HauntedMTL Original – Fever of the Wendigo – J. Motoki
Fever of the Wendigo by J. Motoki
Adam scratches his sternum where the thick branch pins him to the driver’s seat.
I am a tree now.
The windshield is cobweb-cracked in an abstract of greens and browns, the pine tree blown up in ugly proportions. The protruding branch, which seems to hold him at arms-length from the tree, had saved them all from plunging to the bottom of the ravine. It doesn’t hurt too much, although it itches around the edges—it’s the smell in the car that’s concerning. A violent smell. It rises above the stench of sap and burning metal, blood and shit.
Amazing how the windshield had stayed intact, with just the hole where the branch juts through and the ripples of glass around it. The car’s airbag, for whatever reason, had failed to detonate.
Adam opens his mouth to speak, but his bloated tongue sinks into his mouth. His mouth is completely devoid of spit. He tries again.
“Miguel’s been gone a long time.”
His girlfriend stirs, a tangle of hair masking her face. Once she complained of ragdoll limbs, the pinpricks of glass shards; now her head rests in the remnants of window. When she speaks, her voice is so flat and dead that it causes his heartrate to increase—a budding panic that he forces down like an acidic belch.
“He’ll be lucky if he sees anyone,” Josie says. “We passed two cars the whole way here.”
Her voice stirs a memory. There’s something nagging him, something he’s forgotten. He tries to retrieve whatever it was, embedded in the tar-pit depths of his mind.
“There’s glass in your hair.” Adam reaches over slowly and brushes hair from her face. He touches something sticky. “I can’t get your other side.”
Josie’s cracked lips curve back, a side grimace, exposing teeth full of blood. Her head remains against the doorframe at a 90-degree angle, but one eye rolls wildly to survey him.
“Hey Joe,” Adam says. “Pass me a water? It’s hot in here.” When he doesn’t hear anything, he cranes his neck to the side as far as it can go. It isn’t far.
“Josie, what’s he doing?”
Joe, the inconvenient twin of his girlfriend, who for the first leg of the road trip lectured about staying vigilant in nature, had spent the hour through the mountains asleep. He had acted strange since the last rest-stop with the filthy toilets, at the base of the mountains, when he surprised them all with an uncomplaining silence. Adam was relieved to have a break from Joe’s juvenile wisdoms, the wisdoms of a churlish and oily twenty-something who never left his room. Somewhere in the narrows, Joe collapsed into sleep and Josie told them to shut up after they joked about nature vigilance (there was something he was forgetting, something important) and Miguel complained that he took up all the backseat, sprawled like starfish over him.
Josie, with excruciating slowness, lifts her head a millimeter from the window.
“Where’s Miguel? We’ve been here forever.”
“There’s a lot of hill between us and the road.”
“I knew I should’ve gone,” Josie says. Her head flops back to the side with a sickening sound, the mechanical rasp of bones. It sounded accusatory. “He’s always been like this—unreliable.”
“Joe, buddy, how’re you doing back there?” Adam twitches, pinioned to his seat by branch and seatbelt. Beads of sweat bleed from his forehead.
A breeze agitates the pine trees; an animal screams in the distance.
Josie blows her lips, a horse snort that lifts her hair, a bored sound. Earlier, she had argued with Miguel about who would go get help. Cars stop for breasts, she said. That’s sexist, protested Adam and she shoved him. Miguel countered that he could get to the road quicker. But when Miguel started up the hill—they watched him through the rearview mirrors—he staggered. There was something wrong with his back. It looked off, disjointed, spine bending into an S.
They heard his grunts long after he disappeared from the mirrors.
How long was that now?
A shadow rises from the base of the mountain and swallows the umber of light. The trees made cathedral shadows in the growing gloom. Didn’t Joe talk wilderness awareness (that’s not it, that’s not it, there’s something else), how the trees were full of eyes and rustling things, and how you were never alone?
Joe had never been camping before. Adam didn’t even want to bring him, but Josie insisted. Her brother holed up in his room all day, only coming out for food and shits. She told them it would be a good bonding experience.
“Joe!” He can feel him moving around back there, feel the tremors through the seat.
“Let him sleep,” Josie says.
………..
When he opens his eyes again, the trees around them are gone. A spew of fog obscures everything, and the gray mist and ensuing darkness makes him feel as if they were being erased. The smell from before hits him all at once, a furious assault that has the gorge rising in his throat.
“We need to get out of here,” Adam says, suddenly desperate. He claws at the tangle of seatbelt, at the branch inside him.
