Wendigo

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 carpeted 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. Shawna seemed horrified for some reason.

"But it can't snow now," she kept saying, "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.

"Maybe we should check on Karina," said Eric. "She probably wasn't betting on the snow when she decided to sleep out."

He went out, leaving Shawna and I alone for a minute. 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.

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. Hesitating for just a moment, I pulled on my boots and followed.

The cold hit us full-on when we opened the door. The RV was already half-buried by the storm. Shawna trained a flashlight on it and we saw that the door was open and that Karina was lying at the foot of the steps, unmoving.

Eric had said only that she was dead, refusing to tell us anything about how it happened. 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.

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

Most of the body was intact, but her arms and legs were...gone. Just gone. At first we couldn't figure it out, but then we saw the bones scattered around; 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 scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform—

I threw up.

Eric seemed like he'd recovered a bit from the shock when we came in, 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 stood apart, looking out the window again, looking at the trees again. 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 RV. Someone who looked like...

I looked at the others. They were arguing and didn't notice me. I slipped out as quietly as I could. 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.

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

"I know," he said. "I was away."

"Away?" I shook my head. "It's been more than a year. 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..."

The body was still there, just a few feet away in fact, but I was working very hard not to look at it. "I know," he said. "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 into the RV, 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 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, 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 bedding was chilly, 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 at it wind stopped, and I think the snow even stopped for a bit.

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. 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. 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 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. 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 with my head spinning.

It took me twice as long to dress as he had, fingers trembling. He was waiting for me outside, 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.

"We should go in," I said, "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.

"Are you okay?" I said.

"Never better." 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.

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

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

"Why?"

"Because I asked you to."

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.

"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. Then 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, 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. 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. 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.

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.

"That...doesn't make sense," Shawna said.

"I saw it too," said Eric. "It looked like Paul when we first went out, and then it changed..."

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 we heard it, plain as day: Paul's voice.

"Hi guys. Can you open up?"

Shawna got to the door first. I wanted to tell her not to, but I was having trouble making sense out of words. Paul was standing there on the porch, hands in his pockets, his normal self, smiling.

"Hey, sis."

Shawna didn't move. She didn't react. I realized I'd never seen her scared before.

"Is Eric in there?" Paul said.

"Paul..." said Shawna. Her voice was very small.

"I really need to talk to him. Just take a second. Not a big thing. Eric?"

Eric stood on wobbly legs. He went halfway to the door and stopped.

"'Sup bro?" said Paul. He smiled wider and I saw flecks of red between his teeth. "You stole my girl, didn't you?"

Eric shook his head. "It's not like that."

"Sure it is," said Paul, still smiling. "I understand, though. I was gone a while. That doesn't make it okay, but I should have expected something like this."

"Paul, leave him alone," said Shawna.

"Shut up." Paul took a step forward, so that he was just at the threshold. "Thing is, I've been thinking about it, and I don't want anyone else to get hurt," he said.

"I'm...I'm sorry about what happened out there already. I don't want any more of that. I figure, let's just settle this, you and me. You know: man to man. And the girls can go home. Sound okay?"

Eric said nothing, but he edged a little closer to the door. Shawna tried to push him back. "Eric, no, just stay here," she said. "He can't hurt us if we're in here, I mean look at him, he can't even come in."

"Sure I can," said Paul. "I'm just staying out here because it's safer for you. If I come in, people will get hurt."

"People are already hurt," said Shawna.

"All the more reason I don't want any more." Paul shrugged, like he always did. "Come on Eric, what do you say? You want to see everyone else go home, right?"

"Yeah," said Eric. He took another step, and now Shawna wrapped her arms around his waist to try and hold him in place.

"Eric, no!"

"It'll be all right, man," said Paul. He put his hand out. "I promise."

I watched it all happen in slow motion: Paul reaching in, his arm becoming very long and his hand becoming huge, and the whites of Eric's eyes growing large as that great claw closed around him and dragged him away.

I think I tried to stand and help, to grab his arm and pull him in and maybe save him. But I just couldn't.

With a howl of wind the door slammed shut, and they were both gone. Everything was quiet. Even the wind and the snow stopped.

Shawna went after them, but when she opened the door again there was nothing but the storm and those huge, animal-like tracks in the snow. She called Eric's name over and over. The wind called it back.

Shawna was saying that Eric might come back. She obviously didn't believe it, but you had to hope. I watched the seconds tick off the clock one by one. An hour passed. There was no sign of Eric, or of Paul.

Then, at a quarter after the hour, we heard the wind again. The house shuddered. The beast was hungry...

After thinking for a while, Shawna said it was time for us to make a break for it. She said that even if the sheriff's deputies got out here that there wouldn't be anything they could do. Only in town would we be safe, she said, though her tone sounded doubtful about even that.

She told me to wait here while she warmed up the RV, since I'd be safer inside. In my right mind I would probably have objected to being left alone, but as it was I just nodded.

I didn't have long to wait anyway, as Shawna came back within minutes, telling me that the RV was gone. She gave no further explanation, just "It's gone," and I nodded and accepted this.

"Why is he doing this?" Shawna said. "That's not Paul. Paul wouldn't do this."

"Yes he would," I said. It was the first thing I'd said in a while and it startled us both. I looked at my hands (not hands anymore, really) as I talked.

"You know how Paul was: selfish, hot-tempered, and a showoff. I loved him more than anyone, but you know how he was. We all knew."

"Paul wouldn't hurt people."

"You don't know what he'd do if he had to. No one knows what they might do."

The wind grew louder. Shawna seemed to be making a decision, and finally she said, "We still have to run for it. If the car is gone so is most of our food, and if this storm lasts the snow could trap us in here. There's a ranger station a few miles away. We might be able to make it."

She hesitated. "You can stay if you want to. I mean, I'm not going to make you go out there. It's dangerous either way."

"Is it more dangerous in or out?" I said.

Shawna shook her head. "I don't know."

I nodded. "All right. Let's go then."

We raided the hall closet, piling on as many layers of old winter clothes as we could. Shawna had to help me with every little button and zipper, since I couldn't grab onto anything.

We found one pair of gloves big enough to fit over my bandages; I looked like I was wearing oven mitts. I was finally starting to feel the pain. The bandages had almost bled through now, and I wondered how much more blood I could afford to lose.

Shawna went to the kitchen and came back with a knife, one that looked like it was probably older than the house. It was ridiculous to think we could protect ourselves with something that looked like it wouldn't make a dent in a Thanksgiving turkey, but it was that or go out empty-handed.

Shawna went ahead of me, holding the best flashlight in one hand and the knife in the other. The map was in her back pocket, though she'd shown me where the ranger station was and roughly how I could get there, in case we were separated.

I could hold a flashlight, albeit unsteadily, if I used both hands, so she gave me the second-best one and told me to keep behind her.

No matter which way we went the wind blew in our faces, the ice and the snow stinging our eyes. The drifts were almost three feet high and every step took the effort of five. Shawna had tied an old coat around her waist and another around mine, tying the sleeves together. The entire world was a cold, wet, windy void, blank white in every direction.