With palms sticky from sap, Ashley scrambled down the tree trunk. A high perch offered the advantage of sight but that was only in daylight and that had long started to fade. The forest floor crunched beneath her steps and she didn’t have the choice to be careful. Silence for speed, an exchange she grumbled through. Time wasn’t on her side.

Why didn’t they just leave? The last ones did. Seven, maybe eight months earlier Ashley had played the scary ghost, dropped in on a few while the rest were out tracking. Flashed a knife, scared them with threats of blood, guts, and wendigos. They’d packed their bags, scampered off into the wilds, and left her the fuck alone. Never came back, or maybe they didn’t make it back to wherever they came from. The reason had never really mattered to her before.

This time, these ones didn’t scare so easy.

She hiked her backpack higher and pushed through the brush. They’d found her trail when she’d tried to hide it, so what good was trying anymore. I can lose them in the night. Just need to get ahead, but she’d repeated the same mantra for three days straight. Still, the Rouge Valley rekindled her hopes. Fall hadn’t yet taken hold of the forest, the trees were thick, the brush tall. She could lose them, or they could lose her, or get lost themselves. And there was always the wendigos.

Is it murder if I lead them to their death? She frowned at the thought. No. Murder's about intent, right? But if they keep following... Her fingers tightened around the straps of her pack and she soldiered on.

Ashley liked the place she had set up, a small farmhouse in a hamlet long abandoned. The barn was still intact, come spring she could have looked for some kind of animal to keep, a horse or some random roaming cow. Seeds, soil, everything she’d need to collect rainwater and try to make a real go of it. Live like a person. Clean well water, hell she could have done laundry.

The memory of the house stung and Ashley scolded herself. Should have packed up. Should have moved on months back. But nights spent in a real bed, not her sweatshirt balled up under the stars, but a mattress with pillows and a musty comforter. Walls. A ceiling. It’d been too good to walk away from.

When she found their over-sized boot prints around her camp in Glenn Major, she should have left. Even though Ashley tried to dismiss them as another group of survivors trudging through the region, she knew better. The weight of the tracks, the little trace they left. They had to be well-armed, trained, and prepared. Simple survivors were none of those.

Got comfortable. Got lazy. She’d traded security for warmth, treehouses for brick walls. If it was safe from wendigos, it wasn’t safe from people.

The brush crackled behind her. They had probably found the perch, her little nest in the tree to pick her path and wait out that last golden hour of light cutting through the trees. In minutes they would pick up her trail and start the quick pace, predictable and persistent. She almost considered trying to fake them out; find the brook, get her feet wet, and walk a while back to lose them. But then what? She’d be wet, it’d be dark, and without a camp she was vulnerable.

At least, for now, her boots were dry.

After another hour or so of clamouring through the valley, she spied light glimmering through the trees. Ashley crouched down. Fixed unnatural light, probably a fire she guessed by the way it danced on the leaves. But who else would be crazy enough to camp in the middle of the Rouge?

Like a moth, she inched to the flames and the low voices called her closer. Kids. Seven of them. The nearer she came the clearer they were. What the hell are kids doing out here alone?

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“The legend comes from the Natives.” The tallest teen’s voice was low.

“Are they the same as Indians?” a little girl with pigtails whispered.

“You're not supposed to call them Indians. They're Native Americans.”

“Cally, shh.”

“Let Ethan tell the story.”

Cally huffed at the small faces in the circle. “I am! But Indians are from -”

“Shhhh...” The hiss erupted from nearly every set of lips and Cally's small round face disappeared from the light.

The group settled and their expecting eyes returned to Ethan. Ashley found herself doing the same.

“The legend is as old as the ground.” His fingertips dipped into the soil, took a clump, and let it drip from his hands dramatically. “They say it used to happen on the coldest nights. The snow would pile up outside and you'd get trapped. Stuck inside for days or weeks, you'd get soo hungry you couldn't think of anything but eating.” His voice was careful with each word. “The kind of winter where there's no food. There’s nothing to hunt and nothing can grow. You can't even light a fire to cook.”

“I miss bread.” One of the smaller boys rubbed his belly.

“Shut up.”

“That's where it came from you know, the disease.” Each time the tallest spoke the soft grumblings and whispers died around him in captured attentions. “Once you catch it, you can't get rid of it. The people, they got so hungry they couldn't stand it. First, they turned on the sick. Then, the weak. Like grammas and grampas.”

A collective cringe crossed the little glowing faces, some from fear and others from disgust.

“And once you eat flesh you never go back...” His body grew and Ethan extended his arms out until he stood over the group, a blanket draped over his body.

“A Wendy-go!” Groaning quietly, Ethan lumbered towards the nearest body. A girl flinched with a yelp before quickly clasping a hand over her mouth.

“Hey! It's Wen-duh-go. And you're wrong, you know. It's not the same thing. They're zombies.” The girl with pigtails lacked the cautious whisper the others used.

“Nuh-uh. I heard Dad calling them Wendy-go's. They're not the dead coming back to life. They're people who go crazy from eating people.”

“It's not the same. People weren't starving. They just went all crazy. So they can't be Wendy-go's.”

“It's Wen-DUH-go! Stop calling them Wendy-go's. You're saying it wrong!”

The kids snickered and a soft chant grew in the dim light. “Wendy-go, wendy-go”. The littlest girl stood up with a humph and spun around to the darkness, her messy pigtails flopping in the chill night air. From the shadows, a pale hand reached out and gripped her wrist.

“It's got me!” she screamed.

Ashley’s body lurched in response. From a crouch, she stood quickly and nearly breached the tree line but the shape became clear. A woman’s hand clasped over the girl’s mouth and the kids all relaxed.

Of course, they’re not alone. Ashley stepped back, glad the shadows still hid her.

Lingering to watch and listen was a mistake but it’d been so long since she’d seen anyone that wasn’t looking for her. And children… The mother went on scolding the kids and the light of the fire disappeared. Another step back and Ashley couldn’t see them anymore. It’s not safe. Her fingers relaxed from the handle of her hunting knife.

Most of the children cleared from the circle and trundled off from where the woman had come, but the tallest remained with the woman.

“What on earth were you thinking? I told you to look out for them, Ethan. Not take them off, alone, into the woods to freak them out.”

“They’re not babies. It’s not like we don’t know what happened. And they like the stories. I don’t get why you’re so angry, Mom, we weren’t even that far away. And until you scared Wendy we were quiet.”

“This isn’t a game. Those things are dangerous. Lethal. You’re a smart boy, Ethan. Don’t pretend you don’t know how dangerous this was. From now on you stay close. No more stories. No more sneaking off.”

“Fine.” He drew out the sound with all the intended petulance of his youth.

How long had it been since Ashley had heard a fight? Not a struggle for life or death but a fight between a parent and a kid. It sounded to eerily normal.

Walk away. Ashley took a deep breath and didn’t stop walking. Get away from them. Don’t pretend you don’t know how dangerous this was.

Those kids should never have been so afraid. The story should still be that; fiction. Instead, Ethan’s gruesome fireside tale was something they’d probably all seen first hand.

In the silence of their absence, she ached. Just being near their conversation made her feel more like a person again. It was the most she’d heard another someone say in over a year. Her thoughts turned to the man by the fire, the hunter on his own. The first human to speak to her in six months, if not more. If I’d just killed him, I’d be- Ashley stopped herself. No. That’s not me. I’m not there yet.

While pushing through the trees, she couldn’t let the word “yet” go.