Wendigo Read online

  “Hell, I’m sixty-eight years old and been using sugar all my life. Besides, once a man reaches my age he’s living on borrowed time anyways. I can’t chase women no more so I might as well enjoy what little I can.” The old man waited for several seconds and then chuckled. “Ain’t you gonna give me the smoking will kill you lecture?”

  “Won’t do any good…. You’ll just give me the borrowed time answer again,” John said. “Besides, I still have one from time to time.”

  Charley laughed again and slurped more coffee. He smoked the Marlboro and stared at his son through the spiraling smoke. “Boy, you’re as tetchy as a cornered bobcat. What’s eatin’ at you?”

  “Larry Murphy …”

  “How is Murph?” the old man interrupted, “I ain’t seen him in years either.”

  “Murph’s fine, day before yesterday he went looking for a missing sledder … a young fellow from away, Massachusetts. Murph found his body up north of the Little Black River.”

  The old man sucked on his cigarette and took a long slurping drink from his coffee mug. “His death accidental?”

  “We’re still investigating.”

  John took a swallow of coffee and tried to decide how best to approach the heart of the matter. He decided that knowing his father, getting to the point was usually the best course of action. “Dad, tell me about the Wendigo.”

  Charley Bear froze for several seconds, his cigarette suspended before his lips. “What you want to know about that for?”

  “I’m just interested.”

  “You didn’t drive no hundred miles in the middle of a snow storm because you’re interested in hearing about the Wendigo. Now level with me.”

  “The body Murph found …”

  “What’s that got to do with the Wendigo?”

  “Whoever or whatever killed him tore him all to pieces and parts of the body are missing. I scouted the woods and came across a track. It was a giant track—human, yet not human.” John held his hands up touching the thumbs together and spreading all his fingers as far as they’d go, approximating the size of the track. “It was about this big.”

  “I knowed it. Damn it! I told the RCMP years ago all them hunters they said was getting lost over across, and round here too, wasn’t lost. I told them there was a Wendigo hereabouts. Stupid sons-a-whores wouldn’t listen though. No siree. They wouldn’t listen at all.”

  “Tell me about it. Not the myths, the truth.”

  “Wendigos is mean, boy. They eat human flesh and grow to great size. They don’t like towns and such, stay in the woods, they do. They got enough strength to rip a man apart with their hands. They got no lips because they’s always starvin’ and over time they chew them off with their jagged teeth. The track you saw, did it have toes?”

  “I couldn’t tell in the snow. Why?”

  “Wendigo only have one toe, the great one, kind of acts like a natural snowshoe. They have eyes like an owl, huge, only sunk into their head like a man who ain’t had nothin’ to eat for weeks. The eyes roll around in their head, crazy-like, truth is they floatin’ in blood.” As Charley Bear spoke of the creature, his hand wavered in front of his face in spasmodic loops. “Like I said, they grow tall, taller than any normal man, might even top twenty feet, and they’re skinny as a rail … even their skin starts to turn yellow. Of course, they don’t always look like that. Often they look as normal as you and me, only taller and skinnier. They’s pathetic sons-a-bitches. The more they eat, the more they grow…. They can never get enough to eat. They smell like a cadaver, it’s a heady, sweet smell of decay, hard to describe it, but once you smellit you’ll always remember it. You might say they’s a real-life version of one of them zombies they show on the TV.” The old man once again froze, cigarette smoke trailing out of his nostrils. “Did it see you, son? If it did you’re in great danger.”

  “I don’t think so. How can you be sure if one sees you?”

  “Hard to say, but they’ll usually talk. The Wendigo speaks in many ways. It can mimic human voices to lure its prey, but mostly it speaks in high-pitched whistles and thunderous booms and it only does that when it sees or senses prey. It trails their victims, like a bloodhound, they never give up. Then after dark they seize and eat them. If you are dealing with a Wendigo, you better hope it’s a young one.”

  “How can you tell if it’s young or old?”

  “Young ones still look human. Big, but could still pass as an unusually tall person. Old ones are another story. They are skinny and, like I said, what lips they have will be tattered and bloody from its constant chewing with jagged teeth. Chances are better than not that its bones will be pushing out against its skin, its skin is the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, and it looks like a giant skeleton recently dug up from the grave.

  “How do they come to be?”

  “There’s three ways to become Wendigo. First, a shaman can place a curse upon you. Second, you can allow yourself to be possessed by the evil spirit, and third, you eat human flesh—and like it.”

  John Bear drank his coffee, took one of his father’s cigarettes, and lit it. “How do you kill one?”

  “There are few possibilities to defeat a Wendigo. Your best chance is during the day as they usually hunt at night, it’s almost impossible to defeat them at night, since it is their favorite period to hunt. Also despite being animal-like, Wendigos are smart, as intelligent as humans, thus making them even more dangerous. Once it gets on your trail, Wendigos engage in a torturous game. They bait their prey, release shrieks or growls, and sometimes mimic human voices calling for help. When it begins hunting in earnest, a Wendigo becomes all business. It will race after you, upending trees, create animal stampedes, and stir up ice storms and tornadoes.”

