At one minute to midnight I took out the shot glass and put it beside the bottle of Jägermeister. I don’t drink anymore after what happened to Pop. The one exception is the first day of September.
The house is dark except for the warm glow of the three bulbs above the dining room table. I rub my tongue against the inside of my cheek. My mouth always goes dry.
The only sound is the incessant ticking of the wall-mounted clock. At midnight the soft bell sounds, a miniature version of church bells. I fill the glass and hold it aloft for a second and swallow with a deep breath. The subtle burn winds its way into my throat and stomach.
I wash the shot glass by the light of the moon shining through the kitchen window. Loretta wouldn’t mind my drinking, but a used shot glass beside the sink raises questions. And I never liked to talk about it.
All these years later I still have nightmares. What I saw up on that mountain left a greater impression than any other event in my life. More than my children being born and my father drinking himself into an early grave. Loretta tells me I should talk about it. That it would help. She might be right. She always is.
So here goes.
I joined the Park Rangers service right out of school and it was a perfect fit. I took to academics like a fish to the desert and the outdoors always called. I passed my time in school daydreaming of the weekend and hiking or flyfishing with Pop.
In the summer of 89, I was stationed in the Appalachians. Our jurisdiction encompassed trails leading all the way up the mountain. Up there the spruce thin out and clouds hang heavy even in fine weather at the base. I spent the summer clearing fallen branches from the walking trails after a couple of vicious storms over the winter. It was hack work reserved for the junior, but the truth of it was I didn’t mind.
The peak of the summer heat was spent and visitor numbers dropped as the weather began to turn. Persistent drizzle had kept me desk bound for the morning and we were about to get lunch when he burst through the door. He let out a moan and collapsed to the floor.
Stanley leaned down and propped him in a seated position. Water dripped from his shoulder length hair. His limbs hung limp by his side.
I handed Stanley a cup of water. Stanley used his index finger to push down his chin. When the water hit his tongue the man tensed and his eyelids flicked open. He flailed his limbs and knocked the glass from Stanley’s hand. The glass shattered on the floor, but the man paid it no mind.
“It is out there,” he said.
“What is?”
The man half-turned and gripped Stanley’s shirt and made balls with his fists. He repeated himself, pausing after each word.
“It. Is. Out. There.”
He started to sob. He released his grip on Stanley and buried his face in his hands. We lifted him onto a chair and he pressed his face against the table and bawled.
I grabbed the rucksack he had dropped to the floor. On the bottom right was a name tag behind a plastic sleeve. Lenny Porter from San Diego. There was a number at the bottom.
“I’ll make the call,” Stanley said.
When Stanley returned, Lenny was sat up staring blankly at the wall with red eyes. His face was gaunt, like he hadn’t eaten in a week.
Stanley closed the door. “I spoke to your father.”
Lenny didn’t acknowledge the words. He sat motionless and unblinking. Stanley shuffled across to where I was sitting and pressed his palms on the table.
“Lenny left San Diego two weeks ago with a couple of friends. They planned to spend a month hiking the trail north. The father gave me two names. Freddie and Sabrina.”
When he heard their names Lenny leaned over and picked up his backpack. He rummaged frantically until he pulled out a stack of polaroids. He flicked through the photographs and then slapped one on the table. Stanley and I leaned over. Flanking a fitter and healthier Lenny were what must have been Freddie, tall and wearing a baseball cap, and Sabrina, shorter and wearing a bright yellow top with an almost fluorescent blue belt pulling the fabric tight around her waist.
Lenny fingered the photo and tears welled in his eyes.
“What happened to them?”
He sobbed and shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out.
Stanley took a map down from the wall and pushed it in front of Lenny.
“We are here. Where did you last see them?”
Lenny blinked away tears and concentrated. He squinted at the map and pressed his index finger down and tapped it.
Stanley took a pencil from his breast pocket and marked the map with a cross. “I’ll notify the police. Get the truck ready to go.”
During training they told us about search and rescue operations. The Rangers are the first responders. It was part of the job. Twisted ankles and wandering off the trail and getting lost are not uncommon and no reason to get the police involved. But this felt different.
