Tomas Edel's Arc

Chapter 13 of 17

The fire barrier had held one night. It did not hold the next. The wendigo learned. It stopped charging the flames head-on. Instead it circled the town's dark edges, where the torches burned low. Tomas ran the line all night with his lantern. He could not be everywhere. Screams came from the far corner, then silence. By dawn three villagers were gone, dragged into the trees. The creature's rage over its burned hoard had made it reckless, and reckless made it fast. Tomas found the sick hunter propped against the ranger truck, wrapped in a blanket. The boy had been half-dead in the cave. Now his eyes tracked something past the tree line, sharp and certain. Regan crouched beside him, her silver stake strapped to her forearm, useless against this thing and both of them knew it. She looked up at Tomas. "He feels it," she said. "Before it moves. Every time." The hunter's cracked lips parted. "It's at the north edge now." His voice was thin but steady. "Circling. It wants the small one by the well." He pressed a hand to the old bite wound on his shoulder. "The bite. It left something in me. I can feel where it walks." Tomas stared. The boy who had hit the wendigo three times and lived now shared its senses. It was horror. It was also a weapon. Tomas grabbed the boy's arm and pointed at the dark, then at the truck. Regan understood first. "He tells us where. We wait there with fire." She hauled the hunter into the truck bed. Tomas loaded the last full lantern and a jug of oil beside him. "Left," the hunter rasped. Tomas turned the wheel. The dented truck bounced over root and rut, headlights swinging. "Slower. It's close. It smells the girl by the well." A child stood frozen at the town's edge, bucket dropped. Tomas killed the lights. "Now," the boy said. "Right side. It's about to jump." Tomas hurled the oil jug into the brush and threw the lantern after it. Glass shattered. Fire bloomed across the wet leaves. The wendigo screamed and reared up inside the flames, hide smoking, close enough that Tomas felt its heat. It clawed at the burning ground, trapped between fire and truck. Regan grabbed the child and pulled her clear. The creature broke and fled into the dark, but slower now, burned and limping. Tomas watched it go. For the first time it had not taken anyone. The boy in the truck bed sagged, spent, his eyes still fixed on the trees. "It's hurt," the hunter breathed. "It's going home. The cave." He turned to Tomas, and something behind his stare was no longer only human. "I know where it sleeps now. I'll always know." The wendigo would heal. But now Tomas had eyes inside it. Next time, he would not be chasing. He would be waiting at the cave.