AFTERMATH [until dawn]

Chapter Eleven

CHRIS

"Well, I... I used to be one of 'em." George Murphy said.

One of them? Chris wondered. One of... what? It can't be a... Wendigo, can it? He was shocked. If not, though, what else could he mean? Why else would he seem so...hesitant to tell us?

Chris was about to open his mouth to question the man when they heard the scream. Everyone froze—even the old man.

"That's—" Mike exclaimed. "Emily?" He ran towards the door in a frenzy, quickly pulling it open to reveal a disheveled Emily dragging an unconscious Matt behind her.

"Move!" Emily snarled, and she started pulling Matt into the house using one arm. Mike helped her carry him and gently placed him on the sofa. Emily shut the door with her foot, then collapsed onto the couch next to Matt. "Fucking hell, my fucking arm..."

Chris gasped when he saw that one of Emily's arms was hanging by her side uselessly, bent in an unnatural angle.

"Oh my god Em!" Ashley cried and ran towards her. She cradled Emily's broken arm and Emily hissed. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Wendigo," Sam and Emily said at once. Emily turned to Sam, confused.

"How the fuck do you know that?" Emily glanced around the room and seemed to just notice George on the ground. "Wait what, who the fuck—"

Ashley quickly explained the events of the night again, half talking and half making a makeshift cast for her, while Emily listened intently, wincing once in a while. Sam walked towards Matt, putting a hand on his forehead and frowning. Chris went to George, who watched him with a wary expression.

"What do you mean, you used to be one of them?" Chris asked George slowly while grabbing a glass of water for him to drink.

George accepted the water with shaky hands and took a sip. The wound on his head seemed to have stopped bleeding for now, which was good.

"I came here looking for work back in the 50's." George said quietly. Chris' eyes widened—in the 50's? How old is this guy now? "I found a job with this man called Jefferson Bragg, he owned the place at the time. I worked in the mines with a lot of other guys..."

By then, everyone in the room was listening. Mike had a look on his face, like he knew most of the story already and dreaded it. Emily and Ashley were listening quietly with similar looks of recognition on their faces. Chris and Sam glanced at each other, both confused, as they'd never heard the story before. Matt was still unconscious, and Jessica appeared to be still asleep in her room.

"It was fine, we found loads o' tin and shit, and Bragg got rich. We worked in the mines day and night...But they hid so much, so much shit from us, like..." George cleared his throat and took another sip of water.

"The mine was unstable?" Mike said slowly, not meeting anybody else's eyes. How would he know that? Chris wondered. George seemed to have a similar thought.

"How do you know that?" George asked, his eyes narrowing.

"I-I found this old map in the mine," Mike muttered. "There were sections of the map marked red and t-these 'danger' stamps all over it..." He went quiet as everyone watched on. Chris studied Mike closely—he seemed a little different from before. He seemed paler and his eyes seemed...darker somehow. He's probably just tired, it's been a long night.

George huffed.

"You know what, before I continue, why don't you tell me what you know and what happened last year? Could save me a shit ton of time," he snapped.

Nobody spoke, and Ashley turned to Chris. She raised her eyebrows, and Chris sighed. Fine, I'll talk to the creepy old guy.

Chris started telling the story of everything that had happened to them last year on Blackwood Mountain. He started with Hannah and Beth's disappearances, then talked about Josh, his instability, and the horrible plan he had for them. He talked about the things he'd heard from his friends like Mike blowing up the Sanatorium, and described how Emily had run into Flamethrower guy and how he had saved her life. When he reluctantly got to the part where the old man was decapitated by the Wendigo, George winced and shut his eyes tightly, looking as if he was about to cry.

"Jack, oh, Jack..." He mumbled, mostly to himself. "So that's what happened...Such a good man, rest in peace..."

Jack? Chris thought. So that was the Flamethrower guy's name...

Chris awkwardly quieted down until George nodded and gestured at him to continue. Chris cleared his throat and continued the tale, about how Emily was bitten and Mike had almost shot her—he watched Emily smirk at Mike at that statement, and Mike had shrugged with a slight blush. Chris talked about Sam and Mike going after Josh and finding him in the mines later on, as well as how he was taken by the Wendigo (something he only heard from Mike). He finished the story by talking about the fight in the Lodge and the final explosion.