  “Almost makes you want to lock your doors and hide….”

  “You ain’t safe indoors either. The Wendigo can unlock doors and enter homes, where it will kill and eat the inhabitants before converting the cabins into Wendigo dens for hibernation.”

  “Hibernation?”

  “More than anything, a Wendigo knows how to last long winters without food. It hibernates for years at a time. When it’s awake, sometimes it keeps its victims alive. It stores them in dark isolated places so it can feed whenever it wants. Wendigos can stealthily stalk victims for long periods. What with fast speed, endurance, and heightened senses such as hearing so good they can hear the beat of panicked hearts from miles away, it ain’t often that they don’t get their prey.”

  “If you can’t outrun a Wendigo, can you outgun it?”

  “Conventional guns don’t hurt it, they only piss it off. It’s been said silver works. Silver bullets, knife blades, and ax heads work best—problem is I don’t know who can afford them and sure as hell don’t know where to get them. No matter what you use you got to get at its icy heart. I been told that you can shatter it, but the safest way is to burn it.”

  “So all I gotta do is buy silver bullets, find its lair, incapacitate it, then cut out its heart and burn it….”

  “You won’t have to find it. If you fuck with this thing, it will find you.”

  8

  Lyndon Station

  Bob Pelky sat in front of the fireplace in his living room. He twirled ice around the glass of bourbon he was drinking while listening to country music on the radio. A loud knocking at the door brought his head around. He watched his wife open the door and then turned back to gazing at the fire.

  “John, come in out of the cold,” Elaine Pelky said. “Bob’s in the front room.”

  Pelky bolted to his feet when John Bear walked into the room. “John, where in hell have you been?”

  “Over home, I stopped by to see Serge Shapiro in Fort Kent, then went to the reservation to see my father.”

  “You visited your old man? Did you two settle your differences?”

  “There’re a lot of things still hangin’ over us, but at least we can talk now.”

  “Well, I just th
ought it was strange you’d take off when we got a murder to solve.”

  “We’re after a Wendigo, Bob.”

  “A what?”

  John told Pelky about the legend, as well as the physical and supernatural powers of the beast. When John finished, Pelky looked at him, astonished. “Holy shit, John, that’s the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever heard!”

  “Such language,” Elaine said as she entered the room. “Do you two eat with those filthy mouths?” Her smile contradicted the indignation of her words. “You two are a couple of real party-poopers. Bob hasn’t said two words since he got home tonight. What’s eating at you two? Does this have anything to do with the dead snowmobiler?”

  John said, “Serge said he was murdered.”

  “Oh my God,” Elaine whispered softly. She walked over to the bar and mixed a drink. “That’s shocking. Bob told me that Murphy found a dead man, but murder—that scares me. It scares me. The last thing one expects in a small town like this is a murder.” She took a drink. Satisfied with her efforts she walked back to the men.

  The conversation lapsed into silence. The atmosphere in the normally cozy room became heavy with tension. “Please,” Elaine implored them, let’s don’t make this the primary topic of conversation this evening, okay?” She directed herself to John. “I’m glad you came by…. You are staying for dinner, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t want to impose….”

  “It’s not an imposition. In fact, Laura Wells, an old friend of mine from college, called today and I’ve invited her over for dinner.” Elaine gave John an impish look and added, “She’d be a good catch for you.”

  “Just what I need right now,” John answered with a weak smile. “We’ve got a Wendigo running around and you’re matchmaking.”

  “What did you say?” Elaine asked.

  “John has lost his mind. He thinks the killer is a Wendigo,” Pelky said. “It’s mythical….”

  “I know what it is,” she said. A look of abhorrence crossed her face. “You mean the body was …”

  “Yes … ,” John looked at Elaine before continuing. “The body was torn apart and … well, several parts were missing.”

  “Elaine,” Pelky interjected, “are you saying there are reported cases of this?”

  “Serge said there are cases of people goin’ crazy and thinking they’re a Wendigo,” John added. “I don’t think that our killer is a human being.”

  A knock on the door interrupted the conversation. Elaine turned to the men and warned them, “Remember you promised to let this lie for the night. Tomorrow I’ll be more than happy to let you talk about it all day. Deal?”

  “Deal,” John and Pelky said in unison.

  Elaine opened the door and Laura Wells stepped across the threshold, removing all thoughts of mutilated bodies and Wendigos from John’s mind. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He admired her stature and figure. He guessed her height to be about five foot seven, just right when compared to his five feet, eleven inches. Her light-brown hair cascaded softly past her shoulders, accentuating her slender figure. John resisted the urge to reach out and touch it to test the softness for himself. She wore a bulky sweater, which did little to obscure the fullness of her breasts, tight blue jeans, and calf-high leather boots. She was one of the most desirable women he had seen in years.

