He could see Rusty, Alvin, and Cy slowly retreating toward the campfire keeping their eyes toward the woods and their backs toward the fire they had built on the lakeshore. Also in his vision was Ted, running due east, down the shoreline, but now he found himself entangled in a growth of Multiflora Rose. The vines had captured his arms and his legs, and Sam could see through the binocs that the more Ted struggled the deeper he was clasped by the thorns in the vines.

The noise started low… A guttural gurgling…  Sam switched his vision away from Ted, away from Rusty and company near the fire. He was panning the bush to the north of the shore lunch location.

Oddly, it was comparable to the deep hum of a diesel generator. A voice that was slowly building volume. Deliberately building momentum.

“What am I hearing?” Sam thought to himself. And a millisecond later the trigger of a handgun clicked at the base of his neck. This noise—he quickly realized—could only mean one thing: “Oh F#$*.”

While they too listened… Rusty and company waited for the Wendigo to again show himself. Since Ted had left the party… The skeletal monster had changed direction and momentarily disappeared.

Then came two eruptions of sound. The first was a paralyzing shriek, with the power to make your eardrums bleed. The second was a battered echo. A human shriek that began at a glass-shattering decibel and then dropped off to the faintest of tones. Both sounds came from the east. The direction to which Ted had previously fled.

“That was our brother’s voice!” cried Cy. “We have to go help him!”

          “No! We must hold our ground,” answered Rusty. “Just keep your heads on a swivel and be ready with your flames!”

The head on a swivel part was Tawny’s motivational advice. Along with Rusty catching fish and Rusty going to shore lunch at Moose Island. And, near as he could figure, Rusty now putting his ass in a proverbial sling to lure this Wendigo out of the bush. This could literally be compared to dangling a seasoned ribeye in front of a pack of starved timber wolves. And HE and the Pikeannolis were the raw pieces of meat on the end of the stick.

 “Now, where in the HELL is she?!” he thought. “I’m doing my part!”

“Alright MR. STORM SANITATION, or whatever your name is.” It was the voice that held the gun to the back of Sam’s head. “Just put that pair of binoculars down real slow, and get your hands locked together behind your head.”

          “You’re making a huge mistake, whoever you are.”

“Quiet. Get your chest down,” continued the voice. “Your whole body flat on the ground.”

As he hugged the earth, she reached down and her long jet-black hair fell off her shoulders as she managed to retrieve the sniper rifle lying nearby. “You can turn over now but keep your hands behind your head.”

Then Sam rolled as instructed and sat up at the waist, looking into a set of eyes cast in a deep bronze of wet cedar bark. The Glock 19 in her right hand fit her perfectly. She was compact, reliable, and clearly operated with stealth precision in rugged wilderness conditions. This woman was not flashy, but lethal.

“Let’s just get in the boat and get the hell out of here,” pleaded Alvin. “We barely escaped with our lives once—before coming to this place. And Cy and me are still alive.”

It was safe to say the same could not be said for Theodore Pikeannoli. The bloodstains on the sunken flesh around the mouth of the Wendigo… The shreds of clothing hanging from supernatural claws… The scent of fresh kill that outweighed the deeper putrid undertone of rotting meat. These were all evident clues that Ted’s fate had been sealed when the creature became visible from the bush, and redirected his momentum down the beach.

The hollow eyes, the slow stalking speed… Rusty was impressed by the silence in which the Wendigo carried himself. He was also amazed that Alvin was still wearing his “diaper” flotation device around his crotchal region—wondering if it was potentially catching and containing any fallouts on the bottom end.

A hundred-plus yards down the shoreline… The Wendigo continued its mesmerizing march toward the three remaining men who had started their day just hoping to enjoy some fresh wild walleyes at a Canadian shore lunch.

“Now look,” Tawny said to Sam with her Glock held firmly, “this is going to go bad twice to Tuesday if you don’t just tell me who you are. Got it?”

          “Samuel… Doright. That’s my name.”

“Doright? Seriously?” Tawny contested.

          “Yes. It’s actually Canadian. Just like yourself. But my great-grandfather relocated after the Klondike panned out and somehow ended up in Montana chasing cattle. Later he immigrated and went on to become a U.S. Marshal.”

“Cut the B.S.,” Tawny demanded.

          “No lie. Just let me finish,” Sam continued. “My family has been in the business of enforcing the law since the day he was sworn in. Myself? I’m here. Because of you. Because of Flathers.”

“What are you talking about?”

          “I’m talking about witness protection. I’m talking about the fact that I’ve been working for the WITSEC—the Witness Security Program for twenty years, and for the past ten I’ve been placing participants on Lac des Bois at various fishing camps, before taking them to final placement.”

“If you’ve been on Lac des Bois for ten years, why haven’t I ever seen you?” Tawny quizzed.

          “Because I’ve never actually been here. Never had a reason to. Until I started placing my witnesses at FSFO and they started disappearing. Now we are both part of the same problem. I tried warning Flathers the other night with SOS signals, but your head chef Celine somehow intercepted my signals, and thought she was playing some sort of whacko sexcapade game with God only knows who, because I can’t sort it out with all the nutbars you guys have running around on that island. You people are exhausting!”

Tawny took her index finger off the trigger, eased the hammer back into the safe position, and lowered her firearm. “My apologies… It’s our first season attempting to operate a fishing camp, and this is week one. We may need a few more days to get the kinks worked out. Especially with Flathers at the helm. Now get up off your ass, take this sniper rifle, and let’s go kill a Wendigo.”

Dragging one of its long skeletal bones of a leg in the sand, the massive wall of a beast continued its slow stalk toward the shore lunch arena, and the temperature on the beach continued to rise.

“Hold steady fellas,” instructed Rusty. But it was too late. His party of three had become two. Cy had mysteriously vanished and now the only two remaining were he and diaper man.

“Where’s your brother?!”

          “I don’t know. I’m too busy watching my life pass before my eyes.”

“Look, just keep your flame lit. Wendigos won’t attack fire. I don’t think…”

          “Great, it’s bad enough to be with a guide who doubts his fishing abilities,” spat Alvin.

“They noticed?” thought Rusty. “Alright, we’ll see who’s doubting who.” And with that… Rusty took his flame-fired log, held high in his left hand—cooking spatula in his right, and began his own slow death march toward the great beast.

–To Be Continued—