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

by Jeff Menapace

  “All accounts we’ve discussed of Cree or Ojibwa killing men afflicted with the curse of the Windigo were just men, Kane. Just men. Could you imagine what would happen today if a man shot a schizophrenic and pleaded he was doing the world a service by ridding it of another potential Windigo? My God, he’d be deemed less-balanced than the schizophrenic—shipped off to the nearest psych unit, indefinitely.”

  “So you admit that a Windigo cannot be killed by conventional means.”

  “That’s not what I said; you’re twisting my words.”

  “You said the Windigo was your favorite of all folklore. Your passion. What if I could prove to you it was real?”

  “Even if you did; even if the mythology was somehow accurate, I told you, I’m not a medicine man. I wouldn’t have the ability to stop it.”

  “But you have the knowledge.”

  The professor sighed. “Yes—I, along with many other enthusiasts, have the knowledge of how to kill a Windigo. It doesn’t mean we are capable though. It would be akin to asking a man to read a recipe for hollandaise then trust he gets it right the first time in the kitchen.” He smiled and added, “Trust me; I can give you a first-hand account of how unlikely such a task is. I’ve never tasted anything so awful.”

  Kane ignored the quip, undeterred by any attempt at levity. “Your knowledge is all I’m after. I will do all the work. What do you have to lose by accommodating me? If I am wrong, you can cast me off as the crazy you believe I am. But if I am right…”

  The professor weighed Kane’s words. For years now he had been flirting with the idea for an epic book on the Windigo. Something to earn him the respect of his peers. The students loved his classes on folklore and cryptozoology, but his fellow professors likened such subjects to child’s play. He was even made the butt of a joke about leprechauns during a faculty social gathering on St. Patrick’s Day:

  Now tell us, Russell, is it true they get very aggressive if you go near their gold?

  What seemed like endless snickering followed. And although he had smiled and taken the joke in stride, it burned him to his core. The incident occurred six years ago, and it burned just as much now as it did then, more perhaps.

  But now, the spark Professor Jon needed to finally bring alight the beginnings of such a book was perhaps revealing itself to him in the guise of this imposing man hell-bent on vengeance. Kane brought an entirely new angle to the venture, and was indeed a character that even fiction would do an injustice; he would make a fantastic addition to the project if it ever came to fruition.

  As would a journey. Actual hands-on research with a Cree tracker: member of a tribe historically infamous for their legendary “encounters” with the fabled Windigo. A Cree tracker who would swear on his life that a Windigo killed his father and damn-near killed him. And let’s not forget, the man had the scars to prove it. Be them from bear, wolf, or Windigo, it mattered little as to which beastly lap the guilt fell, the scars would still make for some brilliant and shocking photos.

  As for the secret to vanquishing a Windigo? The internet offered plenty. Plenty that Kane had likely researched and already deemed unsatisfactory, hence his presence. Plenty that Professor Jon could swat aside and replace with the real deal…as if such a thing really existed.

  A book. A good one. A damn good one. A book-signing with a line out the door a mile long…on St. Patrick’s Day, you bastards.

  “Alright, Kane,” Professor Jon said. “Tell me what you have in mind. I’m not promising anything…but I’m listening.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Tim wasn’t speeding (you couldn’t on such a road), but he certainly wasn’t the cautious tourist he’d been the first time they’d braved the path. The car bounced and bumped frequently, dips and ruts barely getting a tap of the brakes.

  “This is fucking crazy,” Andy said. “How the hell could someone sneak into the car without us seeing and steal our phones?”

  “They probably did it when we were preoccupied with the girl,” Michelle said.

  “They who?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Tim finally said, “Why didn’t they take the keys?”

  There was a brief silence. Andy eventually said, “What?”

  “Why didn’t they take the keys? The car? Anything else? Why just the phones? They went through Rachel and Michelle’s bags—why not take their money, wallets…hell, the bags themselves? Would’ve been a hell of a lot easier than digging around.”

