Winter Prey

by T. M. Simmons

  Unconscious, she learned later what had happened next. The counselors freed Kymbria, and she was rushed to the hospital in the camp ambulance, accompanied by the camp nurse. Niona gave permission over the phone for the surgery to save her life, the surgery that ended her chance to ever be a mother.

  She wasn’t sure which hit her the hardest: learning of Tina’s death or her loss of future motherhood.

  After weeks of depression, Amber insisted she see Adam, and Niona agreed. Adam had helped her understand one person's destiny was not controlled by another's actions. The guilt had never completely dissipated, but Adam had helped her focus it towards what it truly was: remorse at her own immature feelings and treating Tina callously.

  The other lesson — the one she came to realize was the main underpinning of the beliefs Adam passed on to her — was something she had — if not buried, at least ignored over the years. More honestly, perhaps, something she had let subside into her unconsciousness as worldly matters took precedence.

  When you have lost your path, look into your heart, Adam had said over and over again. Listen when it speaks its honesty to you.

  It was speaking to her now. She was tired of running from decisions. She intended to take control of her destiny, and for a start, confront the windigo. He seemed to believe she was part of his path in life, and her heart told her she wouldn't find peace until she faced up to one after the other of the decisions she had put on hold while she wallowed in self-pity.

  The dream, or vision, or whatever it was, confirmed her thoughts. Now she knew without doubt where the lair was. The odor in her dream had been the same as she smelled several hours ago. That odor out on the trail had triggered her dream…or perhaps the spirits who controlled her destiny had shown themselves and carried the dream out of her subconscious.

  She lay quietly for a few moments, listening for any sound outside the bedroom door. She heard nothing, and when she turned over to look at the bedside clock, she realized Nodinens and Caleb were probably sleeping again. It was nearly one a.m. Outside, the wind had died.

  She slid out of bed, padded to the heavy drapes and opened them to expose the heavy glass doors her family had installed. They had also built a small patio and cleared the brush and trees that obstructed their view of the lake. She gazed at the new snow drifted and mounded on everything, the starkness of the trees softened in the glow of a full moon, then headed for the walk-in closet.

  She clicked on the dim light inside the door. In the far corner, she knelt and pulled out a plastic storage bin, which she set down on the bed to remove the lid. The closet light spilled out enough to gaze in wonder at the intricate bead and quill work on the butter-soft doeskin. She lifted the dress and shook it out. Beneath it lay another dress, this one her mother's. The last time she and her mother had worn these had been at Adam's burial ceremony. She laid down her dress and shoved aside her mother's to reveal the two pair of knee-high moccasins, one a size larger than the other. She removed the larger pair, then covered the box and returned it to the closet.

  She started to leave everything in readiness on the bed, then changed her mind. She wasn't sure how Caleb would react to her plan, and she would not let him thwart her in any way. She hung the dress on a padded hanger in the closet and set the moccasins beneath it.

  Rather than find Nodinens asleep, Kymbria saw her sitting on the glassed-in porch, her small figure dwarfed by the large, cushy lounge chair. She stared out the window, not acknowledging Kymbria until she motioned for her to sit in the chair beside her.

  “The storm's over,” Kymbria began the conversation.

  “Not for long,” Nodinens told her. “There is another one behind it.”

  “Just like back then,” Kymbria whispered.

  “Yes. The phones are working. Gagewin knows I am safe. But I told him I would stay here and watch over you until morning.”

  “Caleb?” she asked.

  Finally the elderly woman met her gaze. “He is gone.”

  Kymbria frowned. “Gone? Where? I thought….” Her words trailed off. She had her answer now. “He couldn't accept the fact I carry the bloodline of a man who turned into a windigo.”

  “That is part of it,” Nodinens agreed, and Kymbria realized she'd spoken her thoughts aloud. “Not all.”

  “It doesn't matter.” She shrugged her shoulders and stood. “I need to — ”

  “Sit, Child,” Nodinens said in a quiet voice. “It does matter, and I will tell you.”

