That Which Should Not Be (6 page)

Chapter

8

For many long minutes we stood there, our eyes on Travis’s limp body.  The fire was roaring behind us.  We had built it up to a blaze, whether to provide light or buoy our sinking spirits, I don’t really know. 

“So, what do we do with him?” Andy asked.  “Maybe we should kill him now.”

Tom pursed his lips, thinking on Andy’s suggestion.  “No,” he said, “no, we won’t do that.  We don’t know for sure it’s him.” 

I turned from Travis and stared at Tom.  “You don’t still suspect me?”

“I don’t know who to suspect,” Tom answered firmly.  “I know what you said about Travis, and that seemed pretty right to me.  But we can’t know.  We just can’t know.  And, until we do, we can’t kill him.”

“I hear you, Captain, I really do,” I said.  “But something tells me, if he is the one, those ropes won’t hold him.”

No one said anything else.  Hours passed, and the night deepened.  And then Travis awoke.  It was slow at first.  His eyes fluttered, then were filled with confusion.  He strained for a second against the bonds that held him, and then he knew.  Now he was angry. 

“You sons of bitches!” he screamed.  “What the Hell are you doing?  It’s him you want!”

“Is it Travis?  Is it?”  Tom asked, stepping in front of me.  “You’re going to talk, and you’re going to do it now.  These men,” he said, gesturing to me and Andy, “they think we should kill you now.  I said we wait.  But if you don’t answer me, I may just let them.”

Travis simply spat at Tom; it was his way I suppose.  Tom didn’t react.  Instead, he turned to me and said, “Give me the rifle.”  For a second I hesitated, so he simply grabbed it from me.  He could have done it at any point, I guess.  And I guess he knew that, too.  He raised the gun and pointed it at Travis’s head. 

“You will answer my questions, Travis.  The first one you don’t, I pull the trigger on this rifle and put another hole through your face.”

“You got it, Captain,” Travis snarled. 

“You had any dreams lately?  Any you can’t explain?”

“I don’t dream,” he said.  “Ain’t never, ain’t startin' now.”

“How’d you know how to cook that rabbit?”

“Hell, Captain, it’s meat.  You put it in the pan and watch it burn.  How hard can it be?  But I damn sure wasn’t gonna eat any of it.”

Tom lowered the rifle and turned to me and Andy. 

“He sounds right, and he sounds like himself.”

“You can’t know that, Tom,” I said.

“Yeah, Captain,” Andy added.  “Was him was cursed.  Was him the old woman wanted.  I say we give him to her.”

“I don’t know,” Tom said.

“Tell him, Jack,” Andy begged.  He was shaking, and I thought he might cry.  He wasn’t fit to take much more of this.  “Tell him.  You’re the one who found Joe.  You’re the one who found him all emptied out, skin off of him like somebody was making him into a suit.”

“It’s true, Tom,” I said, but even in the saying it, something wasn’t right.

Tom creased his brow. 

“I suppose,” Tom said.  He looked as if he had made a decision.  But now I wasn’t thinking about Travis anymore. 

“Wait,” I almost whispered.  “Andy, that about Joe, how’d you know that?”

Tom and Andy both looked at me funny.  “What are you talking about, Jack?” Tom asked.

“How’d he know that?  I didn’t tell him.  You told me not to.”

Tom still looked at me like I was crazy.  But then his eyes showed some recognition.  “Yeah,” Tom said, his mind starting to clear, “yeah, I did.  How did you know that Andy?”

“I don’t know,” Andy said.  “What’s this all about?”

“I only told Doc Stanley, and I was the last person to talk to him,” I said.  “Come on, Andy, how’d you know that?”

“Well,” Andy stammered, looking pale and thin, like he was scared to death, “I just . . . just . . .” And then his voice changed.  “Oh Hell,” he growled.  He grinned, wider than I thought a man’s face should go.  Then he started to laugh.  As his laugh grew deeper and louder, his face began to split.  Where his smile should have met his cheek, the skin began to crack, like a man had taken a knife and sliced him from the corner of his mouth to his ear.  I fell back in sheer terror.  His head was literally flapping back and forth on his laugh, and his eyes had grown as red as fire.  Tom fell back beside me, but to his credit, he raised his rifle and fired it at Andy’s heart.  Andy stopped laughing.  He cocked his head sharply to the right, and then he let loose an open-mouthed howl, a roar from some ancient, horrible world that shook me to my very core. 

