_____________
Paul slowly regained consciousness. He rolled over and began to sob, fighting to keep the sounds of his despair muffled. He did not want to risk awakening his father to resume his assault. He silently lamented his lot and began to beg for help from any quarter. He began to chant, a chant his maternal grandfather had taught him, one the old man had said would summon the gods in a time of great need.
The temperature in the room suddenly plummeted and Paul felt the presence of something, or someone, in the room. He ceased chanting and slowly opened his swollen, bruised eyelids. A heavy mist hovered in the far corner of the room. Paul stared into it, mesmerized. The mist began to swirl around with increasing speed. Paul’s eyes widened. There was something in the twisting fog but it was barely discernable. Of one thing he was certain: whatever it was appeared to be gigantic. The haze now filled the room to the rafters, and Paul felt that the inhabitant was looking down on him with a scowl of disgust.
Suddenly Paul was struck by the realization that he might be looking at a god! Possibly Kitchi-Manitou, the greatest of the gods! Paul slid from the filthy mattress and fell to his knees. He became aware of someone or something speaking to him and he opened his mind, allowing the unexpected message to enter. In his beaten and battered condition, Paul found the voice soothing. I am Wendigo, god of the Algonquin people. I have seen your plight and have sensed your pain. It need not be so, if you but accept me all can be made well again….
Paul slowly rocked back and forth as the words seemed to heal him, both physically and mentally. He slowly raised his head and wiped the blood that still trickled from his nose, flinching when his hand touched his battered and split lips. “H-how do I do that?” His smashed mouth made his words slurred.
Open your mind and soul to me! Let me enter your body and all will be over!
The Wendigo stared down at Paul. Open to me, Paul—Now!!!
Paul raised his face. He stared out the dirt-encrusted window of the shack and saw the clouds suddenly part. The moon illuminated the room like a celestial laser beam. He turned his head back to face the mist, which had morphed into a dark cloud. Before Paul was able to stop it, the revolving storm descended around him. At the last minute, Paul felt the evil of the Wendigo and began to fight back. It was too late; the spirit permeated his body, soul, and mind. Paul Condor, with a cry of utter despair, ceased to be.
The body convulsed as the Wendigo assaulted and killed what was left of Paul Condor. The boy collapsed in a heap and clouds obscured the moon. The night was split by the drumming crescendo of another unseasonable storm.
_____________
Thunder boomed as a monstrous storm settled over Oslo with a display of power and force that rattled windows throughout the tiny village, shattering several. The Condor shack vibrated with the force of the thunder and the windows blew out of their frames. Wally was shocked awake and, although still drunk, leapt to his feet. He stood still in a state of vertigo for a moment and then saw Paul curled in a ball on the floor. “Git up you chicken-shit coward. It’s only a fuckin’ storm….” He launched a kick at the boy’s side.
A powerful hand reached out, grabbed Condor’s foot, and flipped him across the room. Wally bounced off the wall and looked at his son. Instead of a cowering boy, he found himself looking at a malevolent face. Its eyes were as large as an owl’s and seemed to be swimming in pools of blood. He inadvertently turned his eyes away from the hate-filled orbs.
Paul reached down and grabbed his leg and lifted him. Wally shouted, “Leggo my leg, you simple bastard—or you’ll live to regret it!”
Rather than cower, as he usually did, Paul lifted him with a single hand and Wally found himself suspended by one leg and staring at the floor like a deer that had been hung out to bleed before butchering. Without saying a word, Paul spun him around and smashed him into the wall. He dropped his stunned and bleeding father to the floor and left the room. Standing in the kitchen, Paul watched Wally stagger to his knees and before he could regain his feet, Paul returned to further punish him.
On hands and knees, Wally scrambled across the floor. He reached under his cot, found what he sought, and turned to defend himself. Lightning lit up the room and sparkled on the blade of Wally’s most prized possession, a bowie knife he’d bought at the pawnshop in Caribou. Paul reached down, grabbed Wally by the throat, and held him there.