  Reluctantly, Kymbria sat back down in the chair. She could have defied Nodinens. No, she couldn't have. The respect for people who carried so much knowledge and years of experience had been ingrained in her the summers she spent at the lake. Adam might materialize right then and there to admonish her. A tiny smile flickered, but it died after Nodinens's first sentence.

  “Alive?” Kymbria said with a gasp. “Both of them? Oh, Grandmother, I'm sure he was ecstatic.”

  “He was. And he is on his way to see them. I heard him say something to the man he was talking to about them being in San Diego.”

  Kymbria nodded. “And, if what you told me a moment ago is true — part of the reason he left was also due to my ancestry — then he won't be back.”

  “I can't tell you. His destiny is his. Yet it's hard to believe he was led all this way and then this portion of his life is to be tucked away with no resolution.”

  This time Kymbria met no resistance when she rose. “I’m going to make some coffee, Grandmother. Will you have some?”

  “I will.”

  ~~~

  “The airport there isn’t accepting any in-bound flights until morning,” Daniel told Caleb when he called his friend after his harrowing journey to Duluth.

  Making a quick decision, Caleb replied, “Then I'm going to drive on to Minneapolis. Traffic reports say the freeway south of here is clear. I can be there in less than four hours.”

  “I'll hold the jet there for you,” Daniel said. “And I’ve got a little more info for you. It’s definitely Mona. The PI made a couple discrete inquiries in the neighborhood. She’s using her first name, but the last name of some guy who lived with her until a couple weeks ago.”

  “She probably took off with him the day she and Skippy disappeared from the cabin.”

  “Maybe,” Daniel agreed before they said goodbye.

  Barring any further weather delays, Caleb mused as he continued on his way, he should still be in California by late tomorrow. He could get directions to where the PI was keeping his wife and son under surveillance and go directly there. Probably find her holed up and broke after her lover left, or she wouldn't have tried to access that account.

  Did Skippy have enough to eat?

  What sort of flop house was Mona living in?

  How had she been living? On her lover's funds, of course. Daniel would have noticed any activity on the bank accounts or credit cards earlier. So where was the lover now? Had he deserted her or…maybe it was him who demanded Mona try to get some of her rich husband’s money before he would return.

  This was starting to sound like a soap opera. He snorted in disgust.

  How had that bastard she ran off with treated Skippy? He damned sure intended to bring his son back to Colorado with him.

  Yeah, like that would happen if Mona objected. Caleb could imagine the scene if he tried to remove his son forcefully. Mona would fight like a wildcat. He couldn't fault her mothering instincts; she loved their son as much as Caleb did.

  He didn't much give a rat's ass if Mona would be devastated if he took Skippy, but he couldn't put his son through that type of scene. Truth be told, Skippy loved his mother in return just as completely.

  He needed gas again before he hit the freeway south to Minneapolis. He pulled into a convenience store/gas station. Coffee. He also needed coffee and a pit stop.

  Five minutes later, coffee cup in hand, he pushed open the exit door. He didn't notice the small boy who raced towards him until the child barreled into his
leg. Caleb grabbed the tike, who couldn't have been more than four years old, before he fell.

  “Sorry, son,” Caleb said, balancing the coffee as he held the back of the boy's snowsuit in the other hand. “Didn't see you.” Then he noticed the red and blue snowsuit.

  Skippy. My God, he had…has a snowsuit just like that.

  Blood on the cabin floor…the back door open to a vast wilderness where ancient, horrible monsters roamed….

  Jimmy, the little boy near Skippy's age, who now had no mother because Jane Lightfoot had been taken — probably devoured — by that malevolent windigo that preyed on Marten Clan members….

  “My fault,” a man rushing up to the door said. “He got away from me at the gas pump.”

  Caleb glanced up as the boy hung his head and said, “I sorry, Daddy. I forgot.”

  The father knelt in front of his son, but not before Caleb noticed the strain on his face…and the mark of the Marten Clan on his cheek.

  “I understand, son,” the man said quietly. “But we're on a serious journey. We need to behave and not worry your mother.”

  “I don't wanna go,” the boy said in a choked whisper.

  “Neither do I, son.” The man stood and took his son's arm. “Neither do I.”