No shame in saying it, I turned and ran, and Tom was running right beside me.  We ran until the howl was only an echo, until we were deep in the forest.  If I hadn’t tripped on a root and fallen, with Tom stumbling over me, we might still be running today.

We lay there like that, not wanting to move, not wanting to believe what had happened.  All around us still echoed the now distant howl, the roar I suspect few men on this earth have lived to describe.  The night was thick and dark.  Only the pale, now waning moon provided any light.  The trees shook though there was no wind, and just beyond my sight seemed to move creatures and phantasms from another world, one long past if it ever really was.  Finally, I spoke. 

“God, Tom, what do we do?”

“We run, Jack.  We run, and we don’t look back.”

He was right, of course.  But at seemingly the same moment I made that decision, a scream came ringing through the forest — it was Travis’s voice, though not in any form I had ever heard before.  I looked at Tom, and he looked at me.  I had no love for Travis, and neither did Tom.  But that scream.  I knew at that moment that it would be a mortal sin to leave him behind.  It was death or damnation now, that was all there was.  Tom exhaled deeply.  He had come to the same conclusion.

“We go back, then,” Tom said.  “But I don’t know what we do when we get there.  I hit him right in the chest, right in the chest at point blank range, and it didn’t faze him.  Didn’t even slow him down.”

“There’s a mirror in my tent,” I said, “that I use for shaving.  It’s small, but it might work.”

Tom’s eyes brightened.  There was no need to explain.  As I have come to learn, the men of the woods all know the legend of the Wendigo in full. 

We made our way back to the campsite.  Even in the dark, it wasn’t hard to find our way.  Travis’s ever-loudening screams served as the perfect map.  When we reached the edge of the woods along the clearing where our camp was set up, a horrible sight met our eyes.  Only the fire still burned where we had left it.  Our things were strewn about the ground.  The two horses were dead, whether from an attack or fright, I couldn’t tell.  But it was Travis I will never forget.  He was still tied to the wagon wheel and still alive, though barely.  His stomach was sliced open, and his bowels spilled out onto the ground.  Andy, or the thing that had been Andy, was on its hands and knees, shoveling Travis’s intestines into its mouth.  That Travis was still conscious made it all the worse.  I looked over to where my tent once stood.  It had collapsed, and I couldn’t be sure that anything was where I had left it.  Given Travis’s state, it was surely an empty gesture anyway. 

“Well?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know, Tom.  Travis is dead.  His body just hasn’t caught up to the fact.  Maybe you were right before.  Maybe we should just go.”

I saw Tom purse his lips in thought.

“Naw,” he finally said, making a decision.  “Naw, I was wrong before.  We can’t run.  He’d track us down.  No doubt about that.  Even if he couldn’t before, Joe was the best tracker I ever met.  And he has his talents now.  No, we got only one choice, and that is to stop him here.  You think you can still get that mirror?”

I looked back at my wrecked tent.  I couldn’t be sure.

“I can try, Tom, but I can’t promise it.”

“Well, then,” Tom said firmly, “that’ll have to do.  Let’s get down there.  If he doesn’t notice you, all the better.  If he does, I’ll distract him as best I can.  You get that mirror, and do what needs to be done.”

I nodded.  Tom held out his hand.  I grabbed it, and he shook firmly.  And then reluctantly but quickly, we made our way down the hill and into the camp. 

Chapter

9

We stopped at the edge, and Tom motioned for me to go on.  He would remain in the shadows.  If we were lucky, he would stay there.  I stole quietly across the grounds, taking cover behind a lonely tree whenever I could.  But it didn’t take long till there was nothing but open ground between me and my tent.  It was still ten yards off.  Not a long distance on most days, but an eternity with a beast like the Wendigo in your sights. 

I sat there for a good minute, watching him.  He was oblivious to me, his hands working a string of Travis’s intestines like it was a line of sausage.  Travis wasn’t screaming any more.  He just moaned.  I doubt if he was in his right mind.  I thought about what I would do, what was the best I could hope for.  That thought sent a chill to my bones.  Even if I found the mirror, it would mean confronting that thing.  And if it didn’t work, death, and probably not a quick one, was assured.   

