Twi

by Romi Hart

  “You really make no sense. It’s like you think we could get a shark to help us if we cut it loose from a fisherman’s line.” Mist climbed out of the hiding place too. “Things like wild animals and fierce killer beasts, mythical or otherwise, aren’t capable of rational thoughts the way us shifters are. You really should’ve listened more at the dinner table when grandpa was telling us the shifter histories, Twi.”

  I’d heard some stories about helping out animals and later in life, they’d end up helping the person who had helped them. Or maybe I’d dreamt that. I wasn’t sure. “I’m pretty sure that if we help it get away, it will remember what we did.”

  “But will it give a damn? That’s the real question.”

  I began moving in the direction of the sounds that still filtered through the trees that told us the chase was still on. “Are you going to continue to quibble about this or are you going to join me in my valiant effort to save the Wendigo or the women, whichever it may be who really needs saving?”

  “I don’t want to get in between them and that sounds like the only way to end this thing.” Mist stood firm with his arms crossed over his chest. “And what if we do manage to stop the chase? Those girls might very well be furious with us for butting in. My bets are on that the horrible beast ate someone they knew. Maybe even just a bit ago. That might be why the beast is running from a couple of females in the first place.”

  “Are you saying that the rail-thin thing we just saw is running away because it has a full belly?” I’d never heard anything so ridiculous.

  “Those things never get fat or full. You wouldn’t be able to tell if it was full of melted bones or not. Can you tell when someone has had a glass of water? No. No, you cannot.” He seemed set on not going with me as he stood his ground.

  Shrugging, I jogged away to see what I could accomplish on my own. “I’ll see you at our fox den once I’m done, you coward.”

  “Coward?”

  I knew he hated being called that. “Yeah,” I shouted over my shoulder as I went just fast enough to be sure he could catch up to me. “It’s rather cowardly of you not to want to help out a fellow forest creature.”

  His voice came from right beside me as he’d caught up to me, “I’m coming with you. Not because you called me a coward. And not because I think this will be a rescue mission at all. I am coming with you so that I can witness the look on your face when things go terribly wrong. You know, when the shit hits the fan, I want to be there to see it. Afterward, I will laugh in your face.”

  “Well, it’s good to have you onboard, Mist. It took you long enough.” Stepping up the pace, I felt we were lagging a bit too far behind.

  “It sounds as if they’re heading toward the river,” Mist speculated. “I don’t think the Wendigo swims. I’ve never heard of it doing such a thing.”

  “And what is the point of that?”

  “That’s where the showdown will be if that thing doesn’t lose them before that.” He cocked a brow as if he was so much smarter than me.

  “Like anything that’s cornered, it will turn and make an attack. And that’s when the girls will be in real danger.” I wasn’t without smarts myself.

  We had to hurry. But going in human form only slowed us down. Somehow, we had to find a way to get ahead of the girls, then get in front of them.

  “You know we’ve broken the rule of escape into nature week by changing into our human forms,” Mist brought up. “Since we’ve broken that rule, perhaps we can break the rule about living off the land too. I am dying for an actual hamburger. Cooked meat beats raw meat any day.”

  We hadn’t done a week-long excursion into the wilderness in decades. Maybe we were spoiled to the good life. Not that it made me happy with myself for also wanting something other than berries and raw rabbit to eat. But he had a point that I couldn’t ignore.

  “If you make it so that we can separate those girls from that beast before things get ugly for any of them, then I’ll give in and we’ll go to town to eat a proper breakfast in the morning. But if something happens to any one of them, then we stay on our current diet.”

  “So, eating something good hinges on making sure the three idiots in front of us don’t harm a hair on each other’s heads? That’s a bit unfair. It’s not like either of us has power over what others do to one another.”

  “Well, it might not be fair, but that’s the way it is. Break them up or eat raw rabbit for breakfast.” The bits of fur that found its way into my mouth while eating the rabbit is what bothered me the most. “And I really, really want something good to eat for breakfast, so please come up with a great plan, Mist.”

