Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Souls Disappear in the Snow ❯ Wendigo ( Chapter 9 )

Souls Disappear in the Snow- GW fanfic
Masamune Reforged '06

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of the characters therein.
Warnings: yaoi (established 3x4, developing 1x2 and 5x2, angst, violence, supernatural, cursing, death?(see chapter 6 and 7 notes)
Archive: Anyone that wishes to archive this fic is welcome to.
Comments: to Masamuneehs@hotmail

Summary: After crashlanding in the wastes of the Arctic, the 5 Gundam pilots struggle to escape the deserted mansion that becomes their cage as time wiles on, slowly wearing each of them down. Tensions running high and clashes becoming more and more frequent, the pilots' hopes are boosted after finding a travel log and map giving clues on how to reach the outside world. Duo, feuding with Heero and fighting off Wufei's advances, the most determined to return to the battlefield, leads another expedition onto the Arctic steppe after Trowa is injured in a previous attempt.

 

Note: I have adjusted some of the story to fit the timetable. This story takes place in the deep north during winter. Days in winter are short in the Arctic, with the deepest part of winter sometimes having ZERO hours of sun for days, weeks, in a row.

Originally I had Duo, Heero and Wufei leave the same day of Trowa's injury. But looking back there is no way that would fit in the time allowed. So I've adjusted this part to emphasize the incredible severity of winter in the north.

 

Part 9 - Wendigo

Duo was banging down my door early in the morning. A bleary-eyed Heero lingered in the hallway behind him, victim to another sleepless night. Duo wanted all of us to be ready to go the moment the sun came up.

 

But the star did not seem to want to break the horizon on that day. Darkness continued to engulf the tundra well past when it should have. I took a lengthy shower (Duo pounding on the bathroom door loud enough to wake the dead), took my time with breakfast, double checked, triple checked my gear. I was wide awake and had been for about three hours. But Mr. Sunshine still seemed to be in bed.

 

Duo was fuming, “What the fuck is going on? This God's sick idea of a joke?”

 

Quatre woke up, entered the kitchen where the three of us were idling (Heero had fallen asleep for a few minutes, but jarred himself awake, Prussian blue eyes snapping open and scanning the room wildly at the sound of Quatre opening the door). The Sandrock pilot reported that Trowa's arm was pretty bad, but that the Heavyarms pilot would be alright. It was the first time in a long time I'd seen Quatre honestly worried about his partner. Sympathy was taking some of the poison out of the snakebite.

 

Another hour passed, the sun still did not rise.

 

“This is fucking bullshit!” Duo was at a breaking point. “I'm going!”

 

“Are you sure that's a good idea?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

 

“We have our bearings starting out and the flashlight batteries are all recharged. Don't be such a worry wort,” Duo grinned, having prepared for any protest I could make.

 

“You ready to rock and roll Heero?” Duo asked, flashing a smile.

 

Heero looked more ready to roll over and fall back to sleep, but he nodded and lifted himself out of his chair.

 

We had been out in the Arctic for over an hour before light finally broke the eastern horizon.

 

<-><-><-><-><->

The trek across the Arctic wasteland was as casual and uneventful as any trip through treacherous, barren regions can be. My first time out there, following the crash, I had been overwhelmed by the power and relentlessness of the tundra. I had floundered around in a shitty little ravine and convinced myself that I was about to die. The next time out... I still didn't want to think about that expedition...

This time, I told myself, I was not going to let the land beat me down. As we traveled, single file following Duo, the hardest thing besides physically lifting my legs and plodding forward was not getting separated. There was no falling snow; in fact, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. But the wind whipped around the already fallen flakes and threw them in a bitter, menacing dance over the endless stretch. I buttoned up my coat and tucked as much of my face under the collar as would allow me to still see where I was going. I blinked constantly to keep the snow out of my one good eye.

 

The sun peaked over the treetops of a forest to the east, but did not seem to have the energy to lift itself into the sky.

I kept trying to reassure myself. I kept thinking that there was only one thing different about this place that made it seem so incredible, the cold. The snow wasn't the problem; snow is just moisture falling from the clouds. But freezing snow can have you succumb to frostbite if you don't dress right. Ice wasn't the problem. That's just frozen water. All it is is slippery. Just keep your feet like always. If you fall out here, it's just like leaving your feet anywhere else. You'll still fall the same distance, unless its into a chasm. Those weren't the problem either. Chasms, ditches, holes existed everywhere. But a steep enough fall would kill anyone, period.

