The short caravan wove its way up the slippery, dark road. The always dusty camper van was fully coated in mud and slush from the heavy snowfall as it crawled forward the windshield wipers whipping back and forth in the heavy snow. The car behind it was a longbed pickup, the back covered in a tarp and a dull coat of blue covered in grey sludge adorned the frame, its headlights illuminated the back of the camper van. The final car in the procession was surprisingly a rather sleek Italian sports car attempting to rev through the drifts the two off road vehicles drove over easily. Watching the scene you could almost imagine the owner of the sports car quietly swearing at each bump, worrying for water damage and suspension in the heavy weather.
Inside the frontmost car Soldier drove with his face pressed close to the windshield, squinting to make out anything past the front of the van, in the passenger seat Miss Pauling spread the large map out on the dashboard and glared at the jumble of lines, flashlight held in mouth, ready to grab the wheel. Behind them there was gentle snoring from the Heavy, something more resembling a chainsaw emanating from the Demoman. Long too tired to drive but hardly one to trust his car to the likes of Soldier, Sniper held a muttered conversation with Scout, the words "bloody Spy", and "fuckin' annoying" popping up frequently. Occasionally Soldier would turn in his seat to add a little too loudly how the Spy was a useless coward; he didn't know they were talking about the enemy Spy, but the point would still have stood.
Trailing behind was the truck, inside Engineer rested his head on one hand muttering a "yep" or "yu-huh" while the Pyro mumbled animatedly. He could figure out what Pyro, nearly sitting on the gearbox, was saying or he could drive, there wasn't much of a middle ground. On the other side of Pyro a slumbering Medic rested his head against the cold glass, glasses sitting askew on his face.
Bringing up the rear Spy sat alone, he was hardly going to share a near clean sports car with those heathens coated in dust; of course that didn't stop them from jamming his trunk and back seat full of supplies and luggage. He flicked the radio on hoping the noise would keep him awake only to curl his lip as he saw the one channel he picked up was static interspersed with snippets of country. He quickly tapped the button off again and returned his gloved hand from the open window to take a drag on his cigarette, returning his nearly numb hand and damp cigarette to the cold for fear of sullying the interior of the car with smoke. When told they were going on a retreat he assumed it would be somewhere nice, maybe the Bahamas, or at least Vegas, not some cabin in Hell frozen over.
Miss Pauling glanced up from the map and spitting the flashlight out said, "Soldier turn here, between the trees, we're almost there!" Grabbing the wheel and turning it herself as she realized he was once again facing back to grumble about "the low-life backstabber". Behind them the pickup and sports car followed, Spy grimacing again as he saw that he was to take his car off-road.
For another fifteen minutes they drove through the trees, the snow beginning to slack off as the cabin came into view. The three cars pulled around the house and parked near the front porch, the occupants waking up and hauling the closest luggage up to the porch. There was a general popping of backs, stretching of limbs, and an agreement to grab the bedrolls and essentials, leaving the rest for the morning. When the "essentials" had been transported to the porch (A duffel bag of Scout's, a cooler packed with food, and a box of beers that was chilled to freezing.) they opened the door to see a surprisingly welcoming cabin, barring the blast of cold air and a rather frightened owl that flew past them. They set up the bed rolls, arranged around the now roaring fire, its orange light flickering over the room.
By the time the noise started Scout was the only one awake, ruffling through his bag for an interesting comic to read, picking up one to read a couple pages only to decide it was boring, he had read it before, or he simply wasn't in the mood for the character. As once again dug through the bag, he heard it. There was a howling, no, not a howling, it was nothing like a wolf or dog he'd heard before, it was high and keening, yet guttural, almost human, but too bone-chilling to come from anything but a beast. Not thinking Scout began shaking the person closest to him; trying to shake Soldier awake was a bad idea on the best of days.
By the time the team loosened Soldier's fingers from Scout's larynx the howl had sounded again, this time, as Scout coughed out, definitely closer. they were all reasonably on edge by that point, the howl was like nothing anyone had heard before, even Sniper, the resident hunter didn't recognize it. When it sounded for the third time, seemingly right on top of them they froze, all except Soldier.
He stormed outside, fireplace poker in hand, proclaiming that he "wasn't going to be scared by a little wolf". The rest of the team stood with their faces pressed to the windows or peeking through the door as Soldier walked out into the snow and began to scream for that "coward dog" to come get him. Then he was screaming louder, and bleeding, no, gushing blood from the fangs embedded in his shoulder. The Beast was a little larger than a man, long anglerfish like teeth jutted through Soldier's body as blood ran down its white furred chest and tore at him with wicked long claws. Its face was flat like a man's, but the nose was only a stump, its blue tinged flesh visible beneath the clumps of fur. Snarling it dragged the still screaming Soldier out into the darkness.