I secured the gear in the truck and Stanley appeared, flanked by a police officer in his early thirties.
“Harry is hitching a ride. His partner will take care of Lenny.”
We drove up the trail for about fifteen minutes with the truck until it grew too narrow and treacherous. We split up the gear between us and set out on foot.
Our destination was high up the mountain and far away from the trails. It was almost as if the trails deliberately avoided the area. We hacked our way through the thick forest. How had they ended up all the way out here?
Stanley checked his watch constantly as we climbed. He wanted to get there before dark. I figured we would be lucky if we did.
Stanley and Harry talked like old friends, asking about each other’s wives and children. The Park Rangers are in effect an extension of law enforcement. It made sense to be friendly with the police, and living in a small mountain town made it almost inevitable. I liked that.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Stanley checked the map. “Almost there. Get your torches.”
“Alright.” Harry reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight. I did the same.
“Do you know what’s up this way?” Stanley said.
I shook my head.
“Somewhere up here is an old cabin. Hunters used it as a base back when you could still hunt up this way. The cross our friend Lenny put on the map is just about on top of it. Let’s see if we can get there before there’s no light left.”
We didn’t make it by dark. Twilight gave to night with little warning. Soon we were relying on the light from our torches. Being on a trail in the sunshine lends a sense of security up here, even when you are alone. Now, surrounded by black and with the trail long behind us, an uneasiness grew in my stomach for the first time.
Stanley paused and swept his torch. He muttered something under his breath. Harry took a few steps to the right, lowering his head and squinting.
“There it is,” he said.
At the farthest reaches of Harry’s torchlight the cabin emerged from the woods.
Stanley tapped Harry on the shoulder. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
The cabin should have been a source of comfort, but it only added to my unease. The roof was half caved in and trees encroached on all sides, gnarled branches reaching out like fingers. The structure looked like it belonged more to the forest than to man.
The only door hung askew on warped and rusted hinges. Two windows had long ago lost their glass. Stanley shouldered open the door with a grunt. Leaves and branches covered the floor, blown in through the open windows and roof. We dumped the gear inside. Stanley took out a lantern and tied it to a horizontal branch a few paces from the front door. He flicked it on and the light shone bright. If there was anyone lost nearby they could not fail to see it.
We split up and entered the forest, guided by our torches. Stanley instructed us to go no further than the reach of the lantern. It was our lighthouse on the horizon.
The wind blew in fresh from the north. I buttoned up my jacket against the cold. The beam from the torch was strong, but aside from the narrow cone of light, the forest was a deep and full dark. Stanley and Harry called out the names of the two missing – Freddie and Sabrina. I did the same.
Every few steps I stopped and listened. The forest was alive with the scurrying of animals and insects going about their business. And the constant rustling of the wind through the leaves. It was hopeless. This was needle in the haystack stuff. Freddie or Sabrina could be unconscious on the ground a few feet to my left and I would never see them. We should camp and wait for first light.
Harry’s voice cut through the night, louder and with urgency. I skipped towards the sound as fast as I dared. The two torchlights of Harry and Stanley played close together, the beams of light trained on the forest floor.
“You might not want to see this,” Stanley said as I came up behind them.
It was too late. By the light of the torches I saw him. Flat on his back, arms and legs bent at unnatural angles. I almost gagged when I saw his face. The left side caved in, a red, bloody mess fragmented with the white of the skull. The right side was intact, one green eye staring up, wide and unblinking. The remainder of the face had an almost serene expression. It was not the look of fear that you would expect from someone about to have half their face crushed. No skin remained below the neck, the contents of his torso picked so clean I could see his full spine.
“What did that?” I stammered.
I didn’t get an answer. Stanley fished the polaroid from his pocket and studied it under the torchlight. He handed it to Harry.
“It’s him. It’s Freddie.”
Harry jumped and swung his torch out into the woods.
“I swear I heard someone talking out there,” Harry said.
“We’ve been calling out their names too.”
“No, it wasn’t that. It sounded like whispering.”
“It’s the wind through the trees.”