The real problem was that all of these little things were cold, and people don't like the cold. I sure wasn't enjoying myself, and from Heero's sporadic cursing, he was loving it as much as I was. So, there we were, three of us unlucky enough to be out there in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We could explode an atomic warhead here and people would never notice... until the radiation fallout did its work. If another soul drifted this forbidden crack of Earth he was a fool. I wondered if whoever created the world had made this place especially as a haven from men. It certainly seemed like the hostile environment was naturally pitted against us.

<-><-><-><-><->

"See!" Duo yelled from the front, turning towards Heero and I. White flakes and his hood covered a majority of Duo's face, but I could make out a wide smile over the brim of the collar. "Straight ahead!" I looked around. Visibility was low, but I couldn't find any signs of trees or anything at… Wait… Straining my only useful eye, I squinted into the distance. Small brown pebbles seemed to sit on the western horizon. We'd traveled for well over four hours.

"Looks like you were right," Heero was smiling, but the Perfect Soldier had such a strange one. He looked like he was trying to suck on a lime.

"Course I was right!" Duo puffed himself up proudly. I stayed quiet, surveying the terrain and still looking for any unexpected drop-offs. There was no way to tell where the land fell away.

As we came close we saw that the town was not a real town, it was a mere settlement. Rundown wooden shacks faced each other from opposite sides of the only road. The road was more of a patch of ice than anything else. I counted only a few dozen homes, but this many people braving the Arctic waste everyday astounded me. Duo and Heero were slowly moving ahead of me, and I rushed to catch up with them.

"What the?” Heero exclaimed suddenly. We had been passing a burned out shack on the outskirts when suddenly a furry figure jumped out at us. Cobalt eyes narrowing, Heero stared down at the …child?

I squinted too. Under a heavy, muddy brown colored parka ,and an equally filthy hat, two deep, dark eyes stared back. Duo approached the child, his mouth open with whatever he'd been about to say. Heero brought his hand out from under the right side of his coat, his usual spot for a gun. A muffled voice seemed to laugh at us from under the merry opal orbs of the child.

"Did he say something?" I asked. My peripheral vision picked up another figure standing at the doorway of one of the closer hovels. The child said something in a quick, laughing voice. I could not make out a word.

"It's a girl," Duo said, matter of factly. I grunted. How could anyone tell the difference with all the clothing hiding her? "Hey little girl," Duo knelt in the snow, a gloved hand reaching out. She took a step back, to which Duo sourly said, "Hey. I can see why you might be afraid of these sour looking guys, but don't be afraid of me!"

"Where is this place?" Heero tried. The little girl did not say anything, so the Wing pilot tried again, "What is your home called?" The kid began to speak louder, but I could not make out a clear word. Heero frowned and said to the two of us, "She isn't speaking any language I've ever heard before."

"Fuckin' figures," Duo growled. He turned away and yelled at yet another native who had left the warmth of the hearth to get a look at the strangers, "Hey you! Do you speaka dee English?!" The man, for it was clearly a man with a long beard, promptly slammed his door, retreating indoors. "Fuckin' figures."

"Let me try something," Heero said, sniffling slightly from the cold.

For the next ten minutes, he tried communicating with the girl in Japanese, but it was soon obvious that she did not understand him at all. I tried a few different languages, but I still could not get a word that I could understand out of her.

 

More people came out of their homes, congregating together and eying us. They stuck together in a small, tight, cluster. It didn't escape me that some of them were carrying crude weapons. Eventually what had to be the entire village was gathering around us, and a stout, dark skinned woman called the little girl over to her side. I looked at Duo, to Heero, to Duo.

"We're lost," Heero stated to the crowd. Even if they didn't understand us, the natives could surely have guessed our plight. But they seemed reluctant to even approach us. "Does anyone have access to a radio-"

"Stop being an idiot Heero," Duo cut in. "It's obvious none of them have any idea what we're all about." He shook his head, kicking a snow embankment out of sheer boredom. "Maybe," his violet eyes lit with a startling glitter, "Maybe the best thing would be for us to split up. We'll be able to cover more ground. I don't know if they'll have any place for us to stay the night."

 

I glanced at the sun, it was barely sitting on the horizon and seemed to already be descending... I did not want to be out on the frozen hell with only a moon to light the way.

