Winter Prey

by T. M. Simmons

  You cannot leave and know where to lead them back to.

  "You blinded me until we got here. I have no idea where I am."

  But you will, if I allow you to walk out of here now.

  "There's nothing else for us to discuss," she insisted. "You either have to kill me or let me go. And I don't think my death right now is part of my destiny. Or yours. Otherwise, I would not still live."

  She spoke the truth, although It didn't understand how or why. That blood-lust had been absent towards her, the hunger nonexistent.

  You have no answers for me. It shook its head in irritation, dislodging clumps of matted fur. It pushed them back. But that does not mean you are free to leave. It would be foolish to allow someone with knowledge of where I have hidden all these many years to tell others.

  "Then what are you going to do with me?"

  It leaned down and clasped one claw-tipped paw around her tiny waist, and with the other one, drew the jacket hood over her eyes.

  You must not see. It will be better that way.

  Chapter 42

  "We made a deal, Kymbria. We have to start back."

  "Caleb — "

  The roar surrounded them without warning, a blend of anguish and anger so strident trees shook and clumps of snow thudded to the ground. Kymbria's hands clenched on the snowmobile handlebars, and she froze, immobilized to the point where she wondered if even her heart could beat. From the corner of her eye, she could see Caleb as rigid as her, his pale, strained face set in terror.

  Fifty feet away, the windigo stepped out of the underbrush.

  Every descriptive word Caleb had used on the beast leapt into Kymbria's mind. Everything she had sensed about the thing. Wicked. Foul. Malevolent. And its eyes — fear and horror curdled in her stomach, yet she couldn't tear her gaze away. Inhuman eyes, eyes that shone with a light emanating outward. Eyes that drew her, yet repelled. A pathway to Hell, the red reflection a fierce glow from fiery coals.

  The evil, though….where was that?

  Caleb's snowmobile engine revved, and Kymbria tightened her hold on her throttle controls. But she couldn't force herself to flee. Where was the evil Caleb insisted over and over the windigo radiated? The evil that could drive a person insane just from looking.

  The evil had to be there. This beast had killed — and eaten — over and over again for generations.

  "Move!” Caleb shouted. “Kymbria, go! It's too far away for me hit with a shotgun! Follow me!" Evidently trusting her to obey, his snowmobile engine roared and he raced away.

  Caleb's entreaty irritated Kymbria rather than motivated her. She sat there, caught in the web of hers and the windigo's commingled gazes.

  The beast was tall, towering even. Muddy brown fur covered it, inches thick in places where clumps tangled. Claw-tipped hands spread out in a pleading gesture on the ends of arms as massive as the trunks of the hundreds-of-years-old pines in the area. The muscular legs seemed incongruously shorter than necessary to support such an enormous upper body, and smaller, but every bit as sharp, claws grew from the feet.

  She somehow took all this in without losing contact with the creature's gaze, as though her mind examined it without benefit of her eyes. Then, abruptly, the red glow lessened and Kymbria studied the face: a broad, prominent brow, eyes now a shade of black silk as deep as a moonless night, an almost-hidden nose beaked beneath fur hanging down past the hidden mouth. A mouth filled with teeth Caleb had described as sawtooth.

  "What do you want?" she whispered as Caleb raced out of a clump of trees near the windigo.

  Darn it, he’d circled around and come back to protect her. He had one hand on his snowmobile throttle, the other holding the stock of the shotgun jammed against his hip.

  "Get the hell out of here, Kym — "

  In a motion nearly imperceptible, the windigo broke off a young pine tree and heaved it at Caleb. The jagged trunk pierced the snowmobile hood, and the high-pitched scream of an engine in distress drowned out Caleb's shout. His machine veered sideways, into a deadfall beside the trail, scattering snow and heavy limbs until it stalled in the tangle of brush and trees. By then, Caleb lay draped over a fallen tree trunk deep in the pile of brush, his body dangling lifelessly. Kymbria could see the stock of the shotgun, crushed under the snowmobile track.

  "Caleb!" Kymbria screamed. Her machine responded, and she tore toward the deadfall.