Wally drove the knife into his son’s midsection and was astonished when the boy did not even flinch as the large blade penetrated him. Wally drove the knife home two more times, yet no matter how viciously he attacked, Paul’s unbelievable strength imprisoned him. He opened his mouth to scream but his shout was quickly stifled. Paul grabbed his lower jaw and with a horrendous twist, ripped it from its socket. Wally howled in pain, his jaw hanging loose and flapping like a storefront sign in a strong wind.
Wally’s eyes bulged with horror when his captor pulled him from the wall and carried him into the kitchen. Paul slammed him onto the table. Oxygen depletion sapped Wally’s strength and he dropped the knife and grabbed Paul’s hand with both of his in a vain attempt to stop the strangulation. Suddenly the huge hand released his throat and Wally gasped as he sought the air he needed to survive. Before Wally was able to fill his lungs, Paul forced Wally’s head to the left exposing his neck. With his teeth he ripped through the flesh and severed the artery. He sounded like a nursing infant as he sucked blood from his father’s carotid.
Wally screamed as his son tore his chest open and grasped his heart and with a final mighty pull, yanked it out of his chest. Before death finally ended the brutal attack, Wally saw Paul raise the heart, blood pulsing out of it, and smile at his victim as he bit into it.
The Wendigo, now in control of Paul, went into a feeding frenzy. He tore, ripped, and gorged himself on the body, cramming chunks of raw meat into his mouth until he was stuffed. In a final act of depravity, he ripped the head off the body and paused in the quiet, staring at the waves of steam rising from the body as it gave up its heat in the cabin’s cooling interior air. Wendigo heard the rhythmic sound of the blood slowly draining from the head suspended in his right hand by the hair. The soft impacts of the blood hitting the floor sounded like cymbals to the sated beast.
Plop.
The Wendigo felt his new stomach heave under the weight of all the meat it contained.
Plop. Plop.
His stomach lurched.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
The Wendigo threw Wally’s carcass across the room and bent forward, vomiting a gushing torrent of raw meat and tepid blood. When the heaving ceased, the Wendigo wiped the excess vomit from his face with the back of his hand. He admonished himself. It had been so long since he had eaten that he had overlooked entirely the fact that his new body would have to be trained. It would require a period of time before it would be ready for its new diet.
The Wendigo grabbed the legs he had butchered from Wally’s body and carried them with him as he stepped out of the dark cabin and into the sudden light of the lightning storm.
_____________
Viverette Settlement
The room seemed as hot as a furnace. He opened the window over the sink and retrieved the meat he’d stored there. It was frozen but his hunger was so great that he ripped into it and gulped it down. He realized that he was still hungry. It was time for another hunt. This time he’d go further south, there was usually heavy snowmobile traffic around Rocky Mountain.
6
Fort Kent, Maine
It was just past eight when John drove into Serge Shapiro’s yard. He walked to the door and knocked. After a few seconds, a small woman with streaks of gray in her hair opened the door. “Can I help you?”
John took out his badge and offered it to her. “I’m John Bear, Wildlife Crimes Investigation Division, is Serge at home?”
She took the badge, scrutinized it for a second and handed it back. “He’s downstairs,” she said and stepped aside to let him in.
Wit
hout a word, she led him down a short flight of stairs and into a finished basement. “Serge,” she announced, “you have a visitor.”
A short, gray-haired man, at least thirty pounds overweight and with a gray mustache and full beard, appeared in the doorway. He looked at John for a second and then his face lit up in recognition. “John, how’ve you been?”
John held out his hand and Shapiro gave it a hearty shake. “I been fine, Serge, busy but fine.”
“C’mon in. Julia would you bring us some coffee?”
Shapiro’s wife nodded and climbed back up to the main house while Serge led John into his inner sanctum. John paused and looked at the room. On a rectangular table lay an impressive array of handguns. There were revolvers and pistols lying in a row. One of the revolvers was disassembled and a rag and a bottle of Hoppe’s No. 9 solvent lay beside it. Shapiro saw John glance from the weapons to the walls, which were covered with posters. The posters were assorted, everything from NRA advertisements to intricate how-to placards on the care of firearms and firearms safety. “I teach NRA handgun safety courses,” Shapiro commented. “Completion of one is a requirement for a concealed carry permit.”