The remaining group of nine stood in shock for a moment, Pyro snapping out of it first and slamming the door shut. The mercenaries and their handler broke one by one. Miss Pauling grabbed Sniper's sleeve and yelled, "what was that!"
Sniper's jaw worked for a second before, "I've got no bloody idea, the damned thing just dragged 'im away…" Spilled out. Miss Pauling's eyes widened realizing the resident hunter and resident of the deadliest continent had no idea what the monster that just killed Soldier was.
One by one the classes broke from their stupor and they began to worriedly mutter.
"Respawn is working, yes?"
"Last I checked we activated Viaduct, reckon he'll show up there soon."
"Let's hope so, hiring a new soldier at this point would be awful"
"Vhat vas zat thing anyway? It is like nothing I've ever seen!"
While the group stood by the door, Pyro's back still braced against it in an attempt to make sure the creature could not get in, Scout had stumbled back across the room over to his bag proclaiming with increasing volume, "ohgodohgodohgod, I've seen that thing before, what's it, windy-blow, indigo, bucky-bo, sumthin', I've seen it before". The other classes turned to him as he was nearly yelling and now tossing clothes and comics out of his bag before freezing.
He slowly stood and raised the comic in his hands finally saying, "it's a frickin' wendigo". In his hands was a rather bedraggled issue of Tales of Shock and Horror, proclaiming in rather desperate font "It's The Season of The Wendigo" and beneath the words and small illustrations of snowy pumpkins was a drawing of the creature they had just seen drag Soldier away. It wasn't an exact replica of the beast, but it was close enough for there to be no question, the rotted stump of a nose, the sickly blue skin, and clumps of blue fur all adorning the skeletal gorilla-like frame were all there.
At this point Spy had hit his limit for unreality and stepping forward smacked the comic to the floor loudly proclaiming, "are you dreaming? Zere is no thing, it is a mythical creatures! Obviously it was some mangy wolf or bear and we are all overreacting."
Scout shot back as he reached down for the magazine, "a couple-a months ago we fought a magician that was Solly's roommate and Demo's flyin' evil eye, you really want to say myths ain't real?
Demoman affirmed with a quick, "the lad's right ya know. Myths are rarely as fake as they're made out ta be" as he tapped his eyepatch.
"Look, we hardly have ze time to bicker about ze beast, let's err on ze side of caution and see what this "wendigo" is like." Said Medic, gesturing to Scout as he adjusted his eye-glasses worriedly.
"They're, ah, people, and they were cannibals, so they turned inta these beasts like thatun. Uh, they eat people, deadly, fast, they heal like they got a medibeam, and definitely supanatural." Scout said as he thumbed through the comic.
"How do you kill one, Scout? We need its weakness, not its strengths." Replied a somewhat exasperated Miss Pauling.
Scout quickly flipped to the back of the issue and lowered it, "they don't, it kills everyone then walks inta the woods…"
Miss Pauling rubbed at her temples in frustration at their dire situation. Even though there was respawn, which she was entered into of course, there was the situation that three cars and a good portion of their belongings were out here, and unless wendigos learn to drive stick shifts she doubted they'd get them back without returning. Going up to this hell-hole was enough trouble once, "Great, just great, if we had a proper weapon we might stand a chance, but now we're trapped and monster food. But the Administrator was so certain on not taking them."
"Well, actually I've got my bat in here, but my gun's out in tha van…"
"I would not leave Sasha where someone could take her."
"I vouldn't trust these dummkopfs in ze voods without somezing to heal mortal vounds."
"Ah may have been expectin' some sorta wee monster already… Ah've got me sticky bombs in tha truck."
"Not gonna lie, I was hopin' to work on the designs for my machines this week."
"I assumed rifles and hunting knives were excluded, we can hardly stop by a grocery out here."
"Mrr fmurr hudda muff."
"Never house with killers unarmed, and it appears you went by ze same policy Miss Pauling."
"I've never been so glad to hear you all completely fail to follow a simple rule, and yes I brought my revolver, but it's a lot less conspicuous than a flamethrower." Miss Pauling said. "So I suppose all the guns are in the cars, right? Keeping with today's luck."
"Well I do have my bat" proclaimed Scout proudly, brandishing the melee weapon.
"Okay then," Miss Pauling handed a fireplace shovel to a befuddled Scout, "you can be our distraction, make a lot of noise so the rest of us can get the guns inside. Maybe try and dig the tires out a little if you have time, the cars are bumper-deep in snow."
"Ya gotta be kiddin' me!"
"You're fast, right? I sure hope you're faster than a wendigo" Miss Pauling smirked as she pushed Scout to the door.