Ethan froze when the first gunshot sounded. Wendy ran to Alice and they retreated from Eamon’s body, but only a few cars back. His mother held onto Wendy and had stayed put even after the wendigos came.

“You have to find us help,” she yelled at Ethan.

But Vince screamed, attacked by more wendigos. Ethan watched the bodies descend, piling until Vince was drowned in them. And Ethan just stood there, staring.

Don’t scream. Don’t make a sound. Ethan closed his eyes and took in a deep breath as everyone around him shouted. Little shrieks and screams that he wish he couldn’t recognize.

Ethan. Ethan. “ETHAN!” His eyes snapped open to the sound of his sister screaming from him.

Zigzagging between the cars, he moved towards where his sister called out, trying not to listen to the eating of Vince and Eamon. Even in the rain, he felt like the crunching was the loudest sound in the world, the only thing piercing through the weathered silence.

When he reached the spot where he thought they were, he found nothing but puddles.

Mom? He didn't call it out, he didn’t dare. Cally screamed for Shane, Laurence called out in pain. Their voices seemed supernaturally clear, even the terrorist as she called out for everyone to get to high ground.

But there wasn’t any. There were cars and road. And wendigos. Ethan stayed motionless, watching and listening for his mother and sister. They can’t be gone. His eyes scoured every nook and cranny around him. They wouldn't go without me… They wouldn’t.

“Ethan!” his mother hissed.

He spun away from the feeding to find the source. After a few feet, he spied her hunched down between two cars. Wendy was there, sobbing silently in his mother’s arms.

Why aren't you moving? He tried to say it but couldn’t open his mouth. His jaw ached from clenching it shut.

“Ethan!” Alice hissed again, but he didn't go to her. This feels wrong. No matter how much he wanted to step forward, he held himself back. His eyes settled on her legs. Bending, he looked under the car where a wendigo lay on the ground by his mother's feet. It twitched, but a rock was lodged in its mashed skull. There was soo much blood. Too much blood for one wendigo.

He crept across the hood of the car just by his mother and looked over the side. She was sitting in a pool of blood, her left thigh ripped open. She bled, the pool growing before his eyes right onto the street. The red stained the bottom of Wendy's pants.

“Wendy, come here,” he whispered with arms outstretched. Wendy reached for him but Alice latched onto her. She didn’t look like his mother anymore, not as the life drained her face.

She’s… not Mom anymore. Tears threatened to blur his visions as he reached out to his sister.

Ethan unclenched his jaw. “Let go of Wendy, ” he whispered.

“We have to stay together.” Her words slurred as a shiver passed over Alice.

“Ethan… I'm scared,” Wendy whimpered, still reaching for his hands.

“I know, Wendy. Mom, let her go,” he said again, this time firmer. It was a voice he never felt come from himself before and he could hear his father in it.

Slowly, Alice's hands dropped away from Wendy's waist. Grabbing her under the arms, Ethan pulled his sister up onto the car.

“We have to stay… together, Steven.” Shock drowned Alice’s sense and her hand reached after Wendy. “Don't leave me. You… promised…”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Ethan slid down from the car and pulled Wendy with him.

“Don't say a thing. No talking until I say so. No screams. No crying. Nothing.” He stood between Alice and Wendy's line of sight and motioned across his lips like a zipper. She mimicked the action, eyes red, but she remained silent.

“Don't leave me Steven!” Alice screamed and with it came a low growl from where the creatures picked Eamon's body clean. Three wendigos had lingered to finish him off but the scent of so much blood couldn't be washed away by the rain.

Alice screamed for her dead husband to not leave her and Ethan ripped off the bloody parts of Wendy's pants.

He guided her between the cars and kept to the east guardrail furthest from the valley's thick forest. When he found a car that was low and he could see a good distance around, he slid under and pulled Wendy down. He held her hands up to her ears and covered her head as best he could. Wendy sobbed hard into his chest as more feet wandered from Vince towards their mother.

The steady scrape of flesh and bone on pavement whispered all around them.

Ethan listened.

He stayed silent as Wendy shook. He listened for movement near the car, watched the ground on either side, and stayed absolutely motionless. The rain kept coming even after the screaming stopped.

He wasn’t great at telling time without a watch but Ethan knew it had been hours. Under the car he, and Wendy waited. He couldn’t help but nod off once or twice, waking only when his nightmares were too real or the chill shook him. The shuffling of wendigos grew softer in the rain that still hadn’t let up.

Wendy shivered in his arms, but her body was so small it almost didn't matter. Shaking her shoulders, he roused her from her sleep where she rubbed her eyes hard. It was dark out and he could barely make out her face.

“We have to keep quiet,” he whispered and Wendy nodded back. “We have to move. The road isn’t safe.”

He'd been in the city before and remembered there was a small river that ran through the valley. Back in the valley, the wendigo's kept clear of the water and maybe that would be enough. But… where will we go after?

“I don't want to go in the forest,” Wendy whispered but Ethan was firm on his plan.

“I know but you have to trust me.”

She looked down for a moment but eventually nodded.

Just a few cars away their mother’s body lay. Wendy tugged in her direction but he pulled her towards the guardrail and the green. I don't want to see her like that.

“We're going to the river,” he whispered in her ear. Her hand gripped his, trembling from cold or fear, he wasn’t sure. Turning her to face him, he pulled her in for a deep hug. She still shivered, her skin cold as ice.

They clamoured over the guardrail and into the brush.

It was different under the trees. The thick canopy of changing colours sheltered them in part from the storm. It felt at first like someone put hands over their ears. The sounds of drops pattered on leaves, the air smelled of wet pine needles, and cones littered the ground. The roadway had seemed dark in the storm but the canopy was darker and closed in.

The ground squished beneath their shoes, soggy and thick from rain.

Fixed on his task they moved as silently as possible through the trees. They passed an old and cracked bike path before reaching a small clearing. It looked like it was a camp once, some old fire pits that had overgrown from disuse and a cracked metal barrel. Homeless people. But he remembered that they too were homeless.

He pulled Wendy past the camp and further away from the highway.

“I'm hungry.”

“Shh. We have to stay quiet.” His belly rumbled back. He hadn’t felt great about his plan and each step further swarmed his doubt.

The water has to be this way, just has to.

Fumbling through a thick brush of trees he took a side step and slipped. Wendy nearly yelped but covered her mouth with both hands before she disappeared from Ethan's view. For a flickering moment, his heart felt like it stopped in his chest.

This is it.

His hands reached out to stop his tumble while his legs squirmed in the mud.

This is how it all ends.

He fell face-first into cool water that soon swallowed his body whole. It wasn't deep, he could touch the bottom and with a quick spring, he resurfaced. Rain danced on the river around him. The current was so quick that when Wendy finally emerged from the bush she was twenty paces behind where Ethan surfaced.

Scrambling to the bank he held on tightly and measured the situation. The rain had brought more flood to the river but, at its deepest, it only came up to his chest. Staying closer to the bank he and Wendy could walk and it would keep them safer.

Wendigos can’t swim. He wasn’t sure of the fact, but it was the only thing he had to grasp onto.

Motioning for Wendy to catch up he helped her ease into the slower water by the river’s bank.

“We'll follow this until that big bridge. You remember the one?”

Wendy nodded but her eyes were locked on the murky water. Her body quaked in the cool stream that reached up to her shoulders.

“You ready?”

She looked unsure for a moment but, when she met his eyes, he smiled.

“Ready.” She tried to smile back, eyes still red from tears.

Ethan was her anchor as they trudged through the water, the sounds of their movements masked by rain and the trickle of the river.