John looked past Shapiro into a small room that held several rows of shelving, each filled with assorted parts for weapons, even parts for machine guns. “I’m one of the few dealers licensed to sell machine guns and machine gun parts by the ATF.”
John looked at his host, obviously intrigued. “There a lot of demand for machine guns?”
“More than you might imagine. Someone has to service the legal collectors … even sold some to one of the major movie production companies.”
“I had no idea. How many classes you give?”
“Before the governor made it legal for anyone in Maine to carry concealed, I’d do two a month … mostly on Sundays.” He handed John a small business card that listed him as a legal dealer and manufacturer of machine guns and silencers.
Julia Shapiro reappeared carrying a tray on which sat a complete coffee service. She placed it on the table and departed without saying anything. Shapiro poured two cups of steaming coffee and asked, “Cream and sugar?”
“Black is fine.”
Shapiro sat in the chair in front of the disassembled revolver and motioned for John to sit across from him. “What brings you here?”
“Two days ago we found a body, up near Lake Frontière.”
“That would be the young fellow from Massachusetts. I did a preliminary autopsy on him yesterday. I took one look at him and knew that it was going to require a hell of a lot more testing than I could do here. The body is being transported to Augusta for a more complete one.”
“What can you tell me?”
“Cause of death was massive blood loss and trauma to most of his internal organs. I have no idea what the killer used as a weapon.”
“So it’s a homicide?”
“By legal definition: anytime someone dies of other than natural causes it’s a homicide…. However, this was a murder and a particularly brutal one at that.”
“Can you tell me anything else?”
“Nothing, other than the fact that he was brutalized before dying and something had been eating him?”
“Animals get to him?”
“Right now I can’t say, they’ll have a better idea once the people down in Augusta go over the cadaver. I will give you my personal opinion though, whatever was rooting around inside that young man had a flat snout—more like that of a human than that of any four-legged predator I ever saw.”
John was silent as he processed the information. After several moments, John said, “I wonder if there may be a Native American link.”
“Are you alluding to the fact that in some tribes it was believed that if a warrior ate the liver of a worthy enemy he would gain that warrior’s courage and strength?” Shapiro asked. “I will admit that the thought crossed my mind. There’s anthropological proof that some tribes ate the bodies of dead captives to induce fear in their enemies. There’s also Wendigo psychosis.”
“Wendigo psychosis?”
“Wendigo psychosis is what shrinks call a mental state where the sufferer has an intense craving for human flesh; some believe that they see people as edible animals. It appears to be culture bound.”
“What do you mean by culture bound ?”
“Very few, if any, cases have involved ethnicities other than Native Americans.”
“Are you saying that this only happened to Indians?”
“I’d even go further than that. It seems to be prevalent in people from tribes in the Algonquin nation, which runs from the Canadian Maritime provinces west to Minnesota and south to the Ohio River, the greatest numbers being in Quebec and Ontario.”
Something in John’s mind snapped. Like a lightning strike, awareness burst through the barriers his mind had formed to hold back the primordial fear that had been nagging him. He thought that he knew what had made the track and his heart leapt! It took him several long seconds to squelch his superstitions and childish fears. Still, a chill raced through him. A horrific word echoed through his head, one that adults had used to scare him into behaving when he was a child. The most evil of all the Algonquin spirits—the Wendigo!
John recalled the tales his grandfather had told him. The old man, in his eighties when John was eight, had mesmerized him with tales of the old days and of the Wendigo. John remembered the old man’s response when asked if he really believed that such a creature existed: “No,” his grandfather replied, “but I saw his tracks once….” John wondered if he, like his grandfather before him, had looked at the track of a Wendigo. While John listened to Serge, his mind was busy, recalling everything he had ever heard about the Wendigo.
“So there are people who suffer from this psychosis?”
