Whispers of the Mountain - Prologue

“I don’t want to die,” a man repeated. His voice quivered mournfully. “Not like this, no. I don’t want to die. I don’t-”

The man rambled in whispers at the darkest corner of a dimly-lit cabin. His humanity became mired in winding thoughts of despair. The faint fireplace cast shadows against the upturned furniture in the small living room. He’d look listlessly upon his bloodied hands from time to time, processing what he had done. His fingers elongated into the shape of sharp talons.

His once stocky build was reduced to a scrawny, skeletal structure. Self-inflicted wounds covered his blood-stained arms and legs. The hunched figure turned to see the windows. Ice sealed the entrance from the other side, with the weight of tons of snow piled over the cabin.

He awaited death in his icy tomb.

A rumbling disturbed the frigid ambiance. His hunger had become insatiable. He emerged from the shadows revealing his altered skull shape and sunken eye sockets embedded with orange eyes, devoid of life. His hair thinned dramatically with what remained lengthened past his shoulders. Ghastly pale skin contained tinges of his previous skin color.

The body of a half-eaten boy lay at the center of the room. Maggots had gnawed at its curdled contents of putrid flesh. Severed body parts piled near leftover scraps of partially devoured organs. He avoided his son’s open eyes with what little was left of his psyche. His stubbled face was smeared with the blood of his child. He looked on, detached from his transgressions. What he believed to be an illusion was an undeniable reality.

He’d become the monster he scoffed at in the old stories.

His animalistic instincts overtook what remained of his humanity. He crawled toward the corpse to take another bite from its hollowed ribs. His sharp canines sunk into his side and gnawed away viscously. Within seconds, he left a clean, bloodied rib cage.

Man became beast.

His will to live overcame his love for his family. Despair and fears consolidated when there wasn’t a way out from their icy tomb. The man remembered bludgeoning his son to death, ignoring his cries and pleas. Still, his murderous intent felt foreign, as though he had lost pieces of himself. His head snapped upward to a soft whimper coming from nearby. Fluids dripped from his mouth after chewing the last bits of flesh. Crawling toward the door, his empty eyes searched for life under the slit of the doorway, seething to the scent of lively flesh.

“Honey,” He called with a meek voice. “I know you’re in there.”

Silence ensued under his frigid breath.

“I—I just want to talk.”

No response.

It wasn’t long before he succumbed to his impulses. He slammed into the door several times, growling anomalistically while breaking the frame piece by piece. He peeked into the room’s interior. A body lay on the ground, nearly motionless, as she looked back in horror. His sunken eyes gazed back from the abyss with their unsettling orange glow. This is what became her husband; He was so overtaken by his instincts that he cared for nothing else. Her voice was parched as she tried to speak. Only tears rolled down.

What remained of her husband demolished the door as he stood over her like prey. She observed his empty expression, his mouth quivering from hunger. Blood covered much of his arms and face, a horrific sight reducing her into a stupor. A strong odor reeked of death and decay. She hoped to find any semblance of him.

Hollow.

“I—I didn’t want any of this,” His voice returned.

“Please, don’t,” Her voice cracked, quivering with dread.

“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I—”

His depraved hunger kicked in. He lunged on top of her and sunk his teeth into her neck. With one massive bite, he tore her throat out. Her screams were nothing more than gurgles in a desperate attempt to breathe. Her eyes widened from the immense pain as she watched him tear out her trachea. It was all in vain. She convulsed after quickly losing blood. She turned her head to the side, seeing a pool of red. It was the only warmth she felt before her life faded away. The primitive howls of the beast that consumed her husband filled the air.

The last thing she saw was their whimpering child curled in the darkest corner.

One day later…

“Mikey, ya see anything out there?” A bearded man shouted.

He observed a young man at the bottom of the slope. He peered through the dense thicket of the frost-covered trees. The bearded man’s brown eyes searched toward the snow-laden slopes, finding vast wilderness stretching miles. They had been in the blistering cold for hours, searching for a missing family. They began where they found the cabin’s ruins. He whisked his beard of snow as he listened to the whispering winds.

