Wendigo

He was building up and almost ready to leg go, and I squeezed as hard as I could, jerking him off, swallowing his moans when we kissed. I felt the wave welling up, building, pushing down and out, radiating hotness through my limbs. Eric lost control, gushing cream over my hand, and the feeling of the wet, dripping, sticky mess was enough to make me boil over. I think I soaked him, and I may even have left a spot on that couch.

What can I say? I'm the excitable type.

It was nearly ten o'clock when Shawna came back. I say just Shawna because Karina was still outside. She'd decided to camp out in the spare tent. Shawna played this off as Karina wanting to sleep outdoors because she'd never been camping in her life, but I thought it might have something to do with their goodbye observance. Eric and I were dressed again and acting as casual as possible, but I was aware that the house smelled like sex and that Eric would never be able to keep a straight face, so I excused myself and went out to check on Karina.

She was standing next to the tent when I caught up with her, and although I didn't realize it at the time she was staring at that spot in the trees where I saw —or thought I saw— whatever it was, earlier. She had an expression that I've thought about a lot lately: I guess you could call it awe. She'd seemed pretty amazed by the scenery on the way up, so I didn't think anything of it. I asked if there was anything she needed, and she smiled at me in the sweetest way and said, "Nope. I've got everything in the world."

I think about that a lot now, too.

When I got back inside Shawna had broken into her the house liquor along with us (ours was all still in the car), and I could tell by Eric's expression what they'd just been talking about; that man could never keep a straight face to save his life. I made another Irish coffee and Shawna sent Eric out to the shed to get wood for the fire. I expected her to let me have it once we were alone, but instead she just gave me a little nod and patted me once on the knee, and that was it. It's funny how much better I felt then, and I started to wonder if maybe this trip was good for everyone after all.

We talked more about school, and then about the trip to Brazil Shawna was planning, and when Eric came back we got the fire going and we drank more, and things finally started to feel kind of okay. I sat next to Eric on the couch and he held my hand, keeping it between us so Shawna couldn't see it; not because he wanted to hide but just because it was a modest, Eric kind of thing to do. My heart melted. We all seemed happier than we'd been in longer than I could remember. It wasn't just like old times, but that was what made it good.

Shawna noticed it first: "Jesus," she said, looking at the back deck, "it's snowing!"

Sure enough, flurries of May snow were slowly carpeting the ground outside. We gathered at the sliding glass door, watching. It must have been going for almost an hour judging from how deep it was already. Eric looked surprised but amused, and I imagine I looked much the same, but Shawna seemed horrified for some reason. "But it can't," she kept saying, "it can't snow now. It just can't."

"Well, it's not that strange," I said. "Remember when we were kids and it snowed on your birthday?" Shawna's birthday was the last week of April.

"But that was barely anything," she said. "This is a real storm." She gestured to the drifts piling higher outside. The wind hit the side of the house then, hard, and the rafters creaked with the force of it.

"Oh my God, Karina is still out there," said Eric, and I started. I was embarrassed that I had forgotten all about her, and judging from the look on Shawna's face so had she. Eric went out to find her, leaving Shawna and I alone for a minute. She laid her head on my shoulder and hugged me. She seemed frightened for some reason, and I had to admit that I was too. The wind blasted the roof and the snow piled high in the trees, turning them into the vague, monster-haunted shapes of my childhood.

It was a while before Eric came back. He stumbled through the door looking dazed. Snow was in his hair, but he didn't bother to brush it off. He seemed out of sorts but I really thought he'd just had too much to drink until Shawna asked how Karina was and he looked at us with a blank face and said:

"She's dead."

I opened my mouth to say, "What do you mean?" but his expression already told me perfectly well what he meant.

Shawna asked anyway and all Eric would say was, "She's dead, she's dead," again and again. He refused to go back outside no matter how many times Shawna told him to go get Karina. I think he really was in shock and Shawna finally gave up and, angry and scared, decided to go check on Karina herself. I imagine she thought Eric must have made some kind of insane mistake (no one would ever suspect Eric of pulling a prank, especially not one like this), but I think I already knew, deep down, that he was telling the truth.

