Macabre Memories

by George Larson

  About forty-five minutes later, I broached the subject of the murders and the bit of folklore about a Wendigo that the elders in Lac du Flambeau claimed was responsible. John laughed and said he didn’t believe in Wendigos and other superstitious nonsense, but he did acknowledge that they were part of the Ojibwa mythology, just like the boogeyman was part of the Anglo culture. “If you’re not good my child, the boogeyman will get you!” It was the same mythological and psychological creature that had existed in the various minds, cultures and storytelling of many peoples’ around the world and nothing more, he said. As to the murders, that was an entirely different matter, a serious one that had the tribe council very concerned. There was a deranged, serial killer on the loose that was targeting Ojibwa for unknown reasons. Maybe a grudge or vendetta, but not one connected to the rape of a child over a hundred years ago, he went on to say. Maybe it was someone who believed he’d been terribly wronged by the tribe and was seeking revenge. In any case, it was the grisly handiwork of a seriously deranged person behind the murders, plain and simple, at least to him. However, the tribe was so worried it had contracted for private security patrols of the reservation and surrounding towns. Even the Menominee Tribal Police had stepped up security for the powwow out of an abundance of caution, as the saying goes. I thanked John for his time and information, promising to send him an e-mail of the advance draft of my article for his approval. As a sometimes wiseass, I didn’t tell him I’d send the story via smoke signals. That would have been much too politically incorrect for this proud, Native American chieftain.

  ***

  I settled into a stool close to the TV at Williams’ Bar & Grill. The place had been family-owned since 1942 according to the placard hanging over the bar. I didn’t doubt it given its shabby appearance. I was becoming a regular at the Anglo populated restaurant since arriving in Crystal Falls. Station WKK, out of Green Bay, was carrying news of the sensational murders. The talking heads theorized, I should say speculated, about the motive for the killings and, of course, peppered their reporting with lurid, gruesome details to goose the viewers’ interest. One newsy said they must have been committed by an Anglo since Indian’s simply wouldn’t do such a thing against another Indian. His co-anchor disagreed and mentioned the intertribal Indian wars of the past. A patron sitting at a table piped-up to say that the only good one was a dead one. I’d heard that slur and others over the years. I wasn’t surprised given the animosity between the two factions in this neck of the woods. Frankly, the whites were jealous of the Indians due to their new found wealth in the gaming industry. Of course, that fact didn’t keep them out of the casinos with their cheap drinks and food.

  I ordered a rare, double cheeseburger and fries along with a can of Point beer to wash it down. Like at the Petro station, I stayed mum and listened to the conversations in the bar. I’d later e-mail another of my reports to my editor so the Sentinel could keep up with the competition. I was now certain Amy Windsor would never forgive me for missing out on the assignment. The casual chatter in the room focused mostly on motive. I still couldn’t believe that people and the media hadn’t made a connection to the other murders elsewhere in the state. The guy sitting next to me asked what I thought about the killings. I told him I didn’t have any; to disengage from an unwanted conversation. I actually had many thoughts, some too bizarre to mention.

  ***

  The moon was almost full and the clear, night sky blazed with stars. It wasn’t an ideal one for hunting, but the hunt had to go forward since it was a preordained ritual that couldn’t be denied. The frenzied feeding was an imperative and the creature’s hunger was strong, so strong that it might be careless and be caught. That couldn’t happen because there was still much to be done to satisfy the curse. And the curse was its reason for its existence, to fulfill a blood oath of many generations ago. And killing and eating its victims was all about blood, the bloodier the better in its twisted, single-minded brain.

  It stealthily crept across a small expanse of foot-high grasses to reach John Tallgrass’s teepee. With its sharp claws, it easily ripped an opening in the canvas and quietly insinuated itself inside. Its prey was soundly sleeping next to his wife. The thing went right to work by pulling John’s right arm out of its socket and the profuse bleeding alone would kill him in a few, agonizing minutes. Next, it sank its long, curved teeth into his midsection and dragged out his internal organs which it hungrily devoured on the spot. Blood and viscera were now comingled on its hideous face.