  After they had eaten Elaine pushed them into the living room while she cleaned up the dishes. John and Laura sat on the couch facing the fireplace. Pelky came out of the kitchen carrying a tray laden with steaming mugs of coffee, which he handed around. They sat in idle chatter for several minutes while they sipped on the hot beverage before Pelky stood up and announced that he was going to see if Elaine needed any help.

  The door to the kitchen closed behind him and Laura smiled over her mug and said, “It looks as if we’re all on our ownsies now.”

  John returned her smile, “This was probably planned out very carefully. Elaine has been trying to get me attached for quite a while.”

  “Welcome to the club,” Laura said with an understanding look. “She’s always been at me too.”

  “So tell me,” John said, changing the subject. “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a reporter for the Bangor Post. My editor sent me up here to look into the death of the snowmobiler they found. You know the one they found the night before last.”

  “One of my fellow wardens found him.”

  “You know about this,” her demeanor suddenly turned professional.

  “I’m with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Warden Service.”

  “A game warden?”

  “Wildlife Criminal Investigation Division,” John said. “It’s my job to investigate any case involving a fatality in the woods.”

  Laura leaned toward him, her attention locked. “You’re the investigator on this?”

  “In a way, the investigating warden will probably be Warden Murphy, my job is more that of supervision and coordination. I don’t know whether or not Bob will have any official presence—that’s up to his superiors on the state police.”

  Her interest intensified. “I jumped when offered this assignment for two reasons. First, none of the more senior writers wanted to visit the far northwestern part of the state in midwinter. Secondly, it afforded me a chance to visit my best friend at the paper’s expense. I had no idea I’d walk into a real story.”

  Laura sat back. Her posture and demeanor told John that she couldn’t believe her luck. She opened her mouth to ask another question but was forestalled by the Pelkys entering the room.

  John knew that the matchmaker in Elaine immediately picked up on the way Laura’s body was inclined toward him and knew that it was obvious that they had been deeply engrossed in conversation when she asked: “Are we intruding?”

  “Elaine Pelky, you’d been holding out on me,” Laura accused with mock indignation.

  “What do you mean?” Elaine responded, assuming that her friend was talking about John.

  “You didn’t tell me that John and your husband are investigating the murder.”

  “Well, my involvement could be temporary. Matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if an investigator from the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit, North didn’t show up soon.”

  They spent the remainder of the evening avoiding discussion of the killing. They talked until the chimes of Elaine’s antique grandfather clock rang out eleven and John announced it was time for him to leave. “Tomorrow morning is going to be a long day.”

  “I should be leaving too,” Laura said. “I’ve rented a small cabin at Del’s Place. It has a woodstove and I need to put some wood in it or I’ll freeze to death tonight.”

  “I’ll follow you there,” John said. “I live in Ashland, so I’m staying with my brother and his wife. You shouldn’t be driving on these icy roads at night—especially now.”

  “I’ll be all right,” she protested.

  “It’s not a problem for me,” John said. “It’s on the way.”

  Elaine brought them their coats and stood in the door while they walked to their cars. Laura slid into her compact and turned the ignition. The motor turned over once and then stopped with a sickening wruung-wruung. “Damn,” she cursed.

  “Sounds like you got a dead battery. These cold days and nights will bring out any problem in a car,” Pelky said. He turned to John and asked if he had jumper cables.

  “No. I lent mine to one of the guys.” John turned to Laura. “I can drop you off.”

  “Or,” Elaine called, “you can crash here.”

  “Thanks,” Laura said to Elaine, “but I’ll go to the cabin. All my things are there.”

  “Okay, have it your way. I’ll get someone over tomorrow to charge or, if needed, change your battery,” Pelky said.

  Laura slid into John’s truck and John backed out of the drive, barely avoiding a collision with her car. He concentrated on his driving for several minutes and suddenly realized the silenc
e was getting heavy.

  “Are you going to look into this?” Laura asked.

  “Yes. Even if it wasn’t my job, I’d do it.”

  “Why?”

  “If I don’t do it, I’m afraid that after a while it will become a cold case and then no one will.”

  “Wouldn’t the state police investigate?”

  “I don’t know. Bob might, if Augusta doesn’t take the case from him. Bob’s still a field officer, a uniform patrol officer, not a detective.”

  “Is there a difference between the two?”

  “Bob has a territory to patrol and handles everything from traffic stops to domestic violence. However, murders, or homicides if you will, fall under the Major Crimes Unit, North. They have detectives assigned in Caribou and Houlton among other places.”

  “Will he be promoted to … what you said … Major Crimes?”

  “I doubt it. He was offered the chance once, but turned it down. He likes being on patrol and not sitting around waiting for an assignment.”

  “But it seems to me that there would be plenty of cases.”

  “A lot less than you’d think—last year Maine had a total of twenty-five, most of them from Bangor south.”

  “But the missing hunters—”

  “That’s my primary responsibility. Some people refer to us wardens as dirt-road cops. I handle all deaths, accidental or otherwise, and missing persons in the woods. However, depending on the crime, the state police or even county sheriff can take it away.”