WARPED: A Menapace Collection of Short Horror, Thriller, and Suspense Fiction

by Menapace, Jeff

  Elizabeth’s words, like a starting pistol, shot everyone into action, each heading for a cage.

  They pried, pulled, and ripped with desperate urgency. When all six kids plus the first child were safe in their arms, they hurried back towards the cellar door…where Kane and two villagers were waiting.

  CHAPTER 18

  Kane stepped forward but said nothing; his presence alone was enough to collectively freeze them all. One of the villagers was the first to speak—a man to Kane’s right, seemingly in his 30’s, short black hair in contrast to a long black beard, his attire the male equivalent of the female villagers they had met earlier: utilitarian, nothing more.

  The man said, “Please put them back. You have no right.”

  Michelle, who held one of the babies in her arms as though it were a football she would sooner die with than fumble, breathed, “You’re crazy. You’re all fucking crazy.”

  Kane took another step forward. Both Tim and Andy blocked his path, each holding a child of their own, each holding in the same protective manner as Michelle.

  Kane locked eyes with both of them, each gaze brief in duration but forever in intensity. “You know what I’m capable of,” he said. “Please don’t make me hurt you.”

  Tim knew they were no physical match for Kane. The villagers on his side made it even more lopsided. “Kane, please,” Tim said. “We know all about your father. We know all about the Windigo. We understand your cause. But this is not the way to go about it. My God, man, look around you…”

  As though on cue, one of the children began its calf-like cry. Another followed. And then another, each one spurring on the next like some horrific Pavlovian chorus hoping for sustenance—the only thing they knew.

  “Do you hear that!?” Tim yelled. “It’s like a goddamn farm! These are children!”

  The second villager, a near mirror image of the other, replied, “They are offerings. They are not blessed by our priest when born. They have no souls. They are meat, nothing more.”

  Andy and Tim looked on in disbelief. Rachel had since backed up towards the end of the cellar, two babies in her arms. Elizabeth was next to her, one baby in her arms, the original child by her leg. The professor stayed quiet in one corner of the room.

  “I don’t want any unnecessary hurt,” Kane said to Tim. “Give me the original child. When the Windigo comes for her, I will kill it.” He waved an arm around the cellar. “Once I do, all of these children can be saved.”

  And then Tim asked, “What if it kills you?”

  Before Tim could regret—or wonder—why he would ask such a thing, it was too late: Kane had reacted. He’d snatched Michelle in a blur and had pulled her to him, a blade pressed to her throat.

  “Bring me the child,” Kane said. “I don’t want any unnecessary hurt, but I will slice your friend’s throat unless you bring me the child.”

  “The baby,” Tim said to Kane, motioning towards the infant in Michelle’s arms. “She’s going to drop the baby.”

  Kane flicked his head downward, indicating Tim should take it. He did. And now Tim held two children.

  “Bring me the child,” Kane said again.

  Nobody moved.

  Kane looked at one of the villagers. “Get her,” he said.

  The villager hurried forward, scooped-up the child and brought her back. Rachel and Elizabeth stayed still and mute, the blade to Michelle’s throat a blade to their own.

  “Take her above,” Kane said.

  Both villagers paused.

  Kane said, “What is it?”

  The villagers were focused on the back of the cellar—where Elizabeth stood. “She is one of ours,” one of them said.

  Kane locked eyes with Elizabeth. “Go,” he said.

  Without protest, Elizabeth placed the infant in her arms back into its cage, hurried forward and up the cellar stairs with the two villagers.

  Kane, his knife still to Michelle’s throat, spoke with what sounded like rueful scorn. “This is your own doing. I offered you a peaceful way.” He shifted his gaze towards one corner of the room. “Professor, we need to go.”

  The professor crept forward.

  Andy locked eyes with him. “You pathetic motherfucker.”

  “What’s going to happen to us?” Tim said.

  Kane shoved Michelle into the corner where she fell on all fours. Tim flinched, but did nothing.

  “Well,” Kane said, taking the professor by the arm, ready to climb the cellar stairs, “I suppose if the Windigo kills me—as you proposed he might—then I would say you should start getting used to your new quarters.”