  Mrs. Tallgrass was now screaming and the thing could hear shouting coming from the front of the teepee. It quickly exited through the slit it had made and ran to the woods while grasping John’s arm in its obscene maw. Shots rang out from behind it, but it was much too swift to be caught. It ran and ran, easily outdistancing its pursuers. As it ran, it experienced something it never had before; an acute awareness of its self. Yes, a vivid insight into its true nature and it was frightful.

  The creature finally stopped at a pond to sate its thirst. The surface of the pond was as smooth as glass, not a ripple appeared to mar the reflection it saw while stooping to drink. And the reflection was of it, no, the reflection was of me, Bert Perry, ace reporter and ghoul incarnate. With the back of my hand, I swept the image away thinking I was hallucinating, but I wasn’t because my visage reappeared as before. I couldn’t stop staring at what I was; a narcissistic, gruesome killer of the Ojibwa. I immediately understood my role in the murders and it disgusted me. My countenance was repulsive, yet I couldn’t avert my glance from it. After gazing at it for several minutes, I finally pulled my eyes away and ran for my lives.

  I think the word is epiphany. That was what I experienced at the edge of that pond in the woods. It was like someone flipped a switch in my brain and I awoke from the fugue state in which I had lived my entire life. I’d seen my true self for the first time and it scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t reconcile my duality; Bert Perry, reporter for the Sentinel and a changeling: a Wendigo. My reflection was seriously hideous. It, I, had horns protruding from my forehead. My face consisted of mottled skin that was drawn tightly against my skull. My eyes bulged from my face giving me a particularly ghoulish appearance. All and all, I was terrified of myself.

  Moreover, I was sick of my selves, sick at heart, sick of mind and sick to death for the horrible, sick crimes I’d committed. I knew I couldn’t help what I was, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Even though I slowly began to accept what I was, I realized my mission in this life was due to a damnable curse. I didn’t know why. Why me God? Was this to be my destiny: just pain and death? Is that all there is? No higher purpose for me other than to be an instrument of retribution?

  My “seizures” accounted for my shift-changing into the creature and vice versa. Of that much I was certain. But I learned fairly quickly that I could now transform myself between my personas pretty much at will by going into a self-induced, hypnotic trance. I now had a sensate awareness of both of my selves at the same time. That gave me some comfort that I could exercise a degree of control over my changes, maybe.

  ***

  I took a leave of absence from the Sentinel, telling my boss that I was having some emotional problems and needed time off. That was an understatement if there ever was one. I actually was having an emotional meltdown, if truth be known. I’d been having troubling nightmares about gore and blood, initially attributing them to covering the unsettling murders. Now I knew better. I was actually dreaming about a real, mythical creature called a Wendigo; an oxymoron that now made perfect sense.

  But why was I chosen to perform the extermination of the Rainwater clan? When might I have been infected with the Wendigo virus that turned me into a monster? I didn’t believe it was God’s will. There had to be another explanation and that was when I had a heart-to-heart with my dad about the dog bite of many years ago. The star-shaped scar had puzzled me.

  As a kid, I thought if I grew up to be a monste
r, I wanted to be a werewolf, a strong, ferocious werewolf that wouldn’t take any crap from the bullies at the school playground. Since it killed at night and only during full moons, I could take the rest of the month off. That was how kids thought about things: imagination and magic; neither logic nor rationality ruled their young minds. My first girlfriend in adulthood mercilessly teased me about the abundance of hair on my back, arms and chest. She said I had a hirsute pelt like a wolf and admitted it turned her on. So, me as someone who enjoyed sex games, pretended to be the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. She’d say “Oh grandma, what sharp teeth you have.” And I’d reply, “All the better to eat you with, my dear.” We’d participate in other kinky role playing, but those stories were best left untold. It was all good fun between two teenagers with raging hormones and active libidos.

