The Wendigo
By Opopanax
A/N: Horror fans will probably recognize the setting for this story. This is just a fun little piece. Again, I played fast and loose with timelines.
Augustus Rookwood did not like the woods.
As he stepped cautiously through the old trees bordering a field near Route Fifteen, he asked himself, not for the first time, what the hell he'd been thinking when he decided to do this.
It was two in the morning, local time. Rookwood had just taken an black market international portkey from an underground carpark at Heathro to Logan International in Boston. He had come to this god-forsaken north land once before, chasing an elusive rumor of unspeakable things happening in this little town that nobody outside a fifty mile radius had ever heard of.
What he had learned here had given him nightmares, and that was saying something, considering what the grizzled, care-worn Ministry veteran had seen and done.
In the year 1978 that had been, three years before the Dark Lord fell and he, Rookwood, had been sent to prison on testimony from that overgrown school boy, Ludovic Bagman. There he had languished in Dementor-fueled torment until 1996, when the Dark Lord had liberated him.
And then two years later, the Dark Lord fell, once again by the hand of Harry Potter.
But Rookwood would not make the same mistake again.
Last time, the Dark Lord came back. It took him ten years, but he came back. His anger at the knowledge that none of his followers had sought him out was great indeed, and the only reason more of them weren't killed was the fact that he didn't have all that many left.
This time, it had barely been two days since his second death. Rookwood had, in the confusion and celebrations, transfigured a fallen stone to look like the Dark Lord's body and spirited the real one away. Should he succeed, Rookwood knew that he would be rewarded beyond all of his wildest dreams.
To know that the Dark Lord had created Horcruxes answered a great number of questions. Rookwood had watched along with everybody else the final dual between Potter and the Dark Lord, wherein Potter had proclaimed that there were no more Horcruxes. But if Rookwood knew anything about the Dark Lord, it was that he always, as the Muggles said, hedged his bets. Even with Dumbledore having aided Potter and his band of miscreants, it was highly probable that there was at least one more Horcrux hanging around.
Eight was still a highly powerful magical number, if not as powerful as three, five, and seven. And if there was, by chance, at least one more anchor floating around out there, and if the Dark Lord came back again…
Rookwood cursed to himself as a tree root tried to unbalance him. The gruesome, magically lightened burden shifted on his back, making the flesh there crawl madly with revulsion. An owl hooted in the distance, and a huge tanker truck roared by on Route Fifteen, leaving behind a wake of cloying diesel fumes in the warm spring air.
He would give anything not to be the one performing this task. What he had learned about this place and some of the history behind it had given the Dementors many feeding sessions, it terrified him so much. Unnatural things. Secret things…
Images of bullet-ridden corpses and zombified animals danced through his mind. The Dark Lord was already at least half insane. What would he be like after this?
# # #
The quaint little town of North Ludlow, Maine, and what lay in the woods beyond it, had first come to the attention of the British Ministry's Department of Mysteries in 1978.
A girl named Eileen Creed had been admitted to the Salem Institute of Magic in that year. Young Miss Creed had suffered terrible nightmares about events occurring in that town. The night terrors had been so bad that the school nurse had referred her to mind healers at the magical branch of Boston Memorial Hospital. When Miss creed had been interviewed for entrance into the school, the teacher in charge of admitting the Muggle-borns had noticed that she was monosyllabic, slow to answer, and generally just slow. She indicated, in a private report to the principal, that she wondered if Miss Creed might have some form of light mental retardation, and further whether or not she would be a suitable candidate for admission to the school. It might be better, the teacher had written, for this girl to have her magic bound and for her to remain safely in the Mundane world where she cannot do any harm to others with her almost certain weak mental control.
The girl had first lived with her maternal grandparents in Chicago, Illinois, and then, when caring for her in her traumatized state became too much for poor old Dory and Irwin Goldman, she had been shipped to distant relatives in Worcester, Massachusetts. Several bouts of accidental magic had convinced them that something … other was going on. Combined with the deaths of their daughter, one grandchild and disappearance under unknown circumstances of their son-in-law, the Goldmans did not feel that they could bear any more family tragedy. It was, perhaps, not the kindest thing to do to their granddaughter, but they did it anyway. They were, after all, old. And the relentless onrushing of bad events, one on top of another, coming at them like gray waves on a black beach, made them appear even older.
