Scary Short Stories

Tough Times

November 1931, Wisconsin.

The Great Depression was a tough time for Americans. I was 12, and me and my Pa took care of mom and my lil sis. I remember, when the snow started to fall in late November, it was especially hard to get through.
We were dirt poor, lived in a small cabin up in Iron County. We had little food and mostly hunted then traded poached meat for other foods.
Just after Thanksgiving Pa took me out hunting. We got Pa's Winchester rifle from the cellar which had been passed down from his Pa. We walked out into the woods as we'd normally do. The snow crunched beneath our feet as we walked beside each other. We got about half a mile out before seeing our first sign that we should have turned around, but Pa being the stubborn, brave heated WW1 Vet and me being a kid we didn't. We saw a deer hide, mangled and torn, hanging from a tree branch. There was a trail of blood leading deeper into the forest.
"Henry, don't worry about that. It was probably a neighbor of ours out here hunting." Pa told me.
We walked further and further until we got into the ravine, the iced over creek stood in place in the middle and we walked across. We then saw it, an amazing rack of antlers. The size of the buck would have been massive... if it was a buck.
Dad aimed towards the antlers and waited for the deer to lift its head. We waited for what felt like hours, but it was only a few minutes.
This.. monster.. it raised it's head. It was no deer. It had a human head, with long strands of white frosty hair. It's skin was great and frozen, it's eyes sunk into its head. It looked at us and smiled with a toothy grin. Pa tapped my shoulder and quietly told me that if he tapped my should again to run with him.
We started to back out slowly. Down to the ravine again and across the frozen creek.
He tapped my shoulder and we started to run as fast as I could. Then we saw it again. I'm front of us. Standing in snows no clothes but some deer hides covering a few inches of it's legs. It had scars and gashes all over, and long claw-like nails covered in dried blood.
I was traumatized. My childish mind didn't know how to respond, so I did was my stubborn Pa would have done and remained quiet.
Pa aimed his rifle at the thing.
"I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DO.
LEAVE ME AND MY SON HERE ALONE!WE'LL BE ON OUR WAY OUT!"
Pa yelled at it.

It looked at me. And smiled.
"Gaawiin." It said in a raspy voice.
"Giiyose." It said in the same tone before it walked towards us.
Pa fired at it, 3 rounds and it was out of sight.
"RUN." Pa said to me as he started to move.
We ran and followed our already created tracks.

We burst through the cabin door and we got Mom and Sis into the truck before we drove away to town. We saw that thing all along the road in the forest. As if it was faster than our truck.

"What was that Richard?" Mom asked Pa.

"An old Indian legend tells of a creature called the Wendigo. It's human, or was. It eats people and lives in the deep forests." He told her

"Pa, it spoke to us.. didn't it?" I asked

"I think so. I think it was speaking Ojibwe. Probably it's native language from when it was human."

"Do you know what it said?" I asked him

"No.." he told me

We moved from our cabin to an apartment in Green Bay shortly after this all happened.