  “We had the car parked on the side of the road, facing that tree,” Andy said. “By the time they started the engine and straightened it out we’d have been on them before they could pull away.”

  “Alright,” Tim said. “But why not the keys? Without the keys we’d have been forced to go on foot. They could have easily hid and waited until we were gone—taken the car then.”

  “You hear that animal screaming its head off out there? I wouldn’t want to be playing hide and seek with that thing roaming around.”

  “Chances are this is their turf; they’d know where to go, where to hide. Besides, that animal was probably a bird—they can be loud as all hell.”

  Andy looked annoyed. “Okay, so what are you saying then?”

  Tim shrugged. “I’m not too sure. I’m just asking why they’d take our cell phones and nothing else, that’s all.”

  Michelle said, “They wanted to prevent us from calling for help.”

  There was another brief silence, Michelle’s words like a creak in the attic.

  Tim eventually nodded and said, “Yeah…” He then shrugged again. “Except they left the keys.”

  Andy frowned, turned and looked at the child. “How is she?”

  Rachel and Michelle looked at the little girl. Tim stole glances in the rearview. The child appeared over-stimulated, her wide eyes desperately following everything that passed Michelle’s window, like a kid being rushed through an endless window display of toys.

  “I think she’s freaked out,” Michelle said.

  “Well no shit,” Andy said.

  “No, asshole, I meant she’s freaked out by riding in a car for probably the first time—”

  “Whoa, what the hell…?” Tim hit the brakes. The car slowed to a stop. Unlike the first time, there was no mystery here; the high beams gave each of them an immediate front row seat. A tree the size of a telephone pole was lying long and high across the narrow road, blocking their path.

  Both Michelle and Rachel leaned forward. Rachel said, “Are you kidding me?”

  “Wait here,” Tim said. He exited the car and headed for the tree. They all watched through the windshield as he inspected the scene. When he returned a moment later he said, “The road might as well be closed.”

  “Fuck!” Andy blurted.

  Rachel said, “We came this way though, right? I mean, there’s no other road? We didn’t detour?”

  Tim shook his head. “This is the only road.” And then, deciding on whether or not he should say it, whether it was wise to stoke the fire of hysteria that was growing just fine by itself, Tim felt a sudden obligation to his friends for full disclosure. Hysteria or not, they needed the truth—if for nothing else than the collective wisdom of four minds instead of one in a situation proving more enigmatic by the second.

  “The tree was cut,” he eventually said.

  “What?”

  “It was cut. Chopped at the base.” Tim made a small axe-chopping motion with his hands.

  “Why?” Rachel asked.

  “Too keep us from leaving!” Andy snapped.

  “But why?”

  No one answered. Anything would have been guesswork, and frightening guesswork at that.

  “Eat? Eat?”

  “Shut up!” Andy hissed, turning in his seat. “This is your damn fault!”

  “Dude!” Tim said.

  Rachel leaned forward and slapped his arm.

  Michelle cradled the little girl and added: “Asshole.”

  The reprimands, e
ven the one from Tim, seemed to bounce off. “Look, fuck you all—you know I’m the only one here with the balls to say what everyone is thinking.”

  “No,” Rachel said, “you’re the only one here acting like a selfish douche bag.”

  Andy opened his door. “Fine, you know what? I’ll climb over the tree and walk the fuck back to Minneapolis.”

  Rachel said, “Fine, go.”

  Tim said, “Dude, come on—stop.”

  A big man with olive skin and a shaved head met Andy as he exited the car. The man said, “It’s not wise to go wandering out here alone.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Tim rushed out of the car. The girls stayed put in back, holding onto the child as though she were their own. When Tim approached Andy and the big man they were almost nose to nose.

  Andy was big, just under six feet, but heavily muscled. The stranger was taller, and while not as thick as Andy, Tim could spot a powerful man when he saw one. The stranger with the shaved head and olive skin wore jeans, boots, and what Tim quickly processed as some kind of buckskin coat.