Josie’s head slumps off the door, and she startles awake. She rocks in jerky movements from side to side until she straightens again. Adam thinks of the time he killed a snake with a shovel and it spasmed in the dirt, flashing its white belly then dark brown scales in an endless death tumble.
“Stay awake,” Adam tells her and nudges her arm. Josie moans.
“You need to stay awake,” he says, suddenly furious. He shakes her harder. That smell is overwhelming, filling his head and turning his stomach. He feels, for the first time, a distant agony in his legs.
“What the fuck is that? Josie do you smell it?” It was rancid, whatever it was. Josie says nothing. In the backseat, Joe says nothing. Adam (the tree!) is alone, in the growing dark, with stink settling in his flesh and fire growing up his legs.
“Josie!” His voice is unrecognizable, piercing and too loud. His nails dig into the slack skin of her arm and her arm is cold, too cold. Stiff. He tears into her skin and the flesh came apart, but refused to bleed. Josie cries out.
“Adam, what the fuck—”
“I hear something. I think Miguel’s coming.”
“Thank God!” In her excitement, Josie’s head raises several inches. They listen to the sounds of approaching nightfall, the strange calls and insect hums. A single distorted scream in the distance—loons maybe. They listen a long time.
Josie makes a sobbing sound deep in her throat, guttural and full of glass.
“You liar.”
“I swear I heard something.”
Josie’s head falls to the side with a meaty thunk. She doesn’t speak again.
………..
A scream breaks the night, and it’s directionless, it comes from everywhere. It curls the hairs on his arm and he fights against his branch. Everything urges him to get out of there, to run into the night.
“Joe,” Adam pleads. “Wake up now.”
It’s too dark and the wood sounds that were unsettling earlier are horrifying and unwelcome now, in this new blindness. His limbs burn. And there’s pressure in his chest—he realizes dimly that the branch skewering him is moving up and down. He can feel it inside him below the sternum, widening the hole, reopening skin. Violating him.
Another scream, deafening and hideous, and now he knows it’s in the car.
“Stop it,” he whispers. “Stop—”
Movement in the dark, loud breathing in his ear. And it reeks of death—how did he not notice it before?—rancid nubs of garbage pork, sweating corpses forgotten in humid autopsy rooms. Adam thrashes his head from side to side.
The branch jumps up and down.
“Joe?” It ceases to be a name, a recognizable sound, now it’s just a maniacal spurt of syllables crowding in his throat. “JoeJoeJoeJoe—”
Adam pictures Joe’s limp marionette body affixed to the other side of his branch and here they are, end to end, a human shish-kabob, his face blank and vapid the way it looked when he came back from the bathroom and they yelled at him for taking so long; the way it looked when he collapsed into sleep.
But he woke up eventually, yes he did, he woke up and grabbed the wheel from him—
Screech of tires burning out. Screams. An eternity of a drop, through brush and close calls with trees, until—
Adam laughs, high-pitched and hysterical and climbing. An answering hyena shriek sounds behind him.
The smells turn from rot to roast, from maggot-cheese to charred haunch and campfire smoke. It taunts the desiccation of his mouth; a wash of saliva flows down his chin. The branch in his chest bounces again, giddy giggles rising in the small space, and hunger explodes in his stomach, turns his clenched fists to claws, turns his howl inward until it breaks, until it shatters him. Distantly, he hears something howl along with him and he grins, lips wet and spittle dripping onto the branch. He’s no longer alone.
“Joe. There you are,” Adam rasps over his shoulder. “Where’ve you been all this time?”
He gropes blindly, tugs Josie’s arm toward him, raises her hand to his lips like a gentleman in those historical dramas she loves so much.
Her skin smells like tenderloin.
Behind him, Joe laughs and laughs.
J. Motoki is the Short Story Editor of Coffin Bell Journal and the Strange Editor of Rune Bear. Her works have been published or are forthcoming in Blood Song Books,The Other Stories Podcast (Hawk & Cleaver), Black Hare Press, Coffin Bell Journal, and others. You can read more of her at www.jumotki.com.
Here’s another view of Heaven in this twisted little afterlife story from Jennifer Weigel, titled All That Remains. Trigger warning: religious themes, suggestions of rape & murder.
I didn’t remember dying. I only vaguely remembered the thread of my life being weighed at the pearly gates. And now, here I was, in awe of the splendor of it all. I looked at the Heaven all around me. Everything was light and love. The sunlight sparkled off of the hills and valleys of the clouds, casting everything in a gossamer glow. Angelic faces shone with mirth and merriment from their depths. It was the most beautiful visage I had ever seen.