Eileen would wake up from debilitating nightmares of horrifying creatures with merciless, soulless eyes—all of whom bore a remarkable resemblance to her brother Gage, screaming and, if the dream was particularly bad, with windows rattling and wind blowing in the still air of her bedroom. A couple of times her bed had collapsed and lamps and chair legs had been twisted into contorted blobs.
Penelope Goldman and her husband Charles were at a complete loss, and moreover they were thoroughly terrified at the inexplicable power their small charge seemed to possess. It had gotten to the point where they were considering placing her in the Hanover Rest Home, a place which a hundred years ago would've been called an asylum.
Then, on Eileen's eleventh birthday, a strange woman had shown up at their door, bearing an explanation of what exactly had been going on. Their second cousin was a witch. The couple had been frankly disbelieving and the school rep had gone away, vowing to return with a superior.
She had come back a week later, the day after a flying desk chair had nearly decapitated poor Penelope, bringing with her this time the schools' principal. When faced with all the details of what exactly had been going on with Eileen (which outpouring resulted in a thoroughly relieved and much happier Goldman couple), the principal of the Salem Witches' Institute, Holly Michaels, had immediately taken her away, recognizing symptoms of severe, untreated post-traumatic stress disorder.
It had taken a long time—almost six months—but finally, Eileen had opened up about what was troubling her.
Which brought in the U.S. Department of Magical Security, an adjunct to the FBI.
The lead investigator had been a hard-bitten old fellow named John Harding Wesley. He had come with two others to the Salem Institute, and with the aid of some heavy duty calming draughts, had interviewed Eileen Creed about the events that had happened to her five years ago.
"We just moved into the house," she said, fuzzily, as though in a dream. "Me, Daddy, Mommy, Church and … Gage." The four of them were in a quiet room off the principal's office. Silencing charms layered the walls and ceiling. The investigators, Letisha Smith, Wesley, and George Cruz, along with Michaels, were sitting in armchairs.
"Who's Church," Letisha Smith said gently. She was a child psychologist, trained in both mind arts and in Muggle psychology.
"He was my kitty," Eileen said dreamily, from beneath the haze of the draughts. "Gage was my baby brother."
"Were you happy there?"
"Oh yes," Eileen said. "mommy was a little flippy with dealing with all the moving stuff, but it was okay. Gage got stung by a bee and a guy across the street came and got the stinger out of his neck. Daddy got to be his friend."
"Who was this?"
"Mister Crandall. His wife Norma made the best oatmeal cookies I ever ate. But she … died. Sometime after Christmas."
They led Eileen through starting school, Halloween, when Mrs. Crandall had her heart attack. Nothing of any significance came up until after they got to the period following Thanksgiving.
"Church was different," she said, some of the dreaminess leaving her voice. "I had a dream while we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa that he was dead, and when I got home he was … different."
"Different how?" Smith asked gently.
"He stunk," Eileen said, her face wrinkling at the memory. "And he was clumsy and … dumber somehow. He wasn't a cat anymore, but something pretending to be a cat."
The investigators looked at each other. "Can you explain that?" Smith asked.
Eileen shrugged. "Not really. I could feel what the cat wasn't. You kinda had to be there."
They led her through Christmas, the attendance of Mrs. Crandall's funeral, the kite flying episode. Then things started getting dicey.
"Daddy sent us away after Gage's funeral," she said. "I knew he was hiding something … I was so scared … Daddy was walking around, but he was dead all the same."
"What happened then?" It was Wesley.
Eileen's face went white, even under the heavy influence of the calming draught. "Daddy sent us all back to Chicago. I had a horrible dream while we were in the air … Gage was doing something with the knife from Daddy's bag. All I could see was … Mean eyes and a lot of bony fingers. But I don't remember much now. Then I had another dream. Somebody named Paxcow … Pascow, I mean, came and told me that Daddy was about to do something—something bad."
"What kind of something?" Michaels asked.