Now I could wait no longer, I took a deep breath and moved towards my tent as fast as possible while still staying silent.  It was no easy task.  Seven yards away.  There were pots and pans, traps, boxes, and everything you could imagine you might need on that kind of trip, strewn about all over the ground.  I dodged them as best I could.  If he heard me then . . .well, I didn't want to think on it. 

Now I was five yards from the tent.  I looked back at the Wendigo.  He was still hunched over, still consuming his meal.  Three yards.  What was left of another tent had been thrown clear across the field and lay in between me and my destination.  I walked around, but it just meant more time I was in the open. 

Finally, I reached the remains of my tent.  But the ordeal wasn’t over.  I crouched at the side where my shaving kit should be.  I sat there, for God and all his angels to see, feeling blindly under the canvas, trying not to make a sound while also looking with my hands for a small object I didn’t even know was there. 

I could hear the sickening sound of the beast, not more than fifty feet beyond, his teeth ripping through flesh.  I looked over at him.  Still he continued to feed.  The sound of his mouth working bloody meat grew louder and louder till I thought it would steal my mind.  On I worked, feeling about, trying to find the one thing that might save me.  That noise continued, like a drumbeat in my brain.  Then, finally, blessedly, it stopped.  I said a quick prayer of thanks and searched on with new vigor. 

But then I felt cold fear fall over me.  I looked over at the Wendigo.  There it sat, blood and muscle hanging from its mouth and hands, its demon red eyes locked on me.  I froze, but the low growl that started deep in the pit of its flesh-gorged stomach spurned me into feverish action.  I made no attempt to be quiet now, feeling desperately for my mirror. 

The roar grew louder until finally it burst from what had been Andy’s mouth in a hellish, deafening sound.  It loped toward me, running like some primordial beast, pushing with its legs and thrusting with its knuckles off the ground in great bounding leaps.  All the while it screamed at me in a voice no human mouth ever made.  It was upon me, and I knew it was the end. 

Then there was a flash in the corner of my vision, and the beast, in mid-spring, was thrust to the side.  It let out an almost pitiful yelp, like a dog kicked in the gut by an angry master.  I sat there frozen, staring at the ax blade protruding from the side of Andy’s contorted and barely recognizable face.  I looked to the side to see Tom standing next to the fire, a flaming log in one hand and another ax in the other. 

“Don’t just sit there, kid!  Find it!”

I jerked back into action, feeling madly for the mirror.  The Wendigo lay still for a moment, but then it began to push itself up.  I began to give up hope.  What if I had moved it?  What if it were somewhere else in the wrecked camp?  Panic set in.  My vision became blurry.  Tom’s cries as the Wendigo righted itself and ripped the ax from its head began to seem more and more distant.  It was as if I was falling into a deep well, far from the world around me. 

I was shocked back to reality by a sharp pain that shot through my hand.  In any other situation, I would have jerked it out, and all hope might have been lost.  But I was so close to being gone that I just sat there, wondering what it could mean.  Then it struck me — my razor!  I had cut my hand, and that meant the mirror was close. 

The Wendigo was up now, advancing on Tom.  He held his ground, swinging the flaming log, but he couldn’t hold the beast long.  Then, salvation.  My hand felt smooth, polished glass and the cold kiss of metal.  I grabbed the mirror and pulled it out.  I leapt to my feet, running towards the spot where the man and the beast were circling each other.  But I was too late.  With a brutal strike, the Wendigo, avoiding the torch, ripped open Tom’s leg with a quick slice of his claws.  Tom fell to the ground with a cry.  The Wendigo poised itself over him, ready to make the killing blow.  But at that moment, I jumped on his back, thrusting the mirror in his face. 

I felt the demon shudder beneath me.  Then, it let out a cry unlike the ones before, for this was a howl of pain.  I fell backwards off of him, and he fell to his knees, hands clasping his face.  Tom, despite his injury, looked at me with a face beaming in triumph.  But then, from where the Wendigo lay, came an unexpected sound.  He was laughing.

It was a guttural laugh, a courage-stealing, soul-crushing laugh.  It was a laugh that seemed to come from Andy’s broken body and all around at the same time.  It was a cruel, cold laugh, a rumbling, rolling laugh.  The Wendigo lifted itself from the ground.  It turned around, not even noticing Tom lying not more than a few feet from him.  It turned and glared at me, and Andy’s split face seemed to smile. 