Until he showed up.
“Hey there, glad to see you made it,” Sebastian said. His words slithered off his tongue, just as they had during the trial. “I’m here to serve as your guide, to show you around Eternity.”
“But…” I stammered, looking at my feet. I still felt repulsed by him, couldn’t stand to look him in the eye. I wanted to strangle him, but I managed to tamp that feeling down by averting his gaze. “How did you get here?”
“I accepted Christ into my heart, just as you did. Isn’t it beautiful?” He grinned. His red hair bobbed up and down as he nodded. “Forgiveness is a blessing.”
“One you didn’t deserve,” I muttered under my breath, unsure of the proper etiquette or protocol for engaging with others in this place, or just how and why he would ever have been forgiven for his sins. “Where is my daughter?”
Sebastian frowned. “I’m sorry to say she never accepted Christ into her heart, and so she isn’t here,” he answered.
“What?” I seethed, anger bubbling from where it had roiled just below the surface. “How can this be?”
“Look, I don’t make the rules,” Sebastian spoke.
“But you’re here. And she’s not. No thanks to you!” My voice trembled as it rose.
“I understand your frustration. But it is what it is,” he replied.
“You’re the one who killed her!” I yelled, no longer able to contain my fury. No one else seemed to notice, too wrapped up in their own afterlives to care.
“Yes, but that was before. And I paid for that with my own life. In the electric chair. Your justice was served,” Sebastian said.
“I know, but…” I sighed. “Why isn’t Julianne here?”
“Like I said, she didn’t accept Christ into her heart as we did. It’s that simple,” Sebastian reiterated. “We just went through this.”
“Don’t you regret that?” I asked.
“Regret what? That she hadn’t accepted Christ? How would I have known? And it wouldn’t have mattered at that time, anyway – I was a different person then. Regret is an interesting concept; I never really did get it.” Sebastian pondered aloud. “Even after I became a Christian. I suppose I knew I’d done wrong as far as anyone else was concerned, that I acted from a place of selfishness when I raped and killed those girls… Inner turmoil. Let’s call it inner turmoil. But that was in the past.”
I began to hyperventilate. This just couldn’t be happening. My beautiful daughter, her golden blonde hair and blue eyes forever etched into my memory. My baby girl, so sweet and innocent and naïve. She never should have hitchhiked that ride. If only I’d known what she was up to… She hadn’t even seen her sweet sixteen, she was only fifteen and a half at the time of the assault.
“It doesn’t matter now. Had Julianne accepted Christ into her heart, she’d be here with us now. She did nothing else wrong,” he continued, interrupting my reverie. “I suppose then I’d have done her a favor.”
“Wait. What?!” I asked, obviously fuming.
“I know now that she hadn’t. But I would have had no way of knowing that then. And it was before I converted,” he went on. “If I regret anything, it’s the two that came after.”
“After what?” I harped at him. “After my daughter! You killed four more girls since then.”
“No,” he whispered. “After I accepted Christ. I slipped up. I tried; I really did. But my needs weren’t being met and I found ways to justify it at the time.”
“You disgust me,” I spat. “How can you even consider yourself a Christian?”
“I am no less so than you at this point, considering where we are,” he replied. “We are both here now, are we not?”
“I suppose, but still…” I answered, taking inventory of my surroundings. I was sure I’d been granted admittance into Heaven, that I passed the test. I vaguely remembered having done so, and walking through the pearly gates. Was this all an illusion?
“I am a true Christian, as you are,” Sebastian continued. “Just as I’m still a Scotsman no matter how I take my tea. Shall we begin our tour?”
He reached out to me, palm extended in a gesture of grace. I wasn’t wholly sure of where I was, which version of Eternity I’d landed in. Everything about this place was still so glorious, peaceful and serene. And yet…
If you enjoyed this story, please feel free to check out Heaven (based on the Talking Heads song) and Angels Meeting in the Hallways. And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
I have recently begun exploring Fibonacci poetry and penned this as a consideration for the Lovecraftian terrors while considering that Kansas was once an inland sea. It is also based on the beloved and enigmatic painting of Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth.
She
stares
ahead;
the landscape
yawns ever further
spanning the distance between us
and that deep unthinkable unknowable abyss.
This plain was once an inland sea,
a vast ocean filled
with terrors
beyond
our
ken.
Time
stands
still for
none of us.
It marches towards
our inevitable decay.
Our fragile flesh succumbs to the horror of the void,
cradling our fallen progeny
and yearning for home.