  “Are you the one that took our phones?!” Andy screamed into the stranger’s face.

  The stranger was stone in the face of Andy’s verbal attack, his reply firm and even. “I did not take anything of yours. Please listen to me—”

  “Bullshit!” Andy shoved the stranger back a step.

  Tim intervened and placed a hand on Andy’s chest. Andy blindly pushed it away and stepped forward until he was in the stranger’s face again.

  Andy pointed at the tree in the road. “You cut that tree down to stop us?” Andy shoved him again. “Bitch, I will stomp you into the fucking ground…”

  Still, the stranger remained stone. Not even a flicker of anger. Tim had seen Andy’s temper draw him into more than enough scraps during their college days, and maybe a year or two after when the longing for college-life might have replaced classes with jobs, but hammered-drunk weekends with…hammered-drunk weekends. Tim had seen his friend fight, and he had seen him emerge, more times than not, with nothing more than a busted hand from hammering the other guy’s head in. So in any other situation, Tim’s intervening would have been more to save the other guy a beating, and to save Andy a likely night in county, followed by a morning trip to the ER to cast his broken hand.

  Except Tim feared this time would be different. And it wasn’t the circumstances, harrowing as they were, it was the stranger.

  “Andy,” Tim said, intervening again, placing a hand on Andy’s heaving chest, trying to force him back a step or two without igniting him. “Come on, man, just chill.”

  “Fuck that...” Andy pushed Tim aside and swung a big right hand at the stranger.

  Tim wasn’t sure what happened next; he’d never seen anything like it. Fluid violence were the first words that popped into his head. Fluid, because the stranger’s response to Andy’s attack seemed effortless; violence, because Andy suddenly found himself face-down on the road, the stranger pinning him there with one knee in Andy’s back and one hand on his head.

  Perhaps, Tim quickly thought, fluid restraint was more apt; it was obvious the stranger had no intention of hurting Andy, merely controlling him. When the stranger spoke a tick later, it verified Tim’s assumption.

  “I have no intention of hurting you,” he said. “But if you continue to try and harm me, I will.”

  Andy, one cheek mashed against the road, the stranger’s hand pressing down on the other, muttered through distorted lips: “Okay, man—I’m cool, I’m cool.”

  CHAPTER 9

  It was an old man with white hair and glasses that offered a hand and a smile to Andy. Andy took it, and the old man helped him to his feet. The stranger with the shaved head stayed a cautious few feet back in case Andy fancied his chances again.

  The girls remained in the car with the child, but their window was now down, catching everything.

  “Are you alright?” the old man asked Andy.

  Andy started brushing himself off. “Fine.” He eyed the stranger for a brief moment before focusing all of his attention on the old man. “Who are you?”

  The old man smiled and extended his hand for the second time. “Russell Jon. I’m a professor at Bemidji State.”

  Andy took the professor’s hand again. “You lost?”

  Professor Jon said, “According to my friend, we are not.”

  All eyes fell on the stranger with the shaved head.

  Andy grunted. “You mean the UFC heavyweight champ over there?”

  “My name is Kanen,” the stranger said. “You can call me Kane. I apologize for my actions, but you—”

  Andy held up a hand, cutting him off. “Forget it.”

  Tim was shocked at his friend’s willingness to yield without issue—not only to the physical encounter (it wasn’t like he could dispute such a one-sided result after all), but more importantly, to the aftermath. No pride-dented posturing and finger-pointing from a safe distance after the fact; no empty threats for revenge to quench the ego, to kick-start the guaranteed diatribe he would undoubtedly recite over and over once he was safely back in the car, each telling carrying more venom and sincerity than the last in order to save face in front of Rachel.

  Was Tim’s punch first, ask questions later friend maturing before his eyes? Or was such a swift and sound ass-whooping at the hands of this man who called himself Kane the reason for Andy’s sudden willingness to be such a forgiving fellow? Tim wanted to believe the former. His gut was more realistic, wagering on the latter.

