Taken by Nightfall

by Sierra Storm

  There are two kinds of wendigos—natural and turned. Natural wendigos are either descended from other wendigos. Humans could be turned into wendigos by surviving an attack but still getting saliva in their bloodstream or by being otherwise devoured in a mythic ritual. Wendigos are also cursed. They are immortal unless they go for too long without eating human flesh, which corrupts them. The older a wendigo is, the more evil or crazed he or she is likely to be. There are more wendigos in North America than there are anywhere else, especially here in beautiful California, and they live in groups called Exigencies, where they regularly send hunters out to catch human prey that they can all feast on.

  It all sounds like something out of one of Tristan's B movies. I scan the page several times over. Everything I read seems so fantastical and so unreal that I know there has to be more to it. I can’t find many accounts of people being turned. Most attacked by wendigos die painfully on the spot. Nor can I find any good description of the so-called Exigencies, or groups of wendigos, or whether the cult in the woods could have anything to do with one of those. But I know where the clearing is where the cult meets, and no one will notice if I take a quick hike down and do a little investigation on my own.

  I close my computer's lid. My parents aren't going to come back until tomorrow morning, so I'm free to leave if I want. I slip on a dark gray hoodie and grab a flashlight. And my jackknife. It was a present from my Aunt Lyda last Christmas, and I'd never bothered to use it for anything before. But with wendigos loose around town, you never know. It couldn't hurt to be safe.

  Our small house rests on the end of a cul-de-sac a short walk from downtown. The sidewalk is well-lit, but I shine my flashlight anyway to make my presence clear to any possible intruders. The sun is just going down, and most of the sky is already dark. I pull my hoodie more tightly around me as I start in the direction of Tristan's house.

  Chapter 3

  I glance at Tristan’s home as I pass it. I don’t want him to see me. I don’t want him to think I’m up to anything. The only room I see lit up is the kitchen, where his mom is standing in front of the microwave fixing herself a bowl of frozen cauliflower and talking into her tablet, still at the teleconference she had earlier. No Tristan in sight. So far, so good.

  I turn off my flashlight and cut to the back of the house. There’s still no sign of him, but I pad my shoes carefully on the lawn and wait several seconds to make sure my path is clear. The woods are dark now, shadowy. I finger the button on my flashlight but decide against pushing it. I don’t want to give myself away.

  For a while there's nothing. I'm incredibly grateful for the trailblazing skills I honed on a sixth grade camping trip years ago, learning how to walk without accidentally crunching leaves or snapping branches. I’m getting close. Sometimes I can hear the drumming from my own room at night, and now I use the rhythmic music (if a lone set of tam-tams counts as music) as a guide. A rusted hippie van marks the right path. “Tristan,” I say, or rather call in a whisper. I wish he were with me. I don’t like being here alone, and I pause in my tracks for a moment as I consider running back, back across his lawn and down the street, back to my own house and my own bedroom. Maybe Tristan will be fine tomorrow. Maybe I got excited and imagined the whole scene.

  Then again, I can always run. I breathe in and out a couple times to calm myself, and then I move forward with renewed enthusiasm.

  Eventually I see light beyond the trees. I'm coming to the clearing in the forest, and it turns out that this cult has started a bonfire in the night. I've never been this close to their camp before. There is a set of drums—large tam-tams that a girl a little younger than I am is practicing on steadily. She's pale, with long, curly black hair and large dark eyes. An older man was reading an old book by the firelight, and nearby I see a cave opening in the rocks. The cave is well lit and decorated, though with a stone rolled in front it would be easy for anyone to miss. On a second glimpse, maybe the cave isn’t a cave at all but an artificial building, designed to blend in with the rest of the woods.