  As the two of them turned away, Caleb touched the father's shoulder to get his attention.

  “I know it's none of my business,” he said when the man shoved the boy towards the car and faced him. “But…hell, I might as well just say it. I've just come from up near Neris Lake. And I saw the Marten Clan mark on your cheek. Are you headed up there to — ”

  Words stuck in Caleb's throat as the man's face crumbled. “My brother,” he managed in a strangled voice. “He — ” Then acknowledgement of Caleb's words expressed itself in his tear-filled eyes. “Neris Lake! Then you know. My brother was taken by that thing.”

  Caleb nodded. “I've been up there trying to hunt it down.”

  “They've found it?” the man asked in a hopeful voice. “Is that why you're leaving?”

  “No,” Caleb admitted. “I've had a personal emergency come up.”

  “I understand,” the man said, shoulders slumping. “I have to go.”

  “One more thing,” Caleb asked. “Which one of that beast's prey was your brother?”

  “Will Birch. He was taken outside a bar.”

  Caleb nodded in sympathy. “I saw it happen.”

  The man grabbed Caleb's arm. “Was he…did…?”

  “He didn't suffer. He was unconscious,” Caleb assured the man, although he didn't know what had happened after his and Keoman’s confrontation with the monster. At the wreck, the man in the entity’s arms had been limp and unresponsive.

  The Native American studied him doubtfully for a second, then turned away with a muttered, “Thanks.” He strode to the car, and as they drove past where Caleb stood a moment later, Caleb saw the tike curled up on the back seat, his shoulders heaving as though he wept. The woman gazed at Caleb for only a second, but long enough for him to see the bottomless pain and terror in her eyes. The man's face was grim.

  Caleb continued to his pickup, secured the coffee in the cup holder, and placed the phone call. The grief-stricken family's car disappeared into traffic when Daniel answered, “I was getting ready to call you. The pilot just got word he could fly on into Duluth.”

  “Tell him to come on,” Caleb said, “and get a hotel room after he arrives. I can't tell you why — you wouldn't believe me anyway — but I'm going back up north. Find some way to get Mona a few hundred dollars, more if she needs it. I don't care how the PI does it, or even if he tells her we've found them. But keep up the round-the-clock surveillance. You can even let her know about that.”

  “I will, Caleb,” Daniel answered. “Be careful, hear?”

  “I will. And you're a helluva friend.”

  “You, too, man.”

  Telling himself he was only going back to try to help keep families such as the one he had encountered from devastating grief, Caleb pulled out of the station. He turned in the same direction the grief-stricken Marten Clan family had taken. That once happy family had been torn apart in an instant. A vicious entity swept down on the man's brother — the little tike's uncle — and took him to its disgusting lair. Probably tortured him, if he woke up. Eventually devoured him to fuel its powers and continued hunt for this winter's prey. As it had Jimmy Lightfoot's mother. As it could have taken Mona and Skippy due to Caleb's inattentive negligence for their safety while he pursued his own interests.

  No wonder Mona left him. He'd been a total ass, walking out on her in the middle of their attempts to reconcile their life together.

  Skippy was safe in California for now. But a monster was destroying families near Neris Lake, destroying people Kymbria cared about. Families like the one he lost, partly due to his own stupidity. And something told him Kymbria wouldn't leave until she had either helped destroy this thing…or it had killed her.

  He had to get back there before Kymbria took off on her own to confront this monster. They had been through this horrible experience together so far. Had maybe even begun to form a relationship, until he found out who she really was. More correctly, who she came from.

  He would return and help her, try to protect families like the one he just met. Then he would give her back to her life and return to the problems and, hopefully, satisfactory resolutions, in his own life. Fight Mona for custody of Skippy — or at least, joint custody. Protect his son from evil monsters under the bed and in real life. See his son's eyes shining with love for him again.

  Distracted by his thoughts, Caleb nearly missed his turn. Despite a blaring horn, he swerved into the next lane. When he tapped his brakes to slow for the stoplight at the intersection ahead of him, he noticed the patch of black ice on the street…too late. The pickup skidded toward a high snow bank.