"So..." George said after a moment of contemplation. "You already know a lot. I'm assuming you—" he pointed at Mike. "You saw tons of shit down there and you've already pieced most of the story together, correct?"

Mike visibly gulped. "Yeah, I-I guess."

"Good." George muttered, then sighed. "So for the rest of you who don't know, the mine was never built properly and it was goin' to break apart sooner or later... But we kept workin'. Until one day—I remember it so clearly—It was 1952. We were jus' doin' the usual, diggin' for shit, until there was this loud rumble from above. Next thing we knew, everythin' we built came crashin' down on us and a shit ton of us were injured or killed... We were stuck in that goddamn place for a couple days with the dead rottin' around us."

Everyone listened quietly, wide-eyed, anticipating the rest of  the tale. Mike looked a little nauseous.

"We were fine for a couple days, we had some food and water with us, and we buried our dead—they were our friends, after all—but after a while we felt... sick. It was a sort of hunger that was slowly takin' everyone's minds with them." George drank more water. "Me included. But we all pretended everythin' was fine... Until one day, one o' us dug up the bodies without tellin' us and ate it."

"Oh shit..." Chris muttered. Eating human flesh: the sure way to turn into a Wendigo.

"Yeah, you all know what happened then." George shuffled uneasily. "We all eventually gave in and... ate our friends' bodies. We all became fuckin' Wendigos." He shuddered at the memory. "I still remember the feeling... I felt so strong, and I watched my body change...It was great then. I felt...powerful."

Sam spun towards him with a wild look in her eyes.

"Wait, if you became a Wendigo," she gestured at him. "How did you turn back?"

"I was getting to that part, girl." George said impatiently. Sam shrugged with a frown, something obviously on her mind. "Soon we were rescued and taken to the Sanatorium. They did all these experiments on us and it was fucking horrible..."

Chris shuddered as he imagined it. It must have been so painful. First changing into a monster, then being experimented on... Nobody should have to go through that shit... His thoughts went back to Josh. I hope he's still alive somewhere in the mountains, but... If he was alive... He would have probably changed into a Wendigo. It's the only way he could survive. He shut his eyes and tried to stop his imagination. God, if that was the case...I'd rather he be dead than suffer the same fate as Hannah. He doesn't deserve it.

"But one day we broke out," George continued. "The details are murky, but I remember we killed a lot of the staff and then ran away, hidin' in the mountain. We hunted animals and each other for years."

Chris saw Ashley glance at him fearfully from the corner of her eye. Chris quickly moved over and wrapped her in his arms, trying to protect her.

"But, at the same time, there was this family, the Fiddlers, who also lived in the mountains," George said. "They did the opposite—they dedicated their entire life to killin' Wendigos. That was the family your—what did you call him?—"Flamethrower guy" belonged to."

Oh, Chris thought. Flamethrower guy. Fiddler... Jack... Jack Fiddler...

"Their family hunted us day and night and killed a lot of my friends...But after the old man was killed by the Makkapitew—"

"The what?" Emily asked.

"Makkapitew. The most powerful Wendigo spirit of them all," George explained. "Trust me, you don't want to meet that thing..." He furrowed his brows. "Actually, I think you already did. But anyway, Jack was around the mountain and he did somethin'... Different." George turned to face the crowd around him. "You know what it was, yeah?"

"He kept you in the Sanatorium..." Mike whispered quietly.

"Jackpot, boy." George shut his eyes, lost in the memories. "It was horrible, bein' back there... We were locked up in cages and fed scraps of animals. All I could hear everyday was the sound of our screeching, echoin' through the whole place."

"That still doesn't explain how you went from Wendigo to human," Sam said impatiently. Chris could tell she was getting uncomfortable with the descriptions of Wendigos—frankly, he felt the same way. She's so impatient, though... Chris frowned. What's gotten into her?

"I was cured," George said curtly in response to Sam.