  The windigo appeared beside Caleb's body. Kymbria gasped, and her hand dropped from the throttle. She instinctively glanced back to where the windigo had stood only a split-second ago, but the spot was empty. Her snowmobile halted on the trail, her gaze caught on the cross Caleb had worn, dangling from a limb in the deadfall — torn from his neck when he was thrown from the snowmobile.

  "No!" she screamed at the windigo. "Leave him alone!"

  The beast crouched and stared at Kymbria over Caleb's body. A few snowflakes feathered down, large and lazy on the casual wind drifts. Kymbria kept her attention on the windigo as flakes spotted the fur on its shoulders and head.

  "Get away from him," she ordered as she climbed off her snowmobile and slowly…cautiously…trudged through the deep snow, toward the deadfall. "I will never help you if you hurt him."

  Then she noticed the blood dripping from Caleb's nose, staining the white snow beneath him a brilliant red….

  And she was back in Afghanistan, the snow now sand, the red stain spreading from another man's body.

  "Rick," Kymbria said through deep moans of fear and sorrow, regret and despair.

  Around her, shells burst, shock waves nearly visible in the heated air. Outgoing shells now, not incoming. Shells from the company responding to the attack, trying to protect patients and nurses.

  The noise was deafening, and when Rick looked up at her and tried to speak, she bent towards him before she realized he was looking past her. She knew at once who stood over her.

  "Marie," Rick said with a groan. He raised his arm, reaching.

  Kymbria turned and screamed at Marie, "Leave me alone with my husband!" Agony in her eyes, Marie hesitated, then walked away. When Kymbria turned back to Rick, his eyes closed and he fell limp in her hold, his breath rushing past her face on his last word before unconsciousness — Marie — as though it, too, sought the woman he loved.

  Kymbria steeled herself and pushed the vision away. This time she knew it was a vision, a nightmare spawned by an incomplete memory. One so vivid it seemed real, yet something gave her the energy to force it back into the recesses of the past and focus on now. Some other voice also whispered on the edge of the scene, nearly imperceptible, but there.

  She blinked, and she was back in the Northwood. Cold, not heat, permeated her body, but it wasn't atmospheric cold. Nothing could get through the gear she wore. This iciness came from the confrontation she was involved in, a mental challenge tossed at her that cut through even the physical danger. A mental challenge screwing with her mind in more ways than the present danger.

  Could the windigo's telepathic abilities intensify her PTSD symptoms? Beat at the barriers she had erected against the past events, interfere with her ability to live in the now? To go forward with her life versus remaining in the turmoil of past remorse?

  Kymbria strode into the deadfall recesses and snared the cross from where it dangled. Resolutely, she held it out in her gloved hand toward the windigo. With her other hand, she fumbled until she unzipped the top of her suit and exposed the spirit bundle she wore.

  "Leave him!" she yelled. "Get away!"

  From the corner of her gaze, she noticed Caleb stir, as though her voice had broken through his unconsciousness.

  The windigo surged to its feet with a roar of rage and warning. Its words penetrated with substance but no sound.

  Do you know who you are?

  The caustic comment dropped into her mind with the impact of an anvil, rendering her senseless both physically and cognitively. Kymbria's arms fell to her sides. He knew!

  "I know," she admitt
ed finally in a shaky voice. "My mother told me."

  Then you know it is your destiny to help me.

  "I know nothing of the sort," she denied in a stronger tone. "You tried this with my mother and it didn't work. And right now you're threatening someone I care about. I want you to leave him alone!"

  The beast's upper lip drew back in a sneer, and she glimpsed those razor teeth. Teeth that could tear her throat out in an instant. The animal could be on her before she could even sense it move, let alone see it happen. Rend meat from bones….

  She shivered, dread and terror crawling through her veins, her mind, her heart. The cross nearly dropped from her trembling fingers before she stiffened her hold. Her legs threatened to collapse. Yet she couldn't leave Caleb there to be the beast's next prey.

  Do you think you can track me? I leave no trace behind.

