by Erik Hyrkas
Chapter 30. Max
I thought Miranda was going to shoot me. I made her wait while I raided Tyler’s pantry, but I was really hungry. I only found one Bar-F, expired eggs, moldy bread, a big bag of Reese’s Pieces, and a Mountain Dew. Tyler really needed to get out shopping more. I had to give him props though for stocking my favorite candy.
I offered to share the Reese’s Pieces with John and Miranda as we walked out of Tyler’s compound, but neither was interested. Their loss. Miranda only spoke to John when necessary and seemed to not hear anything I said.
I had no clue how to get out of there, but Miranda and John seemed to choose hallways and doors effortlessly. By the time we reached the small four foot tunnel at the entrance, I had finished the Reese’s and the Mountain Dew. I had finished the Bar-F before we were under the afternoon sky.
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“First, we need to determine the Wendigo’s location. He might not have stayed around here. He would probably head for a more populated area where it is easier to pick off people. These creatures’ hunger is insatiable, and unlike most biological beings, they never stop growing. If he has a large enough food supply, he’ll eventually grow to proportions that make dinosaurs look small. Wendigo are capable of asexual reproduction—and actually prefer it—and if the beast gets big enough, it’ll have offspring.”
“How will we find it?” I asked.
Miranda gave me a disdainful look. “We start with the Internet and the local and regional newspapers for missing persons reported. There are many animals to eat in the woods here, and so the creature’s presence might not be obvious yet—just some unconnected reports of missing people. We can’t let this get to the point where we have to make up fake evidence like we did with the Zodiac Killer.”
“So, our next stop is town then?” I asked.
“There’s a coffee shop on main street with free Internet access and newspapers,” John answered.
“Fine,” Miranda said.
John nodded. “I’ll drive. Let’s head to my house.”
Miranda and I took our baggage from the back of Wendy’s truck and carried it with us. As we walked through the woods towards John’s cottage, I kept one eye out for signs of the Wendigo and one eye on Miranda. Her behavior had me baffled.
I was also feeling guilty for not seeing any of this coming. We hadn’t even seen the Wendigo that Tyler brought here yet and so had no idea how big it was. For all we knew, old Japanese horror movies might look less silly and more like premonition by the time we found this creature. Things shouldn’t have spiraled this far out of control. I should have been more suspicious when Tyler first appeared on our plane. It’s very rare that the Service deploys more than two agents to a mission, and his vague explanations didn’t add up from the start. In fact, there were clues along the way that I simply didn’t pick up on. Now I wondered what clues I had missed altogether, even after the fact. I thought maybe I could forgive myself for not seeing any hint that Wendy was involved. Wendy was obviously out for revenge, though, and she had the sadistic personality to get it in spades. She’d hit me when I was the most vulnerable, and she made it clear that it was going to hurt as she killed me if she got the chance.
Miranda seemed genuinely angry with me, but I couldn’t figure out why. Of any partner I’d ever had, I’d kept her mostly unharmed the longest. The broken leg thing really wasn’t my fault, and I fixed that. Maybe getting captured was my fault, but she came out of that unharmed. As partners go, I liked her too. In fact, she was the best partner I had ever had. She was more than competent, and she was cool under fire. Even though she carried a Voltaic Fusion Pistol, I noticed she had it set to stun, which I really appreciated. If she was pissed enough, she might use it on me, and she seemed close to pissed enough. Maybe she was upset because I kept getting taken off guard, I thought, and maybe I needed to let her know I was taking the mission seriously. I didn’t know how to tell her that, though.
I knew we were getting close to John’s house when I heard the fire chickens clucking and saw the mysterious lone goat. I wanted to ask what the goat was crossbred with, just out of curiosity, because I figured there was little chance it was an ordinary goat. But I didn’t ask because I couldn’t think of a way to do it politely.
“Wait here. I’ll pull out of the garage,” John instructed us.
Miranda and I stood there for a minute looking in opposite directions, me at the goat and her at the trees or something.
“I’m sorry I’m not doing a good job,” I said.
She didn’t answer, and I tried to think of something else to say, but John pulled up in a shiny yellow and black Camaro. He popped the trunk, and Miranda and I put our bags in the back. Miranda hopped in the backseat without a word, and so I sat in front.
John drove like a maniac along winding dirt trails, accelerated on partially paved roads, and slid onto actual paved streets. He took us from the middle of nowhere to the Deer Bean Coffee Shop in under six minutes. “Fun!” I declared the ride as I got out of the car. I glanced back and noticed that Miranda looked a little green.
A “free Internet” sign hung on the outside of the building, as promised, and another sign that read “Tuesday mornings: half-price beer.”
“People drink beer on Tuesday mornings here?” I asked.
“No,” John replied. “They drink beer every morning but it’s half-price on Tuesdays.”
“This is a coffee shop, right?” I asked.
John pointed to the name. “They sell coffee, too. People usually drink that before dawn, though.”