Harry didn’t look convinced. He called out the name of Sabrina and listened. Only the sounds of the forest.
Stanley shushed him. “There’s nothing we can do for the boy now. Let’s get back to the cabin and radio down the news.”
Stanley took a few quick steps towards the cabin and motioned for us to follow. He seemed agitated. I didn’t blame him. I followed on his heels. Harry lingered, searching the woods with his torch until he too fell in behind.
The inside of the cabin felt like a sanctuary. Out of the wind and removed from the mangled corpse of Freddie, my mind processed the sight. I had gutted my fair share of fish, but this was different. I put my hand to my stomach and swallowed hard. I was overcome with a compulsion to repeat my unanswered question. What could have done that?
Before I could, Harry gave us some more bad news. There was no response on the radio, only static. It wasn’t surprising, the cabin sat in a depression between the peak we crested on our way in and the taller peak beyond.
“We have to go back,” I said.
Harry shook his head. “Not in the dark and not when there’s someone still out there.”
“We don’t know if that girl is dead or alive,” Stanley said.
“I heard her.”
“You heard a whisper is what you said. And if she was there she would have come to the light. She’ll come to the lantern and we’ll wait for her.”
Harry threw out his arms in protest.
Stanley sighed. “If she’s dead then we’ll find her in the light of morning. If she’s alive and nearby enough to whisper in our ears then she’ll come to us.”
Two rectangles of light shone through the open windows from the lantern outside, but the front room of the cabin still had dark shadowy corners. Stanley took a second lantern and tied it to an old light fixture hanging from the ceiling. The room lit up as if under sunlight, but a cold light that gave the room a bare and unwelcome feel.
I busied myself clearing a space on the floor beside the black pot belly stove at the rear of the room. Stanley and Harry stood as statues, staring up at the wall behind me. I turned. Etched in black soot onto the blank wall was some kind of monster. Long limbed and with an elongated skull. It stared back at us through white blobs left clear of black. I took a step back and almost stumbled.
“What is that?”
I didn’t need an answer. You don’t live and work up in the mountains here without hearing the stories. Stories told dismissively by daylight, like you would talk about the monsters you imagined hiding in your closet as a kid. By night and around a camp fire the stories take on a graver tone, and the name of the monster is only ever whispered. Wendigo.
Of course I had never seen one. But if I had to imagine what one might look like, the painting in soot taking up the full height of the wall of the cabin was an exact match.
I waited for one of the two men behind me to dismiss what we saw drawn on the wall. To make light of it and crack a joke. Neither did. Stanley uttered a simple instruction.
“No one goes outside without a weapon.”
Our shadows danced on the walls. The lantern hanging from the ceiling did not move. Stanley leaned and looked out the window. The lantern hanging from the tree branch swung back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. There was wind tonight, but not enough to do that.
Stanley bent down and fished a rifle from the bag. My heart beat like a drum in my ears. And then something else. Whispers. What sounded like the whispers of a girl, entreating us, inviting us out into the darkness of the forest.
Stanley inched open the door with the muzzle of his rifle. He stepped through the gap and watched the lantern on the tree come to a rest. He stood beside the lantern and searched the corners of the forest illuminated by the light. Nothing moved.
Harry unclipped the leather strap on his belt and drew a pistol and went to the doorway. I felt naked and exposed with my hands empty. I took a step backwards, the wendigo drawn in soot looming large behind and burning a hole in the back of my head.
A shadow flashed through the trees and Stanley swung the muzzle of the rifle and shot, the crack piercing the night. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and flicked it from side to side searching for movement. The lantern boobed up and down. With a rush a long limbed creature dropped onto Stanley from above. He screamed and wrenched the rifle around but had it knocked from his grip. Harry fired two shots and the creature let out a wail. It bound towards the door and Harry slammed it shut. He pointed the pistol to the closed door and emptied the chamber.
Harry took a step back and shot me a glance. Through the whole ordeal I had not moved. I had barely breathed. Was it dead? Was Stanley ok?
“The window,” I screamed.
