Windigo VI

He had watched for some time. Mulling over the best course of action from the shadows of the night. Black Patridge had left a while back and if Tim didn’t hurry he would be back. He scoffed. Of course out here he runs into that man! How funny this creature was? He walked without knowing who he truly drew in around him. Moths circling the dying embers of a man. A walking vortex that pushes and pulls. All without him knowing.

Annoyingly enough it had worked on Tim too.

Their last meeting had been… lovely. That wouldn't be the right word. But it was the one he would use. He could search all his emotions across the different spectrums of time and find that that word was the best he could do to describe it. Bah. Words were so fickle and clunky. They didn’t ever really do their job. They could never truly make someone understand you, or how you saw things, or how you felt. They always fall short. But that’s true about all things, isn’t it?

Usually people never saw him at all. It was nice to be recognized. Too bad he would be killing him tonight. He needed to snip this in the bud with memories of their last encounter fading, that’s what he decided. Right the ship. He just couldn’t let someone like him linger in this world. All weeds must be plucked. He would end up like Black Patridge. The last human he tangoed with and cursed. 

Maintaining a tidy reality was in his job description, although he loathed it sometime. He was his job, afterall, he had no choice. Maybe it would be a nice clash, he was excited. Even now the animals were circling. Pushing in to watch them dance again. A man carrying a cloak of dark lightning versus the wraith of destiny. The little garage was flickering in light and darkness even with the man sitting in there. The fluorescent light being siphoned away from the footsteps of that man. Everywhere he stepped he opened sorrow. Dark creatures lingered. Holes started appearing. And he was asleep too. This would not do. The man was growing stronger. He would have to wage a proxy war for his wards were too strong. His wards... He needed a good look at him. Where had he gotten that charm?

The woman would do just fine if he couldn't actually touch him. Then he would be off for good. A little personal time, then back to work.

~

I woke up with the sound of Chewy whining. He prodded his cold nose up against my neck. I was in a mess of a garage, on an oil stained and too small for me couch. It was dark now, the sunset that I fawned over didn’t hold my attention with sleep pounding at my head. 

Damn, I still am tired. 

I was always tired, always hurting, and always confused. And what was that smell? Like I had licked a battery but among the air, what tool in this garage made that stink? Outside the door to my left I was scared that I saw curling shadows, afraid the blacked out SUV had found me again. But it was just the flickering light from the doorway trailing and igniting memories. More memories found me from there. The mechanic. The sheriff. I remembered what had happened. I was here waiting. Waiting in the dark. Inside the garage the light painted one long beam across the dirty cement floor and lingered upon the side of this wall we sat against. 

Chewy nudged me again, I stopped rubbing my head and asked. “What?” Annoyed.

“Something’s not right chap. You smell that?” 

I sniffed again but I think I had fried most of my sinuses from that shit I was putting in me. My brain too. 

“Yeah, but what is it?” I asked as the wind outside turned and lingered through the open door. The invisible foliage outside around the banks of this property shook and moaned as the wind pulled at them in a new way. 

“Smells like ozone.” I trailed off.

“Him.” Chewy said the hackles on his back raised. 

I lifted up and felt the wall behind me. Moving a tool chest. Brushing my hand over some braided belt hanging on the wall. I couldn't find a light switch. 

“He doesn’t want to kill me.” I said. “Why wouldn’t he kill me at the casino?”

“He can’t touch you, remember?”

“Yeah and we can’t do shit to him either!” I hissed at Chewy. I gave up feeling for a switch and tucked myself further into the garage. Hitting the coffee table with my shin and sending magazines skating across the floor. There was a rusted bucket for a car that I hid behind. My hand splayed out on the trunk. Watching the doorway. The door was the only in and out of this garage, apart from the actual garage doors.

I had to find a button for them.

BANG.

A loud thud sounded from the steel garage door to our right. Slamming something against it. Chewy barked back out of reflex, jumping nearly out of his skin.

“Shh.” I said. 

BANG.

Another thump this time a little bit further down. We heard the crunching of footsteps on the gravel. Someone was walking along the other side. Heading slowly towards the doors. I kicked what I thought was a pipe at first on the ground but when I searched for it I found it was some wrench. Not very big but it would do. I gripped it like a club and snuck around the other side of the car. Kicking tools aside as I stumbled around to put this rust bucket between the door and us 

BANG.

This one made me jump. But what was worse was the waiting. Silence. No more footsteps. 

Until they appeared in the doorway. That flickering light painted their profile. I saw the staunch woman. Belt and holster high up on her large hips. Her perm made her head look twice the size. Then the flashing light above her went out. It was darkness again. Truly. 

“Terri?” I whispered out

“Sherri,” Chewy corrected me.

“Sherri?” I tried again with a little more bravado. 

Silence. Then a couple of steps. Then what sounded like leather and the unmistakable cocking of a gun. “You one of them anarchists aren't you? Trying to bring communism to our good town here?”

