Last summer my younger sister went missing on a camping trip with friends. She had just turned twenty and we had started to drift away from each other. I’d gotten busy focusing on my own life. I left the country for a new job. When I came back at Christmas, I found out she had gone missing. It explained why she hadn’t been answering my messages. I didn’t understand why no one contacted me about her disappearance. The police claimed to not have my new number and didn’t have access to her phone. I was certain her friends didn’t want me knowing because they had time getting their stories straight.
I asked for a leave from work to track down those four friends. They all claimed that she had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the washroom and no one noticed she hadn’t come back until the morning. I didn’t buy it.
They all said a slightly different location from where they camped that night. None of them gave collaborating details about the campsite. One said they used logs for seats. Another said the entire area was clear. They were lying where they had set up camp and it caused the search team to be looking in the wrong place.
I passed along the information but since it was still winter, the rangers couldn’t search the forest. They promised when the weather got better, they would try looking in other popular camping areas in case the four just got confused.
Her friends smartened up and refused to speak with me. Threats of lawyers started. I couldn’t do anything else but go back to work and wait till spring.
I got the call at work that she had been found. Well, parts of her had been found. A man who had been panning for gold found some finger bones in the river. Soon with more people going into the forest for the season, more pieces started to be discovered. In total, half her skull, some ribs, and the finger bones were discovered. There had been some larger bones that hadn’t yet been fully tested to find out if they were hers.
It may sound gruesome, but I demanded photos of each piece found. I felt as if the police weren’t doing their job. They closed the case saying she had just gotten lost. They claimed the damage to the skull could have happened after death. After I saw a photo of the femur, I doubted that fact. The marrow had been scrapped out. There also were scratches on the bone the police said were made by animals. It did appear to have been gnawed on but not by sharp teeth.
Our parents died when I was seventeen and she was fourteen. When it happened, I promised to take care of her. I failed her. I assumed since she became an adult, I was no longer needed. I was wrong.
If I couldn’t save her the least I could do is find out what happened. Too many things weren’t adding up. I quit my job even though my boss said I could come back any time. He’s lost a child, so he understood how grief worked. I did some research and packed what was needed. Then I drove to a small town by the forest looking for answers.
I questioned some of the local shop workers trying to find out what happened before the group went into the woods. Apparently, my sister had become friends with those four locals she camped with. It was the first time they met in person but talked a lot online. I asked if there was a reason why they suddenly decided to go camping. Anyone I spoke with suddenly started to avert their eyes as if they knew more but didn’t admit to it. There was an odd air about this town. Everyone appeared as if they were trying to cover up a darkness with fake smiles.
After my short investigation, I headed over to the ranger’s station. I’ve spoken with them on the phone before, but I figured I would press my luck trying to get more information if they couldn’t just hang up.
Only two people were inside the small ranger station. An older man who was double my size. But I bet he was still fit enough to do his job. A younger woman who looked like she may be his daughter walked around the desk to greet me. She was extra friendly and reminded me a little of my sister.
“I’m Dustin Hill, I’ve spoken to Ranger Dan before.” I said and her face dropped a little.
Her smile was strained once she knew who I was. The other Ranger didn’t get up from his chair. His face was half hidden by a large local newspaper. He flipped the pages trying to ignore me.
“I have no news for you.” He said not even looking up.
I wondered if he could feel my glare at the back of his head. The younger women looked between us in distress unsure of what to say.
“May I have a map of my sister’s last location? I’m not from the area and I don’t want to get lost.”
The older Ranger sighed and stood up. He sorted through some papers and grabbed a trail map. At least he was patient telling me which path to take and how long the hike would be. He had nothing personally against me. He just wished I accepted my sister was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. I refused to believe that fact.
“It’s been a full season. I’m not sure what you think you might find.” The female Ranger said innocently.
“Anything.” I told her and put away the map provided. “I’ll be staying in the forest for a while.”
Ranger Dan frowned. He crossed his arms disproving of my plan. Instead of trying to stop me, he gave me a single piece of advice.
“Bring a gun.”
I stopped at the doorway to let what he said sink in. Sure, there were bears in the area, but no one had been killed by one in over five years. I nodded silently accepting the help. He must have some sort of unknown reason for acting so short with me. If I only knew what that was, I may be closer to finding out what happened to my sister. I would discover this town’s secret sooner than I thought.