The girl shook her head slowly. "I don't know. But Pascow took me to the Pet Sematary and said Daddy was going to go there and do something bad. said he was sent to warn, but that he couldn't interfere. He said he was near Daddy when his soul was … Dis—something, and that was why he could come and talk to me."
They hadn't been able to get a whole lot more out of her; only a series of nonsensical segues about her brother and cat. When they tried asking her about the Pet Sematary, she shut down completely and refused to speak further.
Six months later, the girl had committed suicide, hanging herself in her dorm room. There was no note, and only her grandparents came to her funeral.
The investigators traced the girl back to Ludlow, Maine, but none of the town's residents would speak about the Creed family, or what might have happened to them. Typical Yankee closed off attitude.
Yet the investigators sensed an undercurrent of fear, rather than simple taciturnity. Had the case been more urgent, they would have kept on, but they were only following up on the girl's story out of simple curiosity. The events she had narrated had, after all, taken place five years ago, and there were no survivors other than herself; and now even she was gone. Whatever might have happened here was long over.
So Wesley and his colleagues closed the file and forgot about it.
Rookwood had found out about the Creed case purely by accident. He had been sent over to the colonies to look into an artifact found off the coast of New York, and was looking through files in the magical adjunct to the FBI. He had grabbed the Creed file by mistake, but something about it held his attention. After determining that the artifact he had been sent to investigate was a hoax, he returned to the Creed file.
Rookwood was already a Death Eater by this time, but even if he had not been, he was not one to let such things as rules and regulations get in the way of what he wished to accomplished. So it was a simple matter for him to go to Ludlow, Maine, and use Legilimency on various residents to find out about the Pet Sematary. And the peculiar patch of woods beyond.
The things that he had learned scared him, and he was not one to be easily scared by anyone. No magic could resurrect the dead. Once your soul was gone, it was gone, never to be retrieved. But…
But what if they didn't know everything?
Before he could investigate any further, he had been arrested and tossed into Azkaban. That funny patch of ground continued to haunt him, however, courtesy of the dementors. Many a night had seen him wake, clawing and gasping in the dark, expecting to find soulless eyes glaring at him with empty hatred, clawed fingers poised to tear at him…
An owl hooted overhead, causing Rookwood to jump. The body of the Dark Lord shifted again, nearly tipping him off balance.
Enough reminiscing about the past. He was here to do a job.
Abruptly, the path he was on ended at a crude wooden archway. Scrawled in faded, childish writing was PET SEMATARY.
Rookwood stared at this little gateway to the eternal with fascination. To his knowledge, nothing like this existed in England. Part of him—the purely academic part—wondered why this land produced such wild magic. What was it about this continent specifically that engendered such uncontrolled forces, when Europe had been inhabited far longer?
Perhaps that was the answer, he thought, as he stepped through the archway. The magic in Europe had been corralled, tamed, by countless users over the generations. Very few wild places existed anymore. This land was still newly populated, at least in the scope of human history. In spite of its vast cities, there were still many wild places here. Places were the magic ran free, and took on new and interesting forms not seen in the old world.
New and sometimes deadly forms.
Rookwood stood for a moment in the soft spring night. He examined the crude burial ground, with its hodgepodge of grave markers made from old boards, tin cans, and pieces of scrap metal. On the surface, it was a plain animal graveyard. Yet something was here, all right. He could almost feel it under his skin—a maddening, itchy sensation like ants.
The presence of evil.
At the far end of the clearing, a deadfall loomed against the dark sky. Rising a good twenty feet, it was a horrid mass of dead branches, sharp spikes and twisted limbs that looked as though it would twist one's ankle just by thinking about it the wrong way. There was no way around it either; on both sides underbrush closed in so thickly as to be impenetrable, and it was laced with the biggest and sharpest looking thorns Rookwood had ever seen.
The only way to the woods beyond was over that deadfall. Rookwood had not brought a broomstick, and he did not know the Dark Lord's trick of self-flight.
So it was climb or nothing.
Rookwood advanced across the clearing, stepping carefully around the many grave markers arranged in crude, concentric circles. He was more afraid than ever, but he would persevere. To do otherwise might mean a painful death, if the Dark Lord returned without his aid.