  We’d listen to Patsy Cline’s oldie “Crazy” over and over again and screwed our brains out until we were both sated and exhausted. Yeah, crazy was apropos given my current situation. Maybe she was now living in Sheboygan with a husband, two kids and a large mortgage, I didn’t know, but wished her well. They were fantastic, sexual experiences of novice lovers.

  But, in point of fact, I was hairy. I had a five o’clock shadow at ten in the morning. I kept my Dopp kit in my desk drawer and would shave once again at work when I had time. I just chalked-up my hairiness to hormones, specifically high levels of testosterone. Obviously, I didn’t grow up to be a werewolf, but something much worse.

  ***

  I braced my dad and pointedly asked him to relate the dog bite encounter. I didn’t mention my dilemma since he’d likely try to commit me to the same institution as my pen pal who wrote me in such earnest regarding ley lines. My dad asked why I was so interested in an incident from so long ago. I told him that the scar on my forearm kept reminding me of that day and I wanted to know the truth. OK, Billy, I was looking for what passed as truth nowadays.

  He fidgeted in his chair indicating he was somewhat uncomfortable in the telling, but he reluctantly disclosed. He said I was old enough to hear the truth or what he thought was the truth because he wasn’t sure. He told me that it was dusk and that I was out playing near the campsite. I remembered that I was told to go play and not to come back to our tent until I was invited to do so. Maybe it was a lesson in polite behavior for a youngster. More likely, my parents wanted to make love and not be interrupted by a snot-nosed, nosey kid. I didn’t ask since it didn’t matter. My dad continued by saying he heard my screams and unzipped the tent flap, grabbed a stick from the woodpile next to our campfire and came to my rescue. That much I remembered with some clarity. But I certainly didn’t remember what he next related to me. He said, when he reached me on the path, a large, scrawny animal was attacking me. Since it was getting dark and the smoke from our fire swirled around us, he couldn’t be certain what it was, but acknowledged it wasn’t a dog. Of that much he was sure, but little else. He described the beast as walking on all fours and then raising itself and running to the thick forest on its hind legs.

  He didn’t know what sort of animal it was, but allowed it was ugly and grotesque in appearance. It had short antlers protruding from it head and its skin was greenish-gray in color and it was completely furless. I always suspected it wasn’t a dog, instead remembering my dad insisting that it was a stray that had gotten away from its owner. My dad had inserted a large dog into my impressionable memory, instead of a monster, so I wouldn’t have a lifetime of nightmares. He even mentioned to me it was of Alsatian or Shepherd breed. He said he never mentioned the incident to anyone, even my mom, because no one would believe him. Too many PBRs, they would say. That was how he explained it and that was what I remembered with his help. Now I knew better. But at least some things were starting to fit together.

  Of course, it was then I was chosen, either randomly or by intent. I didn’t know which and it didn’t really make any difference. I was a Wendigo through and through and I had to accept my fate and live with that fact for the rest of my life. I’d been passed the torch on that fateful day and now the flame had been finally lit to avenge the honor of a child known as Water Springs and the Ojibwa Wolf clan. Why at the age of thirty-five I was awakened from my ordinary life, I couldn’t fathom. Nonetheless, it was simply my time to take up the dreadful torch and continue the ongoing cycle of never ending vengeance. It was an unstoppable destiny which compelled me to kill without remorse. And I was now beginning to enjoy the tasty, blood sport which had no winners.

  ***

  I sold most of my personal belongings and stored the rest in my self-storage unit in Milwaukee. The right arms of my victims were slowly increasing in number, storing them as precious keepsakes and delicious reminders of my kills. They weren’t Pulitzer Prizes, but they would do for now and I cherished them just the same.

  I was heading back north to continue my feedings on the Rainwater clan. And I had a ravenous appetite to satisfy. I could smell their kinds’ scents from a mile away, as the trite saying sort of went. I mercilessly tracked them down with relish and devoured their bodies until I’d had my fill…at least for awhile. And I never forgot to bring home a trophy from my hunts. Remember, I had developed a strong work ethic under Billy’s rigorous tutelage and I put it to good use. There was no way I was going to shirk my duties now that I was a full-fledged, Native American ghoul, God forbid! Yes, even the truth that Billy so disdained, could no longer set me free. I wondered how he might have written the story of my lives. It was the truth, whether he could accept it or not.