Christina,
hurry
back.
Now.
It
could
happen
anywhere…
The farmhouse beckons
from its horizon vantage point,
thousands of blades of grass groping like tiny tendrils.
The ancestors grasping at straws,
hoping to evade
inevitable
collapse,
their
loss.
Stars
fall.
Panic
sounds beyond
our comprehension.
Their silent screams fall on deaf ears.
We cannot interpret their guttural languages
or understand their diminutive cries
this far from the tide.
Slumbering
depths still
snore
here.
The
ebb
and flow
roil and churn
with water’s rhythms,
caress the expanse of grasses
covering this now fragile and forsaken ocean.
The landscape gapes and stretches wide,
reaching to grab hold
of her dress,
earthbound.
Lost
her.
I hope you enjoyed this jaunt through Christina’s World into pure terror. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website. Or go on a trip to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
So what better follow up to Invisibles Among Us in Nightmarish Nature than Monstrous Mimicry? Further exploring the leaps that critters will go to in order to eat and not be eaten. This time we’re focusing on those creatures that want to intentionally be mistaken for one another.
Insects Pretending to Be Insects
This is a pretty common subgroup in the mimicry set. Featuring such celebrities as the Viceroy Butterfly, which looks an awful lot like the Monarch. Why? Because everyone knows Monarch Butterflies taste nasty and cause indigestion. Duh? Though it appears the Viceroy took further cues from this and is not all that tasty in its own right either. Dual reinforcement is totally the way to go – it tells predators not to eat the yucky butterflies regardless. But some bugs go a bit further in this, imitating one another to seek out food or protection. Various wasps, spiders, beetles, and even some caterpillars impersonate ants for access to their nest or because ants aren’t as appetizing as their buggy counterparts to much of anything outside of the myrmecophagous crowd (as shared before, here’s a fun diversion with True Facts if you have no idea), though some also have nefarious plans in mind. And similarly, the female photoris fireflies imitate other firefly signals luring smaller males to try to mate with them where they are instead eaten.
Kind of Weird Mimicry: Insects Pretending to Be Animals
Moths are pretty tasty, as far as many birds and small mammals are concerned, so several of them find ways to appear less appetizing. Using mimicry in their larval form, they may try to look specifically like bird scat or even like snakes to drive away predators, with elaborate displays designed to reinforce their fakir statuses. And once they emerge as moths, they continue these trends, with different species flashing eye spots to look like owls, snakes, cats, and a myriad of other animals most of their predators don’t want to tangle with. But other insects pretend to be larger animals too, with some beetles and others producing noises often associated with predator, typically towards the same end – to deter those who might otherwise eat them.
Animals Pretending to Be Animals
Similarly some animals will mimic others. Snakes may resemble one other, as seen in the Milk versus King versus Coral Snakes and the popular rhyme, Red with Black is safe for Jack or venom lack, but Red with Yellow kills a fellow for all that it isn’t 100% accurate on the Red-Yellow end (better to err on the side of caution than not – so assume they are deadly). Fish and octopuses will imitate other fish for protection status or to conceal opportunistic predatory behaviors. And lots of animals will mimic the sounds others make, though Lyrebirds tend to take the cake in this, incorporating the vocalizations into mating rituals and more.
Really Weird Mimicry: Animals Pretending to Be Insects
Some of the weirdest mimicry comes out in animals pretending to be insects or small fish, where a predator will flick its strangely formed tongue that looks like a fish or water nymph to draw in more tiny critters that feel safe with their own, only to find themselves snapped up as dinner. Snapping turtles are notorious for this, disguising themselves in the muck to make their big asses less obvious and reinforce the ruse. Even some snakes do this.
Weirder Still
Then there are things that pretend to be plants. Like orchid mantises. Or sea slugs that look like anemones (some of which eat anemones and have stingers to match). I mentioned a few of these in the Invisibles Among Us segment last time, because some are highly specialized to look like very specific things and others just aren’t. Essentially, nature loves to play dress up and be confusing and adaptive. It’s like Halloween year round. And who can really argue with that?
Here’s a fun video from Animalogic exploring some of these themes. And feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
-
Original Creations7 days agoAll That Remains, an Afterlife Story by Jennifer Weigel
-
Movies n TV6 days ago
Entertaining as hell: Eight Legged Freaks (2002) Review
-
Movies n TV6 days ago
Daredevil: Born Again Episode 1 Recap & Review – A Cautious Stumble into Hell’s Kitchen
-
Book Reviews5 days ago
A House At The Bottom Of A Lake