No way can I climb this thing, he thought, coming to a halt in front of the twisted mass of dead trees and jackstraw pile of branches. No way.
Yet a wild, formless exhilaration was seeping into him, a feeling of invulnerability. This matched what he had been told by the locals he'd managed to interview. You could only get over if it allowed you over.
It? What, exactly?
Such questions now seemed irrelevant, though. As though he was in a dream, Rookwood suddenly found his foot on the lowermost branches of the deadfall. Keep going steady and don't look down, he heard inside his head—a piece of advice he'd managed to cajole out of one of the old timers who lived around there.
He was halfway up, his right foot resting on a mess of dead fir branches, his left foot canted at a slightly awkward angle over what looked like an oak limb, when he heard it. A deep, bellowing roar from somewhere ahead. Whatever had made that sound must have been huge. It sounded like a carnivorous jetliner was roaring up there in the woods.
Rookwood stopped, his flesh crawling at the viciousness of that sound. He was on the verge of just turning and forgetting about the whole thing. Yet the wild sense of exhilaration persisted. That sound wasn't too important. If he just stayed out of its way, nothing would get him. Sure.
Without warning, the fir branches under his right foot shifted. One of them went with a loud crack, like the sound of a badly performed apparition. He suddenly slipped sideways and almost fell over.
The body of the Dark Lord shifted (Rookwood swore it did this on its own) and he almost went over backward. Don't stop and don't look down, he thought again, pinwheeling his arms madly. Right.
Finally he was upright again. This time, without hesitation, he kept going. His head felt like it was full of helium, like he'd been subjected to the world's strongest cheering charm. Even the huge bellowing sound earlier seemed unimportant, irrelevant in the wake of this strange feeling of invulnerability.
When he reached the top of the deadfall, he paused briefly again. Up ahead was a forest of some of the tallest trees he'd ever seen. It looked even more primeval than the forests which used to blanket England, back in the middle ages. There was no time to stop and admire it, however. Mindful of what had happened the last time he had stopped while climbing this horrid thing, Rookwood kept going, clambering down the other side of the mass of fallen trees as easily as though he were climbing down stairs at home.
At last, he was down. The path continued onward into the thick trees, where anything might be hiding. Anything.
That heady feeling had diminished slightly once he had stepped off the deadfall behind him, but he still felt as though he was in a dream. Or a waking nightmare. What on earth had gotten into him?
# # #
Fifteen minutes later found Rookwood on the verge of a boggy patch of ground which the locals called Little God Swamp. He had seen and heard nothing on his short trek through the woods. And that was bloody strange, wasn't it? No crickets chirped back there. The wind was utterly still, too. The whole little patch of woods was silent as … Well, as the grave.
Little God Swamp was anything but silent. Bugs chirped, water gurgled, and a noisome breeze snuffled among the low grasses and tussocks.
And it was warmer back here.
Like crossing between curtained rooms, the cool spring night instantly gave way into something that felt almost subtropical once Rookwood crossed into the swamp. The wind was cut down to a bare murmur, leaving the thick curtain of mist hanging still over the swamp. The mist gave the whole area the feeling of an old sepia-toned photograph. The air was noxious with swamp gases and the feeling of power—of evil—was stronger, almost electrical feeling.
Prehistoric, huge mosquitos buzzed about, like tiny fighter planes.
As he stepped onto the first tussock, that exhilaration returned. Never mind the stories of carnivorous creatures oozing around in the stagnant water below him. Forget about the huge mosquitos (some of them looked to be at least two inches long) buzzing around his head. Disregard that impression off to his right, the impression that was almost two yards long and looked too much like a footprint to be anything else. Forget all that stuff. As long as he stuck to the tussocks he would—
The huge roar sounded again, much closer, to his right. The sound cycled up, up until it felt as though his head would burst. Rookwood stopped on the tussock, his eyes wide, sweat crawling down his back. His heart felt like it was trying to jump out of his chest.
The ground shook under his feet as something moved. The roar of the creature wound down, like a record player, until it trailed off into something that sounded like a cackling laugh. Then the ground shook again. A smell blasted at him, reminding him of gone over fish, rotting into a slushy pile in the summer sun.