“Prior to 1900 it occurred frequently among Algonquin cultures, one of which is your Maliseet tribe, but since Native American urbanization the incidence has fallen dramatically.”
“But not completely …”
“Nothing ever stops completely. By the way, the success rate in curing a patient with this particular psychosis is lower than the success rate treatment centers have in getting addicts off their drug of choice … only about 14 percent versus 20. The only thing I know of with a higher rate of recidivism is nicotine addiction.”
“Just what I need,” John said, “a psychopath who thinks people are on the menu.”
“Are you trying to say we’re dealing with someone suffering from the Wendigo psychosis?” Serge said.
John said, “I hope that’s all….”
7
Maliseet First Nation, Edmundston, New Brunswick, Canada
John Bear coasted to a stop in front of the small house. He sat in the stillness and stared at the light glowing from the kitchen window. He slid from the seat, walked onto the porch, and knocked on the door. He heard the shuffling footsteps of his father’s ancient tread from within. He swallowed nervously, not knowing what type of reception he would get. It had been over four years since he had last visited the old man and the parting had not been good.
The door opened a crack and Charley Bear’s rheumy eyes peered out into the darkness. The old man’s craggy face curled as he squinted to focus his eyes. He gazed out trying to see who was disturbing him at this late hour. “John?” The gravel in his voice made John aware of how much the old man had aged.
“Yes, Father. May I come in?”
Charley Bear stepped back and his face cracked into a toothless smile. “Of course! Of course! My god, boy, I ain’t heard from you since you called me on my birthday, two or three months ago. Where you been?” He closed the door as soon as his son stepped through the threshold.
“I’m still living across the line, in Ashland,” John answered.
“Pretty country over there, used to hunt it a lot myself. You still a warden?”
“Yeah, another five years and I can retire.”
“How’s your brother?”
“Maybe you ought to get together and come and see your old man once in a while.”
Rather than point out how Charley had been a nonentity in the lives of his sons during the years that their drunken mother had dominated them, John ignored the old man, allowing him to continue believing the fantasy that he was a good father. Instead he said, “We should do that.”
The old man led John into the small kitchen and pulled a chair out for him. “Set yourself down, boy.” He stood by the table, stooped with age, and assessed John for several long moments. John began to feel like a lab specimen. “You’re looking good, if I must say so myself. You want some coffee?” the old man asked.
John became aware of the heady aromatic mixture of cigarette smoke and coffee that filled the small overly hot room and nodded. “I’ll get it, you sit,” he said. He took the old man by the arm to help him into a chair.
Charley Bear immediately yanked his arm free. “I may be old, but I ain’t feeble. Now set down and I’ll get it!”
John held his hands up in supplication, “Okay, okay. You get it.” He could not help but smile at the old man’s desire to appear self-sufficient. His father shuffled over to the stove, used the toe of his Red Wing work boot to hook open the firebox of the antiquated woodstove. He picked up two pieces of firewood from the stand to the immediate right of the stove, tossed them into the blaze, and pushed the door shut with his foot. He grabbed the coffeepot from the stovetop, hooked two mugs with the index finger of his left hand and returned to the table, taking a seat across from his son. He placed the mugs on the table and poured coffee into them, splattering the table as his hands shook from Parkinson’s.
John ignored the spillage and accepted one of the mugs.
“Cream and sugar?” the old man asked.
“No, black is fine.”
The arthritic knuckles of Charley Bear’s hands seemed elevated as he fought to twist the cover off a jar of non-dairy creamer. He scooped five teaspoons of creamer into his mug, scattering most of it as his hands shook, and then repeated the chore to add an equal amount of sugar. Once his coffee was prepared to his liking, he fumbled to remove a cigarette from the pack that sat on the table beside an overflowing ashtray. He struggled for several seconds trying to align the Marlboro with his mouth. Once he’d achieved his objective, he broke three wooden matches attempting to light it. John removed a match, struck it on the side of the box, and held it before the old man, waiting patiently as his father sucked through loose lips. “You really ought to cut down on the sugar,” John said.
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