Leaving Nothing to Chance

"The smell of rot's back" said Ethan uneasily. "I think it's the Wendigo."

"Maybe we should go back to the church?" said Rory. "We can use our water guns until it leaves."

"The old church had been deconsecrated and empty" Ethan said. "It's just a building now.

"It is back" said Erica, turning her head to look out the back window. "And it's floating."

Sure enough, somewhere between the church and the edge of town, was the top half of the Wendigo floating in mid-air. It was in all its skeletal might, gazing malevolently at the teens.

"Why are we just sitting here, waiting for a demon to attack us?" asked Sarah, checking the rear view mirror. "I'm going to speed up."

But Wendigo itself sped up, flying through the mist with a unearthly cry. The demon then passed the car and disappeared.

Everybody was relieved, but only for an instant.

You would think Leeblaine's gas station and garage would have been near the train station, or downtown at the general store! But it was the very last building in town, just past the crossroad where a lone gravel road headed down to the lake met the chip-and-tar main road.

The pumps were old style, gasoline was advertized at 30 cents a gallon, and the blue, white and red round Esso sign swayed lazily despite the total lack of wind.

Beyond this station, the chip-and-tar road turned sharply, dipped into a short gully and climbed the hill to the resort.

"You have to stop the car!" said Ethan abruptly, as he started coughing.

Sarah looked at Ethan, whose eyes were filled with terror. She took a look at the gas station, and it was obvious what the creature was about to do.

"We're too close to stop" Sarah said.

"Back up!" ordered Erica, as she shrank in the seat.

"No way!" said Rory in disbelief, as he too belatedly made the collection.

Sarah made a sharp turn down the gravel road into the fog.

And the Wendigo, that hater of civilization, that demon of the northern woods, used a decidedly non-supernatural trick. It had caused a gas leak, and its long claws hadn't prevented it from combining the gas leak with a match from the garage's office.

The town should not have been there, it did not have any people living there, it was a fogbound copy of its rightful form . . . .

But hydrocarbons were still hydrocarbons. The gas station was able to blow up. And that's how a large fireball and cloud of smoke went into the air.

But thanks to quick thinking, the blast didn't touch the teens as they travelled down the gravel road back into the fog enshrouded woods.

But a few stones hit the rear windshield of the car, cracking the glass in a couple places.

Sarah slowed down and allowed herself a deep breath. She looked at Ethan, who seemed pale from the near-escape.

Rory looked behind him as the fireball died down and the gas station continued to burn.

"Big enough explosion for you?" asked Erica with deadly sarcasm, as she brought herself up.

"Yeah" said Rory, shaken despite himself. "Lucky the windows didn't blow-out completely. Malcolm would have killed us."

"Unbelievable" sighed Erica.

"Yeah, I know" said Rory.

Ethan and Sarah exchanged looks.

"I expected the Windego to start roaring again" said Ethan, as his grin faded. "Another one of his . . . ."

"Lame-o attempts" interrupted Rory.

". . . to stop us failed" said Ethan.

"It looks like this road also leads to the hotel" said Sarah. "What's that?"

To the side of the road was a tall wooden structure, grey with age. To Sarah's eyes, it looked something like a wooden silo that was completely vertical on side, but sloped down to the ground like the sloped roof of a house on the other.

"It's a mine headframe" said Ethan. "It lowers and raises things from a mine."

"Yeah" Rory acknowledged. "I've played enough mine train video games to know one when I see one. Molten Magma Miners is the awesome-est."

"Big Pine Death Mine IV has better graphics" Ethan said. "But this must have been long abandoned by '56 . . . You don't think that the Windego was trying to lead us down there?"

In their minds' eyes, both Ethan and Rory could see the four of them chased by upper-half of the Windego on a madly out-of-control mine cart flying through a tunnel. The type you found in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and another number of other movies or video games.

Rory's imagination went further; after a few loops and roller-coaster like turns, the mine cart came to the end of the track and fell down into a bottomless pit.