The wind picked up a little, tearing apart the curtain of mist for just an instant. It was only an instant, but it was long enough. He caught a glimpse of something. Something that was seventy feet tall at least, with huge lambent yellow searchlights for eyes. The vague suggestion of the shape was enough to dry the spit in his mouth. Whatever that thing was, it could stomp a Hungarian horntail flat with one foot.
Then the wind died, and the curtain of mist fell back into place. The ground shook one final time and he heard the sound of a tree—a whole tree—falling over as whatever that thing was left the area.
Augustus Rookwood let out his breath in a shuddering sigh. There had been no mention of anything like that in the reports he had read. One oldtimer had said something about how there was swamp fire in here that could make funny shapes, or that the sound of the loons down south could carry up here. That thing which had passed by, though—that was no loon, or funny shape made of St Elmo's fire. His eyes flipped toward the impression that could only be a footprint. NO. Whatever that thing had been, it was real.
While he was standing there, the bugs had started up their chirping. First one, then another, a third and finally a whole convention of chirping, buzzing bugs. Life in the swamp had returned to normal. Yet the feeling of ants crawling over his skin, the feeling of evil, was stronger.
Rookwood wondered if this was a mistake.
Too late now, he thought, and kept going.
The rest of the journey through Little God Swamp was uneventful, much to his relief. The woods resumed after a mild slope. The trees here were normal, nothing like the odd plants he'd seen in that little subtropical tuck in the earth. This was something of a relief. The feeling of evil, however, was growing stronger. Rookwood was getting more and more sick to his stomach as the itchy, malevolent feelings grew. As he crunched over the floor of pine needles and damp earth, he felt like he was walking toward his own freshly dug grave.
The path ended abruptly at a cliff. Steps were carved into the rock, leading upward into that river of wind. He could hear it up there—a high, ceaseless note that sounded alien. Even the flat moors of Britain did not have such wind.
Groaning with tiredness (he suspected he would be paying off this night's work for weeks) Rookwood began to climb the steps. Once his foot slipped on a patch of dampness. The body shifted again. Almost eagerly, although that, of course, was silly. Sure it was. The body was dead, after all. Dead. And no magic could resurrect the dead. Right? Right. Hail Mary, bless Morgana and all that happy crappy, pass the pumpkin juice.
Rookwood reached out to steady himself against the wall of the cliff and had to bite back a shudder of revulsion. It felt like touching old worn out elephant skin, somehow not like rock at all. And there were runes carved into it.
Rookwood knew little of runes, but he knew they were there. Odd patterns that looked like white, gasping faces, or tortured figures contorted in agony. These were runes but not of a vintage known in Europe. These were … Something else. Something older.
Repressing another shudder, he continued up the steps. HE had been insane, coming to do this. Totally insane. The magic of this land was too wild, too uncontrolled. And could anything good come from a drama which contained a creature such as had left that huge footprint back there in Little God Swamp? There were spirits here, ancient things roaming the wood, old ghosts that lay unquiet.
But it was too late to turn back now. Had probably been too late the minute he set foot on that deadfall back there.
And then he was at the top of the cliff.
Here was a flat hilltop, looking to have almost been sanded off. About a hundred yards away were more trees—tall firs that looked as though they had never seen the hand of man. The place was empty, eerie, and the feeling of some coalescing force was stronger still. Yet that wild exhilaration continued to bubble in his brain, like the world's strongest pepper-up potion.
The wind was blowing constantly without letup, a cold snuffle that froze the sweat on Rookwood's brow. Looking up, he saw no constellations he recognized. A cold moon with the face of a demon glared down at him, and he almost expected to hear it's low, malevolent laugh echoing from the heavens.
Never mind that. You're here, now get this done, his inner voice advised.
He walked about twenty yards from the steps, knelt and released the straps holding the wrapped bundle from his back. It felt as though he had done something fairly unpleasant to it; there was a feeling of pressure in his lower spine as though something might give way at any second. A low, throbbing ache had settled in his knees and the big muscles of his thighs. His head ached with exertion. He wanted a drink. And then he wanted a whole bottle of Firewhiskey to help him forget this night.