Silence filled the room as they tried to take it in. Cured? There's a cure for Wendigos?

"Wait, hold on," Chris said, eyeing George suspiciously. "I talked to Flamethrow—I mean, Jack. I asked him if there was a cure and he said no. He specifically said "They surrender human rights the moment they eat one another. There's no cure. There's no redemption.""

"Ha!" George said, laughing humorlessly. "Of course he did!"

Chris frowned, confused, and waited for George to elaborate.

"See, kids," George seemed strangely amused. "Jack didn't keep us in the Sanatorium for fun. He didn't keep us there just so we wouldn't die, either—I mean, if he wanted to not kill us and keep the spirits trapped, he could have just shoved us in some hole underground and left us there to rot, yeah?"

"I guess..." Ashley said, not entirely convinced. "I read his journal, and he didn't mention any other reason..."

"Jack told me about it afterwards. He grew up with the Fiddlers but he also had this other interest besides killing Wendigos—science." George smiled at the memories. "He was a great kid in school, apparently. He learned a lot about, I don't know, genetics, diseases and shit—now don't ask me, I don't get anythin'. But he kept us all in the Sanatorium to sorta... Experiment on us."

Holy shit. Chris couldn't believe it. He said there was no cure... And yet he was the one who tried to make a cure?

"Now, it was different from the scientists back then—those motherfuckers were curious about the Wendigo spirit. Jack, though, Jack... Pitied us. He wanted to find a cure. So when he wasn't out capturing more of us, he was experimenting with different, I don't know, crap. He made serums and injected those into some of us."

"He managed to make a cure? Just like that?" Sam asked, dubious. "It's not that easy..."

"No, girl," George chuckled darkly. "Jack wasn't much of a genius. He didn't have all the fancy tech that labs have now. He just tried his best to use the shit he took from our bodies, combined with random chemicals, to cure us. He killed so many of the Wendigos—the ones he'd captured, anyway, there were lots more out there—by accident when his experiments failed."

"They're fucking Wendigos, why would it matter?" Emily snapped bitterly. Sam winced at her attitude but didn't say a word. Emily really was intimidating at times.

George simply raised his eyebrows, amused by her rudeness.

"I used to be one of the, girl," he responded. Emily was unfazed. "But you're right. It didn't matter, not to Jack. He didn't give up. He continued experimentin' for years... Until he finally made a successful cure."

"So he did it," Ashley exclaimed with wonder and admiration in her voice.

"Yes, he did it," George said, grinning. "I was lucky, you know—he happened to get to me with the first dose of the newest "cure". I don't remember much, but I know I started cryin' after I felt... Human, again. It was about two years ago, and I've been pretty great since."

There was a stunned silence in the room. Before this tale, Chris and his friends had thought of Wendigos as inhumane, vicious monsters who had completely lost their humanity. Nobody imagined that it was possible for them to be cured and regain their human side again—but George Murphy was living proof of it.

"So you used to be a Wendigo," Mike began, struggling to summarize the story. "But Flamethrower guy cured you and now you're just...fine?"

"Pretty much, kid. Pretty much." George sat back with an exhausted smile, now that he had finished his tale.

"Wow, that's..." Chris shook his head. "Unbelievable."

"So are there more of you?" Sam questioned. "Like. More of you Wendigo-turned-humans?"

"Well..." George paused and rubbed his chin, looking up at the ceiling. His wounds have stopped bleeding now, and he didn't seem to be in pain—although George may just be good at hiding it. "There were, like, one or two of us who were cured, but that's it." He frowned. "He finished that set of cures and went to make more, but I don't know if he cured anyone else... I just left that fuckin' place as soon as I could."

"If you went to work there in the '50s, how come you don't look that... old?" Ashley asked curiously.

"I don't know, I don't think I aged much as a Wendigo," George answered with a shrug.

"And how did you end up at the right place, at the right time, at the perfect moment to save Ashley and Chris?" Emily asked accusingly.

"I came back here after I heard of your incident last year—I didn't know it was you two," George replied. "I also saw the news about some... Strange deaths... Occurring around here and I wanted to check. I felt like it would be somethin' to do with Wendigos, you know? And I just wanted to see and, I don't know, help kill some of them motherfuckers."