John led the way inside, Miranda followed him, and I took up the rear. The clientele were an eclectic bunch: folks wearing socks and sandals at the same time, others wearing greasy jeans and stained flannel shirts, and still others in orange hooded sweatshirts and Carhartt bib overalls. It was afternoon, and the place had twenty-five people in it. There was an old computer in the corner with a sign on it that read “five minute limit.”
Miranda went straight for the computer as John walked up to the counter. I followed the sheriff because I thought maybe Miranda needed her space—whatever that means.
“Tom, I need today’s Ely Echo and Duluth News Tribune,” John asked. He looked at me and then added, “I’ll take a few sticks of beef jerky, too.”
Tom handed John two newspapers and four sticks of beef jerky.
“Thanks, Tom,” John said and paid for the items.
He handed me the beef jerky, then took the papers to a table by the window and started reading. By the time Miranda joined us, I had finished the jerky.
“Other than the mysterious disappearance of our former innkeeper and a couple missing hikers, I don’t see much,” Miranda said.
“Look here,” John said and he pushed a newspaper into the middle of the table. “This article says there have been a string of missing cats and dogs in Silver Bay.”
The article was only a few paragraphs long. Apparently, pets were going missing all over that town and folks were being warned not to leave their animals outside unattended. The article said the authorities suspected wolves.
“That might be him,” Miranda said.
“He’s being very clever. He’s trying to get strong enough that he’s unstoppable before the humans realize they are being hunted,” John said.
“Shh!” Miranda looked around. “It looks like we have our next stop,” she said in a whisper.
“Can you pass the comic section?” I asked.
When Miranda gave me an angry look, I shrugged. “What? It’s going to be a long ride.”
We loaded into John’s car again. I had the comic section, and Miranda had the news sections.
“Buckle up. We’re going sixty-seven miles down the most treacherous road on the planet,” John said as he hit the gas pedal.
He was right. The road seemed designed to dodge pursuing helicopters. It rose and fell, curved and dipped, the whole while with no shoulders. The sides of the road
were flat faces of rock, trees, boulders, and fifty foot drops. If I was going to design an amusement park ride, this would have been my masterpiece.
Even in John’s sporty car, safely traversing the road required that he slow it down a bit, but just a bit. I finished the comics in the first five minutes of our drive, and the rest of the way I simply enjoyed the roller coaster ride. Miranda didn’t look like she was having fun at all. I didn’t try to speak to her though because I still didn’t know what to say.
“We’re about twenty minutes away,” John said.
“Great! I could really use a pee,” I said.
He looked at me. “You really don’t have to share everything with us.”
“Look out!” Miranda said, pointing from the backseat at a giant moose walking across the road. John swerved, and we skidded into the trees, smashing into a boulder the size of a pickup truck. The airbags inflated and cushioned the blow, but the impact was still jarring.
I looked in the side view mirror. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine. You didn’t hit it.”
John sighed. “We’re now about two hours away.” He stepped out of the car.
“Be careful,” Miranda whispered. “The moose is the most dangerous animal in Minnesota. Don’t startle it.”
“I’m sure the most dangerous animal in Minnesota is the Wendigo,” John said. “The moose will wander off in a moment.”
I got out of the car and Miranda followed. We grabbed our bags from the trunk. John retrieved a small backpack also. The sky had clouded over in the past few hours and now looked dark and threatening.
“I loved this car,” he said. He shook his head and looked away, almost tearful, I thought. “Let’s go.”
The moose wandered off the road as we watched, and we could hear him crunching and grunting as he walked down into the thicker underbrush. I tried to see it, but there was too much foliage.
I had just started up the road behind John and Miranda when the moose wailed and I heard a thrashing in the underbrush. Miranda and John froze. We could hear tearing and slurping coming from the forest. Something big shifted among the dense branches.
“Be very still,” whispered John.
He pulled out his pair of Ultra Mag Two RPGs, and Miranda mirrored his motions, retrieving her Voltaic Fusion Pistol. I took out a pen from my pocket.
“If it can eat a moose, we’re not going to take it down with weapons like these,” Miranda whispered.
“You’re right. We need to lure it someplace that we can even the playing field,” John whispered back.
“Lake Superior,” I whispered.
“Why Lake Superior?” Miranda asked.
“Wendigo are afraid of water because they can drown,” I whispered. “And they can’t swim.”
“That’s all well and good, but we’re fifteen miles from Lake Superior. We can’t outrun him all the way to the lake and then ask him to jump in when he gets there,” Miranda whispered.
“We can’t kill him, but we can slow him down,” John said. “We can hurt the creature, and then maybe we can get him to chase us there.”
“That still won’t get him in the water,” Miranda said.
“We’ll improvise when we get there,” I said.
“Listen,” John ordered.
There were no more tearing or slurping sounds. I peered into the woods for motion, but I couldn’t see or hear anything unusual in the thick underbrush. A light drizzle began to fall on us.