  Kane slammed the cellar doors and the world went black. The sound of the padlock came immediately after.

  * * *

  Kane took the child in his arms and began carrying her to the tree. The two villagers ran to their homes. Professor Jon followed Kane. Elizabeth hung back.

  “Kane,” Professor Jon said. “Please, you have to let those young men and women out of that cellar.”

  Kane marched on, the child on his hip. “When this is done.”

  The professor fronted Kane, stopping him. “When what is done? Kane, for God’s sake, please listen to me. There is no damn Windigo. It simply isn’t real!”

  Kane shoved the professor aside and continued his march.

  Professor Jon hollered to Kane’s back. “I’m using you!”

  Kane stopped, turned slowly, a curious expression on his face. “You’re using me?” He gave a slight smirk. “Perhaps you have that backwards, Professor Jon.”

  “Do I? You’re nothing more than a character for me, Kane. Pages in my book. My stupid, stupid book that is now jeopardizing lives because of my fragile ego. I took your proposal to give my project merit.” He threw his head back and laughed. “Merit! It all sounds so laughable when spoken aloud. Merit for monsters!” Professor Jon made a sardonic gesture towards the weapons fastened to Kane’s back. “I made no silly ‘magic tincture’ to coat those. Pungent herbs at my corner market mixed in ethanol is all it was!”

  Kane glanced over the shoulder where his weapons hung. Glanced back at Professor Jon. “You were sending me to battle with tainted weaponry?”

  “I was sending you to battle nothing, Kane! There’s nothing out there! Good Christ, I must be insane to go as far as I did with this nonsense. Truly, I am the monster here. The discovery of those poor children may be my only salvation.”

  Kane set the child to the ground, walked calmly towards Professor Jon, drew his blade, and sliced the professor’s throat with one effortless swipe.

  Wide-eyed, clutching his throat and sputtering red, the professor dropped to his knees. A look of disbelief was his final expression before pitching into the earth.

  “If you are the monster,” Kane said, wiping his blade on the arm of his coat, “then I believe your silly tinctures work rather well.”

  A small cry. Kane looked up. Elizabeth stared from behind a tree.

  “You have nothing to fear, child,” Kane said. “You know the truth.”

  Elizabeth gave a frightened nod.

  “I will kill it,” Kane said.

  Elizabeth chanced emerging from the safety of the tree. “How? The professor claimed your weaponry was—”

  Kane held up a hand, silencing her. The expression that fell over his face was an odd blend of purpose and sorrow. “Perhaps it takes evil to destroy evil.” Kane bent and sliced into Professor Jon’s face, removing a sizeable hunk of his cheek. He stood and brought the flesh to his lips. Elizabeth’s scream paused him. He glanced at her, the flesh of Professor Jon inches from his mouth.

  “Who will kill you?” Elizabeth asked.

  Sorrow masked purpose entirely for a brief moment. When the moment passed, purpose back on equal ground, Kane said: “I will take my own life before the curse gathers strength.”

  Kane swallowed the chunk of Professor Jon’s cheek whole.

  Elizabeth gave another frightened yelp, backed up towards the safety of the
tree again.

  Kane shot her a sidelong glance. “I will kill it.”

  Elizabeth said nothing.

  Kane scooped up the child and headed off into the woods.

  CHAPTER 19

  A metallic rattle. A thump. The cellar doors opening. Elizabeth standing there in the moonlight.

  * * *

  “So what do we do?” Michelle asked. “We need help.” She cradled one of the babies in her arms.

  Elizabeth dug into her apron, pulled out a phone.

  “Is that a cell phone?” Tim asked.

  “I think so,” Elizabeth said.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I took it from the old man earlier. It was not the Cree, it was me. I thought it might be useful if you agreed to help me. I took it. It was not the Cree. Please don’t think me bad.”

  Rachel stepped forward and kissed Elizabeth hard on the cheek. “Bad? I love you.”

  Elizabeth blushed, but the response was brief. “We need to hurry,” she said.

  Tim glanced down at Professor Jon’s body. “Jesus, he really ate him?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “And he has the child.”