“Pitiful child,” it said, in a voice that was not Andy’s, one I seemed to hear in my mind rather than in my ears.  “Superstitions and petty tricks do not harm me.”

I stumbled backwards, nearly falling over a burning log.  I stooped down and picked it up, swinging it wildly at the loping beast before me.  It laughed again.

“I do not fear fire or flame, the gift of my race to your primitive fathers.  We, who walked among the stars and will again.  The ancients are not dead.  No, they sleep only, but the time is coming of their waking.  What is your life against ours?  A blink, a whisper in the night, a flash that fades into darkness.  So, do not fear your death.  You will serve a grander purpose.”

I continued to fall back, but he matched me step for step. 

“Do not run.  Your pain will feed me, your flesh will be my sustenance, and in your death, I will live. What is your end?  Will you feed the worm?  Or a god?”

It hit me, then.  I would not survive.  I could not run.  There was simply nowhere to go.  I stopped backing up.  If he was to take me, I would face him.  He took another step towards me and another.  And then, I felt myself transported back, back to something my father once told me.  I was a young boy of twelve.  My father had taken me aside. 

“Jack,” he said, “this is dangerous business, and a man who lives by the forest may well die by it.” 

My father was not an educated man.  I guess he never had any schooling at all.  But he was wise, wise in a way that a man only gets through hard experience.  He knew one bit of Latin I suppose.  Just one bit.  And he taught me it that day. 

“Always remember this, Jack.  If the breaks go against you, if you are staring death in the face,
in hoc signo vinces
.  In this sign, you will conquer.  Remember it Jack, always.  And if death comes, you’ll die in His bosom.”

The Wendigo was on me now, so close I could smell death on his breath.  I looked down at the log next to me and accepted my fate.  I took it, raised it in the air and brought it straight down.  Then, I moved it from my left to right.  In the darkness, the cross of flame I had cut into the night shimmered in front of me, though the flaming brand was now at my side.  The Wendigo stopped, grinning at what I had done.  He laughed.

“More foolish superstition?” he asked.  “I wager this one will serve you no better.”

Then, he took another step forward, his chest passing through the spot I had marked.  I closed my eyes and prepared for death.  But nothing happened.  I ventured a look and saw the Wendigo standing in front of me, his blood red eyes peeled back, his mouth hanging open in what can only be described as shock.  He took a step backwards, and his knees began to shake.  He grabbed at his heart. 

“No!” he cried, in shock as much as pain.  I stood there dumbfounded as flame burst from his chest.  I watched as it spread, consuming the beast before my eyes.  In haunted cries, he broke from one unknown language to another, speaking words whose meaning I do not wish to know.

The beast fell to his knees.  But then, as the flames threatened to consume him, he looked at me and said, “The body dies, but the spirit lives on.” 

I saw his eyes change, saw the red drain from them.  In the instant before he died, I saw the eyes of Andy.  And though he was in unimaginable pain, they were filled with gratitude and joy. 

I suppose that is the end of the story, though it was not the end of the ordeal.  The horses were dead, and Tom could barely walk.  I took a bear skin and made it so that I could pull it behind me.  Tom rested inside, and I began to drag him through the snow, back through the forest to the town that lay miles beyond.  We had no supplies, no provisions.  But I was not concerned.  I could trap something, find something.  But as we moved on, it was as if every animal in the forest had vanished, as if we were cursed.  There was no food then, nothing to eat, nothing to catch.  A man can go a long time without food, but not in the cold, not when he is dragging another behind him.  Things happen in times like that, things you try and forget, things you don’t talk about.  Five days later, Tom died.  Seven days after that, I stumbled into the village.  Alone, but not starved. 

That was fifty years ago now, fifty years in which I have made the forest my home.  I never saw the Wendigo again, not in the flesh at least.  But there were times when the night was dark and cold, when the moon was full in the sky and the icy wind would cut through flesh and bone.  In those times, I would hear a voice on the wind and my dreams would be filled with flashes of light and peals of thunder, of dark shapes moving in the distance, and the screeching cry of a great bird seeking its prey.