BODYS ; M. MUNROE

CHAPTER TWELVE

★彡

THE SCURRYING of feet, followed by a plodding of heavy boots, pulled both Emily and Cassandra from each other's arms. Cassandra craned her head to find Mike, shoulders relaxing when he met her gaze. Her eyes then moved to the stranger that had walked in and she froze, blinking rapidly as his face became visible from the firelight in the lodge.

"You're..." Slowly, she rose to her feet. "It was you... In the mines, you took me that-"

The stranger snickered. "That what? You mean my humble abode?" He looked over to Mike. "Didn't think your boyfriend here was going to make it, only took you in 'cause of what happened with those poor girls..."

"You mean Hannah and Beth?" Ashley asked nervously, she leaned forward, hands on her knees; Chris beside her.

Cassandra slowly sat back down, picking a loose thread she'd found on the side of her jeans. "He's not my boyfriend..." She said quietly, as if to herself.

"How could you know anything about that without being involved?" Chris said confused, rubbing the back of his neck.

Sam tutted. "Or being responsible."

"Guys..." Cassandra interrupted, her voice soft yet stern enough to get them to calm down. The couch dipped beside her, and she looked over to see Mike, whose eyes were fixed on the stranger, squinted and tense.

The stranger had since turned to the crackling fire before the group, crouched down, his things at his side, he raised his hands to the orange flames. "Now y'all hold your horses, I don't exactly take kindly to kids coming up to my mountain-"

Cassandra tensed as Mike scoffed, she smoothed her hands over her knees, trying to calm herself. "Your mountain? I'm sure the Washington's would be very surprised to hear that."

The stranger rose to his feet, and cracked his neck side to side, before slowly turning to the group, chuckling lightly. "Well, the mountain don't belong to me that's true — but it certainly don't belong to the Washington's neither. It belongs to the wendigo."

Cassandra felt her breath get caught in her throat, she gripped her knees as the group muttered to one another, beside her, Emily hugged herself tightly. "The wendigo..." She repeated carefully, she looked over to Mike, he was already looking at her, the two wordlessly asking if they'd been wrong about Jess, about Josh.

Before anyone else could interject, the stranger grabbed his bag from the floor, the slight noise making the group jump, their attention now on him. "Now I'm only gonna tell you this once, and it doesn't matter to me if you believe or not." He paused, looking over to Cassandra, then Emily. "I got my reasons, and wanna get it off my chest."

Mike snapped his fingers, standing up. "See, told ya. He's guilty as shit, guilty of something."

"Shh, shut up Mike." Sam scolded, her eyes still focused on the stranger.

Cassandra looked up to Mike tiredly, and he sat back down beside her.

The stranger rubbed over the scar under his whitened eye, smoothing over the rough skin, before putting his hands in his pockets. "There's a curse that lurks in these mountains... Should any man of woman resort to cannibalism, the spirit of the wendigo shall be unleashed." 

Ashley scoffed at the absurdity, surprising herself with how loud she had been. "You mean like, eating each other?"

The stranger mildly nodded, looking aimlessly in his bag before turning to the group. "Y'all are gonna need to go some place safe."

Sam sighed, shrugging. "The basement should be okay. How long are we supposed to wait?"

"Me and Matt..." Emily began, her voice managing to still hold disdain towards her boyfriend. "When we managed to speak to the guys on the radio, they said we'd have to wait until dawn."

The group sighed, dawn was a few hours away, but anything could happen between now and then. Beside Cassandra, Mike shot up from the couch. "Fuck, guys, I left Josh when I heard-" He looked briefly to Cassandra. "when I heard screaming."

"Where'd you leave him?" The stranger asked, eyebrow raised.

Cassandra pointed toward the glass doors. "Just up the hill a little."

The stranger shook his head. "Your friend will already be dead."

At that, Chris stood up. "What? No way, he can't be, we were just there and he was fine."

"A lot can happen on these mountains." The stranger replied ominously.

Chris shook his head, tutting. "No, no I'm not having that, I'm going to go get him." He looked down to his arm, Ashley tugging on it.

"Chris! You can't do that, not after he let us down, after he let you down." She looked up at him with pleading eyes.

The boy paused for a moment, then shook his head. "Ash, I have to go get him... If I don't I'm letting him down. I'll be back. I promise."

Cassandra watched the stranger, his demeanour had changed, like he wanted them to make it. "I'll go with you, son. You'll need the backup." The stranger said, their voices going faint as they slowly moved to the door.

"How you feeling?" Mike asked, her head shot up to look at him and she half smiled, shrugging as she rubbed her eyes.

"I don't know... What if Josh is dead? God... And I was so cruel." She shuffled backwards on the couch, legs against her chest. "I can't believe I thought he killed Jessica, but what else was there to believe? It felt like it made sense at the time. I called him a murderer." She screwed her eyes shut, shaking her head, body wracked with guilt.

Slowly, Mike reached out, and moved hair from the side of Cassandra's face, tucking the strands, wet with tears, behind her ears his index running down the curve of her ear before he retracted his hand. "Cassandra, you can't blame yourself, I thought it too, okay? Don't think about Josh being dead, he's too stubborn to die, probably annoy the thing to death before it could kill him." Cassandra humourlessly chuckled.

Slowly, Cassandra raised her head to look at him, resting the side of her head on her knees, her eyes traced over his dimly lit features with caution, focusing on anything to take her mind off of what was going on. Mike smiled, her staring more than evident.

"Something wrong with my face?"

She shook her head, still watching him, though she now held a ghost of a smile. "No, of course not."

"Guys," Sam's voice pulled the two out of their collective daze. "we're gonna go down to the basement, Ashley's gonna wait here for Chris to get back with Josh."

Cassandra pushed her legs out from under her and stood up. "I'll wait too." She folded her arms loosely, eyes landing on a worried and pacing Ashley.

"Me too." Mike added, and from the corner of her eye, Cassandra could see Emily rolling her eyes, and mutter something under her breath.

Sam nodded, happy with the plan. "Okay, Em and I will be in the basement, see you soon."

The two nodded nervously, Cassandra watching the girl's head to the basement until they were out of sight. Once they were, she hung her head low, sighing.

She looked to where Ashley paced, and clenched her fists nervously. "I hope they come back safe."