  She took several steps forward, the consecrated cross again held out. The windigo stayed where it was.

  "I don't give a damn where you're hiding. Not right now, anyway. I need to get medical attention for Caleb."

  I know you did not leave that other man there. The one who appeared in the far end of where I stay. A place I did not even know was part of my home until I smelled the odor of the dead when I woke.

  "You're talking about Len, the maintenance man. Someone left him in your lair? That's where he was before you dropped him in front of my cabin?"

  Yes. But I do not know if the one who killed him…who left him there…knew I was near.

  "I really don't care about all that. Get away from Caleb!"

  This time when she stepped forward, the creature backed up. Perhaps the powers of Caleb's cross and her spirit bundle were finally close enough to effect it. Or…perhaps it was gathering itself for a swift rush at her.

  Caleb groaned, and the windigo drew back an arm, then flicked its fingers back and forth. The muted clank of knife-sharp claws brushing together lingered in the air. It lowered its arm toward Caleb.

  "No!"

  Its claws halted a foot above the hood of Caleb's jacket. Come with me and I will let him live.

  Stunned at the request, Kymbria stared at the creature for a few seconds before she said, "I can't. I have to get Caleb out of here."

  Then…. It lowered its paw.

  "No!" Kymbria rushed toward it….

  But it was gone without her even seeing it flee.

  Sobbing in terror at her own audacity — more so, what could have happened had the beast broken through the powers of the protections — she started to reach for Caleb. The howl that spoke of vowed vengeance rendered her immobile. She had no idea how she understood the implication carried in the wail, but it settled in her mind the same way the emotion behind the telepathic words had come through clearly. The cry echoed around her until it filled the air with a nearly concrete presence, pounding her ears, shuddering against the trees, trembling limbs and pine branches so hard it shook snow off.

  When it faded, it seemed to flow into the wilderness, become a part of it rather than die into an absence of sound. The resulting hush was charged with trapped expectation rather than peace. Kymbria gulped down her fright and reached for Caleb.

  "Help!"

  Kymbria's head flew up. The cry was faint, shaky, nearly indiscernible. She couldn't tell if it came from the direction in which the windigo had fled or not. She had no idea where the beast had gone, only her suspicions it might have a lair in the cave-pocked hills nearby. And that was near where the cry for help seemed to originate.

  "Help." Even fainter.

  Caleb shifted on the log, and Kymbria hastily helped him as he rolled over and slid down to sit in the snow. As she knelt beside him, she noticed the snow had thickened. Still huge flakes, but more of them now, and a stronger wind to drive them. Was the blizzard moving in quicker than anticipated? A white layer dusted Caleb's hood and shoulders, and flakes melted on his cheeks as he leaned his head back. The blood still leaked from his nose, but in a dribble now. The coating on his chin and cheeks was half-caked, half-frozen.

  "Where else are you hurt besides your face?" she asked.

  "Where…is it?" he asked instead of answering her question.

  "It's gone," she assured him. "And I have to get you out of here."

  "What did it mean when it asked if you knew who you were?"

  "You heard it?"

  "I think — " He gritted his teeth in pain. "I think it meant…for me to hear…what the two of you were saying."

  "But…." Not now. She couldn't get into this with him right now.

  He opened his eyes. "What?"

  "Help!"

  "Did you hear that?" Kymbria asked, rising to her feet. She could have sworn the call was closer. And it sounded like a woman's voice.

  "I didn't…hear…anything," Caleb said. "My head…god, it hurts."

  "Can you possibly get to your feet?" she pleaded as she knelt in front of him again. "We're going to have to ride double on my machine."

  Caleb saved his breath behind gritted teeth as he shifted to his knees and tried to rise. Kymbria lifted one of his arms over her shoulders and dug in her feet to help him. Using a tree trunk, he managed to pull himself upright, then leaned against the tree for support.

  "You need to walk out of this deadfall," she said. "I can't get my snowmobile in — "

  "Help!"

  "There!" Kymbria said. "You had to have heard that. Someone's out there, not too far from us. A woman."

  "Nodinens," Caleb said. "Did she escape?"