"Just don't get too far away," I said. It turned out that Heero must have said something very similar, because Duo rounded on both of us and snapped with such intensity that some of the villagers raised their primitive weapons in defense:

"I'm not fucking helpless!" Duo yelled. His eyes narrowed at the two of us. "Both of you never stop mothering me, like I don't have a goddamn clue! I'm more than capable of looking out for myself. What? Can't I get a moment alone?!? You drive me up the goddamn wall!"

With braid snaking out from his hood, Duo wheeled around and stalked off. I made to follow him, but Heero quickly insisted otherwise, "Leave him alone. He needs to clear his head I guess."

Both of us stood and looked at each other for a while. Some of the villagers began to walk off; it appeared they wanted to keep an eye on Duo. They continued to chat in their own language. I gave Heero a blank look; he returned an equally vacant stare. I was beginning to hate the Japanese nuisance.

"It would be best if we all split up," I finally broke the silence. Heero just nodded, then walked over to the remaining group of Inuits. I uneasily glanced in the direction Duo had walked off in, but he was no longer in sight. With a sigh I began to investigate the houses.

 

<-><-><-><-><->

 

The first house's door, where the bearded man had appeared, was locked. I knocked more times than was courteous, but only because I knew the occupant was hiding from me. After a few minutes of silence I decided to leave the coward alone.

 

The next house's door was swung wide open the moment my knock reverberated through the weak wooden frame. A very red lady, she seemed the color of a tomato to me, threw out her fat arms in a greeting and I backed away, thinking she was going to hug me. She grabbed me by the wrists and pulled me inside.

The hut had two rooms, neither of which was a bathroom. Two uncomfortable looking, dirt stained cots decorated the room along with numerous blankets and articles of clothing. A girl's voice rung out from what I suspected was the eating area. She rushed into the room, banging her knee on a table. The smell of vodka was incredibly strong; it seemed to issue from the walls themselves. The girl broke out into half- laughter, half- cursing, none of which I could understand.

The mother, for I figured that these two were related, was very drunk herself, but she was pleasant and even offered me the lone chair in the shack. I refused, and began asking as many questions as I could get out. The fat red lady kept interrupting, slurring her speech so much that I wondered if even her own daughter understood what she was trying to tell me. I struggled to get a complete sentence out, and the instant I did, the daughter suddenly screamed at a blood curdling pitch.

She had been drinking from what looked to be a bottle of spirits. For some reason, my words got such a reaction out of her that she dropped the glass container and actually leapt into my arms. She began to squeeze me so tight that I nearly punched her in the head. The mother was scolding her, and picking up the bottle that had begun to leak across the cracked floor. The girl began to hurriedly whisper and drawl into me ear.

"Please, ack," My protest was choked, but I gradually fought back enough to secure ample breathing capacity for my hurting lungs. "Please let me go." I tried to make it look like I had made a mistake, knocked on the wrong door. But the more I talked and for every foot I staggered towards the door, the tighter the girl's hands grasped my coat and the louder she began to talk. Soon she was absolutely yelling in my ear. It was all I could do to not throw her to the floor.

"Jelon!" A roar came from the mother, obviously at her daughter. An unintelligible string of words followed, with the girl fiercely combating whatever message her mother was trying to instill in her.

Then the girl, to my surprise, began to kiss my face and said, in English, "No go!" I stopped and looked her in the eyes; they were filmed over and her mouth hung open, the stench of alcohol wafting out. "Jelon want-see Hollywood!" She kissed me again, and her mother's wrath became even greater and was suddenly directed at me, with the aid of a broom.

With both females in hysterics, I was relieved when I finally heard a voice outside calling, "Duo!"

 

I immediately grabbed the drunken fool's wrists, and wrenched her away. She stumbled and nearly tipped into a wall. She was beginning to cry, and she sobbed a few English words in-between her tears. I could tell I would get nothing from this place.

"Wufei!" Another yell from Heero outside.

"Sorry," I sputtered, not knowing what else to say. The girl was shaking her head, dully banging against the wall. The mother seemed content, despite the hurricane that my coming had started in her home. In fact, she was so wrapped up in the bottle of spirits that I doubt she heard me slip outside. The last image I saw was of the girl's tear stained face raking against the wall and the bottle's bottom glinting in the light as the fat lady polished off the last dregs.