  Caleb barely had time to realize no one was ahead of him before his skill at driving icy Colorado mountain roads kicked in. He re-gained control, but not before he slid over the curb and into the snow bank piled along the street from the plows. For a few seconds, he breathed in and out to calm his adrenaline-racing heart. Then he shifted into four-wheel drive for the fifteen or twentieth time that day, bumped back out onto the street, and carefully continued on to the stoplight, now red.

  As he waited for the light to turn, he admitted to himself where the distraction a moment ago had originated. It would be as hard to leave Kymbria a second time as it had been this morning. He'd come so close to telling her he was falling in love with her. So close to asking her to consider continuing this relationship once the monster was dead. To see where these feelings between them would go — could go.

  Just saying he didn't want that any longer — that he had banished any feeling of love for her without regret — didn't work. Even with his eyes open, he could see her pale-gold-hued face, her brown eyes shadowed with pain at times. He could hear her murmur his name, feel her lean into him as she drank in the stability he offered while she battled her PTSD fears. Relish the remembrance of the smell and feel of her silky midnight hair as he threaded his fingers through it to comfort her.

  Feel the weight of her soft breasts in his palms, taste her nipples as he suckled. See her face change to one glowing with the satisfaction of a sexually-fulfilled woman, her checks flushed with the same.

  He did close his eyes briefly at the next vision: Kymbria's lovely body hung on the side of a cave wall, naked and bleeding. Her screams of terror and agony. That evil entity he had seen after the wreck standing over her, eyes gleaming malevolently, razor fangs and claws at the ready. The woman he cared for almost as much as his son, still conscious, waiting for the windigo to rip into her.

  No, just saying he didn't love her any longer didn't work. But he'd think about that later.

  Chapter 46

  In her bedroom, the door safely closed, Kymbria laid her right hand on her spirit bundle. Nodinens was still so traumatized and weak from her
experience with the windigo, she couldn't even keep her eyes open through one cup of coffee. She and Scarlet were now safely ensconced in the bedroom Nodinens was using, Kymbria's bedroom. The room where she and Caleb —

  Continuing to hold the spirit bundle tightly, she drew on her memories of what Adam taught her so long ago.

  The condition for entering the Land of Souls is peace of heart. The prayer we use for that is the most important one I will ever teach you.

  Kymbria banished everything from her mind and recited:

  “Mino-dae/aeshowishinaung

  Tchi mino-inaudiziwinaungaen

  Fill our spirits with good

  Upright then may be our lives

  Nanaukinumowidauh matchi-dae/aewin

  Zhaugootchitumowidauh matchi-dodumowin

  Defend our hearts against evil.

  Against evil prevail.”

  Then she took a deep breath and stepped into the doeskin dress and moccasins. Moments later, she zipped up the snowsuit and finished dressing for her journey.

  The sliding glass doors opened soundlessly, and she closed them behind her and waded through waist-deep snow around the cabin.

  Inside the garage, she found a flashlight kept there and shielded the light with her body as she filled one of the two remaining snowmobiles with gas. She pushed it out the back door. Starting it up there wasn't an option. Nodinens would be outside and catch her in an instant. She would put off the elderly woman's worry as long as possible. She groaned and managed to jockey the machine down the road, with the help of the downhill slant. Hopefully, she was far enough away to go unheard. It fired up with the first turn of the key.

  Bless you, Pete, my brother, for your attention to our safety in these hard winters up here.

  ~~~

  A half-hour later, Kymbria halted the snowmobile on the edge of the woods. As she had told Caleb, the journey across land was shorter than on the convoluted roads. Ahead, the trail ran through an open space, a swampy meadow in the summertime. Diamond bright pinprick stars gushed across the black night sky overhead, spilling into and out of the Milky Way, Big Dipper and other constellations. The full moon actually intensified the cold, the bright light so dazzling it outlined the landscape and snow-shrouded trees to the point where they appeared brittle. No snug-in-its-burrow animal had yet ventured out to track the spotless snow with prints.