The Wendigo Named Deborah

The tangle of roots and bone stirred. Its great eye rolled around under its closed lid. Its claws twitched, the toes on its hind feet spreading as the great paw flexed. Its arms were placed neatly at its side, snout and face tilted up to the ceiling, long legs stretching down the cold, metal table.

The doctor stepped back, scrutinizing his work, a smile tugging at his lips. The curtains by the long row of windows were pulled back, allowing in as much light as possible. All of the energy for the entire institute had been routed to the equipment that was used to create this magnificent beast, and now to keep it alive until its own lungs could pull in their first drink of air. The light that filtered through gently cascaded over the twisted, broken but seemingly perfect body of the Wendigo on the table.

The other side of it, hidden in shadow, revealed the true nature of the unnatural beast birthed in an unnatural room. There was nothing organic about the scene that lay before him – except perhaps the nature that sprouted, rose, and fell beyond the windows that blocked out the truly natural world. A constructed creature, that should only exist within the confines of one’s mind lay unconscious within a room that wouldn’t exist without humanity’s ability to build and create structures out of nothing.

The skull of an elk, mighty antlers branching above and behind, protected the fragile tissues within. Using a flashlight, he probed for a response, smiling when the pupils moved under thick eyelids and its head turned ever-so-slightly away. He checked the restraints on the beast, pulling hard on the chains, as he walked down the length of its body and back up the other side. A tangle of thick roots encased the thin, dead-leaf brown and red splotched skin underneath. Patchy, matted fur, like moss on a tree, coated the roots of its shoulders, upper arms, and most of its legs. Without the bones that gave its body shape, it could be mistaken for a pile of forest rubbish, an oddly placed skull on top. A human laying on the ground in a heap is easily recognizable, but not this.

He stopped at its chest cavity. It rose and fell gently, it would’ve been easy to miss. He placed the stethoscope as close to its miracle heart as he could. Each gnarled, twisted root vibrated with its breathing. The stethoscope could barely pick up the human heart buried within the creature. Only when it was placed on the roots veering its chest could a faint beating be heard.

To keep the heart in place, he had placed it in a bed of small, smooth stones that came from the swift river that ran in the hills behind the institute. It was these stones that lent the heart its strength. Water from the yearly snowmelt would race through the trees on its odyssey to the sea, gathering energy and shaping the land that lay before it. These life-giving forces fused with the river’s stones, and now with the heart of the Wendigo.

There was a soft knock at the door and he rushed to open it, not wanting to waken the creature just yet, like a devoted parent tending to a sleeping child. Opening it a crack, he whispered urgently, “what could you possibly want right now?”

His colleague raised her eyebrow, gave him a face that said ‘oh please’, and pushed the door open. She took a couple of steps into the room and stopped, shock freezing her in her steps and contorting the soft expression on her face. The doctor quickly closed the door behind her and strode over to the sleeping creature.

“I did it,” he said, triumphantly, waving his arm over the creature, “I did it”. He placed a hand on its arm for a second before returning it to his side awkwardly, looking away to avoid her gaze.

She nodded, unsure of what to say. She gestured to his stethoscope, “may I?”

He passed it to her and watched as she listened to its chest, heart, and along various places along its body of roots, fur, and borrowed bone. “It’s incredible, the roots sound like the veins, but what lies within?” Her fingers ran over the wood, gingerly, eyes full of wonder.

“Bones mostly, and some water,” he trailed off. He wasn’t going to let his secrets out. This creature was impossible at the start of the day and he wanted it to remain impossible for tomorrow.

She let it go and looked back to the beast, walking to its head. Her fingers stroked the white bone, following the curve of its jaw up to its antlers, “what have you called it?”

“Deborah, after my late wife,” he took a deep breath before continuing, “she said this creature used to plague her darkest nightmares. She said that what made it worse was not knowing what it was or what it wanted. She couldn’t give it a name, so I’ve given it hers,” he touched its long claws gently, lovingly.

“It’s impressive Doctor,” she began, “but where will it go when it awakes?”

He waved her off as she went for the door.

“You should leave. Go home. Leave this room under a quarantine code, make sure to update the password,” she said gently, with a smile, a friendly smile, a concerned smile. She touched his arm gently before leaving.

