlessly off the plywood. “If that’s the best they got for the rest…” Kenny smiled. “We should be fine until this storm blows over and if those things haven’t gone by the time the sun comes back out well we’ll just finish our hunt”. Cooper, who had been against this war, now said, “We would be informed this time around. Just tell everybody to shoot upon sight. Then look away. Reload. Shoot upon first sight. Look away. Shoot…” Sam cut him off saying, “We get it. Lather, rinse, repeat.” “You boys got a gun I can use? I’ll go with you.” Snow plow man said. “Shucks I am going to be stuck out here along with you boys until the law can get out and take our statements so might as well use me.” “Whoa. I think everybody is getting a little ahead of themselves.” Jeff said. “First, we still have a lot of night left to live, before the sun shows up with the cavalry. Second, nothing has changed concerning the participants that have been in a trance. Both Sam and the nice man driving the snow plow cannot have guns. They probably shouldn’t even be allowed to be moving around freely. And I’m not too sure about you, Alex.” “None of us can argue or blame you for bringing this up.” Sam said to Jeff. “Cause you’re entirely correct. We should be secured again.” “Small problemo with that chief.” Cooper said. “We didn’t bother to grab the bike lock chains after we took them off. Everybody was in a bit of a rush if you recall?” “We surely got something we can use.” Kenny said in a surprised tone. “I’m sorry, this is on me. I should have thought to better stock the bedrooms. A little extra rope or some duct tape would be all the difference right now.” “Stop your blubbering. If we can’t chain you up then we’ll lock you in. Bedrooms got closets don’t they? Let’s see what we can come up with?” Then I began a quick lookover of the closets in the four bedrooms. The master bedroom had a walk in closet that would do nicely. Lucky it had two doors that opened to each side. All we would have to do is to tie the doorknobs together and the inmates will be safe from doing us or themselves any harm. “Problem solved.” I said. “What’d you come up with?” Sam asked, curious how he was going to have to spend the remainder of the evening. “Yes faceless announcer man. Tell Sam what he’s won?” Cooper charmed, trying to use his best game show host voice. “You’ve won an all expense paid vacation for two in the most desired bedroom walk-in closet of the world. Enjoy one night and hopefully no days stay in complete comfort not too mention safety of Kenny’s master bedroom walk-in closet where you wait in complete comfort for the blizzard to either move on or dissolve itself.” I said in my most authorative voice. “I suppose that means me too.” Snow plow man said. He offered no resistance to being led into the master bedroom where Sam joined him inside the walk-in closet. “Feel free to walk by, give a knock and update.” Sam said to his friends. “You won’t need that, we’re gonna give you a window.” Kenny replied and he started up the chainsaw and began cutting a small window into the closet door. “This is gonna be an expensive weekend for you.” Sam replied through the impromptu window. “Money well spent friend.” Kenny replied, looking back through the window. “Hey I can see red flashing lights. They’re reflecting off the snow. I can only assume its a cop either coming to us or parked down the street. I think its the latter based on the reflection.” Jeff cried from the other front bedroom. “They probably sent someone out to check on the sheriff and the deputy. When he got close to the location of the car he probably decided to request back up before coming any closer when he was unable to get a reply on the radio from the sheriff.” Sam said from inside his makeshift prison. “Probably. Another possibility is that the Wendigo faked the Sherriff’s voice and told the other car to keep its distance.” Cooper yelled from his position in the bedroom located facing the back yard. “I doubt that. It can mimic someone’s voice but I doubt it has the knowledge to know how to use a radio in a modern police car.” Jeff offered. “I definitely think it is intelligent enough but at the same time I don’t think it has the knowledge.” ‘Maybe one of us should go out the back way and walk over to where that cop is parked, out on the gravel road.” The snow plow man said through the little window of the door way to the walk in closet. “We can’t be sure he will be there or if he is there now. For all we know the Wendigo went over there and killed that cop. Its too big of a risk.” Sam argued. “I agree with Sam. We’re safe where we are at. Lets not rock the boat this close to shore.” I added. Back towards the kitchen we could hear things being thrown around but there were no direct threats to us at our current location. Jeff was watching through the slats that had been cut into the plywood which we used to block off the hallway to the four bedrooms. He could see the tip of the nose of one of the Wendigos and often he would catch a glimpse of one of the shadow creatures but they came and went quickly. He judged they would be incredibly lucky to hit one with the improvised sling shot