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"You okay, Sam?" I ask, walking up to the stump he's sitting up against, he doesn't answer and I sit next to him, "Okay then, awkward silence it is then." We sit in silence for about 2 minutes when he whispers, "I should have saved them." I realize who he's talking about and slap the back of his head. "Ouch! What the heck?" Sam asks rubbing the back of his head, "There was nothing you could have done. Besides what's done is done, it's best to not dwell on what you could have done. Just let the guilt, that you shouldn't have, drive you to do better next time." I tell him and he's quiet for a moment, "I never thought of it like that... but did you really need to slap me in the face?" He asks.
I chuckle, "I slapped you on the back of the head. Not the face, there's a difference. A slap to the face is an insult - to the back of the head is a wake-up call." He chuckles as I say this and we head back to camp, "Hey. So, we've got half a chance in the daylight. And I, for one... want to kill this evil son of a b*tch." Sam says and Dean turns to him, "Well, h*ll, you know I'm in."
10 minutes later
"Wendigo is a Cree Indian word. Means, 'Evil that devours.' Cheery name, right?" I ask sarcastically, "They're hundreds of years old. Each one was once a man, sometimes and Indian or other times a frontiersman or a miner or hunter." Dean says walking past us and Hailey asks, "How's a man turn into one of those things?" Dean spins around, "Well, it's always the same. During some harsh winter, a guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help--becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp." He says.
I put my hand over my mouth as Hailey's brother says, "Like the Donner Party." I slowly sit down on the log near my feet and Dean comes over to me, "That's right." Sam tells him looking at me, "Those people must have been so afraid." I whisper, a tear running down my cheek, Dean sighs putting his arm around me and Sam continue, "Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities--speed, strength, immortality."
"If you eat enough of it, over years, you become this less-than-human thing. You're always hungry." Dean says and Hailey looks down, "So, if that's true, how can Tommy still be alive?" Hailey asks us bitterly and Dean looks back at us for a moment, "You're not gonna like it." He tells her and I scoff, "Yes, 'cause she's liked everything leading up to this so far." Dean shoots me a glare as Hailey says, "Tell me." "More that anything, a Wendigo knows how to last long winters without food. For years at a time, it hibernates. It keeps it's victims alive when it's awake. It... stores them for food for the winter, so it can eat whenever it wants to." I finish and Dean picks up, "If your brother's alive, it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden, and safe. And we got to track it back there."
"And then how do we stop it?" Hailey asks and I scoff, "Well, guns are useless--so are knives. Basically... we gonna torch the b*tch." I smirk, holding up our 'torches'.
15 minutes later
We are walking through the woods in a line like little 1st graders, the line from front to back is: Dean, Hailey, Hailey's brother whose name I forgot, me, and Sam. It's dark now and we have to find a place to set up camp, Sam walks past me and looks up into a tree, "Dean, JJ!" He calls and we walk over, "What is it?" Asks Dean but I spot it immediately. Bloody claw marks on all of the surrounding trees. "Do you think those claw marks, since they're so defined- I just... they were way too easy to follow..." I trail off, still looking up.