Hesitating for just a moment, I pulled on my boots and followed Shawna out. The cold hit us full-on when we opened the door. I always remember how cold it was that night.

Karina's tent was pitched about fifty yards away, already half-buried by the storm. Shawna trained a flashlight on it and we saw that the flap was open and that Karina was lying half in and half out, unmoving. Eric had said only that she was dead, refusing to tell us anything about how it happened, and I'd gone out with the idea that a spring branch had broken under the weight of the snow and fallen on her, but I saw nothing like that now. I began to speculate about some way she might have frozen to death this fast but when we came close enough to really see her then there was no need to guess anymore.

The snow all around her body was red. So much red...

I remember her face was placid, as if she'd died in her sleep. But that was impossible given her condition. Most of the body was intact, but her arms and legs were...gone. They were just gone. At first we couldn't figure it out, but then we saw the bones scattered around the bloody snow; I thought of the leftovers of a chicken dinner. As Shawna's flashlight revealed each one I started naming them, dredging up everything I could remember about skeletal structure from my anatomy classes: ulna, radius, humerus, tibia, fibula, femur, patella; the bones of the carpus are the scaphoi, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform—

I threw up.

I'm not sure how long it was before Shawna was shaking me, telling me I had to get up, that we had to move Karina inside. I nodded and obeyed without question. Shawna did most of the work; she wrapped the body in a sleeping bag and then, after a moment's hesitation, she dumped out the contents of Karina's overnight bag and began collecting the stray bones in it. I helped. Neither of us had gloves, so we just tried not to think about what we were touching. As I gingerly picked up the remains of Karina's foot (tarsal bones: calcaneus, talus, cuboid, navicular, and medial, intermediate and lateral cuneiform bones), I saw marks on the bone. I thought of the coyotes that picked apart the bodies of Paul's friends, but of course, animals don't just stop at the arms and legs...

We took her in and put her in what used to be Paul and Shawna's bedroom, Shawna looking grim as she placing the wrapped body on the bed and I set the bag next to it in what I hoped was a respectful way. Eric seemed like he'd recovered a bit from the shock, and he answered Shawna's questions about what he'd seen and how he'd found her, but he didn't know anything more than we did; she was dead, dead and in pieces, somehow, and that's all anyone knew. The wind whipped the sides of the house harder and harder.

Shawna called the sheriff's department and they promised to send help as fast as they could, though the storm would hold them up. Eric took me by the shoulders, talking very slowly, and for a minute I thought he was trying to tell me everything would be all right, but then I realized no, he was asking me whether everything would be all right. I told him I didn't know. Soon he and Shawna were arguing. I stood apart, looking out the window again, looking at the trees again, looking at the little tent and the red snow. What happened out there? I was shaking all over. Shawna and Eric did not notice me. I put my head against the cold glass and mouthed a prayer to no one and nothing. When I opened my eyes again I almost screamed. Someone was outside, standing next to the tent. Someone in a red parka. Someone who looked like...

I looked at the others, lost in their argument. I slipped out as quietly as I could. They didn't notice. I didn't even bother to put on my coat. I didn't' care.

Paul was there, with the hood of his parka down. Paul, looking at me, hands stuck in his pockets just like always. His hair had grown long and a beard hid his face, but I still recognized him. He didn't react as I approached but just kept looking at me, expression strangely troubled. It wasn't until I reached out to touch him that he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. He was freezing.

"Hey baby," he said.

"Are you...?" I touched his face. His beard scratched my fingers. I brushed snowflakes off his eyebrows. He smiled.

"Paul," I said, "we all thought you were dead. Everyone. Everyone thought you were dead. Even Shawna!" I was babbling.

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry I was away."

"Away?" I shook my head. "Paul, it's been more than a year. Paul, what happened to you? Where have you been? Why—?"

He put his arms around me and pulled me in. I hugged him as hard as I could. My tears were hot but they chilled and almost froze by the time they reached the bottom of my face. He stroked my hair just like he used to.

"Paul," I said, "something terrible happened to Karina."

"I know."

"No one even saw it."

"Don't worry about that now." He leaned in to kiss me. I hesitated.

"What about the others?"

"They can wait."