Outside, I found Heero yelling Duo's and my names in the street. Upon my stumbling outside, he quickly turned to me and asked, "Where's Duo?" I stood like a statue outside the entrance of the hut, taking in the fresh air and clearing my head. The bearded man was outside again, smoking a pipe and eying my suspiciously. Heero repeated his question, "Where's Duo?"

It may have been the two hopelessly drunk women, or the bearded coward's stare, or the entire situation, but I was absolutely filled with rage at the simple, concerned question from the Perfect Soldier. I snapped at him, "You were the one that let him go off to clear his head. Remember?" Heero seemed to consider this for a second, but I seethed, "What do you want?"

"Ah," Heero blinked, as a total idiot would. Always distracted by Maxwell. Or was the fatigue doing it? "I think there may be another settlement of natives towards the west." Heero jerked his gloved hand in the direction that the sun was falling towards. Soon it would be completely dark.

"Where?" I asked. I could not see anything, even squinting into the distance.

"That group of natives kept signaling for me to head in that direction," Heero answered, regaining his senses. "You and Duo can cover this place. Also try to find lodging for the night. Is that man motioning for you?"

 

Heero's sudden question turned my attention back to the old man. Indeed, he was nodding and jerking his head, as if enticing me to go over to him. Heero said, "Try it. Maybe he can help us. Oh!" Heero had begun to walk off, but he rushed back to ask me, "You'll tell Duo where I went when you see him?"

I told Heero I would, and he headed off into the vast emptiness. I looked at the ramshackle houses one by one, ending with the first house, where the old man was still smoking his pipe. Even in such pitiful poverty, the bent elder had an air of superiority. He had a casual, but not lazy, posture and his eyes sparkled with calm wisdom, yet confidence reigned there. As I walked over to him, I got a bizarre impression that he was a part of a different land, and for a second I forgot about the horrible place I was stuck in.

 

<-><-><-><-><->

 

As I approached the old man nodded at me, a tangled mess of beads and other jewelry that appeared to be made out of the bones of some sort of animal jangled. He opened his mouth in a smile, and the clinking of his accessories seemed to be his only voice. Then, from between the black teeth, the Inuit elder said, "Hello."

I was stunned. I wondered if he'd simply picked it up from when we had tried to communicate with the other natives? The old man smiled more, exposing his gums. He had a wide mouth, and it seemed to slur the words as they escaped him in a cloud of breath, "Hello boy."

I nearly choked on my own speech, "Eh? You understand? You speak my language?" I was mightily confused. It didn't seem possible that anyone out here understood English. But the man nodded, still smiling. I asked him, "Where is this?"

"Our Land," He simply replied. I thought perhaps he was dumb. "Home is Nour. This is Ivoglin." He slurred his s's with a strained tongue. He understood me, but his concept of grammar and pronunciation was very off. I marveled at the idea that somewhere here he had learned a different language from his own. "You say Alaska."

"We are... not from Earth," I wondered if he had even heard of space colonies. "We are looking for a shuttle, a ship back to, to anywhere really."

"No ship here, no now," The old man put his pipe back into a small pocket in his tattered coat. A tinge of sadness erased his smile. "No whale now. No ship. Where you travel?"

"Anywhere." I nearly added, 'that is civilized', but I was not going to risk insulting this lone source of connection to a life and time that seemed so far away. "I need to get to a spaceport. I need to go to the Colonies," I pointed to the cloudy sky. Would all this be over his head?

He smiled good-naturedly and answered, "Come listen. I have story. You good hear tale. Come listen." He began to walk away.

I tried protesting and was still trying to explain space shuttles and airplanes to him when we reached a small tent. I stopped suddenly upon seeing it, as it had been hidden behind one of the shacks, but the old man stooped over and pulled aside the flap, entering. I had very little choice but to follow.

The inside of the tent was cluttered. Talismans, beaded knick-knacks and roughly drawn paintings decorated the sloping sides and seemed to form almost the image of a starry skyline. In between two smoking sticks of incense, the old man was getting comfortable in what had to be his favorite seat. I saw no chairs or mattresses of any kind to sleep on. I sighed, thinking that maybe this was too much trouble and probably a dead end, but then sat down. Even sitting at the opening, my legs were nearly touching the bent knees of the Inuit who calmly sat at the wall opposite me.

"Story is very old," The medicine man, for what else could he be?, smiled. "But good listen you to old tales. Many lessons. Many meanings also for today." He took a deep breath. He had not once taken his eyes off of me, and he was almost glaring at me now with such intensity that I readied myself in case he lunged forward in attack. "Demons, you know they love paining men."

