Chapter 4.

The sister, Laurie, was really not what Jess had expected, not since Dean mentioned mushrooms, anyway. She wasn't a hippy junkie, but instead, a PhD student, with a smart collected look about her. Jess could not, for the life of her, understand what sparked her interest in Dean. But there surely seemed to be a vibe going and it seemed to make her quite eager to share a lot of information. Like how her two brother and her were out camping the first night and how they did shrooms for the first time ever, and hallucinated a big tall man dancing around their campfire. This was all of course, confidential, Laurie had insisted time and again. Then, Laurie had passed out, but apparently her older brother Mark saw the tall man drag John, their youngest brother past the campfire and into the woods. Mark was convinced it was a hallucination even the next morning, when they both woke up. However, John was nowhere to be found.

They searched the woods that day, but to no avail. Knowing their brother really well, and knowing that he would not just run away, Laurie and Mark went to the local police to file a missing person's report. They had been dismissed and told to wait at least 48 hours before returning with the report. This was three days ago. Mark would not have it, and he was starting to entertain the idea that the tall man was not a hallucination. Laurie didn't want to listen. It didn't make any sense. So, they hired a tracker to help look, but they found nothing. No tracks, no trails, no John. It was as if he'd never left the campfire, the tracker said. Three sets of tracks leading to the campfire, two sets of tracks going back. The third set just stopped there.

Mark was beginning to lose his mind; all he was talking about was the skinny man who had kidnapped their brother. 48 hours had passed, so they went to the police again. This time they were told that the Tracker had filled them in, he was, after all, an old friend of the sheriffs, and they were now convinced John had ran away and erased his tracks. As if John would even know how to do that, Mark had argued. But their case was closed, dismissed. Mark went back to the skinny man theory, he said they should go again to look for John. Laurie had argued with him, tried to stop him, to convince him to hire a private investigator instead. But Mark wouldn't have it, so last night he grabbed some supplies and left. He hadn't come back and his phone had been off. This is why she was so surprised to hear the state police had been involved.

After listening to the whole story, Dean took it upon himself to break the news.

"Right, so I think the skinny man is a Wendigo", he announced.

"A what-ingo?", Laurie asked.

"Wendigo, WEN-DI-GO", Dean clarified, "an evil that devours. He used to be a person maybe a few centuries ago. Now he's a cannibalistic monster."

"What are you talking about?", Laurie demanded. "What kind of a state police bullshit investigation is this?"

"Yeah.. we're not really state police, and she is not really our intern", Dean said, pointing at Jess. "We are hunters, and she is.. well, I guess you COULD say she is kind of our intern, long story there.. point is, we hunt monsters, like the one that took your brothers."

"Oh dear God, I slept with a lunatic!", Laurie exclaimed in genuine shock.

Sam and Jess laughed, but Dean didn't seem so amused.

"That's a bit insulting.. ", he responded.

In the meantime, Sam had taken upon himself to help de-tense the situation.

"Laurie, listen, I know this may seem hard to believe, but we have strong reason to believe both your brothers are in grave danger. We've seen things like this one before, the man you and your brother saw, it was not a hallucination. That is a Wendigo, it is dangerous, it is old, it is smart, and it knows how to cover its tracks. This is why nobody could find John's trail the next day."

"You are being serious", Laurie finally gave in and was ready to listen. "So this Wendingo"

"Wendigo", Dean corrected her.

"..right, Wendigo, what does it want?"

"To feed", Sam continued.

"Wait.. earlier you said cannibalistic monster. You are telling me he is going to EAT my brothers?"

"That's wha..", Dean began, but Sam stopped him. They did not need a massive freak out right now.

"It does, ultimately, consume it's prey, yes. But, it's a hibernating creature, so it is most likely storing for winter. There is still hope for both your brothers. But we need to move fast and cover as much territory as we can as fast as we can."

"How do we kill him?", was Laurie's final question, as they had arrived their destination and were now disembarking.

"Fire.", came Dean's single word answer.

"OK, let's split up, everybody take one of these", Sam said as he was handing everyone a flare gun from under the trunk. This was the first time Jess laid eyes on the brothers' weapons arsenal. She was intimidated, sure, but she had to admit, she was also a little bit impressed. Weapons, guns in particular, never made her feel safe. She grew up around them, as her father and brother were both hunters. The animal in the forest, kind, not the monster kind. But right here and now, this massive collection meant that Sam and Dean knew what they were doing, and for the first time in days, she felt truly protected. She was in good hands.

"OK, Jess and I will go this way", Sam pointed to the west of the of the camp, "and the two of you, that way", now pointing to the east. "Try to be quiet, as they sleep throughout the day. They are fast to wake and react though, so stick with Dean at all times", he said now looking at Laurie.

"There is NO way in hell I'm going off with this creep", she said, looking at Dean in disgust.

"Duuude, come on!", Dean interjected, visibly hurt now.

"It's OK!", Jess interfered, "I'll come with you, and Sam will go with Laurie, right Sam?"

Sam looked like he was about to protest, but quickly thought better of it and just nodded.

Jess and Dean kept east; it looked like they had, indeed, a lot of ground to cover. The forest was so dense that even in broad daylight, it was dim and gloomy. The air was thick and in the very rare patches of grass where the sun would manage to make it through, due to condensation and high humidity, fog would envelop the ground, making the scene all the more dreadful.

"So,", Jess began to speak but Dean put his hand up. Suddenly, the clown-like witty Dean was gone. This was very serious business, it seemed. Dean had his game face on, and the game face told Jess they are not to speak or make any noise.

"Only I speak now. You focus and you listen. This is not a game or a drill or a teaching moment. This is life or death scary shit." Dean whispered.

"I didn't..", Dean put up his hand again and this time Jess got the memo. She nodded in indication that she would be quiet and vigilant from here on out.

"There, by that tree"

Jess squinted in the direction of the tree that Dean was pointing at, and saw what looked like a very large hollow, coming from the root of the tree rather than from its trunk. She took a step to go closer and have a better look, but in that very instant Dean grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She had to stop herself from yelping at the decisiveness with which the tug came. She looked at Dean, who was frozen in space and was pointing upwards. Up in the tree above them, hovering, was what Jess assumed to be the skinny tall man Laurie had described. He hadn't seemed to notice them, but that all changed when Jess, unable to control herself, let out a small, high-pitched yelp. The events that unfolded in the next few seconds were impossible for Jess' eyes to follow.

First, the skinny man registered the noise, and looked down, spotting them. He then took the leap to fall right on top of them. It was then, that, Jess noticed the skeletal looking features of something humanoid-like, that had seemed to decompose while still alive. Dean, unphased by his appearance, attempted to pull them both out of the way of the leap while at the same time grab the flare gun from his pocket. He succeeded in accomplishing the former, so the Wendigo didn't fall right on top of them. But in Dean's effort to move them out of the way while pulling out his hand gun at the same time resulted in the Wendigo dropping on his arm with a loud crack. It was very unfortunate that it was the flare gun that cracked open, instead of Dean's arm, for at that moment in time, the gun would have been infinitely more useful. Dean realizing that yelled out for Jess to pull out hers and shoot, but shortly observed that Jess had fallen in the altercation and possibly hit her head on something, on the way down. She was knocked-out cold.

"Oh, fuck me!", were the last things Dean exclaimed before he also received a smack over the head to knock him out.