Cryptid Country

Clara was bemoaning her decision to stay late. She had planned to leave her parent’s house at five, which would have put her home by seven, right when the storm was predicted to hit the state line. But she had been enjoying the time with her sister and nieces, and now she was driving down the winding back roads of West Virginia in the worst kind of rain. She wouldn’t have minded if it had been proper rain, regular normal-sized raindrops hitting her windshield, but this was that fucking misty shit. It covered her windshield in a continuous cold spray that fogged the inside of the glass, and the windshield wipers on her old truck couldn’t keep up. They didn’t whip fast enough to clear up the accumulation of mist on the glass, and somehow the surface of the windshield was still not wet enough, so the damn wipers squeaked in an annoyingly unpredictable rhythm.

Her old truck was sturdy and reliable, but slow. The five speed manual transmission groaned every time she needed to downshift to round a corner. Not to mention that the roads were slick, and if she took the twists and turns too quickly her little two-wheel drive was liable to fishtail. To dump cold water on an already damp situation, the fancy eco-boost SUV’s behind her rode her ass. They were just mad they couldn’t get around her. The blind spots caused by the quick mountain turns and the roll of the hills made for very few passing opportunities. When they did get around her, the high-pitched sound of their crotch-rocket engines gave her the proverbial middle finger.

All in all, it was a painstaking, uncomfortable drive. If she hadn’t been in the middle of nowhere or already half-way home, she would have pulled over to wait out the rain at a gas station. But there were no gas stations in the middle of nowhere. She also convinced herself the second half of the drive wouldn’t be so bad. The traffic would die down the further away she got from the city, and this misty ass rain couldn’t last much longer.

She was right about one thing. Soon the two-lane county road quieted. The only thing in her rearview mirror was the darkness, and in front of her she saw no bright LED headlights heading her way. Clara sighed with relief and turned on the radio. Now that she was alone on the road, she could relax. She lit a cigarette and cracked the window. The mist was still coming down, but the music would drown out the squeak of the wiper blades. She scanned through the stations to find something that wasn’t pop country and wasn’t an overplayed classic rock song. She found her usual station gearing up for ninety minutes of commercial-free oldies. She recognized the first song immediately by the folksy, rock guitar riff, and she smiled as John Fogerty sang,

He take a thunder from the mountain

He take a lightnin’ from the sky

He bring a strong man to his beggin’ knee

He make the young girl’s mama cry-

And as she rounded a turn something darted across the road.

She slammed on her brakes and fishtailed off the road, the bed of the truck hitting a tree. The truck screeched to a stop. She remained transfixed for a moment as her mind processed that there was no blood, she felt no pain, and the truck was still running. But had she hit it?

He got the voices speakin’ riddle

He got the eye as black as coal

He got a suitcase covered with rattlesnake hide

And he stands right in the road

In the side mirror she saw a large, dark lump in the road. It didn’t look human, and it didn’t look like a deer.

“Please don’t be a dog.” She pleaded aloud.

She opened the door and stepped into the mist. She wrapped her arms tight around herself and surveyed the scene before approaching. There were no headlights coming towards them. There were no twinkling lights in the trees to indicate a house or a barn.

Clara stepped closer, asking in an unsure voice, “Hey there… You hurt?”

No response.

“You dead?”

No response.

“Damnit.” She didn’t want to have to drag it off the road, but she couldn’t leave it there for another car to hit. She looked up at the road and the forest again, before stepping closer still. God did it smell, like it had died days ago and had been baking in the Appalachian heat. She was still about twelve feet away when the thing moved and grunted. It sounded like a bear.

“Oh, shit.” Clara turned tail back to her truck, but as she turned saw her back right tire was flat from hitting a rock or glass or a nail when she slid off the road. “Fuck.”

She looked back over her shoulder as the fleshy lump in the road began to move and pant like a large beast waking up from anesthesia. Clara ran to the truck, shut and locked the door, and rolled up the window. She fumbled for her phone, preparing to call 911. She paused to crane her neck and twisted her body to look at the thing through the foggy rear windshield. As it moved itself from up off the concrete, she saw that its elongated limbs must have been folded underneath it while it lay in the road, because as it rose to all fours - its back to her - it seemed as tall as a moose. But in West Virginia, there are no moose. She squinted, thinking, no way it’s a horse. But it had not yet lifted its head, and the misty darkness obscured any details that could have grounded this vision to reality. It was illuminated only by the dim red tail lights of the truck. And then the giant thing with sagging fur did the impossible. It stretched its back like an arching cat and moved to stand on just two legs. Once erect, it lifted its bowed head off its chest. Now, at its full towering height as tall as an adult pine, she saw the antlers atop its bare skull. Its fur draped across its emaciated body like wet, ripped fabric. It hunched its shoulders and began to turn, snorting and moaning, to face the truck. Its elongated skull was a shrine of teeth. The eyeless sockets which examined the truck, had the gravity of a black hole. The force pulled Clara in and held her there until the creature roared and shrieked while flexing the talons upon each skeletal hand. She had to run.

You got to hidey-hide

You got to jump and run again

You got to hidey-hidey-hide

The old man is down the road…

Clara reached for the door handle but forgot that she had locked the doors. The truck clanged as the creature jumped into the bed. It jolted her senses as she tried to unlock the damn door, but her fingers wouldn’t work. She heard the left back tire bust and pop under the weight of the Wendigo. It let out another ravenous roar, just as she unlocked and thrust open the door with all her weight.

Clara ran, phone still clutched in her hand. She ran like she had when she was in high school track, but that was forever ago. Her lungs burned under the forgotten strain. She forced her feet through sticks and thorny brush as she pushed up the hill side. Clara ducked behind a fallen ash tree to catch her breath and take stock of her predicament.

The Wendigo had pried off the door and was ripping through the cab of the truck in a fury. Frustrated and angry it had lost its prey, it growled and grunted as it tore the vehicle apart. Then the stormy wind blew through the valley, and the monster lifted its head in her direction and took in deep, long whiffs of Clara’s scent.

Clara’s breath hitched in her throat as she subconsciously held it. She threw herself to the ground to lie flat behind the fallen tree. The memories came like instinct. Her grandmother, grandfather, friends, neighbors, strangers had told her: water. Wendigo have a sense of smell stronger than any bloodhound. The only way to escape was by crossing water.

She was uphill. The creek, if there was one, would be at the bottom of the valley. She’d have to get back to the other side of the road. With a Wendigo on her tail, she was as good as dead anyway. It was time to run.

She tightened her grip on her phone, pushed herself up off the ground and ran. She ran horizontally down the hill away from the truck. She kept her eyes on it. The Wendigo had vanished, but that didn’t mean it was gone. Her willpower alone is what kept her from going ass over tea kettle down the hill. Adrenaline helped her ignore the cuts and scrapes from sticks and thorns. It was when she hit the concrete of the road she almost lost her balance. As she was looking over her shoulder at the truck, torn to shreds but still running (the radio playing) she didn’t see the Jeep.