"Cool but too gnarly" Rory observed. "No way we should go in there."

"Duh!" said Erica.

"And I don't think it would lead us to Benny" Ethan mused.

"I'll do better than that" said Sarah dryly. "No girl I know would want to hide at the bottom of an old mine shaft deep underground. Especially a cheerleader want-to-be like Stephanie. It's not sexist, it's a fact."

"It's a sexist fact" Erica added. "Only a really geeky guy would be that stupid."

Ethan wondered about that (so long as it were safe, he'd think it would be awesome to explore the inside of a mine!), as Sarah quickly drove away from the "abandoned ghost mine" and continued along a stony beach bordering Gunflint Lake. The four teens had a good view of the streamlined walls of the distant, art-deco hotel, and the pleasant sandy beach in its environs. The lakeshore retreated, and they passed again into the woods and another mine headframe.

On the left, the forest gave way to a black iron fence, and a ragged lawn mostly hidden by the thick fog.

The road forked, and Sarah stopped at the corner. The left road led through high, open gates flanked by stone pillars, gloomily beset by the fog.

Here again was a terrible stench that assaulted Ethan's nose. And this time, his nostrils didn't want to stop sniffing. That is, until he covered his nose with his hand and thought of Sarah.

"I think . . . freshly dug earth" said Ethan embarrassedly. "And, uh, soup bones."

'And road signs" said Erica, from the back seat pointing to an old white sign ahead of them.

"Leeblaine Hotel" read the sign with helpful black arrow pointing to the narrower road curving to the right. And below the helpful black arrow was a decidedly less helpful black arrow pointing to the high gates and reading "Miners Union Cemetery."

"That's an easy choice" said Ethan tried to joke. "Uh . . . no! Not again!"

Reappearing, was the upper half of the Windego. Once again blocking the road to the hotel.

"This time we make our stand" said Sarah, grabbing her water gun.

Ethan too grabbed her gun. So did Rory and Erica.

It takes a little experience to jump out of a Challenger coup with a water gun aimed and ready to fire. Sarah wasn't bad, given her green belt. Ethan also managed well. Erica and Rory had to put their seats forward, and climbed from the back.

The Windego, effusing its putrid smell, stood looking down with its demonic red eyes. With its emaciated face, and its head and antlers so much like a moose's. The demon was silent; it appeared unable to talk without a mouthpiece at its side.

The four teens aimed the holy water at this spectre. And fired . . . if that was the right word for it.

But the four had lost the element of surprise. The Windego retreated, floating up and out of reach of the blessed water. The demon disappeared once again.

"That was easy" said Rory, with an obvious sigh of relief, as he replaced his gun in his scabbard.

"He's not gone for good" said Ethan, warily.

"What are we going to do?" Sarah asked. "We have to get to the hotel. But we can't just drive along like sitting ducks. We can't go back to the Esso station; the road ahead twists so much we can't speed that way."

"Not even Erica" Rory said.

"We could walk" said Erica, with a contemptuous look at Rory.

"That'll be worse" said Sarah. "Our supplies are in the car."

"I think I know!" Ethan exclaimed. "Go back in the car. Keep the windows open and ready to shoot. Like an APC.

"A what?" asked Sarah.

"An armoured personnel carrier"

"Just say tank" smiled Sarah.

"He probably got the idea from a video game" Erica said sarcastically.

"The Windego can still come in through the roof" said Sarah. "We might not be able to hit him in time."

"Too bad there's no roof rack" said Rory. "Then I could ride on top, like a tank's turret. My dad's new Trailblazer has one. Um . . . a roof rack, not a turret."

"Focus, dude" Ethan said. "We'll just have to . . . what's that?"

Ethan's ears began to involuntarily twitch. Since Ethan had combed his hair over his ears to hide the points on top, this was both embarrassing and itchy. Then Ethan's nose began twitching again, and he had to cover it with his hand.

"What do you hear?" asked Sarah, as if this was something that Ethan typically dealt with.