I sent up a heated protest, but it seemed to die in the canvas and the old man was still going on even as I angrily denied the existence of any supernatural forces. I'd heard so much rubbish about that kind of thing from Quatre and Duo recently!

 

He said, "Men kill men too, but demons always hate men. Is because demons know men worse than demons. Men fight men, many wars. Demons fight men too, not in war. In old days, men fought back. This is story."

What could I do? For all I knew, if I didn't amuse this senile fool, we'd never find a way out. Besides, the notion of searching through more houses like the fat, drunk women's made me queasy. I settled into a reluctant silence, forgetting the bitter world outside and vigorously inhaling the swirling stream of incense through my nose.

 

<-><-><-><-><->

For the reader's sake I myself will recount the story the shaman told me. But, so as to not take away from the experience, I will also add some of my own interruptions and comments. Yes, this may be confusing, but I assure you it is much simpler than trying to decipher what exactly the old man's limited English failed to convey at times.

At first, the old shaman spoke about how different demons came to be and how they could take on physical form. He claimed that demons were a conglomeration of misery, pain and evil thoughts, and that when similar negative forces came together, with a general "desire", they created a demon.

 

I, of course, interjected and asked why nobody saw or spoke of demons anymore. He wrote me off by stating that in modern days, demons needed to be stealthy and remain hidden to survive. Newer demons tended to form into disease, while other would-be demons settled into the hearts and minds of people, bending their actions to an evil end.

The Arctic, the elder explained, had remained unchanged from the beginning of time, locked in a consistent icy turmoil. The freezing temperature had no mercy, killing animals and men alike through frostbite or hypothermia. The snow and ice that poured down from the heavens were among the most powerful forms of the elements. The ground itself was suffocated by the snowstorms and the ice malevolently formed a slippery web of deception, giving an illusion of safety where no firm foothold could be taken. The wind added to both the cold and the ice, maliciously whipping around particles of frost to scatter into one's vision and create absolute chaos in the blink of an eye. The stinging of the wind sought to manipulate the temperature and the frost for its own purpose.

While I could not argue that nature did sometimes appear to have almost human characteristics, I had a hard time believing that wind and water had a will of its own. But after thinking about it, it's impossible to deny that the wind is not very much like a schoolyard bully. It prowls the land at a frightening pace, knocking everything out of its way. The wind can only move and knock over things that are weaker than it. Just as the wind uses chasms and hills to gain force, a bully seeks cronies to increase his power in the school.

The elder said that it was the wind, combined with the bitter cold and bone-rattling storms that formed the demon called Wendigo. Up until this point, I'd sat quietly. But I suddenly felt irritation at the old man, as if he were somehow deceiving me and leading me on to some end. I asked him how he knew the demon's name. He replied that everyone native to Alaska knew of Wendigo*.

The Wendigo was a wandering demon; content with spreading pain and death wherever it would roam. It took the form of a man covered in tattered animal hides, although it's face was more like a wolf's than anything human. Wendigo would use his monstrous speed and strength to destroy homes, rape women and maim children. He delighted in creating as much suffering as possible.

 

Because the Wendigo had a physical body it had eat and drink like any other creature. It preferred the blood and flesh of humans, and would even eat unburied corpses. Gradually the Wendigo became so accustomed to eating humans that it would not eat any other kind of meat, preferring to eat moss rather than deer or any other animal when it could find no human prey.

 

But, in order to keep up its negative energy, the Wendigo needed to also consume souls, tainted souls. This may sound hard, but the hearts of men corrupt easily, and the Wendigo would get his fill from almost any normal person, so long as their essence was one of hatred, fear, sorrow or cowardice. The Wendigo could easily instill any of the above, and even mutilated his own toes and lips so as to create more powerful reactions from its victims.

 

However, the Wendigo had been killed hundreds of years ago.

 

<-><-><-><-><->

The Wendigo had settled in the area of Ivoglin, which was called by another name at the time, when he met his end. In one of the seaside communities, there lived two great warriors. They had grown up together and had shared a great rivalry and bond since childhood. Johanasea, the shyer of the pair, eventually proved himself through traditional tests of courage and bravery to be the greater of the two. He was rewarded by being named the leader of the great whaling expeditions. He sat in the very back of the whaling boat and would steer and shout out commands during the hunt.

