Part Three
…I woke up with the most wonderful feeling: when I looked around me at the small, makeshift camp we’d built, the little Angie kid was gone. Every trace of her had vanished—her purse, her blanket, her granola bar rapper, her obnoxious voice…This’s great, I thought, no more giggles, no more fairies, no more missions, no more girls, no more humans, and (best of all) no more optimism! I stood up with more vigor that morning, shaking out my coat and feeling grand, on top of the world. With a swipe of my tail, the remains of last night’s fire had disappeared. I started wading off into the tall grass in the direction I’d come from with a new spring in my step. Even better, some worms and other nasty bugs were up from the rain storm a few days before—a healthy snack to start the day. After I spat out my fifth snail-shell, and was about to start on my sixth, a high, annoying, and all too familiar voice chimed up behind me. “Alex, wait for me! Alex!”
My eyes closed. The breath fell out of me in a sigh. “…Well? Where were you?! If you want to come along with me, you’ve got to stick with me, got it?”
“Sorry,” She was panting. “You weren’t awake yet, and I thought that until you were, I’d go take a bath…there’s a really nice little stream down that hill, if you want one too!”
A growl slowly rose in my throat. I chewed on another snail, spat its crushed shell out of my mouth with more force than normal, and stomped ahead. Angie ran to catch up with me, her wet hair bouncing. It was colorful—stupidly colorful. She’d streaked it with weird tints like blue and red and gold and stuff.
“Hey, wait—”
“No.” I sped up a little. I heard the kid’s footsteps speed up too. I sharply turned a corner, and she turned it too. Once again, I considered leaving her behind; why not? She wasn’t doing anything to help me, and this whole trip wasn’t my idea anyway. She was slowing me down too….But for some reason, I was never able to bring myself to that; every time I thought about it, I came up with these weird excuses not to, like I was connected to her somehow—like I cared about her. I didn’t care about her, though. Nope. Last time I cared about someone, they had to go and die right when I needed them most. “Death is a welcome guest”, ha. More like “death is a thief in the night”.
Soon enough, we were out of the grassy country and back into the tightly-knit forest. Angie made us stop so she could climb the trees. Finally I got so annoyed by it that I knocked down the one she was in—she never stopped us to climb on stuff again. After leaving the seemingly endless forest, there came the lush, beautiful hill-country…at least shethought it was beautiful. I hated it ‘cause it was so open; there were plenty of places humans could be lurking and find me. Besides, it was right by a town, where there would be even more people: people whose families I’d eaten. Yup, I visited a lot, and they knew what I looked like. Recently they’d imported some guns just in case I showed up again, and when I did, I left with a few scars to decorate my pelt. The little Angie kid, on the other hand, didn’t realize this (of course not, she had a pea for a brain) and went skipping through the hills singing a loud love song. The town came in view not too long later, with its teeny thatched roofs and stupid, crooked houses. Why they would build a house on uneven foundations, I don’t know; they just did. Anyway. I felt my fur rise uncomfortably as we neared it.
“…Hey, kid, stay close to the tree-line.”
“Oh, why? This place is so pretty!” She did a cartwheel.
I could see some people in the town pointing at us; it made me stiffen. “Just come on!”
“Alex, you’re such a spoilsport—”
Then, a woman screamed— “WENDIGO! IT’S THE WENDIGO, COME TO STEAL OUR YOUNG GIRLS AGAIN!”
A man belted something else about people hiding their daughters, and I rolled my eyes; what do they take me for, a fire-breathing dragon? Girls taste all spongy; everyone knows little boys are better.
A gunfire split the air through the hills with a loud bang, and without thinking, I grabbed the back of the kid’s dress between my teeth, slung her onto my shoulders, and raced ahead toward the sunset. The men, hunters, came after us quickly, bringing their guns.
“Don’t shoot until the girl is out of range, alright?! We’ve got to get her back to town before we kill the beast!”
My heart sank down to the pit of my stomach…they think I’ve kidnapped her.
“A-Alex, what’re they doing? Who are they?!”
“They’re hunters, kid.”
“Why’re they after you?”
I groaned, “Because I’m a monster, okay?! I eat people.”
“Oh Alex, that’s horrible!”
A bullet shot past us, grazing my shoulder; it took a chunk of skin and fur with it. I growled deep in my throat, but pushed the urge to kill and eat them right there and then back. “I know, I’ve been trying to tell you that!”
“No, it’s horrible they’re after you.”
“It’s not horrible to hunt the horrible, kid; it’s human nature.”
She started to say something, but another piece of metal flew past and tore through her shoulder; I heard her scream. The leading hunter yelled at the others for hitting the girl. I felt panicked, all of a sudden, something I couldn’t control, and began to run much faster than before, flying across the hillsides until we’d lost them.
Angie’s arm was sluggishly pulsing red blood that got all over her and me, and I quickly laid her down once we’d reached a safe place—a small little groove in a bluff bordering the hill-country. “Quick, give me your purse. I need something to bandage it.”
Her voice and body was shaking badly. “I’ve got some spare underwear in there, somewhere…”
I paused, then gave a deep sigh. “Underwear? Really? Fine.”
She laughed weakly, but it was sort of choked. I could tell she was trying not to bawl; my own laugh was strangled as well.
I opened the little pink pouch (almost ripping the thing in two with my claws) and started fishing around; yup, there were some frilly pieces of women’s personals in there, but they were quickly shredded to bandages instead.
“…Hey, Alex?” the kid asked after I bound her injury.
“Yeah?”
“They said you were a wendigo….Are you?”
I sighed…how am I gonna say this?
“…Yup, that’s me.”
“So…you ate someone?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, but yeah.”
“Oh…”
A silence spread over again—one that I was perfectly happy with. After she fell asleep with the tiny blanket over her and her bandaged arm carefully arranged where it wouldn’t get any more damaged, I kept thinking. It’d been a while since I’d thought about the first time I’d eaten someone. I was an ordinary man, then: twenty-something, handsome, loved by all, and terribly greedy. I missed those days. Why me? What’d I do to deserve this?
...Reality hit again in a while after lamenting, and I realized that we’d have to miss a few days on the road while Angie recovered.
For some reason, she didn’t bug me so much anymore.
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