It was too late in the day to start at the campsite. I rented a motel room planning to set out in the morning. After it got dark, I put on my jacket to go outside for a quick smoke. I’ve been quitting on and off since my parents died. A figure pacing out by my window was also the reason why I decided to head outside.
I startled the female Ranger from earlier in the day. She had been trying to work up the courage to knock. She almost left when she saw me. It took her a moment to collect herself.
“It would be pointless going to that campsite.” She told me.
“It is because my sister was never there?” I asked her.
Her lips tightened showing that was the truth. She chewed on the inside of her cheek not wanting to continue speaking.
“Yes. I hated lying. Where they really went… is complicated.”
“I don’t think taking a hike is overly complicated. Tell me.” I pressed after I lit a cigarette.
My voice had grown cold after my sister died. I only cared about finding out the cause and nothing more. I think my harsher demeanor unnerved a lot of people.
“They went to Rosethorn Cabin. It’s a local legend around here.” She started.
My sister had always liked ghost stories and urban legends. She didn’t know what she wanted to do as a career yet. The last I heard she held down a few part-time jobs while trying to figure out the rest of her life. Had she come here because she wanted to write about legends? She had always been good at writing.
“Ten years ago, the two children of the mayor went to their cabin late in the season. A massive snowstorm hit. From what I heard there was a misunderstanding where they were staying. It was a month before anyone figured out they were stranded in the cabin. When a small rescue team arrived, they found the son in good health, but the daughter was nowhere to be found.”
She let the implications sink in. It was a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. But what does the death of a girl ten years ago have to do with my sister?
“So? No offense, but I don’t care what happened to them.” I harshly said.
“After what happened the mayor tried to pay people to keep quiet. The son went back into the woods to live in the cabin. Some people say it was to get away from people accusing him of a crime… but others claim something else. That he uh, became a Wendigo.”
She almost looked embarrassed saying the word. I’ve heard about them in passing. I wasn’t into myths as much as my sister. All I knew about them was that you could become one if you ate human flesh. And for some odd reason, they had antlers in a lot of images people made of them.
“Why do they think that beyond the suggestion he ate his sister to stay alive? Did he start acting weird? Did he look weird?” I questioned.
“He disappeared from the cabin after the first winter. People claim to see a pale thin wild man living in the woods. A few campers have gone missing only to have their bones to be found but… with the marrow gone. As if… something had eaten it.”
She paused to rub her arms as if she had gotten a chill. She also started looking around expecting someone to be listening to our conversation. I didn’t believe in the whole Wendigo idea, but I would consider the Rosethorn son to have gone insane. She pulled out some papers from her back pocket and held them out for me to take.
“I’m sorry about your sister. Her death should not have happened. The mayor has since become a powerful politician. He’s done everything in his power to ensure it’s not well known that his son might be living in the woods killing and eating people. Even if you find evidence that proves your sister was murdered by our local Wendigo, you may never be able to get the truth out there. Still, I made you a map of how to get to the cabin. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
I thanked her for the help, truly glad someone in this town was willing to tell me the truth. She soon left not wanting to be caught. People of this town thought there was a monster in the woods. They had been tight-lipped for my safety. I finished smoking and then went back inside the small motel room ready to try and get some rest. I would need it for the hike the next day.
I checked out in the morning. I wasn’t the best at reading maps, but this one was simple enough to understand. The trails up to the cabin weren’t marked. They almost had been grown over due to lack of use. I needed to take a few breaks because my pack was too heavy. My job had always been in an office. I wasn’t used to hiking. My body hated every moment, but I forced myself to carry on.
I found the cabin a few hours before sunset. My stomach hurt from stress and hunger. I did listen to the ranger’s advice. A small handgun that had once belonged to my father was holstered on my hip. We’d only gone shooting together once. After my sister disappeared, I went to the range to practice. Each time I imagined the target to be a bear or a shadow figure attacking her. It helped me improve quickly, but it didn’t bring her back. No matter what I did, she would always be gone.
The cabin was barely standing. The wood had rotted the elements without being maintained for so long. For some reason, the forest was quiet. The closer I got to the cabin the less I heard the birds in the trees. Dark clouds covered the sun giving the entire area an unsettling look. Soon droplets of rain started to come down.
