We had been running for so long with no way to escape, I thought we were Wendigo food but there was another door we could barrel through. We quickly turned to try and keep the burning Wendigo out there but it was too strong! It pushed through the door and pounced onto Mike! I screamed his name, grabbing a hold of the Wendigo's burning arm, burning my hands in the process as someone hit the creature in the head. It jerked backward, moved into a terrorizing position above Mike as I was flung backward and onto my side.
I stayed down, I was in excruciating pain due to the second-degree burns on my palms. The person who had hit the creature the first time swung again and took the head clean off as the body fell to the ground and disintegrated. Mike quickly got to his feet then and slammed the door shut barricading it with the shotgun since that was all that we had. The spirit screamed as it disappeared into the night sky.
The figure who had helped us with the Wendigo was Sam.
Thank God it was her!
"You alright?" Mike to Sam.
"Uh, how about defining 'alright'," that was Sam in response.
"How about alive, then?" Mike.
"Yeah, alive works," Sam.
I moaned in pain, interrupting them before they could continue talking.
"Oh, shit, Vee!" That was Mike, rushing to my side and helping me up.
"Ness, are you okay?" Sam asked.
I moaned in response, "why don't you define okay, and then I'll answer," I chuckled lightly, wincing when Mike took my hands.
"You're an idiot for grabbing a hold of that thing, Vee," Mike told me.
I rolled my eyes, "I was helping your stupid ass," I replied.
He merely smirked at me while I moved to take my bag off my shoulders and gave it to Mike, "look inside that, dig deep, you'll find extra clothes, grab the black t-shirt and start ripping it into bandages," I groaned in pain, shifting to place my back against the rocky wall behind me.
Mike dug around in my bag until he found the item I spoke of, he immediately gave said item to Sam so she could work on helping me bandage my hands while he placed everything back into my bag, zipping it up for me, so I could put it back on my shoulders when Sam was done ripping up my shirt to make bandages. The remaining pieces were stuffed into the smaller compartment of my bag, in which I took and slid my arms into them, placing the straps on my shoulders. That's when Mike grabbed a hold of my left bicep and gestured for Sam to grab my right so they could pull me up onto my feet.
I groaned in pain, "aah," I shifted to hold my right hip, "damn that thing for flinging me so far," I cursed the dead Wendigo.
"Why's that?" Mike asked.
"I think my hip is almost broken," I said, "keyword being almost."
"Well, that's not good," Sam commented gravely.
"No, no, it's not," Mike agreed, already debating on leaving me or not for my safety but then thought better of it since he couldn't leave me, knew I wouldn't leave him and that I could be in danger the moment he left me.
"I'll be fine," I said, eying him, "for now," I added.
He nodded at me, "alright then," he made sure I was balanced before changing the subject, "let's get down to where this motherfucker lives."
And with that, we were on our way, although I was the caboose while Sam was the leader. We traveled in silence before Sam commented on the appearance of the Wendigo. That prompted Mike to talk about the scar and how we had seen it before in old documents about a miner, which made that Wendigo Sam killed eighty years old at the very least which wasn't exactly true unless he was going by how old the man was before turning.
"Well, they're good at cleaning out the mines of unsuspecting humans who venture inside," I mentioned very ominously.
"You mean there's more?" Sam asked.
"Yep," I said perkily, though it was very much sarcastic because I was not perky about that, not by a long shot.
"How many more?" Sam asked again.
"Too many," Mike said and I agreed with him.
We continued forward and suddenly the smell of rotten flesh and blood filled my nostrils and I exclaimed in disgust.
"I think we're close to the lair," Sam said, feeling terrible.
"How do you know?" Mike asked.
"I feel terrible all of sudden, you know?" She replied.
"I know we're close because I can smell it," I said, "rotten flesh and blood," I shuddered.
Mike agreed with us, "ditto," was all he said though.
We came to a pool of water, and the stench became heavier. Sam and I didn't want to go any further but we all knew we had to. Sam noticed something in a corner and moved toward it, Mike and I followed her just to stay together.
"It looks like a grave of some sort," Mike said.
"It is a grave," I said, "and I know who it belongs to," I willed myself to stay strong but it was difficult when I knew it was the grave of Beth.
Sam only confirmed when she showed us the watch she found near the bones in the sand. There used to be a cross but it seemed that someone or something had dug her up but who or what?
We moved away from the scene, the pain too much for me and Sam. It was time to get into the water to reach the other side. None of us wanted to but we all did, I waited for Mike and Sam to slide in before following suit. The water only came up to our waists so we were good on the getting soaked part. We moved toward another ledge a bit away, knowing we needed to find anything else as to what happened to Beth and Hannah. I was the driving force for that, my detective side just not giving up. We pulled ourselves up to the ground above, there was a little makeshift notebook laying open on the ground a few feet away from us.
"Oh God," I cried softly.
"That looks like Hannah's writing," Mike said gravely.
"That's because it is," I knew her writing like the back of my hand, I could copy it but I hadn't done any forgery here.
Sam knelt to turn the pages and I could tell by her writing that Hannah ended up feeding on Beth's corpse to survive since she hadn't died in the fall as her sister had. I held a hand to my lips, stifling cries. It was obvious to us all but Mike didn't want to believe only because of his guilt from the prank he had been part of, it indirectly caused all of this.
I couldn't hold back my tears and I let them fall, "I was right, Beth died in the fall but Hannah didn't and I didn't think to climb down and get her," I felt so bad as I cried, "I feel so stupid," I turned away from the two but they each both put a hand on my shoulders and assured me that it wasn't my fault.
"This is my fault," Mike took the blame even when the blame should've been on Emily's shoulders.
I turned to face him, tears streaking my cheeks, "how could you have known that this would happen?" I asked of him.
"I knew about the prank!" He yelled, immediately calming himself, "I could've said no to the whole thing! I could've told Emily off, I could've told Jess off but, I didn't, that makes it my fault," he told me, admitting a truth I had been waiting to hear from him for a year but it didn't ease my guilt of not being able to save the girls before they fell.
Sam eyed Mike, "you don't need to take all of the blame, Mike," she said knowing damn well who was at the head of the operation.
"None of this eases my guilt of not being fast enough to save them," I piped up, silencing them, "if I had been faster. If I had been stronger. I-" I cut myself off, crying and holding a hand to my face, unable to finish.
A wave of silence washed over us, there was nothing more any of us could say to each other, nothing more.