As it turned out, Johanasea's longtime rival, Nukilik, was not regarded as any less important to the town, which relied on the whales to produce an annual supply of oil and blubber. In the same year that Johanasea became leader of the whaling hunt, the point man of the expeditions died. A contest was held to see which man possessed the best eye and the best judgment for pursuing the great beasts. Nukilik won, hands down, and was seated at the very front of the boat. For a successful hunt to be realized, the leader and the pointer must work in perfect tandem. Not surprisingly, the two rivals soon became the best of friends.

In fact, they became quite a bit more than friends. And although homosexuality was not frowned on in the remote tundra, the two leaders of the community were expected to pass on their great spirits through a child. Marriages were arranged for both men, although they had no love for any except the other. When the ceremonies were completed, Nukilik set his tent up next to Johanasea's. They spent several years like this. Nukilik had many children, but Johanasea had trouble begetting a son. His wife had had four stillbirths, all male. The shaman called this a "bad omen".

Finally, Johanasea's wife bore him a son. He was a sickly, ugly baby, but his father loved him greatly. The entire village showered the son of their leader and greatly spoiled him. The two lovers had been so successful in their recent hunts that the town was growing richer than it had ever been.

 

Alas, great fortune goes hand in hand with great misfortune, and the Wendigo appeared along the coast again, having drifted out of the eastern forests after dozens of years in which his name had almost been forgotten in Ivoglin.

The day after a great hunt, Johanasea and Nukilik returned to the shore with yet another humpback. However, upon docking their boat both noticed that none of the villagers would look them in the eye. They even seemed saddened by the return of the two hunters. Soon, word reached Nukilik that his wife had been raped and murdered, by the ancient demon, and that Johanasea's only son was missing from the village.

They consulted the elder. He told them there was nothing that could be done about the Wendigo; he had killed two of Nukilik's sons, decent fighters in their own regard, during the rape. Johanasea was told to give up on his son. But, the elder's tent was soon filled with commotion. A group of lumberjacks near the great forest had rushed from their work to tell how a gigantic man who hailed them from far away had approached them. The visitor's face had been masked in the veil of the windswept dusts, but it was undoubtedly the legendary Wendigo. He had held up the young boy for all to see, and cackled, in a barely understandable bass, that the boy would be unharmed if his father could claim him before nightfall. The demon had departed before the lumberjacks even knew what he had really been. But they said he moved at "a frightening speed, as if his feet were skimmers cutting through the ocean and as if the very wind and ice propelled his great mass." Johanasea immediately left the elder's hut.

Up until this point, I had listened to the story with great interest. I had only interrupted the Inuit to inquire about the specifics of whaling, which I had no knowledge of whatsoever. However, it is fair to say, that at this point in the story, I became very annoyed with my entire situation. I persisted in asking as many questions as popped into my head. Comparatively, the rest of the story took almost three times as long to be related to me as the earlier part.

Nukilik followed Johanasea to their twin huts. There, the lead hunter was preparing his dog sled and loading a gigantic whaling spear onto it. He refused to answer his friend and lover, who suggested that this was some sort of trap and that the demon had most likely already slaughtered the innocent child. But Johanasea would not listen to any of this, and it was only when Nukilik resigned himself to accompanying him that he shed tears. It was almost summer time, and the sun was only starting to wane from its position overhead.

The two hurried to the lumberjack camp, which lay on the edge of a marvelous forest. This forest, I was told, had entirely been consumed by the endless greed of men in years afterwards. There they picked up the trail of the demon and Johanasea mushed the dogsled with vigor, driving his huskies relentlessly. The trail had been left purposefully, and Nukilik could not help fearing for his lover and himself as the day whiled itself away.

Finally, after hours of pursuit, with the sky disappearing into the ocean, the two reached the edge of light and dark. Here the sinking sun's bright rays were warming the slushy snow for the final moment of the day. With a quick command, Johanasea stopped the dogs. It was hard to see in the half-light. But, at the edge of the woods, only a foot or two past the border between darkness and brightness, they saw their enemy. The monster's face was covered in a thick, dark liquid, and a tiny, prone form lay at its feet. Johanasea began to rush forward, his spear at the ready, but the monster suddenly laughed:

"Nightfall!" A garbled, almost birdlike squark emanated from Wendigo. He smiled an evil, blood stained smile. "I spare the boy though, so you may suffer and see him tortured. Then I will eat your heart and put the youth to death, his father's fume an eternal part of me."