Mike paled.

"Oh shit," he said to himself. "Jessica was right." Chris looked at him curiously, but Mike didn't elaborate.

Chris felt Ashley lean into him, and he held her closer. This has been... So much. Too much information, all at once. I need a couple days to process this. Chris turned to look at his friends around him. Sam stared out the window quietly. Mike was unnaturally pale—perhaps he was still freaked out by the story. Emily was gritting her teeth and seemed to be trying her best to hide the pain of her broken arm. Matt was still passed out on the couch. George sat on the floor, now visibly looking tired and in pain. Oh crap, I forgot all about the injured.

"Okay, sorry to break up this Q&A session, but it's really late and we should probably get some rest. We've gotta get doctors for Em, Matt, and George, too." Chris addressed his friends.

"Alright, yeah." Mike said. "Chris, Ash, there's a hospital in this complex—the number is next to the telephone on the table there," he pointed towards a small desk at the edge of the room. "I—I'm kinda tired, and I've gotta go check on Jess."

Ashley nodded and made her way towards the phone. My girl, Chris thought proudly. Mike trudged towards Jessica's room sullenly, his footsteps unstable. While Ashley called the hospital and the injured got ready, Chris made his way towards Sam. She stood at the side, not saying a word.

"Hey, Sam?" Chris asked gently.

"Hm?" Sam asked, her mind elsewhere.

"You seem awfully quiet... Everything alright?" Chris was concerned.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine." Sam answered, finally turning away from the window and looking at Chris. "I'm just... thinking."

Chris was about to ask what she was thinking about when Ashley ran over and tapped on his shoulder.

"The nurses said they'll send people over now... Could you help get, um, George to the door? I'm not, you know, strong enough." Ashley blushed.

"Well, Mike was always the strong one, but..."  Chris smiled, eager to impress his girlfriend. "Of course I can."

Ashley laughed shyly and hit him playfully. Sam watched them with a smile and offered to help. When the medics arrived, they put Matt and George on stretchers immediately. When they offered Emily one, she refused and snarled that she didn't need one for a broken arm. The medics looked at Chris and Ashley's bloodied clothing and asked if they needed help, but Ashley refused and said they were fine. Before they could ask any more questions, Ashley just hustled the medics out the door.

Chris flopped onto the couch, just realizing how exhausted he was. It's been about 6 hours since all seven of us met up. Only 6 hours. And we've been attacked by multiple Wendigos, met a whole new guy, found our friends injured... What the hell is wrong with us?

He felt Ashley sit down next to him. Sam saw them together and mumbled something about going to her room, then left the two of them alone. Chris wrapped his arm around Ashley casually as they sat in silence, thinking over everything that's happened tonight.

"I can't believe it," Ashley whispered with a hint of fear in her voice. Chris turned to look at her and he found himself frowning at her scared expression. "I thought we were done with all this..." She waved her arms around. "Nonsense, when we left the Mountain and yet..."

"We're right at the foot of it again, and we've just faced more Wendigos." Chris took a deep breath. "Yeah, I know."

Ashley sighed and took her beanie off, ruffling her hair in evident distress.

"Well," Ashley said finally. "I hope nothing bad happens this time, maybe it'll all be over by tomorrow, and we can go back to normal again."

Neither Chris nor Ashley were convinced by her words, and they both knew it.

That's the thing, Chris thought. It's Wendigos. It's never normal. His thoughts drifted back to Josh for some strange reason, and he felt a pang of sadness. It's Blackwood Mountain. Nothing good ever happens here.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

There's so much happening in the story right now, it was so stressful for me to write... Hope you liked the twist! I've got to story all planned out and I'm so excited for the rest of it!

And this is an extra long chapter to compensate for not posting as often... My schedule will be back to normal next week and then you can expect almost-daily updates :) I hope to finish this story by the end of August.

Please vote and comment! Thank you so much for reading, the story is currently at 700+ reads, which is unbelievable. I'm so grateful for every single one of you ❤️