  “Me?” he asked, seemingly stunned by my words. “You’re the one who’s determined to help the fools. Why is it up to me to come up with a plan? You should stop and think about things before you go rushing into them, Twilight Foxworthy.”

  “So, what’s the plan then, Mist. Come on now. The river is growing ever closer.” I’d found long ago that it was best not to get too caught up in the conversation my cousin tried to drum up when he didn’t want to do something.

  “We’ll transform into foxes,” Mist said as he began thinking of a plan on the fly. “We’ll be able to run much faster that way. Plus, we’ll be low to the ground, making us less likely to be noticed by the females as we pass them up. Once we find ourselves between them and the monster, we will jump out and scare the bejesus out of the girls, sending them back the way they came. And with any luck, the Wendigo will see this as his good fortune and hightail it away from them for good.”

  “He’ll have their scent now. That could go one of two ways.” I hoped the women didn’t plan to stick around the forest. “He might want revenge.”

  “Twi, I can’t work miracles. We can intervene now, but we can’t do a thing about what happens after this. I’m sorry. We’re not gods, cousin. We’re merely shifters. That’s not even a real power. We’re men. And we’re foxes. We’re not magic. We don’t have any more strength than average men or average foxes. And we most definitely don’t have the ability to manipulate the future.”

  “You’re making too much of what I’m saying, Mist. Good, Lord, you can really go on.” I hadn’t even gotten to finish my damn thought when he butted in. “I was saying that the Wendigo might seek revenge, or he might move out of his normal home in these woods for a while. But we shouldn’t count on that. What we can do to help with the outcome of future events is…”

  “Wait,” Mist interrupted. “I know what we can do. We can scare the girls out of the forest ourselves before the beast can take his revenge on them.”

  “You are a genius.” Every once in a while I had to give him the idea that he was the brains of our operation. It helped with his morale which could become quite low if his ego wasn’t fed regularly. “I like that idea. So, once we separate them from the monster, we will secretly follow the girls back to their camp.”

  “We will let them calm down and settle in, then we’ll act as if we’re attacking them. Snarling, growling, snapping at them.” Mist laughed. “They’ll think we’ve gone rabid and climb into their car and run away from this crazy forest – never to return again.”

  “So, into fox form, we go,” I directed as we’d gotten close enough to hear the girls’ feet as they hit the ground. “Remember to try to look as scary as possible. As foxes, we tend to be cute, cuddly, adorable really. We’ll have to show our teeth and narrow our big brown eyes to make them look mean instead of charming.”

  “Here we go then, Twi. Three, two, one – foxes!”

  4

  Valentine

  We’d been chasing something huge for the last half hour. I was sure it was the Wendigo we’d come for. But so far all we’d seen was the tall, thin-bodied shadowy figure with what seemed to be something like a rack of antlers on its head. Without a full visual though, I couldn’t say for sure what we’d found.

  Or better yet, had found us.

  Zoe and I were putting up the tent when n
ightfall caught up to us, leaving us struggling within the headlights of the van to finish setting it up. I’d put a pot on top of a Sterno can, to heat up a can of stew. I supposed it was the smell of the food cooking that had the creature coming to check things out.

  “Do you smell that?” Zoe asked me as I struggled to get a stake into the hard ground.

  “It’s the stew.” But then I took a sniff of the cool air and found something besides canned stew on it. “Yuck! That smells like something rotten.”

  “It smells like a dead animal, Val.” Zoe eased away from the tent to get her video camera. “That’s one of the signs that there’s a Wendigo near. I’m getting my camera.”

  Leaving the tent, for now, I began searching the tree line. “You’re right. The smell is pretty strong. He’s got to be right on the other side of the trees over there.”

  It’s finally happening!

  Our shot at catching a real – live beast on video for the world to see was at hand. My body shook as sweat beaded on my forehead and my heart pounded.