“I will later, I want to be with Deborah and my memories for a while longer,” he shut the door behind her and updated the password so no one else could wander in.

He returned to the Wendigo’s side. Snow was beginning to fall outside. Worried about its fragile life force, he covered the beast. Its heart was small compared to the relative size of the rest of its body, without the warmth of the laboratory it probably wouldn’t survive long.

As the snow fell and the sun sank deeper, the shadows on it grew bolder. The pits of its eyes came alive with a fiery glow. The Wendigo’s body shifted to align and synchronize with the orchestra of nature that was used to create it. The chains rattled as hands and ankles rotated. The bone jaw clacked together as it aligned properly.

From the dark corner, the doctor watched, fear settling into his stomach. He wrung his hands as he watched its mighty head shift from side to side. It relaxed, gazing out the wall of windows, watching the snow and moonlight blanket the darkening world outside.

The Wendigo’s stomach tightened as it exhaled. A cold hunger settled into the stones that cradled its heart. It surged through its roots, and its arms flexed to pull at the chains around its wrists, its hands and claws balled into determined fists. The irresistible stench of fear trickled in through its nose, filling the cavities of its skull.

As the doctor took a couple of nervous steps towards the door, his foot hit a rolling tray. The creature’s head snapped to look at him. It began to sit up, still only gently pulling at the chains, testing their strength, the taste of freedom inching closer. Its heart and stomach longed for the warmth that radiated from under the doctor’s coat – but for conflicting reasons.

The doctor broke into a run for the door as the Wendigo rose to its feet on the table, swiftly raising its arms to the ceiling, the chains splintering like brittle bones. For a horrifyingly beautiful moment, snow and moonlight framed the creature. The skull was as white as the snow outside in the blue moonlight, the fire in its eyes, two glowing embers flickering like the innocent flurries in the quiet, peaceful background beyond.

In one fluid movement, it crouched to leap as the doctor punched in the code.

Error. The code box read. Error.

It sprang. The chains, once holding back its legs, burst at the effort, but threw off its momentum, causing it to crash to the floor. Its nails made a sickening noise across the linoleum as it adjusted itself, rising to all four legs, the antlers swaying gas its muscles learned to control the weight.

The doctor punched in the correct code and the affirmative chirp sounded as he began to turn the handle.

It was too late. The Wendigo was standing before him, rising confidently on its legs, the empty sockets in the skull burning into the doctor.

“Deborah please…” he whispered, everything flowing out of him. His body sagged forward as she closed in around him.

Finally, after her creation, he could justify the long hours spent toiling away. Finally, he could prove to her how much we truly cared, how all this work wasn’t just for him. Maybe he would be able to live again, too.

Root fingers held his limp, broken body from falling over, its bone jaws about to close in around his head. Violently, the Wendigo pulled back, fighting the urge to destroy; the human heart pumping to fight off the urge to consume.

Its grip on his shoulders loosened and the doctor slummed forward, his hands and knees catching him. Its feet were now shaky and weak beneath it as the heart fought against the bed of bigger cold stone. It backed away and walked to the window. It placed a clawed hand on the cold glass. The stones in its heart quivered, feeling the call of home – of its true nature. It wanted to leave, to disappear into the darkness.

The doctor had pulled the gun out of the nearby desk. The rollers in the drawer echoed slowly through the room.

The first shot punched a hole through the glass to the left of the Wendigo. The second shot caused it to begin to spider web. The third shot shattered the glass.

“I’ll let you go,” he slumped against the wall, breathing hard, half expecting it to come back to finish the job.

The Wendigo pulled the glass apart, making the hole the bullets had made big enough for it to stumble out into the night.

The world slumbered as it learned to run through the trees, searching; for what it didn’t know. It raced through the trees, fighting off the urge to hunt. Confused, it thirsted for the blood of something that felt so warm and comforting to the human heart nestled in the roots of its body, yet it knew the price that must be paid for such a luxury.

At the stream where its heart borrowed its strength, it paused. Its claws dipped into the freezing water. It waded in, just barely covering its ankles, relishing the way the cold crept up its limbs and took away the ravenous edge off its shattered heart. Letting its head fall back it let out a bone-rattling howl, the noise falling between a scream, a wolf’s melancholy song, and an elk’s bugle.