  “Is it just the two of you out here?” Tim asked.

  “Yes,” Professor Jon said.

  “No,” Kane refuted.

  “So you saw them?” Tim asked.

  Kane stepped forward. His face was as granite as ever, but the inflection in his voice held curiosity. “Them who?” he asked. “What did you see?”

  Tim said, “We didn’t see anyone. But someone did steal our cell phones…” He pointed to the tree in the road. “Also cut that tree down to keep us from going anywhere.” Tim then paused a moment, Kane’s earlier comment coming back to him. He frowned and said, “Wait—you said it’s not just the two of you out here?”

  Kane looked away and said nothing.

  Professor Jon said, “No, it is, it is. My friend is looking for someone. He believes they may be out here.”

  “Wouldn’t happen to be a little girl would it?” Andy asked.

  “Come again?” the professor said.

  “It’s why we’re out here,” Tim said. “We were on our way to a cabin we rented for the weekend. On the way we spotted a little girl tied to a tree.”

  The professor’s mouth dropped as he put a hand to his chest.

  “I know, right? So, of course we stopped to help her. The poor kid looks ridiculously neglected. She can barely talk.” Tim paused as the professor leaned to one side and looked inside the Toyota at the little girl between Michelle and Rachel. “As we were helping her,” Tim continued, “someone must have gotten inside our car and stolen our cell phones without us noticing. They left the keys though. In fact they left everything—everything except the phones.”

  “But they left the keys?”

  Tim nodded. “Curious, huh?”

  “Very.”

  Tim said, “Yeah, well, if you told me they were kids just trying to steal something as quick as they could in order to make a few bucks, I might be able to buy it…”

  “Yet you say nothing else was stolen.”

  “Yup.”

  “Strange they would risk rummaging around for phones instead of just grabbing whatever they could—if they were only after a quick buck of course.”

  “I thought the exact same thing,” Tim said. “So we decided whoever it was, didn’t want us calling for help.” He flicked his chin towards the car. “Maybe because of the child.”

  “Meaning?”

  Tim gave a thin smile. “Still trying to figure that out.”

  The professor looked at t
he car again. Kane kept his eyes on the surrounding woods.

  Tim continued. “Anyway, we decided to just forget the cabin and head back to the Cities. Of course we were only on the road for a minute or so.” He gestured towards the tree.

  Andy had wandered over to the base of the fallen tree. He ran a hand over the cut. “Whoever chopped this thing must have been Paul Bunyan on meth,” he said. “We couldn’t have been with the kid that long.”

  Rachel leaned her head out the window. “Maybe they used a chainsaw.”

  “We would have heard it,” Andy called back.

  “Maybe that’s what that noise was,” she replied.

  Andy frowned. “That wasn’t a chainsaw, Rach.”

  Rachel tucked her head back inside the car and mumbled something derogatory.

  “Noise?” Professor Jon said.

  Andy joined the three of them again. “Yeah—some God-awful screech. Thought my eardrums were gonna burst. You didn’t hear it?”

  “We did, yes. We figured it for a bird.”

  “That’s what Tim said.”

  Kane said. “When did you hear this?”

  Andy shrugged. “Probably the same time you did.”

  Kane closed his eyes and shook his head slowly as though irritated. “When.”

  Andy made a face. “I just told you.”

  Kane spoke slow and firm. “At which point did you hear the animal cry?”

  Andy shrugged. “I’m not following you, man. Chances are, you heard it the same time we did. We were carrying the kid to the car—”

  Kane turned his back to Andy, cutting him off. He then began wandering towards the woods.

  Andy turned to the professor. “What’s up with that guy? In fact, what’s up with both of you? Where the hell’d you come from anyway?”

  The professor shot a thumb behind him. “There’s a village not far down the road.”

  “You’re from the village?” Tim said.

  “Not from—staying at. How do you know of it? Have you been already?”