Robert Winston had seen it all, but what they discovered was beyond anything he’d seen. He barred his nephew from witnessing the horrendous sight. Two mutilated bodies were found throughout the weathered interior. The bite marks resembled that of a human but were far larger. He shuddered at the reminder of the gruesome scene. The lingering scent of death was embedded in his hardened mind. Robert remembered the look on their faces: despair and agony. The tracks they followed ended yards away from the cabin, and two missing people remained large.

“No, nothing,” Michael replied. “I’ll be honest. I don’t think they’re out here!”

“Come on, boy,” His uncle shouted. “Lives are at stake here. The others probably cleared the other side by now.”

“But—”

“We gotta keep looking. They couldn’t have gone far.”

“No blood, no clothing, nothing… It’s like they vanished.”

Only if Michael saw what his uncle had seen.

The young man looked to his silent uncle, who continued walking along the top of the snowy slope. His gait was staggered and measured, but Robert remained focused on the task at hand. He cared for his nephew, though he was the spitting image of his worthless father.

Michael’s cheeks were flushed red and barren of any facial hair. His body was wrapped in layers of clothing, unlike his uncle’s relatively brisk attire. The cold was something Robert was accustomed to after decades of hunting in its wilderness. Michael’s cold, trembling hands clutched his shotgun. The young man followed his uncle’s pace while hugging the tree line.

An icy breeze blew Michael’s long, tied hair over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed after finding something in the distance. It was more pieces of the cabin trailing down the slope. The impact of the cabin didn’t show signs of the passing avalanche tearing the place apart. It was as though something had exploded from within.

“That must’ve been a hell of an avalanche,” Michael said.

“Something ain’t right about this,” Robert said.

“What’cha mean?”

“We’ve been searching for hours and came up with nothing.”

“I can’t imagine anyone surviving out here in the cold.”

“Those bodies weren’t something no bear had done. And those tracks didn’t leave far from the cabin….”

Robert fell silent when he felt his nephew’s prying eyes.

“You think,” Michael said. “Maybe one of them turned into a windigo?”

His uncle chuckled. Robert regained his composure when he found Michael’s concern. Michael took in the beauty of the mountain and watched his cold breath disappear into the gray backdrop. The sudden burst of arctic breeze sent shivers down the young man’s spine. Michael wondered what hid in the frost-covered forest.

“The hell are they teaching you kids these days?” Robert asked.

“That’s what Sarah told me,” His nephew answered. “Her ancestors believed in the spirits of the land. She told me about windigos, skin walkers—”

His uncle interrupted him with laughter.

“I’ve been hunting in these here woods all my life,” Robert reminded him. “Ain’t seen no windigo. It’s just some old indigenous myth to scare folks. A man turning into a beast? Hell, ya don’t need a made-up story for that. They’re already around us. That ol’ shaman is talking about superstitions, not reality.”

“But what if it’s not?”

“Jesus, you’ll buy into anything, won’t you? You gotta man up. Otherwise, this world will eat you alive.”

Gunfire echoed over another sudden gust. The steady winds filled the silence. They expressed slight bewilderment upon exchanging glances. More gunfire echoed. This time, they were more frantic in their deliberation. Michael trembled but awaited orders from his uncle. Robert checked the bullets in his rifle before looking ahead.

“C’mon, we gotta get going,” Robert said.

“What?” Michael’s voice trembled.

“We ain’t about to stand around.”

They rushed to the scene as fast as possible, though their speed was hampered by the ankle-deep snow, some deeper in parts of the hill they traversed. The multiple gunshots were lessened while they tried to reach the source. Michael stumbled, sliding toward the edge of the slope. His uncle caught him in time before he could slide over.

“You gotta be more careful,” Robert said before going ahead of him.

Michael was overwhelmed with a sense of dread. They were charging headfirst to the unknown. Whatever triggered the other experienced scouts was nothing to undermine. He knew nothing good could come from it, but he pressed on to not upset his uncle further.

This ain’t right, the young man thought to the sound of his beating heart.