But there was work to be done. No time to get drunk or bemoan his aching joints.
Keeping his eyes averted, Rookwood opened the bundle and used his wand to pull the canvas roll away from the body. There lay the Dark Lord, pale, serpentine, almost all humanity gone from his face. His original yew wand was grasped in his hand, his robes still dusty and stained from battle.
"Can't believe I'm doing this," Rookwood said, his voice a hoarse croak. "Oh well. Soonest begun, sooner done."
He wordlessly lifted a pile of dirt and set it aside. At least I don't have to use a pick and spade, he thought. Damn soil looks mighty thin. And as if in answer, a voice not his own rose in his mind. "The soil of a man's heart is stonier. Now, just where in the seven hells did that come from?
Five minutes later, a shallow grave was dug. His back continued to send out urgent distress signals, but it would have been immeasurably worse had he been forced to use a spade. He levitated the body into it, and then covered it up again. He got down on his hands and knees (the joints popped like Muggle rifle shots, making him startle) and gathered rocks to build a cairn. This was apparently part of the ritual. Each buries his own, and each builds a cairn.
The final task done, Rookwood had to fight the urge to just curl up right there on the thin, rocky soil
("the soil of a man's heart is stonier")
And go to sleep. But something in him warned him that to do so would be a very bad idea. One did not sleep. Not up here.
Groaning, Rookwood rose to his feet once more and set off toward the steps. The stories said that nothing would happen until at least the following day, and he wanted to find a hotel room in Bangor before sunrise.
Something—some sound—made him look back.
The sound was rock on grinding rock.
One of the stones in his cairn had shifted.
Rookwood paused, still twenty yards from the steps. Goose bumps rose up his arms, feeling like they were the size of snitches. The feeling of gathering force that had been bubbling just beneath his wider perceptions was stronger; now it was a positive gale of magic. Or something like magic; it was unlike anything he had ever felt before. He knew what it was, though. Pure, undiluted evil.
A rock rolled off the top of the cairn.
The force gathering in the air was beginning to crescendo; something was rushing toward that grave. Something that definitely was not the Dark Lord.
Rookwood fought the urge to run; he must see this through to the end. He had started it, and now he owned it.
Without any further warning, the cairn burst apart. Something burst out of the grave he had just dug. It was tall, gantry-like, with glaring red eyes. It cast the wand aside like a stick; wands were of no use to this … Thing.
It was not the Dark Lord.
It was something much, much worse.
Rookwood hitched in breath to scream, but before he could, the ruby gaze of the evil monstrosity let loose in the old Micmac burying ground turned to him.
"Augustus Rookwood," it said. The voice was low, gravelly, like dirt in gears, or a guy who had spent thirty years smoking kerosene-laced cigars. It bore no resemblance at all to the hissing voice of Voldemort.
"Tell me—how are those girls in your basement, Rookwood? Does your sister know that you are the one behind that mask while you shove your puny little dick up her ass? Does she? Does she? Does Lucius Malfoy know that you fucked his wife every chance you got?"
"What?" was all he could think to say.
The thing which had been Lord Voldemort cackled. "Never mind," it said. "You have returned me to life … And Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers."
"You aren't—" Rookwood started, but before he could finished, the thing was on him, moving so fast it was a blur.
Rookwood did not have a chance to get a single spell off before his throat was ripped out. He died with a gurgle, his last thought bemoaning the fact that he would never get that drink.
The thing which had been Voldemort, who in turn had been Tom Riddle, raised its bloody, red-eyed gaze to the alien sky and let loose another cackle.
The Wendigo had been given flesh again. and it was hungry. It was time to hunt, in all that lovely darkness.
# # #
How was that for a Pet Sematary cross? Surprised I haven't seen it before, so I had to fill in the gap.
I hope you had fun reading that, as I did writing it. What I'd really like to see is somebody to take this start and run with it. The ending to the book was very open ended. Perhaps some of those characters could make a reappearance. And what of that huge creature wandering around back there in the swamp? Lots and lots of possibilities.
This is Opopanax, signing off again. Until next time.