Darkness Ad Infinitum

by Regalado, Becky

  Matt eyes the rifles with mild suspicion. “That’s some heavy hardware, Lance.”

  He says nothing of Lance’s trembling pale hands that engage the mags.

  “You ain’t got a fancy shotgun in your duffle bag there, cutie-pie?” Lance snarls back.

  “I do,” Matt admits. “A damn fancy shotgun. But it shoots special beanbags meant to subdue—not buckshot meant to slaughter.”

  “You ain’t gotta shoot ’em. I brought ’em for the boss and me anyhow.” Lance nods at William, who solemnly accepts the gun offered to him. He avoids eye contact with Rocco and Matt as he leads them past the Jeep.

  “Where you going, Will?” Matt asks.

  “You find anything to tell me where they went, Matt?” he snaps back.

  “Nope. Not a damn thing.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think you would. So, I’m going to follow my gut feeling,” he gives his modest beer belly a loving jiggle, “and it says this way.”

  Matt has a number of questions, and he knows asking them and receiving their answers will only lead to more. He chokes it down and falls in line. Just beyond the totaled crawler the air takes on a thick, almost metallic taste. Lance begins talking with himself under his breath, rotating between whimpering, laughing, and crying. He begins staring up into the trees with wide eyes and gaping jaw. Matt opens his mouth to say something when the big man moans something about the wind, but William grabs his arm to silence him in advance.

  Matt looks at the hand gripping his bicep as if it is a riddle just beyond his wit. William explains quickly and quietly. “You might give Lance some space today. He was curled up in a ball and crying his eyes out this morning when I tapped on the window to his truck. He started ranting about the wind and how it blew so hard it was rocking his pickup all night.”

  “I didn’t hear any wind last night,” Matt notes.

  “Yeah,” William acknowledges, “but don’t try telling him that. He said he heard it sharpening its claws across the hood and roof of his truck.”

  “What?”

  William chuckles nervously. “Yeah, and when he told me he heard it whispering his name, I asked him if he wanted to sit this one out.”

  Matt watches Lance from behind. The big man is a mess today and would have a hard time sneaking up on a dead beaver, much less a couple of men skilled in wilderness survival.

  “And he didn’t.”

  “Nope,” William answers, shaking his head, “but that fella walks a fine line between psychotic and out and out crazy. So let’s just play it cool around him, huh?”

  Matt wants very badly to ask William why the hell he would encourage someone so obviously unbalanced to tote around a fully automatic weapon. But before he has a chance to question his boss, Rocco and Lance find something, signaling back with a well-rehearsed whistle. Matt finds himself hurling calmly towards a chaos he can feel like static on his skin.

  The others end up waiting on Matt, who has more difficultly navigating the dense woodlands with his full pack. It’s as if the signals supposed to be going to his limbs are getting caught in the tangled mess of his mind. He finds them standing around a small handmade log cabin. A cow skull hangs on the weathered front door, and two small windows with colorful yet dusty blanket drapes are on either side. Two pipes protrude from the sharp A-frame roof and smoke drifts out lazily. William and Lance have their AKs aimed at the front door. Having taken the time to roll up the sleeves of his tee shirt, Rocco holds a shock baton in each meaty fist. Matt shakes his head at the lot of them.

  “Don’t worry guys, I’ll knock.” Matt lets his pack crash to the ground alongside his beanbag gun. He swaggers past the others to the front door, ignoring their protests and curses. As he steps on the rickety porch a round tanned face pops up behind the window left of the door. The dark eyebrows raise, the wide forehead taking on an excess of surprised wrinkles. A face very similar pops into the opposite window and mimics that of the first man. The two men stare past Matt to the armed hulks: Rocco flexing and swiping shock batons as if striking at the ghosts of his past captures, Lance twitching and growling with the AK butted up to his muscular shoulder, and William The Beard cradling his AK comfortably, long thick beard hanging to the middle of his chest and mustache twisted like a flamboyant western gun fighter, shadowed by the floppy circular bill of his blue fishing cap.