"But Eric is..." I trailed off. Paul frowned a little.

"What about Eric?"

"Nothing," I said. "Never mind. It can wait. They can wait."

I kissed him back. It felt strange with the beard, but it was still Paul. He scooped me up in his arms like he used to, so that my feet actually left the ground for a second, and it took my breath away just like it always did. When Paul held me I felt —not safe, because no one should ever feel safe around Paul no matter what he was doing. Rather, I felt like nothing mattered. Eric, Karina, the last year, even the snowflakes accumulating on us as we stood there, it all might as well have been happening on the moon.

I say this because I want you to understand something: Paul always got his way. No matter what it was or what was going on, it was just part of the nature of being him. So when he started carrying me to the tent, even though I should have stopped him for any number of reasons (not least of which being the streaks of Karina's blood still painting the ground around it...), there was never any real chance of that happening.

It was hot inside the little tent for some reason; steamy hot. I hadn't realized before that Karina had left a flashlight on inside, and our two shapes blotted out the light with strange shadows on the canvas, looking like the silhouette of some huge animal with too many arms and legs. I wasn't dressed for the cold, so it didn't take long for Paul to get my pants down and around my knees. The ground under us was frigid even through the protection of the sleeping bag, but when Paul kissed me that was warmth enough. He stripped himself in a hurry then leaned onto me, pulling my head back by the hair and turning my face to the side (he knows I love that). His hand was pushing down there, seeking, feeling me out. He knew every curve on me. When two of his fingers slid into my pussy he stopped, brow furrowed, and I caught my breath long enough to ask what was wrong.

"Nothing," he said, in a tone that meant it was more than nothing.

Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to make him stop, or even pause for very long. He was unzipped now and I felt him between my legs, pushing up against me, and I ached inside. I was about to say something about protection but somehow it seemed absurd to think about now, with him back from the dead and in my arms all within the last ten minutes. So instead I just let him go, and when the length of him filled me I cried out, and he put his hand over my mouth and pushed my head back again, and that made me whimper.

At the time I just thought he was doing that because he knew I'd always liked it, but now I wonder if he wasn't trying to stop the others from hearing. Because I noticed that all the while we were in the tent the wind stopped, and I think the snow even stopped for a bit. But at the time I had more important things on my mind.

Paul had stripped off his parka and shirt as well. I kept mine on, fearing the cold, but his hands were all over me anyway, pawing my breasts even through several layers. That was Paul; nothing stopped him from getting what he wanted. He slammed up into me again and again, the kind of hard, rough, needy fucking that we used to do after a fight or when one of us had had a bad day. My voice was stuck in my throat and I was making a noise halfway between a moan and a sob every time he went in. My back hurt from grinding against the ground (already bruised from the couch an hour ago...) and he was being too rough with me again, his fingers almost bruising my neck and jaw, but I didn't say anything and really didn't mind. I was burning up. He was rigid. His face showed grim determination, and he was panting hard already.

I put my hands on him and his body felt strange. The light inside the tent was flickering and inconstant as the movement of our tangled bodies continually blocked the one tiny lantern so it was hard for me to see him except as a dark shape, but my fingers felt him out. Although he looked just as he always had, with an outdoorsman's hard, toned body, when I touched him he felt like skin and bones. I wondered what happened, but I decided that questions (so many questions) could wait, distracted as we both were now by hard, insistent, animalistic rutting.

Paul was bending me so hard I thought I would break. He seemed ready to shudder in half, too, and I actually heard the tent's canvas rip as he dug his fingers into it. He pulled out at the last second and I felt him splash hot and sticky against the inside of my thigh, dribbling down my bare skin.

I tried to kiss him but he pulled away, leaving me jilted for a moment but too spent to care. He dressed in silence while I lay, quaking, used up, head spinning. He always did that to me. It took me twice as long to dress as he had, fingers trembling. He was waiting for me outside the tent, and he caught me when my weak knees gave way. I smothered myself against his chest. The snow was falling around us again, and the wind had picked up. It sounded shrill and unpleasant.

"Paul," I said, "we should go in. The others will want to see you. And I want to know —I have to know—where you've been?"