  And then there's Tristan. My heart stops for a moment. Tristan’s here: he was absolutely serious about joining this group. He must have come as soon as I left. Maybe he was even waiting for me to leave so he could get back here. My blood freezes as I watch him. He’s standing right next to the drummer girl, saying something to her. She skips a single beat to turn up to him and smile, whispering something back. That must be the girl who went into his store and wooed him into this mess. I want to march over to them and ask them what’s up. Is this what it was about? Tristan fell for a black-haired cultist? He probably invented his whole illness just so he could come out here.

  There are a few others nearby, including a blonde woman several years older than I am and a few younger men. None are as old as the man by the fire. They seem like a peaceful bunch, nature-loving hippies. I can’t see anything dangerous in the situation. I should be safe if I choose to reveal myself.

  I swallow and step into the clearing. The drumming stops. Everyone turns and looks at me. Tristan straightens in guilty shock. ". . .Violet?" he asks.

  "You know this girl?" asks the older man.

  "You have a girlfriend?" the drummer girl demands. Her discomfort feels good, even though Tristan and I were never an item.

  "Not my girlfriend," says Tristan. "Violet, what are you doing here?"

  "I wanted to make sure you were okay." My voice squeaks as I talk. The fact that everyone here is glaring at me does nothing for my confidence.

  "You need to go. You need to get out of here," says Tristan. His guilt is turning to anger, and fast. I need to come up with something to calm him down.

  "Who are you people?" I ask everyone around us.

  "These are my friends," Tristan starts. He turns to the drummer. "This is Natasha, the one who turned me."

  I take a step back and survey the group as a whole. "So you're all. . . wendigos, then?" I ask.

  "I can see you’ve done your research," says the older man. His book is now closed and tucked securely under his left arm. "Though we prefer to be known as the Exigency. We don't allow strangers among us, for their good as well as our own. So as you look like a nice young woman, I will have to ask you to please leave the premises this once."

  "Why not just ask her to stay?" asks Natasha. She sounds cold, callous. Maybe jealous. "She's got enough meat on her bones to spare."

  "We're not taking her," says Tristan. He's trying to defend me, but I know he wants me to leave him alone at this point. He turns to me. "Vi, what were you thinking coming out here like this? Go back to your home and don’t breathe a word about this place to anyone."

  "But—"

  "I'll come by later to see you. When I'm not so desperate," he says. "Now get out of here." As he speaks, the only thing I can do is stare at the hollowness under his eyes and think about how he needs to be back at his house, in his bed. Does his mom even know about any of this?

  "If you don't come, I'm going to come after you," I whisper.

  “Someone get her out of here,” says the girl called Natasha. “I’ll take her first if the rest of you are cowards.”

  “Vince,” says the old man, setting his book down as he approaches me. “Take this young woman back to her home, will you? See to it that she’s not distracted along the way.”

  I turn, and a tall gray dog walks up to me. No, not a dog. A wolf. Am I crazy to think it might be an actual werewolf? I hesitate and study the animal. Its eyes are wide, intelligent. And it’s true; the moon is full tonight.

  The wolf stretches and wags its tail lazily. Vince. That is definitely a human name. I can't bring myself to ask the question at the moment, though. After I turn on my flashlight, I allow the animal to lead me back through the woods to Tristan's home.

  Chapter 4

  I don't realize what a blur the night has become until I find myself lying in bed, hot and agitated in my long blue nightgown and trying to make sense of the evening to myself. I think about bra
inwashing. I think about mass hysteria, about cults and mob rule and people deluding themselves. I think about the Salem Witch Trials and how innocent people were called forth and accused as witches, condemned and hung and killed. I think about my brother Jordan in college, how he mentioned to me earlier that some professors aren’t all right with any opinion that differs from their own. He said I should just go to cosmetology school or culinary arts school and not bother with college unless I had a specific career in mind.

  I miss Jordan right now. My parents offered to let me go out with them to see him. Maybe I should have tagged along. It wouldn’t have helped either way. I would have had no spare time to talk to him or get things figured out.