  Rachel motioned towards the cell in Elizabeth’s hand, and then looked at Tim. “Well, call the police!”

  Elizabeth handed the phone to Tim. He was prepared to dial when an agonizing scream echoed its way out of the woods and caused him to fumble the cell. It was not the inhuman screech they had heard earlier. It was the scream of man.

  “What the hell was that?” Michelle said.

  “Was that Kane?” Andy asked.

  Tim stuffed the phone into his pocket and started towards the woods.

  “Tim!” Michelle called.

  “The kid!” Tim yelled over his shoulder.

  They all followed.

  CHAPTER 20

  Everyone came to a sudden halt behind Tim, as if the ground had suddenly crumbled away and they found themselves teetering on the edge of a cliff. If Tim sensed the group’s arrival, he did not show it; his manner was trance-like, his blinkless eyes stuck on the football-shaped object lying on the ground. Kane’s head.

  “Jesus Christ…” Andy muttered.

  Rachel turned away and vomited.

  “What the hell happened?” Michelle asked in a breathless whisper.

  “It’s close,” Elizabeth said.

  Everyone looked at her. The consistent looks of skepticism they’d shared since the moment the girl had voiced her beliefs about the Windigo were gone. Fear and self-preservation were paramount now, the catalyst—however outlandish—irrelevant.

  “I say we bolt,” Andy said.

  Michelle turned to him. “Without the girl?”

  Andy pointed down at Kane’s head. “Something did that to Kane. You think she did any better?”

  Tim headed deeper into the woods.

  “Tim!” Andy called in a loud whisper.

  Tim ignored his friend and kept going. Rachel wiped her mouth. She looked terribly pale. Michelle put an arm around her. Again, they all followed Tim’s lead, eyes straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge Kane’s head at their feet as they shuffled past.

  Ignoring the next find was impossible. Kane’s body, next to it his discarded weaponry, next to that, the little girl, very much alive, sitting next to Kane’s mutilated torso, her plump face smeared with red, her little hand digging into Kane’s chest cavity, withdrawing whatever it could, shoving the find into her mouth, chewing and swallowing, and then digging for more. When the child became aware of the group’s presence, she looked up and acknowledged them with a proud and bloodied smile. “Eat? Eat? You eat?”

  Rachel vomited again.

  Andy looked away as though angry with his own eyes.

  Michelle attended to Rachel, the diversion welcome.

  Tim was watching Elizabeth. Watching her sidling towards Kane’s discarded hatchet. Watching her try and mask intentions of bending for it, her cumbersome belly betraying all attempts at subtlety. Watching her give up the act and deciding to drop and snatch the hatchet quickly. Watching her running towards the child with the hatchet raised, her murderous scream splitting the air.

  Tim dove and the hatchet hit him in the arm, sinking deep, the pain dulled with adrenaline, but still intense enough to pause him, give Elizabeth time to raise the hatchet again, to throw it at the child, the weapon hitting the little girl in the chest, knocking her onto her back. Andy involved now, wrestling a screaming Elizabeth to the ground without care for her pregnancy, pinning her down and holding her as she thrashed and begged for the cursed child to be destroyed. Tim rolling onto all fours and crawling towards the little girl, checking her torso, finding the sizeable gash where the hatchet hit home, blood pumping pitilessly from the wound and Tim putting pressure on it with both hands, turning to Michelle and Rachel and screaming at them to call for help…

  CHAPTER 21

  Tim, Andy, Rachel, and Michelle stood by one of the many flashing squad cars on the scene. An EMT attended to Tim’s arm as they spoke to the local sheriff.

  “Got men from Saint Paul on their way,” the sheriff said. “Major Crimes Division. Something like this…Christ, I’m betting even they won’t know where to begin.”

  Michelle pulled hard on a cigarette she’d bummed from one of the deputies. “Putting those crazy villagers in jail for life would be a good start,” she said.

  Tim winced a moment as the EMT tended to his arm, then glanced back at the sheriff. “You’ve never been here before? Never heard of these people?”

  The sheriff nodded. “Sure—we knew they were here. Knew what they were up to?” He made a face that said hell no.