The long thin fingers of the creature wrapped themselves around the inside of the window frame. Then the head appeared, uncannily human-like but distorted and disfigured. The chin elongated and the teeth like razors and drenched in blood. Its eyes white and piercing. Just like the etching on the wall.
Harry grabbed me by the arm and hauled me into the back room of the cabin. He slammed shut the flimsy door. The back room was windowless and the only light was a thin strip at the base from the lantern in the front room.
We crouched together, our shoulders pressed against the door. We listened. The light patter of footsteps. Two thin strips of black interrupted the strip of light at the base of the door. Something stood on the other side.
“Come out, it is ok.”
It sounded like Stanley. Had he killed it?
“Come out.”
Harry straightened and I grabbed his shoulder.
“Don’t open the door,” I whispered. They say a Wendigo can imitate those it kills.
My hand brushed against Harry’s back and knocked the flashlight from his jacket pocket. I fumbled in the darkness until I found it and I flicked it on. I scanned the room for something, anything we could use as a weapon. I walked away from the door and kicked at the twigs and leaves on the floor. All that was good for was kindling.
Something smelled rotten. There must be a dead rat somewhere.
“It’s Stanley,” Harry said.
I pointed the torch to him. His eyes were wide and wild.
“He must have killed it.”
He smiled at me and took a step back. The door slammed open and carried with it the rotten stench. What stood in the doorway was not Stanley, but the Wendigo. Harry kneeled before it, breathing in the noxious fumes.
I shone the torch onto the creature. Its grey skin pulled tight on a gaunt frame. And then something glinted. A belt buckle. Around the creature’s waist was the bright blue belt Sabrina wore in the polaroid.
“Sabrina?” I said.
It turned to me and paused, tilting its head to the side. I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition, a brief moment where it knew the name. But then it snarled, its mouth opening wide and dripping with saliva. It wrapped two hands around the neck of Harry and leaned in.
I acted instinctively, without thinking. I jumped at the creature, swinging the only weapon I had, the torch. I brought it down on its head with all the strength and adrenaline I had. It bucked and sent me flying into the front room beyond. I threw out my hands against the fall and grabbed the lantern Stanley had hung from the ceiling. It could not bear my weight and the cord pulled out from the ceiling and I fell with a thud.
I jumped up at a burst of warmth from my stomach. The lantern had smashed on impact and the white hot filament broke free of its casing. I groaned in pain and the creature lumbered forwards. I retreated into the corner of the room and pulled my knees up to my chest. It stood over me and opened its mouth, razor sharp teeth gleaming white.
Then the smell of smoke. The creature hopped and then scrambled backwards. The leaves and twigs covering the floor ignited under the heat from the lamp filament. A small flame burst up and the creature covered its face. Fire. It didn’t like fire.
I crawled forwards and swept as much of the kindling as I could grab onto the flames. The fire grew and the creature screamed. As smoke filled the room it coughed and spluttered. It made one last effort to come at me and then retreated out of the room and into the forest.
I went to the back room and grabbed Harry. We stumbled out of the cabin, the fire now spreading up the walls and to the roof.
Stanley lay below the lantern hung from the tree, unmoving and with a chunk of flesh missing from his throat.
We ran into the forest in the opposite direction the creature had gone. We first climbed up to the crest and then back down the mountain.
We stumbled our way down by the light of the torch. Adrenaline coursed through our veins and we imagined that thing right behind us, stalking us in the dark. When we finally crossed a trail we followed it back down to the ranger station.
A team of police and national guard hiked up to the cabin after the sun rose. The cabin had burned to the ground, the pot belly stove the only item that survived the blaze. The bodies of Stanley and Freddie were brought down. They said Stanley’s flesh had been picked clean down to the skeleton. That was the first day of September, 1989.
Sabrina was listed as a missing person and her father spent a month in the mountains searching for her. But she’s gone in every sense that matters. Turned to a Wendigo by hunger for human flesh. She transformed into something unrecognisable from where it began.
Around campfires people still tell stories of the Wendigo. I don’t know if they truly believe they are out there. But I know, I have seen it. Sometimes there really is a monster in the closet.