  Tonight I’m on my own. I need to be objective here. I’ll be alone all day tomorrow. My parents aren’t going to return until Monday morning, so I have a bit of time to myself to act. I know where they are, and I know where Vince is. And I know—well, all right, I think—that not everyone in that group is against me. The werewolf was nice. Well, assuming it was a werewolf. Vince, as they had called him, had never given me any clear sign that he was anything other than an extremely intelligent and domesticated canine, but his responses toward me were believably human. I even asked him if he was a werewolf when he dropped me off at my house, but all he did was drop his mouth open and pant. I tossed him a stick of beef jerky as a way of saying thanks, and he seemed to appreciate it well enough. All right, then. The dog’s on my side, and that has to count for something. People like their dogs.

  Vince might still be out there, actually. It's too dark to tell, but the last I saw he was walking down the driveway with his tail low and wagging casually. I roll over in my bed to find a cooler position and stare out the window at the shining face of the moon. I love the way it hangs there in the sky, high and confident like a Christmas ornament without a tree.

  The next morning I wake up well rested, but dazed and confused. The varied and exotic scenes from last night play out like a discordant B horror movie in the back of my skull, and I wonder for a second if this is what a hangover feels like. I pull out my phone. 10:45. I slept for thirteen hours last night, and I still feel groggy!

  I just need breakfast. I slide out of bed and slip on shorts and a wide-sleeved T from my dirty clothes pile in the closet. My menu this morning consists of scrambled eggs, shredded wheat or oatmeal. The cereal wins out. I pull out a bowl and grab the milk out of the fridge, and then I start to prepare my breakfast. Now that I think about it, a lot of last night must have been overblown. Tristan got sick, and he got carried away. And I was so confused by it all that I followed him all the way. I should probably see him later today and get this all straightened out.

  That’s when a shadow crosses me from the direction of the glass door in the dining area. I turn.

  It's Tristan. He’s standing there, much healthier looking than he was last night, smiling awkwardly and waving at me through the glass. He looks like he just woke up as well. His hair is scruffed on the top like he hasn’t showered yet, and day-old stubble is pricking from his chin.

  I pull open the door. “The door was unlocked, you know. You could come in.”

  "I don't want to come in here without your permission," says Tristan.

  I consider making a comment about vampires, but keep my lips shut.

  “I wanted to say thank you,” he says. “For last night. Backing off like you did. It means a lot to me.”

  I shrug and wait for him to continue.

  “I still haven’t told my mom about any of it,” he says. “And I don’t want to, okay?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Right now I’m trying to be low key about the whole thing,” he continues, pulling a wooden chair aside and sitting. “I think I can do it. These guys are mostly nocturnal anyway. Day at class, sleep in the afternoon, and then head out.”

  “You don’t have to join those guys,” I say.

  “Is that really what you think?”

  “I think you’re sick and tired and, I don’t know, maybe you landed on some new clues for something,” I say. “But to me they still seem like a cult. And cults bamboozle.” I wiggle my fingers at him in a theatrical gesture.

  “I’m not bamboozled.”

  “Bamboozled!” I repeat.

  He starts to argue back, but then stops himself. “I don’t want to put you in danger,” he says. “When you’re in, you’re in. And it’s too late for me.”

  He follows me into the kitchen. I don’t have words for him. I don’t want to have words. This whole scenario is so stupid anyhow. It doesn’t deserve sentiment. I think about Jen Lowell and how she was found dead on the patio. Tristan mentioned before that he thought the group in the woods was responsible for her death. I’d always figured that he suffered from the same morbid curiosity that I experience every time I think of her or of the others who died or disappeared. Maybe I was wrong. Tristan’s a different guy now. He’s turning into a man. And maybe we’re supposed to grow apart.

  “Violet,” says Tristan, tugging me away from my thoughts.

  “Tristan,” I echo. “I don't want you to get too far into this. It bothers me, okay? You said they were responsible for Jen Lowell."

  “It’s not what you think,” he says. “And Natasha—the girl I was telling you about—she hasn’t so much as tasted a drop of blood.”