"More soup bones" Ethan admitted. "And a rattle, like dozens of rattlesnakes. And . . . dirt."

"That doesn't make any sense" said Erica warily, as she didn't much like that idea of an invasion of rattlesnakes.

But in a moment, everyone else heard that same noise. And, as with the Windego, everyone reacted in horror. Ethan and Rory's jaws practically fell to the floor in their fright as they yelled in terror (Rory, to his credit, this time managed not to scream like a girl).

Skeletons. What looked like an army of them. Nothing but bleached-yellow bones marched out of the cemetery as the remains of the long dead came to take them on. In all likelihood, those of the miners whose bodies had long been placed to rest in that quiet graveyard.

This was cause for the smell of bones, that so aggravated Ethan's werewolf senses. This was the cause of the strange rattle . . . skeletons marching of their own accord without muscle, tendon or skin to assist their movement.

It was a wonder how they stood and walked, like gruesome marionettes pulled by invisible strings, so jerky was their stride.

It was an affront to the remains of those long buried.

Ethan picked up his water gun but was too distracted by the gruesome site to even use it.

"S-stephanie, or the Windego, or b-both, again used the spell to make Old school z-z-zombies" said Ethan, stuttering in fear . . . merely holding the gun repressed his cursed instincts. "The souls have long left them . . . like those animals Benny re-animated once. Only these are very old skeletons hijacked and f-forced to work . . . ."

Sarah was the first to react. She hit the pedal to the floor, but all four ended up whiplashed as the car came into contact with the Windego with a sickening crunch.

And a plume of black smoke rising from the hood.

This was the end of Malcolm's Dodge Challenger. And it seemed to be the end of Team Sabre (minus Benny plus Erica)!

Ethan frantically pushed the automatic window button, silently praying that the car battery was still working. With a whine the battery worked, and the window went down.

Sarah, Erica and Rory followed Ethan's lead.

Wasting no further time, Ethan pulled his water gun to shoot at the Windego and was rewarded with another roar as it pulled further away. Ethan had disintegrated one of the antlers of that unholy spectre.

Rory had recovered himself too, and lowering the window aimed his water gun full of holy water as if he were peering through the gun slits of a tank. Rory hit the nearest skeleton and it collapsed into a pile of bones.

Ethan aimed his gun and shot a few more.

It was easy for the two teen boys to fire. The Challenger's passenger side faced the army of skeletons. But this also meant that neither Sarah nor Erica could use their water guns; they would only splash Ethan and Rory with the holy water.

Sarah, bravely left the car and aimed from behind the smoke-screen left by the incapacitated motor. It wasn't difficult. There were about a hundred skeletons in total.

Seeing Sarah move, Erica followed her out and started shooting the skeletons from her side.

"This isn't what I expected when I said I'd come" Erica sulked.

But there was yet a problem left by the chaotic nature of their defence. Most of the holy water was in the trunk of the car. There were over a hundred skeletons. While they crumpled easily, there just wasn't that much water in the water pistols to take them all out!

"We should have had super-soakers!" Rory complained, as he ran out of water first.

"Pull the back seat down" said Ethan, "it's the easiest way to get to the trunk."

Rory, with some shuffling, managed. But when the car had ran into the Windego, the luggage had fallen into a confused heap. The barrel of holy water was on the opposite side of the trunk; that is to say the extreme back of the car. Rory crawled into the trunk, trying to reach the elusive barrel.

"Let me get the keys and pop the trunk" said Ethan.

Ethan aimed another shot at an approaching skeleton with the last of the holy water in his pistol. Ethan then pulled out his light sabre as his last defence.

But with the gun now dry, werewolf instincts started to intrude on Ethan's mind. Dizzily he was aware of a bonanza of bones to chew on. Yet the bones he was looking at were his enemies, and wanted to destroy him! Ethan's eyes glazed over in a yellow fog.

Ethan growled furiously.

"Ethan, don't!" called Sarah.