The rest of the world fell silent.

It ran onward, continuing its search.

Something moved, its head quickly turned to find it, eyes blazing. It was only leaves, gracefully gliding from the treetop’s fingertips.

There was no accident that the lab was quietly built in the depths of the trees. These woods were said to be haunted by hungry, broken spirits. The town nearby had been plagued by the legend of the Wendigo from its earliest of days.

The tribes of the region whispered of a creature that was born when a human ate the flesh of another.

With the long, dark winters it wasn’t abnormal to find oneself tempted by something out of the ordinary. For the starving, it was often the chance for a warm meal – no matter what the price one must pay to get it. For the hopeful, it was the chance of helping a wandering soul, one that only appeared damned – perhaps their own.

According to legend, the practice of eating the flesh of another, not willingly given, would result in the offender transforming into a dreaded beast with a heart of cold stone. No matter how much they consumed, their hunger was never satisfied. Their human heart was forever doomed to be torn between the need to feed and the need to be with the ones it once loved. The ones it would hunt until either they or the best perished.

When the institute was built nearby, it only fueled the legend as people began to talk of weird sightings and of failed experiments being burned in the night to conceal evidence of the damned half creations.

The Wendigo, now acquainted with its legs, silently moved through the trees. The fiery glow in its eyes flickered. Hunger was guiding its movements; searching, drinking in the air for the smell of humans; tainted love.

The institute was set far enough away from the main road that the Wendigo had missed it and was moving into the mountains instead.

Perhaps it was the ghosts of lost souls that guided it away from the living.

Its hunger would reach its zenith as the moon did. Part of it wanted to run, to destroy, to consume. The other part despaired over what was the lost; the experience to love, to hold, to protect.

Its human heart, cradled in stones as cold as the winter night closing in, still beat steadily. But it was only a matter of time before it would begin to falter and the heap of mismatched pieces of forest would return from where it came.

It caught the scent of something on the wind. Its great elk skull lifted to the sky, the antlers glittering in the rising moonlight.

Yes, thats what it was looking for; a wondering stranger in the woods.

Its footsteps were silent as it moved through the trees.

Love, they say, is a fickle thing. It’s an old magic that can create, conjure, injure, and destroy. For all the good that it can do, there are many terrible things that it can be responsible for, as well.

The Wendigo grumbled. It was tiring. The need to hunt haunted its very existence to its core. Nothing was ever going to be enough. It knew that even if it had the chance to taste what it craved, it wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t be enough to bring happiness to its weary soul and troubled bones.

The heart in the beast twitched. It could remember the way love felt, the way it could move mountains, how it could twist and tighten its inescapable grasp. It could remember the flashes of happy memories with people who were long gone, who had faded into their own lives, long ago forgetting the heart that would eventually become the unshakable power of within the Wendigo, the power that would overcome the pangs of hunger.

There was a small, black cat.

As the Wendigo approached, the cat’s back arched and it hissed, raising a paw in warning: it would strike if provoked. It yowled at the fantastic beast. The Wendigo lowered to its knees, examining the fearless creature. It stretched out a claw, receiving a quick swipe from the cat. Its back arching higher, another hiss shaking through its tiny, determined body. The beast sat back, sitting up beside the cat. After a few hesitant moments, the cat sniffed it, rubbed its cheek against its skull in the snow, and scampered away.

A grumble came from within it. It sounded like the purr of a large tabby cat grateful for a bowl of milk, but the noise shifted as the roots began to vibrate, creating a haunting lullaby for its final slumber.

The Wendigo heaved a sigh, it longed for the little black creature to return. Fearless and quick. Tender and loving. It curled up across the ground and closed its eyes, giving in to the cold, exhausted from fighting off the hunger that swirled in the roots of its body.

It was time for the final goodbye of the Wendigo. Its heart could finally rest, the skull resting atop a body made from love, for love. It never tasted the blood of another, the time it was allowed to live now up with the rejection of its deadly nature. Exhausted, the human heart stopped beating and the stones slid from their position as the Earth reclaimed what was stolen from it.