  With camera in hand, Zoe came up beside me. “Okay, here’s how we’re going to do this. You grab a flashlight but don’t turn it on yet. We’re going to go into the trees over there,” she pointed to a spot to the far right of where the smell came from. “Without using the flashlight, we’ll keep moving forward until we can’t smell it anymore. Then we’ll start to move in the direction it’s in until we can smell it again. After that, we’ll come straight for it. With any luck, we’ll run it out into the opening where our campsite is and be able to capture it on video in that area.”

  “Great plan, Zoe. Being a hunter makes you perfect for this sort of thing.” Moving slowly toward the van, I got a flashlight out of the glovebox then we set off. Deep breaths helped to steady my nerves.

  It had all worked according to Zoe’s plan. But the thing hadn’t gone toward the clearing of our campsite. Instead, it took off to one side, running through the woods, breaking tree limbs as it went.

  Catching glimpses of its tall stature as I chased it, I gauged it at about fourteen feet tall. Zoe wasn’t the runner I was, so she fell behind fairly quickly. Which wasn’t great since our goal wasn’t for one of us to see the creature. We needed video – not just another eyewitness report.

  So, we kept chasing the tall, skinny, stinky thing. The sound of the river had me excited. I’d never heard any tales of the Wendigo swimming and doubted that it could. The river would stop it and we’d have our chance to shoot the video we needed.

  Zoe had gotten a burst of energy as she too heard the sound of the rushing water and thought the same way I had. “It won’t cross the river. Our chance it near, Val. Try your best to keep that light on him. We need all the light we can get. But be ready to shut it off if the light from my camera and the flashlight you have whites it out. Listen to me once we get to it. And be prepared for it to charge us. A tree is your best friend in that case.”

  “Okay. I’ll be ready and alert.” My skin prickled with heat and excitement. My heart felt as if it might explode. Sure, the running had a lot to do with that too, but so did the anticipation of finally getting our first mythical beast recorded. “We’re almost there, Zoe. Are you ready?”

  “I am ready,” she huffed.

  I heard something coming up to the side of us. Paws hit the ground at a fast speed and the next thing I knew, two above-average sized red foxes jumped out of the trees to the right of us and stood their ground right in our path.

  I wasn’t about to lose the chance to get evidence of the Wendigo and dodged to the left to go around the foxes. But they just moved along in front of me, growling, snapping their sharp teeth and stopping our forward motion.

  “What the fuck?” Zoe stopped right behind me.

  “Shoo! Go away!” I shouted at the animals as I waved my arms.

  My antics only served to make the things madder. One of them leapt at me, sending me running backward. Zoe wasn’t fast enough and I tripped over her. We ended up on our asses on the ground and then the foxes came at us.

  “Run, Val!” Zoe scrambled to her feet and took off back in the direction we’d come from. “They must have rabies!”

  With teeth and claws in my way, I had no choice but to turn back. “Little fuckers!”

  “Howlhahaha,” horrifying laughter filled the night air and I knew it was the Wendigo laughing at us.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” Zoe shouted as she sped up, this time she was far ahead of me as fear of the foxes motivated her to move much more than catching a mythical creature on video did.

  Part of me ran because I could hear the foxes behind me. But part of me wanted to turn around and face them, then move past them to keep up the chase. But as the insane laughter came again, I realized the creature had gotten too far away for me to ever catch up now.

  “You stupid foxes. You ruined everything!” Mad as hell, I stopped and spun around to face the animals.

  But they’d vanished. As I scanned my flashlight all over the place, I saw not even a hint of the damn animals who’d thwarted our plan. Huffing and puffing, I leaned over and tried to catch my breath.

  Zoe came up behind me. “They’re gone or what?”

  “I don’t see them anywhere.” With much aggravation, I turned back to begin heading to our camp.

  Walking alongside me, Zoe wheezed a little from all the running we’d done. “Well, so much for the rabies theory. If they’d been sick, they wouldn’t have stopped chasing us.”