Ethan hesitated. Ethan came to himself. He pushed the trunk open button. Holding up his light sabre, he went to rush the trunk from the outside. Meanwhile, Sarah and Erica, were now out of holy water themselves. The girls moved along the driver's side of the car trying to reach the trunk.

Sarah and Erica were suddenly brought short; they almost ran into the foul, rotten hand of the Windego. The top half of the demon face them and leered. He, or it, rested its long cold clammy fingers and long claws onto Erica's shoulder.

Erica immediately went into a trance, and began speaking in a stern monotone:

"I will get my full powers and form back. The Windego never dies. He is forever bound to this wilderness. You will pay for this insult!"

But Ethan had reached the barrel of blessed water, and remove the cask from the trunk. Even with all that was going on, Ethan was terrified to see the Windego face-to-face with Sarah. With all his might, he threw the barrel at the demon's antlers.

The barrel broke, and holy water doused the Windego.

"Aaieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" is the nearest way to transcribe that demon's unholy screech as it erupted into flame like a roman candle, extinguished in a splash, and, so far as Ethan knew, left the boreal forest, granite hills and muskeg swamp, reappearing in the infernal regions where it had its origins.

But there was little time to think about that, or if the Windego would ever return to earth. That instant, Sarah roughly pushed Erica into the snow. The destruction of the Windego had singed Erica's sleeve, and nearly ignited her clothes. For an instant Erica looked confused, then made a disgusted face.

"I don't believe it!" she complained. "That thing was so . . . clammy."

Ethan and Sarah again gazed at each for a moment, seeing if each other were okay. Then the terror of their situation ended the moment.

They were at the mercy of the skeletons. Without any effective weapons.

Rory was pulled bodily from the car by his feet, kicking the skeleton grasping him with all his might.

"Dude, let go!" he insisted.

That skeleton would have none of it. Another skeleton removed its arm, and struck Rory on the back until the teen was forced to cover the back of his head in protection. Two other skeletons grasped him and carried the astonished teen between them.

Now the skeletons came around the front of the car. Sarah was loathe to leave Erica, so she fought them off with the best of her karate skills.

A karate kick crumbled the nearest into a pile of bones. But the bones reassembled in front of Sarah's astonished eyes! Another four skeletons rounded the car behind it.

"Get your hands off me!" Sarah warned, as she tried to get Erica to her feet so they could flee.

It took four skeletons to grasp Sarah, holding onto each limb. They carried her away.

"Sarah!" Erica called, then bitterly declared "This so wouldn't have happened if I was still an immortal. Glamourous immortals have no time for filthy piles of bones."

Erica found herself face to face with a large skeleton with a smiling skull. This entity menacingly removed its skull and indicated it would bean Erica given the chance. Erica found her arms grabbed from behind, and frogmarched after Sarah and Rory.

And now Ethan was the only one left. In spite of Ethan being in his natural body, all reason left him as he fought the skeletons in a haze of lycanthropic instinct. In this situation, Ethan had little chance to control himself. Again, much had changed since he had fought the invisible Malcolm, what seemed to him like years ago instead of a week.

Ethan growled, tried to bite, and threw himself bodily at the skeletons. He was finally quelled by what seemed like a barrage of thrown skulls. Normally Ethan wouldn't have been able to take it, but being a werewolf made it so he was merely sore instead of comatose.

Ethan's eyes finally focussed and lost their hungry yellow glow. His mind went back to something like normal. Ethan was almost relieved to be carried firmly away by four skeletons. Somehow, Ethan discovered that his retractable light sabre had been returned to its scabbard.

"I can't believe I'm being carried away by skeletons" said Ethan to himself, as he realized the skeletons couldn't hear him. "But where? To the hotel. It's the hotel alright. But they don't want us dead . . . yet. Why?"

Ethan then realized why, with a growl. The Windego had told them why. The skeletons were delivering Ethan, Sarah, Rory and Erica to Stephanie.

Why? To suffer "a fate worse than death."