  Matt realizes how crazy they must look, and the overwhelmed terror etched on the worried faces of the two Native American men confirms this. He raises his hands and does a slow turn to show nothing hidden in his pants. He snaps at the others to lower their weapons. Rocco and Lance both look to William, who finally nods and lowers the Russian death machine to point at the ground instead of the cabin.

  By the time Matt is facing the cabin again, his hands held open at shoulder-height, the two native men are standing outside their respective windows. Each has an ancient rifle trained on him; one aimed high, and one aimed low.

  The same expression can be seen in each bounty hunter’s face: Jesus they’re quick! The situation teetering towards volatile, Matt throws a look at Lance, whose trigger finger has crept back onto the AK’s sweet spot. Matt makes sure that the brute’s eyes meet his own and hopes his point makes it across: Stand down, dammit!

  “Sorry if we spooked you, sirs,” William offers as he slips comfortably into business mode. “We’re bail bond collectors, with strong evidence that a couple of skips are hiding somewhere nearby.”

  “Well, ain’t nobody been around in a long, long time,” the taller native expresses.

  His counterpart adds, “We’re the only ones living out here, and we’d know if people came sneaking through.”

  “I understand that, sirs,” William retorts, “but maybe you could just hear us out a minute.” He commences explaining the soft version of their mission and the terrible men they are chasing. Busy eyeing the damp ground around the cabin, Matt hears the spill on a subconscious level. He hears his name spoken as William makes quick introductions of them all, and he gives a wave without looking at the men. Luckily, the situation grows calmer and the talk more friendly. Matt catches their names as Gil and Fred, but doesn’t look up to see which is which. He’s more interested in the shallow boot print stamped into the pine needle-littered mud twenty feet north of the cabin.

  The natives are bragging about their claimed status as sentries to the gorge-carved mountain side beyond their cabin, which is considered sacred land to their tribe and their holy duty to protect.

  Matt interrupts them. “I found a boot print, Will.”

  The natives scoff at the deadpan tracker. William’s mustache curls up with his smile, and he tips his cap at the two men before turning to see Matt’s find. Gil and Fred share a look of doubt, but Matt sees a more intense emotion growing just under the surface. Something darker. Like dread, perhaps. The bountymen give in to their curiosity and hustle over to see the reported print.

  “I’ll be damned!” William hoots.

  “It could just be one of theirs,” Rocco complains, pointing a shock baton at Gil and Fred.

  “Different tread,” Matt explains. Everyone leans in to take note of the firmly cut print left from a nice new pair of tactical boots. All together they turn and look at the knee-high moccasins Gil and Fred are wearing. As if to show the boot print is no fluke, Matt crouches next to the print and points in a path running past the cabin at an angle. While everyone else leans forward to see what Matt is showing them, the natives both go pale. Gil and Fred gawk at the three bloody limbs, fractured and hanging in the unnatural brown smear across the nearby rock formation. The natives both sit down on the same downed log, their souls paler than the white men surrounding them.

  William’s ear to ear grin shines through his facial hair. He turns to the natives. “We gotta chase ’em down, boys. We’ll be able to compensate y’all for passing through once we have ’em in custody.”

  Galvanized by the prospect of chase, Matt, Rocco, and Lance all start down the path before the
m slowly and cautiously. William looks to both Gil and Fred for acknowledgment, but they only sigh and stare at each other, as if neither wants to give it. Before his men can move more than ten feet, both shout at the same time.

  “Stop! Hold it right there! You don’t want to go any farther . . .”

  Only Matt obeys. The sudden shift of the natives’ composure has him spooked. Rocco only scoffs at their words and horrified tones, and Lance rambles forward, looking like the only voices reaching him are in his own head. Gil and Fred jump up and wave their arms at Rocco and Lance as they disappear into the thick dimness of the forest.

  “You’ll never come back—you’ll only find death in the gorges! Your death with come with the wind!” Their panic is primal and electric and has William visibly shaken. He gets the feeling the men would raise their rifles and stop them with flesh-wound warnings if he didn’t still have his sweaty hands on his AK47.

  “They aren’t going to stop,” Matt tells the natives, in hopes they will at least stop screaming.