In a rage that knows no fear, the two friends rushed forward, raising their weapons for an attack. Nukilik, with his knives glimmering in the sunset, reached the beast first. His attack missed. The sickening apparition sidestepped him effortlessly. A war cry burst from Johanasea's lungs, filled with anger and vengeance, but his spear only cut the air.

"You will never kill me! No man can match the Wendigo!" The demon screeched in mockery, but his taunt was caught short as Nukilik rushed in for a second attack, this time swinging his blades in a wide arc, but still falling short. "I move over the tundra like the wind!" Wendigo laughed.

But, the two fighters were quickly pinning the demon into a corner. The thick wall of trees was soon pressing up to the beast's back, and he found he could not dart through either of the two and was too large to easily escape into the thick brush.

 

Infuriated, he paused for a moment during one of Nukilik's lunges. One of the daggers tore through the sinew of the devil's shoulder, but the beast grabbed Nukilik by the arm. The beast began to squeeze the bones so that the snap was audible over the melee of the fight. But Nukilik repeated his stab, and again he cut the monster, and again and again. Finally, Wendigo howled in pain and threw the warrior against a tree with such force that an entire pile of snow shook down to cover the man.

Johanasea had taken this time to aim an attack directly at the monster's head. Two blood shot, yellow eyes snarled from under the wild furry hair, but even the Wendigo could not move fast enough to avoid his nemesis' attack. The spear sank an inch into the demon's chest, but Johanasea's lunge was suddenly halted there. The enraged hunter met the stare of the ancient evil, who had grabbed the spear in both hands to stop the attack.

"You can never overcome me, you can only become a part of me," The Wendigo growled haughtily. "Greater fighters than you have gouged me with their greatest efforts and with deadeye accuracy, but their spear heads only bring blood, not my end. The metal of their blades throb inside me, shielding my heart like armor!" And with gargantuan strength, Wendigo twisted the spear in his chest and wrung it from the hunter's grasp. As he lost control of his weapon, Johanasea was dispatched to the icy ground by a sharp swing, the spear's shaft cracking his jaw.

Nukilik glanced between the vile menace and his injured lover. He knew the fight was rapidly drawing to a close. It was then that he threw himself, head first, at the Wendigo, one knife aimed at the beast's throat and the other at his temple. Wendigo could not possibly block both, and so he patiently waited for Nukilik to race forward, to yell a battle cry, and to be only a hair's breadth away from his own chest before he turned his massive arms into a bear hug, forcing the spear through the brave's back and out the other end. Nukilik screamed, but a thick gurgling cut off the shout.

Johanasea's scream, however, rung off the Arctic steppe, bouncing over the shimmering surface that was steeped in a dark red color from the sun's last rays. Johanasea had picked himself up only to see his friend and lover fatally pierced. Mindlessly he charged Wendigo without a weapon. The beast roared, and carelessly attempted to throw Nukilik off the bloody spear.

But the warrior's hands desperately clung to the dirty fur of the demon. Wendigo felt the nails breaking off into his shoulders, and even with his best efforts, he could not move his arms. He looked down, and for the first time in his existence, was terrified by the face he saw. A small smile was on Natuk's sweat covered face, a trickle of blood running down to his chin. His muscles were bulging as if the very blood in his veins was coursing in an attempt to stay alive. But his eyes, they struck fear into Wendigo. A tranquil but determined hardness shown in the hunter's dark iris. They promised vengeance out of a force stronger than fury or hate.

Wendigo's shoulders began to shake as he tried to brush the dying foe away, but his time was up. Johanasea threw his hardest punch at the beast's face. Both hand and jaw broke on contact. Wendigo stumbled backwards, but regained his sense of center and lurched forward to gain balance. Nevertheless, the arms of death were still firmly encircled about him, and Nukilik managed to tip the great beast forward. Even a demon cannot stop gravity, and with the combined mass and the last ounces in the fading hunter, the Wendigo's body fell atop the spear, sliding down until the head broke through the beast's spine and jutted out the end, its blood soaked glitter sparkling in the last minute of daylight.

 

<-><-><-><-><->

 

"Is that how a demon dies?” I asked, sensing the story was over. Or at least no longer caring to hear the rest. "Didn't all his powers allow him to survive a flesh wound?"