  “How long have they been doing this?” Rachel asked, taking the cigarette from Michelle and taking a drag herself.

  The sheriff shrugged. “Won’t know until there’s a proper investigation. But judging by what I saw in that cellar…” The sheriff removed his hat and glanced away, visibly disturbed. “Ah hell, I’d rather not guess. I just thank the good Lord we were able to save the ones we did.”

  “How could someone not know sooner?” Andy asked. “I mean, we spotted the kid on that tree at night.”

  The sheriff waved an arm over their wooded surroundings. “You see what it’s like out here. You kids were lost; not many venture this far out, especially on a road that dead-ends. Freak luck you spotted the child before whatever’s been taking those kids did.”

  Tim frowned. “‘Whatever’s been taking those kids’?”

  The sheriff smiled a little. “I’m not talking Windigo nonsense, of course. Real wildlife finds a food source and they keep on coming back to it like a dog to its bowl, hoping it’ll be filled. My guess would be a regular pack of wolves came sniffing around that spot periodically to see if the bowl was full.” The sheriff made the sign of the cross on his chest. “God almighty when it was.”

  “You saying wolves did that to Kane?” Andy asked.

  “Doubtful,” the sheriff said.

  “Well then what did?”

  “A Windigo,” a skinny deputy said with a grin, appearing out of nowhere by the sheriff’s side.

  The sheriff turned and scowled at the deputy. “You find this whole scene amusing do you, Starnes?”

  The deputy’s smile vanished and he dropped his head. “No, sheriff.”

  The sheriff kept his scowl on the deputy for a few more seconds before turning back to Andy. “My guess would be a bear, son.”

  “A bear can rip a man’s head off?”

  “Good-sized one, sure. One good swipe is all it would take.”

  “Do bears eat people?” Michelle asked.

  “Typically, no,” the sheriff said. “But you claim the Cree went into the woods, hell bent on killing a Windigo, right?”

  Tim and Michelle nodded.

  “Well, my guess is the Cree came upon the bear and tried to kill it. A bear usually won’t bother you and me, but it’s still an exceptionally deadly animal. Provoke it and you’re asking for
trouble. Probably took the Cree’s head off with a swipe, then ripped into his chest a bit before it lost interest.”

  “Why didn’t it harm the little girl?” Michelle asked.

  “Who can say? Probably because the little girl wasn’t a threat.”

  Tim shook his head in disgust, eyes on the ground. “And after all that, it’s the fucking pregnant girl who puts the little kid at death’s door. Crazy superstitious bitch.”

  The sheriff waved a hand at Tim. “Ah, she’s gonna be fine, son. A scratch is all it was.”

  “What?”

  “The child’s fine. Just a little cut on her chest.” He threw a thumb towards an ambulance in the distance. An EMT was holding the child in his arms as if it were his own. The child had a lollipop in her mouth. She appeared fine.

  “How is that possible?” Tim asked. “Her chest was gushing blood. I saw it; I had to put both hands on it to try and stem the bleeding.”

  The sheriff put a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “You were scared, son. It was dark. Point is, the child’s gonna be fine.”

  Tim shrugged the sheriff’s hand off. “I was scared, and it was dark, but I’m telling you, that little girl had a hatchet wound in her chest this big.” Tim held his hands six inches apart.

  The sheriff sighed, decided to placate Tim. He looked at Andy. “You get a good look at the wound, son?”

  Andy shook his head. “I was holding down pregnant Lizzie Borden.”

  The deputy snorted.

  The sheriff looked at Rachel and then Michelle. “Ladies?”

  “We headed back towards the village to find a signal, to call you.”

  The deputy broke in. “You say the little girl was eating the remains of that Cree?”

  Tim squinted at the deputy, annoyed and confused; he saw no relevance in the question. He grunted a yes anyway.

  “Well there you go,” the deputy said with another grin. “Windigos can regenerate.”

  The sheriff spun his deputy by the shoulders and shoved him away. “See if I don’t have you cleaning the head when we get back to the station.” The sheriff turned back to the group. “Sorry about that, kids. I think it’s safe to say we’ve all heard enough Windigo bullshit for one night, yeah?”