  From the copse beyond the cabin, Lance lets go a wild scream; then comes his ragged guffaws, like an enraged idiot child.

  “Will, we have to go after them. If there is something you fellas know that could give us an edge against the scumbags we are chasing down, that’d be mighty keen.”

  Gil speaks through numb lips. “Ain’t nobody going past here will be coming back. The Wendigo dwells on the mountainside, hunting through the many small gorges. We were supposed to keep people away . . . to keep them safe.”

  A cavalcade of shouts erupts down the path. Neither Matt nor William wait to see if the men have anything else to say, or if they follow. After sharing a long worried look, Gil and Fred do.

  As the others reach the sound of conflict, the rattle of rifle fire cracks through the air with electrical force. William, Gil and Fred all duck and cover, while Matt remains standing, wincing as he stares at the result of the clatter.

  Lance is standing over a man wearing camouflage fatigue pants, a sweat and blood stained t-shirt, and boots looking like they’d match the track at the head of the path. The bullets tore through the corpse’s chest, leaving several fist sized craters dotting its torso. Blood is splattered all over the small clearing. Standing behind a green tarp hanging between two trees is a blood soaked Rocco.

  William slowly stands back to his feet and approaches the chaotic scene. He sees the bullet-riddled corpse. He sees his payday splattered all over the clearing.

  Having already seen the corpse, Matt instead focuses on the murderous glow in Lance’s eyes. He senses the big man has gone around a bend from which he won’t be coming back . . . and wonders if he might just take as many people with him as he can.

  William’s fury is evident; the little flesh uncovered with fur on his face turns a scarlet red. However, once he is close enough to feel the madness coming off of Lance in waves he turns his attention to a slack-jawed Rocco.

  “What the fucking hell happened?”

  Rocco opens and closes his mouth a few times before any words come tumbling out. “The guy was just sitting here, crying and . . . and cutting away at himself. He was so excited to see us—he jumped up and started waving his bloody arms around.” The tough guy lowers his voice, careful to turn away from Lance’s ear. Lance is staring at tree tops again. Rocco nods at the corpse. “Then the asshole started talking crazy, saying the wind was going to eat him up. Said it already ate his buddy. Said . . . said it was gonna eat us up, too.”

  Having weaved through the carnage, Gil nods solemnly at the man’s final words. Fred can’t take his eyes off of a drooling and chuckling Lance. Rocco’s eyes dart from his crazed partner to the men around him. His knuckles are white from clenching his batons.

  “That’s about when Lance smashed his face in with the butt of the AK. Dude hit the ground and Lance lit ’em up. Bang bang, game over, muthafucka.”

  “So the other guy ain’t here?” William huffs.

  Rocco waves his shock baton around the small clearing. “What you see is what I see, boss.”

  “He was telling you the truth,” Gil states sadly. “Your bounty was right. None of us will leave here alive.”

  William’s sudden shout clatters around the rocky canyon. “Oh, well, with this asshole dead and his asshole partner missing, I’m sure’s shit not sticking around! Many a hope and dream has just been smashed for me, thank you fellas. I’m leaving—and if anyone gets in my way they’ll end up looking like GI Jack over there. C’mon, boys. We’re going fishing.”

  Nobody moves to follow William, and he stomps past them all before Rocco finally stumbles after—slowly, as if trudging through muck and mire. Gil and Fred exchange doubtful looks, but shoulder their rifles and follow. Matt watches Lance, snapping his head back and forth and growling in a strange echoing way through the rivers of drool drizzling off his chin.

  “Will—what about Lance?”

  “He is no longer under my employ.” Gil steals a frightened look back, but William shouts without turning. “And he has his own truck, so he’s on his own. I’m not sticking around anymore. This forest creeps me out.”

  “Yeah,” Matt manages, hoping the word sums up the building nervousness he feels.

  “No one is leaving.” The words crawl from Lance’s throat, though it sounds as if they pass through Hell first. “I’m still hungry.”

  Gil and Fred scream “Wendigo!” in frightened unison, then shoulder their ancient rifles.