I didn’t plan on staying inside the cabin. I went inside to avoid the rain wondering if the weather would get so bad that it would force me to sleep inside for the night. The floorboards creaked with every step. Soon the rain and wind outside got so heavy it felt like the small cabin started to shake.
It was a tiny space. There was only a living area with a small bathroom. No furniture remained. Only a rusted useless stove. At least the fireplace still worked. It took a few minutes to get the fire going. Then I took out my flashlight trying to see better in the grey light.
The wooden floors were less rotten inside. There were some odd spots where someone had scrubbed them as clean as the old wood could be. I got down low to run my fingertips over old scratches on the floor. Tracing my fingers over them I realized they looked to be made by something with four claws. For an hour I crawled over the floor desperately looking for anything. A scrap of fabric, or some blood stains. I needed proof that my sister had been here.
Just before I gave up my light caught something between the cracks of the floorboards. I used my Swiss army knife and carefully lifted the small object out from between the two boards. When it was in my hand my heart nearly stopped from pain. I held a small silver letter charm. When my sister graduated, I bought her a bracelet that you could add charms to. The first one was an L for Lexi. She hated going by Alex but as a big brother, I used her full name to annoy her. I gave her the bracelet to apologize for not respecting her name and promised to be better.
I expected to get emotional finding something of hers. I’d been almost numb since I heard about her disappearance. Even thinking her name almost felt to be too much. But now, I only felt a deep heat inside my chest. The charm was put away somewhere safe.
I didn’t care if whatever was in the woods was a Wendigo or a guy who just lost it. I was going to kill him.
The storm outside picked up. At some points the thunder and wind made the entire building tremble. I didn’t want to be inside if the roof came down, but I wouldn’t be able to see if I went outside. My stomach was too stressed for dinner. For hours I sat facing the door with a blanket to try and keep away the early spring chill.
I planned to stay out here for as long as my food held out for. I didn’t need to wait that long. When the storm started to die down an odd smell came into the air. I buried my nose in the blanket trying to avoid it. It grew so strong my eyes started to water before I started to get adjusted to it. When I was younger a trash bag broke when I tried to take it out of the can. Inside were some freezer-burned steaks we had thrown out along with other food waste. This smell was similar but much more pungent than days-old rotten food sitting in the summer heat.
Since the rain died down, I could hear the footsteps from outside getting closer to the door as the smell grew. My fingers tensed ready to draw my weapon. So very slowly the door started to open creaking as it did so.
A tall thin figure took a single step inside the cabin. My eyes had long since adjusted to the dark. Because of this, my body froze in fear seeing what had just entered the cabin. He wore scraps of dirty stained clothing. The lips were torn away revealing pale gums. This person had no muscle mass and looked to be a walking skeleton with a thin layer of skin clinging to their bones. Long dirty fingernails gave the bony hands a dangerous appearance. For a moment the eyes appeared to glow white causing my heart to skip a few beats.
When it met my eyes, it smiled and inhaled a rancid breath. I snapped out of my trace. Within a second, I threw off the blanket and started firing. Even in the dark, I should have hit him at such a close distance. I lost count of how many times I pulled the trigger. Dark blood that appeared black poured from three bullet wounds on its chest and yet those long legs covered the distance between us showing not an ounce of pain.
It fell on me. I kicked, threw punches, and did everything I could to get that vile creature away. To my horror, it started laughing. My arms were pinned down by strength it should not possess. I’ve never felt so scared and helpless before.
“You smell like her.” A low voice rasped.
I felt as disgusted as I was angry. I hated this thing with every single fiber. Amused, he brought his face closer. The stench was almost overwhelming. Thick blood dripped onto my clothing soaking through. Strangely it felt ice cold. This terrifying creature couldn’t be natural.
“Are you jealous?” He spoke through rotten teeth. “You loved her and yet I was the one to eat her. To have her be a part of me forever. Don’t you wish it was you?”
I shut my eyes trying to force back the sheer rage. A chill ran down my back as my mind thought of something I tried to hide from. That I had nothing left of my sister. Everything she left behind didn’t feel like hers. Not even the charm I found. She was gone from this world, and I couldn’t seem to find anything to hold onto.