  She dropped the consecrated cross around Caleb's neck, then said, "I'll be right back."

  "No!" Caleb said with a weak grab at her arm that Kymbria easily evaded. "No! Don't go out there alone!"

  She turned for a brief glance as he took one staggering step after her, then gave up and leaned on the downed tree. "It won't hurt me," she assured him.

  She continued out of the deadfall, stepping as lightly as she could so her footsteps wouldn't drown out the voice if it came again. Which it did, as soon as she cleared the deadfall. There, a hundred yards or so away. She caught a flash of movement along with the sound, a dark brown color that didn't fit with the black and white, shades of gray wilderness. A color definitely not the same shade as the windigo.

  With only a brief thought of the danger that could be waiting for her — what if the windigo was pulling some sort of trick to draw her to him? — she set off. Suddenly, she halted. Maybe it was drawing her away from Caleb so it could attack him? If so, it would be surprised to find him with the cross in place.

  The tiny figure stumbled out from between two snow-covered pines. It wore a heavy, dark brown jacket, a hood drawn over most of its face. Each step it took in the snow was a visible effort, given it trudged through drifts waist deep on it.

  Kymbria raced for her snowmobile and fired it up. She could get there much faster on it. Seconds later, she pulled the machine up beside Nodinens. Brown eyes stared at her gratefully.

  "Thank you, Child," she said.

  Kymbria wasted no time asking Nodinens how she had gotten away. Instead, she climbed off the snowmobile and lifted Nodinens into her arms. After a brief squeeze she hoped conveyed how glad she was to see the elderly woman, she placed her on the leather seat and climbed in front of her.

  "Caleb's hurt back here," she called over her shoulder. She thought she felt Nodinens nod her head against her back.

  By the time they got to the deadfall, Caleb had managed to stagger out to the earlier tracks left by their machines. She halted beside him and again dismounted. But when she tried to open Caleb's jacket and examine him, he shook his head.

  "We have to get the hell out of here," he said.

  "It's not coming back," she told him.

  "That's not only what I mean. Look around you. Feel the wind. The blizzard's coming down on us."

  It was, but Kymbria had been trying to ignore it. Now she acknowledged the rising wind, the small, denser flakes intermingled with large, lacy ones. Soon half-
snow, half-ice pellets would join the mixture.

  Chapter 43

  Kymbria helped Caleb onto the back of the snowmobile. She started to squeeze in front of Nodinens, then stopped.

  "Get on, damn it," Caleb ordered.

  Instead, she waded through snow to where the shotgun lay. When they finally started off, the shotgun lay across her chest, suspended by the strap.

  Nodinens' weight was negligible, and the engine didn’t appear to overly labor with its heavy load. The two most worrisome parts of the trip would be the intensifying lack of visibility due to the storm's deepening fury and her anxiety over both Nodinens' and Caleb's injuries. The tiny woman had been out in the cold for nearly two days. Despite being ambulatory, she could be suffering frostbite. Kymbria had no idea how badly Caleb was hurt. His complaint about his head might mean he was concussed. Internal injuries were possible, which the ride back to the cabin might exacerbate. She had no choice. She couldn't treat them here and risk being imprisoned in the storm's fury, as her ancestors were.

  There were even more dangerous risks: That the creature would return, undeterred by the lack of visibility due to its supernatural vision. Find some way to attack them from a distance and bypass the protections. Thwart their safety and isolate them in the ferociousness of the blizzard.

  She gulped back her fear. As Caleb had mentioned once, the ability of their protections had as much to do with their faith in them as the powers they possessed. Still, she offered a prayer to Midé Manido for their safe journey, and added an entreaty for the Great Spirit to strengthen the gidimagiziwin she wore and the cross on Caleb.

  This is how it started for the windigo, she reflected as she negotiated the snowmobile through the wilderness in an attempt to reach Caleb's pickup before the blizzard descended full force. She couldn't suppress the additional thoughts crowding her mind. Were the other members of the war party people it deeply cared about? Did it have to eat people it knew and cared for to survive?