arrows. Those worked great when the enemy didn’t know they were coming therefore did not know to be looking out for them but the surprise factor had passed. He also wondered about taking a shot at the Wendigo’s nose but decided to wait and see if it would move another three inches to come into his gun sights. As it was the shot would likely not make it through the number of two-by-four studs that it would likely have to pass through to reach the bastard because it was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. The frame of the door alone would probably be enough to warp his shot. Better to be patient and see if it moved a little bit. “Anybody want a line?” I asked. While I was chopping up lines onto a mirror Cooper went around handing out beers. “Snow plow man. You want one?” “No thank you. But I would definitely accept a beer. Couple of them if you don’t mind.” “Two beers, coming up.” Cooper stated. “Sam?” “Sure. Thirsty work being a captive.” “It sure is son. You said a mouthful.” Snow plow man exclaimed. Then he asked a question that made all of us crack up. “You boys coming back to do this again next year?” One thing about cocaine is it helps pass the time at a much faster rate. At least up until closing time. The hours from closing time to when they start selling beer again are a completely different story. However all that doesn’t matter if you are stocked up for a week’s worth of partying and there’s still a few days to go. So we partied like there was no tomorrow and let ourselves get a lttle too messed up. Everything worked out okay however. Actually it was rather anti-climatic. But isn’t that how it usually goes in real life? If you had asked me that night during the blizzard how I thought things were going to end I would have said bloody and memorable. Instead it was forgettable. As to how things ended up towards morning. I think everybody fell asleep. Or at least were in a drunken stupor. Morning came and we were brought to life by a pounding on the front door. Jeff was first to start tearing down the plywood blockage we had put up the night before. He had to grab the drill with the screw driver bit and remove all the screws we had put in. It took a few minutes, but we hollered at the cops to be patient. We used that time to tidy up and remove any evidence which might get us in trouble. And opened the walk-in closet so they could come out. Outside the weather was calm. The sun had come out and all across the land were big drifts of snow and there wasn’t sign of even one track of what had been outside wanting to do us harm during the blizzard. The official record stated that the two cops had tried to follow snow plow man but had somehow lost radio contact with both the base and the guy in the snow plow. That they must have tried to walk in the blizzard and when the cold overcame them they did that strange act of removing their clothing (which is a common occurrence to victims of the elements and it is thought to be done because they think they are warm). Their deaths were written down as accidental due to weather conditions. Snow plow man pulled Sam’s truck out of Kenny’s kitchen. When it was time to go he led the way and nobody stayed behind at the house. I touched base with Kenny about a month later and he still hadn’t been back to the house so I don’t know if we will be going there again next year. Part of me wants to go and the sane part of me says no way! I still harbor a lot of hate for that thing. Things. And I would still very much like to kill it. Every time I look at Goldie I am reminded of how she saved me, that night, losing her siblings. It makes me angry. Truth is though that we never had any sort of proof that we were ever able to hurt the damn thing. Or for that matter we still don’t know if it was capable of dying? All we really learned from that night is how to kill the shadow creatures. As fast as they are, not too mention stealthy and sneaky; I cannot imagine that knowledge ever being useful to anyone. All in all it was a bust of a vacation and a bust of a fight. Sam had a different view about the experience. He said he took great pleasure in the thought that the Wendigo no longer has its ‘pride’ about having killed anything that ever tried to kill it. He says one of his biggest regrets about that time was he never got to know how bad we hurt that thing when it took our bullets. We have to find consolation and celebration in the fact that we not only survived the night but it could be claimed we thrived. After all, none of the original hunting group ever got hurt and we definitely turned the shadow creeps that were set on fire … into ashes. One final rather disturbing note that happened after the blizzard, the cops waking us up etc. The snow plow man. That jerk told on us for the coke and there was about ten minutes where I was worried but I threw away what was left when I first heard the cops were outside the front door. There was some questions asked but we played dumb and it went away as quickly as it came. You’re welcome snow plow man. Jeff risked his life so that you could turn around and narc on us? Maybe we’ll decide to hunt snow plow men next year. The end.