“W—we can’t,” he shouted, stopping his uncle in his tracks. “Something’s not right about this.”

“The hell do you mean? They’re in trouble!”

A terrifying screech filled the air. Michael shuddered. They were aghast by the otherworldly sound. Robert knew it wasn’t a bear or a mountain lion. The experienced hunter hurried ahead of his nephew. The gunfire died down and was replaced by the blood-curdling cries of the others. When they reached their destination, Robert and Michael hid behind the tree. Robert was stricken with fear when he saw the distant silhouette of an unusual creature.

“What now?” Michael asked. His uncle cleared his throat.

“I don’t know what I just seen,” he said.

The young man had never seen him so overcome with fear. The horror and uncertainty engulfed his senses, wondering what he saw. The footsteps disappeared into the wind and left behind an uneasy silence. They looked around from their trees. The lanky figure Robert saw vanished into the forest.

“A—alright, let’s check on them,” Robert’s voice shook to the cold air.

“What…Did you see?” Michael asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Let’s just get everyone together and hightail it outta here.”

“Huh? How about the missing—”

“It’s been days. Out in this cold, they may as well be dead.”

The young man was confused about his uncle’s drastic change in behavior. Whatever he saw shook him to the core. An experienced hunter, someone who knew the land better than anyone, was stricken with an unfamiliar fear. Robert wasted little time as he walked ahead of Michael.

The tracks lead to a clearing along a steep slope. Bloodstains sullied the pristine snowy field, and buried beneath were the mutilated remains of the search party. Robert rushed toward the first person he saw. His eyes widened in horror from the gruesome sight. His nephew vomited and staggered away.

Whatever killed him tore him in half, leaving his upper torso strung across the glistening snow. Robert followed the trail of his intestines, stretching toward his lower body. It lay collapsed in a pool of blood. He looked around to find limbs, guns, and mangled bodies. He gasped at the horror of what roamed in the silent forest.

“Whatever did this—” Robert muttered.

“We can’t fight,” Michael met his uncle’s stern glare. Robert staggered to his feet, revealing discomfort in his leg.

“Fucking coward is what you are, just like your father.”

“He has nothing to do with this! Whatever this thing is… We’ll end up just like the others.”

“These were good people!”

Michael stopped talking. He knew it was unwise to upset his uncle further. The young man looked around the sickening surroundings. He tried to make sense of everything. Robert whisked his beard again with trembling fingers. The entire scouting group was slaughtered by something beyond his knowledge. The distinct markings on their flesh were inconsistent with any local predators. There was a sense of malice behind how everyone was killed. The lanky figure he’d seen earlier wasn’t an illusion; It was a very real threat.

Robert turned to Michael. He thought about his safety. It was best to leave the area, but he wanted to avenge his fallen comrades. The horrific screech echoed nearby. Shivering, Michael turned in the direction of the sound. He knew his uncle wouldn’t get far. He joined the search party because he wanted to help, to show he was nothing like his father. Sometimes his uncle would forget he was his own person. Michael looked behind his uncle and saw where the slope began.

“Go on down without me,” his uncle spoke.

“Naw, I’m not going anywhere,” Michael protested. “Not without you.”

“You see all this around you, right?”

“I do, but I’m not going to leave you here.”

Another screech came from the trees behind Michael. Robert saw the determination in his nephew’s eyes but failed to realize what he had planned. Tears rolled down his face. He looked behind Michael, glimpsing a lanky creature emerge from the trees.

Sunken orange eyes were the last thing he remembered seeing from the beast.

“Love ya, Uncle Rob,” His nephew said before pushing him down the slope. “Please, forgive my father.”

Robert tumbled away, falling further down the barren slope. He saw a red mist linger in the air for moments before settling, followed by the championing howl of the devil that took his nephew.




I've probably revised this story a bunch of times. This was originally in The Guardian of Hope (Sigma Version) as a holdover. I remember listening to the windigo mythos while shoveling snow. The intro gives a visceral feeling. I didn't hold back on the imagery. Of course, there's room for improvement. Give it a like, or comment! :3