“Communism?” I mouthed to Chewy. He stopped his snarling long enough to shrug. We both ducked down more. 

“You one of them drug fueled up psychos huh? Do anything to get your fix? Smoking that devils lettuce and that crack cocaine? Do you like Crack cocaine? Huh son?!” She was stepping around to the couch based on where her voice was. 

“I don’t like crack cocaine!” I hissed out to her. It was a lie, but it felt like the right thing to say to a godly woman with a gun.

I saw the edge of her in the moonlight from the door. Her head snapped around unnaturally. Eyes so far open they were more white than iris. 

“I bet you are one of them Bi-polars? One of them crazies? I bet you microwave your baby cause you thought they were telling you they were too cold, huh? You have the devil in you. And you must be purged with God's will.” She stepped forward and vanished towards me. Carefully Chewy and I backed up and went behind a tool shed over in the corner. Carefully feeling the ground this time to avoid rattling nuts and bolts across the cement. I picked one up and threw it in the opposite corner. If we drew her in we could loop around and make a break for the door. In the brush I could outpace her. I was husky myself but I was confident. That perm must drag in the wind.

“Sneaky little rat.” She took the bait “Trying come out here to start your harems. Start your re-education. We take care of our own out here. We don’t need anything else. We don’t ask for anything else. You wouldn't know a hard day's work if it kicked you in the teeth, some city slicker. Welfare scum, draining our tax dollars. Sometimes God's will is cruel. Sometimes it's a bullet. I am righteous. I feel his power through me. You either come face me or you take off that unholy symbol. That necklace that degrades this house of worship.”

I touched my charm again, this thing was more trouble than it was worth. 

She freed something else from her belt.

“Come little chidlin. Come face the gospel.” She clicked her flashlight on. My skin prickled and my mouth dried out. I pulled Chewy back into the corner even tighter. Her beam of light poured across the opposite corner. Spilling over a generator with wires hanging limp from it. She whirled around, searching around that rusted car, under it, in it, working towards us. “I know where you are, the beam focused over us. Her footsteps drew closer. She was only ten feet away when I found my courage and charged. 

I lept to my feet and threw the wrench as hard as I could. It whistled past her and clanged against the wall. She glanced over her shoulder for a split second. Then re-focussed on us. Her pistol was just clutched darkness above the flashlight. I covered my eyes from the light and readied myself to be shot to pieces. 

~

 The garage doors sprang to life. Pulling on springs and chains to the ceiling. Both doors opened and behind me spilled white hot light from high beams. Sherri covered her eyes and screamed. I saw the twisting pain of her face. Her sunken sallow cheeks. She was pale and sweating buckets, fighting against what was afflicting her.

Out from beyond the high beams was the tow truck. Dust was still being pulled up from behind it as it skidded to a stop. And before it even had halted the door swung open and out came the native man. He clapped his hands together and breathed out a liquid that caught on flames. 

He spewed fire across the ebony night lighting the surroundings. I saw all manner of eyes around us. Jack rabbit, and lizard, coyotes, and great big black birds who lingered on the edges. They all were sitting and watching. Waiting like scavengers. They sat around this property and their eyes glowed  as eerie green pinpoints as the fire stretched a hundred feet around him. 

It skidded across the surface of the driveway and found purchase against the small shrubs to the right of us. A screech that sounded like nails on a chalkboard shattered the air across these low lands. A figure whirling around a flaming coat stumbled back. No, not stumbled. His strides were manicured. He fled and wiped away the flames that clad him, in his next step he vanished and I only saw a smattering of bats taking to the sky. 

But I couldn't trust my eyes. The animals, the man, her face. 

This can’t be happening. I’m hallucinating again. 

The juts of flames as quick as it appeared was gone. The light quickly wicked away. The glowing eyes surrounding us faded. Did they turn away or were they still watching? I didn’t know, nor if they were ever there to begin with.

I flipped my attention back to Sherri who had dipped both her flashlight and gun. She grabbed at her temples. I went to her. Slowly. Putting my arm around her and guiding her to the couch. I moved the pillow I had drooled a little on and placed her where it had been. 

She assured me she was okay, she didn’t know what had gotten into her.

I did. But didn’t have the heart or the words to tell her.

I placed a blanket over her, because that's what they do in the movies and walked outside. Black Partridge was speaking in his language. Walking the perimeter. Shaking his hands.

“Thank you,” I started. He quieted me right away. He finished walking the driveaway then finally acknowledged me. “Windigo,” was all he said. He walked towards me with long and sure strides and before I knew it he had gripped my skull with his large plate-sized hand. I felt the calluses against my eyelids as he squeezed. Chewy barked like a maniac around me. The dog cursed and yelled at him to put me down. But it was drowned out among his own words. It reverberated in my ears. He unhanded me and I fell back into the dirt, flat on my back and skidded to a halt. The world went dark around me as he stepped over me. 

Then he went to work getting my car off the back of his tow truck.