  The Strange Story of Stateville

  My thoughts of the strange happenings at Stateville waxed and waned like the cycles of the moon. Some days were full of reminisces, others not so much. Sometimes my memory faded in and out of focus given my advanced age, but thankfully I’d kept a detailed diary of those inexplicable events which occurred at the prison. Likely, no one would believe them, but they were true nonetheless. I wasn’t senile, only old and a bit slow on the uptake as some might have thought. But my revelations were shocking; whether or not you choose to believe my macabre tale of the evil incarnate haunting the penitentiary of damned souls.

  ***

  My house sat on a large knoll overlooking the Stateville Correctional Center on the far edge of Joliet, Illinois. The term Correctional Center was simply a pretentious way of saying maximum security prison. Like the prison, my home was old and rundown, much like me. I’d lived with this view and worked in the facility’s fortified labyrinth of nooks and crannies for most of my life. I was still obsessed with it; the penitentiary’s dark, troubling history in particular. That was the only way I could explain my unhealthy attraction to the place and its denizens.

  I’d lived in Joliet my whole life, first with my parents and then long after as a confirmed bachelor and recluse. However, I failed to mention my two year hiatus when I served as a Marine grunt during the Korean Conflict. Conflict was an interesting choice of word to describe an all out war that engulfed the entire Korean peninsula. It wasn’t chivalrous combat among ideologues and adversaries; only a bloody, brutal series of battles that claimed and ruined many American lives. My life was one of the casualties of the conflict.

  ***

  My story really began with the war, not so much with the war itself, but with my injuries that ultimately landed me at the Coronado Naval Hospital in San Diego. Friendly fire was another quirky phrase that made no sense to me. It was an accidental oxymoron or a misnomer at best. I wasn’t sure which one because there wasn’t anything friendly about it in my case. One of my buddies accidently pulled the pin on a phosphorous grenade and in his panic to throw it downfield, it ended up in my foxhole instead. White phosphorous was nasty stuff, especially when it badly burned one’s upper body and face. The British invented the weapon towards the end of the WW II to mark locations for helicopter evacuations or landing strips or to lay down a smokescreen to blanket troop movements in the field. It was also a very effective antipersonnel de
vice as I could attest. The medic who attended to me likely saved my life. I wouldn’t have stooped to pun about him saving my skin because that didn’t happen. I was still not sure to this day whether I should’ve thanked or cursed him.

  I had extensive burns on my chest, face and upper arms; third degree ones that kept me on a steady diet of morphine for many months. I’d almost lost count of the number of skin grafts I received from cadavers during my year plus stay at the hospital. Skins from cadavers were used in those days and remained the preferred treatment for severe burns, followed only by the patients’ own skin. I subsequently had four more grafting procedures after I returned home. My face and upper body now looked like a crazy quilt of mottled skin crisscrossed with prominent suture scars. I resembled Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, only more monstrous. I forever was a scary freak to the neighborhood kids who avoided my house on Halloween like the plague. Of course they avoided my house on all other days too. The cold days were my favorites since I could pull my balaclava over my head and pass as normal looking or, in my case, as normal as I could under the circumstances. This had been my life’s sentence since being discharged from the Marines and returning to Joliet to live with my parents in our old house on the hill. It was a challenging one to say the least. It would become more bizarre after I took the job at the prison I could see in the distance from my bedroom window.

  ***

  The personnel officer at Stateville must have taken pity on me since I was offered a warder position on the spot. There weren’t any human resource officers during that politically incorrect era. Besides being pitiful, I was also a disabled vet who answered the call to war. That gave me preference over those who didn’t serve their Uncle Sam. Thankfully, I was deemed physically fit for the job despite my hideous appearance. The term was warder, rather than guard, in those days. The inmates called us screws or worse, but usually behind our backs. That was how I began my lifelong career and obsession in the corrections business at Stateville. Looking back, maybe that was my preordained destiny.