"Spear pierced Nukilik's heart. Hot enough to pierce Wendigo's. Only warmth can destroy that which is frozen. You believe story," The elder half-asked, half-stated.

"Yes," I replied hurriedly, "But don't you think the Wendigo survived?"

"I thought you didn't believe in 'stupid ghost stories' Wufei?" A familiar voice chuckled from the half-drawn flap of the tent. Duo's snow covered head popped inside. I wondered how long I had been sitting there. I suddenly felt very stupid, but the American only made things worse, "You can be such a weak hypocrite. This is what you do with the time we have to search for a way off this hell?"

"Did you find anything?" I growled back. But Duo didn't answer; instead he addressed the old man:

"Such a powerful demon couldn't have died instantly, even if the spear went through his heart AND spine," Duo stated it as if he had heard the legend long before the old man. "Didn't he retreat into the woods or something like that with a `mortal wound'?"

I turned back to the old man. And such a change had come over him! The color was drained from his face, so that his eyes seemed to pop out like an insect's, large and quivering. His hand was shuddering, and his jaw was dropped. His head was quaking, looking back and forth between Duo and myself.

"You leave. Now!" The old man pointed a finger at the two of us. "Now!" He repeated, and both of us left in such a rush I was ten feet from the tent before I realized I needed to button up my parka.

"Weird old man." I mumbled. "So did you find anything?" I turned to Duo, who was still eying the tent, where a plume of smoke was now creeping from.

"No. There's nothing in this town that could help us," Duo muttered. I looked at him closely. He seemed to be much better for some reason. His alabaster skin was not sickly looking; it almost seemed to shine in the light, or lack thereof. It was almost dark.

"It's getting late," I observed. "We should have been heading back by now. Where's Heero?"

The Deathscythe pilot was still watching the Inuit's tent, biting his lip. Just as I was going to repeat the question, Duo chortled and his face turned into a silly grin. He turned away from the shaman's hut and put an arm around my shoulder.

"We should find him and get out of here as quickly as possible," Duo kicked the snow absentmindedly. "What a dump."

"The sun is almost setting again. We'd need to travel through the night to reach home," I said. Strangely, it made me miss the cavernous abode, being in this desolate place. At least the faded gaudiness of the house was enough to entertain the eye. Everything here was stonewashed an austere gray. "We'll need to stay here for the night."

"Fuck no!" Duo protested. He had begun to roll a clump of snow together as if to gather enough for the base of a snowman. At this suggestion he stopped and stamped his foot right through the pile. "I'm not staying here! I'd rather grope my way back to the haunted house. We can still make it-"

"No way," I stopped him. I sensed there was something wrong. Why was he so moody? I gave him a sweet smile; his face was absolutely gorgeous when he got flustered. "I'm not falling down anymore ravines. We'd be idiots to try to hurry back; the sun's almost down. We need to make camp here."

"I agree," Heero, like a cat, had approached us without my noticing. "We'll stay here for the night."

"Any ideas on where?" Duo spat at Heero and me, his good mood lost. "I hear the snow banks are a lovely place to sleep; eternal sleep that is."

For some reason, both Heero and Duo looked at me. I let out a sigh, staring at the unpainted walls of the impoverished homes. I was not looking forward to a night in a shit hole with the stench of alcohol and two lunatics smothering me.

-end “Wendigo” Part 9 in

Souls Disappear in the Snow

Feedback (please?) to: MasamuneEHS@hotmail.com

 

Note: Wendigo is actually a well-known Native American folklore creature. However, it traditionally appears in Algonquin tales, much less so in Inuit ones. The only thing I have added (borrowing from the numerous depictions of Wendigo from lore) is the Wendigo's need to consume tainted souls, although I do not see anything very out of place about that. If such an evil creature ever did exist, it would need to replenish its dark energy along with its physical strength... I have also abandoned the notion that normal men can become Wendigo by simply seeing one or by cannibalizing others.

 

More on Wendigo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo

 

Ivoglin is not a real town or region, at least not to my knowledge. I have taken the name from Fyodor Doestoevsky's The Idiot. The name is to emphasize that the first colonial rulers of this particular Arctic region were Russian, as hinted earlier.

 

On the two Inuit names, Nukilik means “is strong” in Inuit, while Johanasea (an obvious misspelling on my part, pronounced Joe-Han-e-see) is named after the only actual Inuit I know, who is a sculptor from the north of Canada. I don't know quite what the latter means.