"Sure," Paul said. He was looking at me strangely. He caught my hands in his and took them up, kissing the backs of my knuckles. I smiled. The wind screeched louder.

"Paul?" I said. "Are you all right?"

"Never better," he said. He was squeezing my hands very hard. It hurt a little. I wasn't wearing gloves. He would not let go. He was still cradling me against him. My ears began to hurt from the whine of the wind. What was that sound? I closed my eyes and strained to hear, and realized that I was actually hearing a voice. The whining noise in my ears wasn't the wind: it was Shawna. She was screaming and screaming, and I realized she was screaming my name.

"Paul?" I said, "What's that?"

"It's nothing. Keep your eyes closed."

"Why?"

"Because I asked you to."

My fingers went numb. "Shawna is calling me."

"We're almost finished."

"My hands hurt a little. Can you let go?"

"In a minute."

Shawna's screams got louder. "But Paul—"

I opened my eyes. I saw that my hands were covered in blood. I tried to move them and I couldn't. I looked back and saw Shawna standing in the door of the house with Eric, and they were both screaming for me, and I saw Eric's face, horrified. I saw the tracks in the snow too, tracks like an animal might leave, but bigger and deeper. Paul put a hand over my eyes. "What are they scared of?" I said.

"Monsters," said Paul.

"I'm safe with you, aren't I?"

"Of course."

I was warm inside, even though I felt cold all over. I thought about what he said: "Monsters." I remembered Paul bursting out of the snow bank when we were kids, roaring while I ran and screamed. I'd been so scared, but it was all right: The monster was just Paul.

The monster was Paul...

I looked up. Paul was gone. Instead I saw—

It was tall, very tall, so tall that its head scraped the trees, and it was so thin that there was hardly any flesh on its body at all; just a bag of bones. I remember its big, luminous eyes, like moons. And it had so many teeth, and its mouth was full of blood, and so were its great paws with their long, bony fingers.

I looked at my own hands. There wasn't much left of them.

And now I screamed too.

The wind took my screams away, so I ran. I ran, feet churning the snow, and when I fell I got back up and ran again. Eric caught me halfway and pulled me with him into the house. Shawna was still staring at the thing by the tent, but then we passed her and she ran too. The wind picked up stronger than ever and for the first time I heard the words in it:

The wind was calling my name.

Eric slammed the door and locked it, and then locked the back door too. Shawna checked to make sure all the windows were locked. All the while they were shouting and screaming: What was that thing, what was it, where did it go?

I sat on the rug, looking at my hands; I didn't feel any pain. I felt tranquil. I thought about what I'd heard about hypothermia victims, how at some point they just give up and accept it, lying down and dying peacefully, as if they were taking a nap. Shawna got the first aid kit and tried to help, but there wasn't much she could do. She used up all the gauze, and I ended up with two bloody, immobile mittens. I looked at them as if they belonged to someone else. Everything seemed like it was happening behind thick glass. I'd learned about the symptoms of clinical shock (Acute Stress Reaction) in class, and my lecture notes tumbled through my head, rattling around in the empty space where my thoughts should be.

Shawna was talking to me. She asked me, what was that thing? I said, "It was Paul." Shawna's eyes went wide, and her lower lip trembled. "It was Paul," I said again, and she actually slapped me, though I barely felt it. She was about to do it again when Eric jumped in.

"It was," he said.

Shawna blinked at him and then she stood up, face all in a rage, but Eric didn't back down. "

I saw it," he said. "It looked like Paul when we first went out, and then it changed. You saw it too. You know you did."

Shawna was shaking and ashen, but she sat down. It was hard to argue with Eric, because it was hard to think of him ever lying about anything. If Eric said it, you knew it was true.

Before anyone could say more there was a knock at the door. It was very light and very soft, but everyone jumped. And then there came a noise at the back door, a thumping and a crashing; it was the wind, of course, but not normal wind. Rather, it was like all the wind of the storm was aimed at that door all at once, and the house rattled.

And then we heard it, plain as day: Paul's voice at the front door.

"Hi guys. Can you open up?"

No one moved. The wind hit the house again and Paul knocked some more, like a tiny echo to the enormous sound. "Come on and open the door," he said. Still no one moved.