  “They had to be twice the size of normal foxes.” I stepped over a fallen limb the animal we’d been chasing had ripped from a nearby tree. “Hey, you know what we can do though?”

  “What?” Zoe stepped over the large limb too. “Oh, wait. Yes, I do know what we can do. In the light of day, we can take video of the path the thing made. We can’t call it a Wendigo yet though. It was tall and thin with something that looked like antlers on its head, but we didn’t see it well enough to make the assumption that it was what we came here looking for.”

  Zoe was all science and I was more gut instinct than science. “It was a Wendigo.”

  “Don’t even start saying that. You don’t know what it was. It might’ve been someone trying to fool us.” She might’ve been right.

  “I suppose we shouldn’t give our fans any heads up about what we’re going to do from now on. You’re right. Someone could be out here trying to trick us.” It came with the territory of being mythical being hunters. “But that smell would be hard to fake if it was someone trying to fool us. Can you imagine having to keep smelling that while you wore that costume? Yuck.”

  “People will go to great lengths to pull pranks on others.”

  The lights from our van shone through the trees ahead and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Finally, we’re almost back to camp.”

  “Where we have to finish putting up the tent. If you could’ve ended your long-ass goodbye with your brother and sister a little earlier, then we would’ve had it set up before dark. When will you learn to budget your time, Val?”

  “I’m not apologizing for that again.” I had people I cared about and Zoe didn’t, so she could never understand me in that way. “I’m going to start the van to charge up the battery since we’ve left the headlights on for so long. We don’t want to wake up to a dead battery and have to hoof it three miles to the ranger station to get help.” I’d already found that we had no cell phone service anywhere in the park once we got half a mile from the ranger station where we came in at.

  Walking into the clearing, we found the charred remains of the stew burnt to the bottom of the pot that still sat on top of the little can of Sterno that had gone out after using all of its fuel. “Damn - dinner’s burnt. And I’m starving.” Zoe headed toward the box of food we’d brought. “I guess I’ll make sandwiches. Peanut butter and jelly will be dinner.”

  “You do that.” I hopped into the van and started it. “Good, enough juice to get her going.”

  Sitting there, looki
ng out at our shitty, half-ass done campsite, I saw something moving in the trees on the other side of the clearing. My breath caught in my throat. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. No sound would come out of my mouth, even though I was trying to let Zoe know that she needed to run to the van.

  Frozen in place, my eyes stayed glued to the area I felt certain the Wendigo would soon show itself. One branch moved as something pulled it back. Then a couple of shadows came into the light.

  Ice coated my veins as one thought filled my mind. God! Not two more of them!

  Holding their arms up to shield the light from the van’s headlights from their eyes, a man’s voice met my ears, “Can you cut the lights?”

  Zoe finally noticed our guests and stood up, holding the jar of peanut butter out as if she was making an offering. “We’re about to dine on PB and Js – care for some?”

  “I would love one – make that two for me,” one of the men said.

  As they came closer and I could see they were human men, I cut the lights off. Zoe flipped on the small lantern she’d put on the table. “Two it is.”

  My heart hadn’t returned to a normal beat as the adrenaline had yet to even out in my system. Getting out of the van, I went to meet the men who’d come for a visit. “Hi there. You guys our camping neighbors?”

  Both men had thick, wavy auburn hair, a smattering of light freckles across the bridge of their noses, the average male height of around six feet, and muscular builds. I didn’t want to ogle the men who seemed to be around thirty, but it was hard not to. They were pretty damn hot and there wasn’t anything else to look at anyway.

  “I’m Twilight,” the one who was about an inch taller than the other introduced himself.

  “And I’m Mist.” The other man took two sandwiches from Zoe. “You are a Godsend, my lady. We’ve only dined on berries and rabbits since we trekked into the woods this morning. Good old peanut butter and jelly sounds as good as a lobster dinner right now.”