  Rocco spins around with his batons at the ready. William doesn’t even flinch; he raises his middle finger over his shoulder and continues walking. Then, smiling so wide the tips of his mustache nearly tickle his ears, he feels wind on his face; a hot, fetid wind reeking of carrion and filth coming out of nowhere.

  William wrinkles his nose in disgust—“What the fuck?”—then screams when something in the foul wind slices at his face, tearing away a strip of beard-covered cheek flesh. William’s hand flies to the gash and blood instantly oozes between the fingers.

  The strip of furry flesh is carried on the reeking wind as it blows past Gil and Fred, then past Rocco and Matt to land at Lance’s feet. They all look from the gruesome fold of William-flesh to Lance. His eyes are now glowing with an unholy orange sheen, and his teeth have grown so long and sharp his facial structure has undergone significant stretching to allow room for them. The what-was-once-Lance kneels to pick up the skin and tosses it into his mouth. He chews happily at it and raises his AK, firing randomly at the group. His head snaps in unnatural, choppy jerks. Most of the bullets end up buried in tree trunks or dirt.

  Gil and Fred stand their ground and return fire. Their aim proves much better as homemade bullets sizzle into Lance’s meaty muscles. The big man staggers back when hit, but does not fall down. He turns the AK, still jerking, and almost as if by accident manages to cut down Fred with a lucky shot to the side of the head. Gil does not see the spectacular gush from Fred’s skull and drops down on top of his dead friend, not yet knowing that Fred’s soul had been instantaneously freed from the body.

  Matt hands Rocco his tranq-pistol and pumps two bag rounds into the chamber of his “Riot Ender” shotgun. William, still refusing to look back, keeps his hands tightly clamped to his disfigured cheek and trudges forward. Rocco tilts the tranq-pistol sideways and stomps towards Lance, plucking at the trigger with every step. Six long strides, six high-powered tranq-darts in a perfect line from Lance’s inner thigh to his cheek. By then Rocco is close enough to use his batons and Matt is close enough to use his shotgun.

  Assuming the most drastic course of action is required, Matt lets the first barrel go two feet away from Lance’s crotch, and the second six inches closer and ten inches higher. At the same time, Rocco swipes one baton downward with all his strength, shattering Lance’s shin bone, then brings the other baton up, burying the electrified tip under the fiend’s chin. Lance finally crumbles under their attack.

  William stops walking against the terrible wind when
it begins slicing away at him more and more with every step. He feels blood trickling off of him in streams running far too fast to be just cosmetic. Then his flesh is torn away in strips. He opens his mouth to scream, but the wind silences him and lifts him off his feet, tearing him into such small chunks that only a few spatters of blood are wasted, splashed like rain across the shocked faces of his companions.

  Matt and Rocco grab Gil and stagger away from the carnage. They stumble over the small ridge line, and down into the next tree-choked gorge. Gil orders them deeper into the mountain, believing the Wendigo will find them wherever they go, but silently promising to at least make the bastard work for it.

  “We knocked it out,” Rocco pants. “We can cut back the way we came . . .”

  “Rocco, the wind just ate Will right before our eyes.” Matt’s voice is chilly with a finality that Rocco’s thick head won’t absorb.

  Gil just laughs madly over his shoulder as he leaps over logs. Every twenty paces or so he spins around with tears in his eyes . . . but he doesn’t stop. None of them do. “It’s not knocked out. It was skin walking. You might have just killed its host, but it is all around us . . . you dead men just don’t get it.”

  The three scamper to hide in the folds of the mountain. They finally stop in a small ravine within a slender gorge, in between two other larger ones. Night falls and the wind screeches restlessly through the crevices of the Hoo-Doo, hungry and smelling of rot.

  Despite the roaring wind that searches for them, the men slip into exhausted sleep and wake up two days later.

  Gil gives Matt and Rocco the skinny on the demonic, cannibalistic Wendigos. He explains William’s death and Lance’s transformation; how the demon can take many forms at once. It can take the form of a wind which can literally chew the flesh from bone. It can also take the form of some hideous demon made of dead forest animals, with monstrous antlers designed in Hell. The Wendigo can be both of these while possessing humans; it completely hollows out everything human about its prey, leaving only a decrepit shell that’s rotted from the inside out.