  I raise my eyebrows in disgust. “Does it all come down to the girl?”

  “It’s not about the girl,” Tristan counters.

  “Oh, isn’t it?” I ask. “You don’t need her. Did you know I make a great wingman? I can set you up with anyone you want. Music goth? What about Neveah or Sienna or Jo? Woodsy? How about Sarah or Steph? Neveah’s been into hiking a lot there. Boom, your magic combo. And any of them would love to have you as a boyfriend.”

  “I don’t want a girlfriend!” says Tristan, raising his voice more than he means. He cuts himself off, covering his face with his hands. His chair slides back on the floor with an unappealing scrape. “That’s not. . . that’s not what this is about. It's too late for you to redeem me, Vi. I'm already one of them. The best I can do now is avoid you and all the other people I care about so that I don't hurt anyone or kill them. They changed me, Vi. I’m lucky I’m still alive as well and not one of those missing cases I was researching. You need to understand that."

  "But Tristan—"

  "You take care of yourself," says Tristan. "And don't try to look out for me. I’m sorry I interrupted your morning.”

  “You didn’t interrupt anything,” I say, but he’s already gone. He slides the glass door behind him so hard that it slams and I feel the breeze of the impact. I stand frozen in the kitchen, my brain flipping around ideas faster than I can process them. The game has changed, but it isn’t over.

  If I want to redeem Tristan, all I need is the initiative to see my plans through.

  Chapter 5

  Tristan left the back door over an hour ago, and all I can do now is stare at myself in the mirror like an idiot. I have to go out there. I have to see what that group’s up to and whether Tristan is with them. I’m not going to meet him at his house. He’d have too much of the upper hand in a situation that controlled. Out there at the camp, I can demonstrate to him that he doesn’t belong. But then I remember the black-haired girl at the tam-tams and that thing she said about wanting to eat me.

  I dab on a spot of lip gloss that does more for confidence than for appearance. I’m not usually the makeup wearing type. Around my neck is a gold necklace that helps to compensate for my otherwise plain clothes. It’s better than nothing, and I want to look good. I tuck my hair behind my ears and smile. There. Not stunning, but not bad.

  Nothing says I have to leave now. My parents aren’t coming back until tomorrow morning. I can put this off all day and look for Tristan at school tomorrow. I leave my room and sit down on my dad’s old armchair and consider my options, wondering why I’ve never been able to let other people be before. Before we moved here t
o Midnight Valley, my old best friend Kris broke her arm when we were out roller-skating. It was all I could do not to go with her to the hospital. I cried so hard when my parents drove me home that day that I ran out of tears for the first time and couldn’t grab supper.

  I sigh and leave the armchair, and then I slip on my old black tennis shoes. Showtime now. I slide my jackknife into my back pocket before I leave because you never know. I’ll put an end to the nonsense of this cult if I have to become a member from the inside out. And guess what? I feel good. This is the first time I can remember stepping out from my comfort zone and doing the right thing for once.

  By the time I leave the house, I hardly care that I only have half a plan in mind. I'll go back past the row of houses that make up our peaceful street, past the trees and the rusted van, further into the wilderness to that dingy club they call the Exigency. I’ll stand tall and not bat an eye as I ask that they tell me everything they know. How could they turn me down? If Tristan’s involved, then so am I.

  The woods are unrecognizable in the daylight, green and dry and welcoming, but I spy my familiar benchmark. For the first time, I see a spray-painted star on the side of the van over the rust. I wonder if it still belongs to someone. I move forward through the trees, and then I see the clearing. This place looks so normal at this time of day. The fire pit has been swept up to the point where it's barely noticeable. A rock is in front of the cave, disguising it perfectly as a part of the rocky hills around us. I run to it and start trying to roll it away. It's heavy, but surprisingly not immoveable, and after I manage to initially shift it, the boulder rolls easily. My heart pounds. These people will absolutely see me, and I will absolutely not be welcome here.