A sound came from myself I first assumed was a wild animal outside. I forced everything into my arms to throw off this creature. It tried to recover and claw at my face. In my fury, I lashed out and bit down so hard on one of its fingers that my teeth ripped it off. I spat out the foul thing, the blood almost like acid in my mouth. He reeled back in pain long enough for me to grab the blanket.
In one swift moment, I’d tossed it over the creature’s face blinding it long enough to grab the pistol I had dropped in the earlier struggle. Pressing it to the creature’s skull under the blanket I fired until it was empty. More dark blood started to soak the material. With burning lungs, I crawled away waiting for the thing to move again.
Surely it was dead. It needed to be dead. And yet it sat up, black stain blanket still over its face. Was I just seeing things?
“Do you still love her?” It spoke in a garbled voice.
“Shut up.” I hissed.
“She’s still here.”
It raised pale thin arms as if trying to offer something. I shook my head trying to refuse what I was seeing.
“I love you because she loved you. I took her into myself. We can all be together. Don’t you want that?”
Rage boiled over. A heavy-duty flashlight sat waiting on the floor next to my pack. I grabbed it in a blind rage. The first impact against the creature’s skull painfully ran up my arm. After that, I don’t remember much. Not how many strikes I brought down. Not when the flashlight broke and when I switched to my fists. Or when I broke my fingers from punching down as hard as I could. All while that monster laughed.
I eventually collapsed. Body and mind wore thin. When I woke the light of dawn crept through the dusty windows. For a moment I thought what happened had been a dream. When I sat up, I found the beaten body of the creature where I left it.
I considered burning down the entire cabin with the body inside. My hands were so ruined from the beating that I couldn’t light a fire. Instead, I dragged the body into the woods and then kicked leaves to cover as much of him as I could. When my hands recovered, I was coming back to set a much-needed fire.
The hike back was brutal. Either I hid my broken hands well, or the owner of the motel didn’t care. I knew I couldn’t go to a hospital for my injuries. I just collapsed in the motel bed trying to fight back the pain long enough to rest.
A few hours later, a knock at the door dragged me from my nightmares. I almost didn’t answer it. Just in case there was something wrong with my credit card, I opened the door wondering if I was going to be kicked out. Instead, Ranger Dan was on the other side holding a first aid kit.
He silently walked inside. I let him work on the cuts and broken bones and was relieved it wasn’t as bad as it felt.
“There were two sons you know.” He started not looking up from his work. “The oldest son wasn’t at the cabin with his younger siblings. He blamed himself for what happened and killed his younger brother. Then, the strangest thing started to happen. He grew sickly and distant. Soon, he left town for the cabin where his sisters had died. We all knew something wasn’t right with him. But we didn’t know how bad it was until the bones missing the marrow showed up after some hikers disappeared over the years.”
I chewed on my cheek tasting blood. These people had known for years about the monster in the woods, and they had done nothing. My sister, my dear Lexi was dead because of that. I sat grinding my teeth in silent anger.
“Are you heading home or somewhere else?” The Ranger asked in a serious voice.
At first, I didn’t know what he meant. I had killed what took my sister away, but I didn’t feel as if I had a home to return to. It would be impossible to just go back to my regular life after this. He spoke again and his next question made my body turn cold.
“Are you hungry?”
I was starving. Which was to be expected because I hadn’t eaten much in almost two days. This hunger was different. It hurt so deep down inside it should be impossible. Like a black hole had opened in my stomach.
“Why did you never kill what was in the forest?” I asked in a shaking voice.
For once, he answered my question.
“It can’t be killed.”
He finished up his task and left the room not even looking back. Once he was gone my body started to shake. I was cold. So damn cold. No amount of hot water from the shower helped. Something was wrong with me, and I didn’t want to admit it.
I’m going back into those woods. I need to burn a Wendigo. But I didn’t want Lexi to have died without anyone knowing what happened to her. I may not be able to come back out of those woods.
Honestly, I would like to believe my mind snapped from the intensity of what happened. But didn’t people say crazy people don’t know they’re crazy? I knew the vast empty hunger was insane. I knew this cold running through my body wasn’t natural. And I know sane people don’t start chewing layers off their lips. I’m scared of what I’m becoming.
Crazy or a Wendigo. Either way, I loved my sister and fire should solve this problem before I pass it on to someone else.