Wendigo Island (ONC2024)

The Cannibal's Traps

Rico Martinez here.

Al told me, "that night kept replaying in his head, like one of those old timey video projectors from the scary movies. You know, the ones that are always broken and looping because of some nazi's ghost?" His words, not mine.

He also told me that the Bears were the greatest football team ever, which is wrong for so many reasons. One of them being that he's talking about American football, which is just soft rugby. I'm not here to talk trash, it's just that sports were how we bonded. We even played some football (soccer for you Americans) when we were trapped under the island.

I was one of the first out of the emergency door that night, but Al was inside long after it had flooded, "it was how I imagined zero gravity would be. Like a rollercoaster at the highest drop point. Then, I was swimming through a cloud of blood. On my way out, I ended up in the center of the red. It was streaming out of a man's chest, like a red ribbon floating past the peice of wing in his chest before fraying apart into the copper tasting cloud. I saw Marie there beside him, her brother. She was unconscious, and her face was turning blue."

She didn't even know he saved her. He told me he couldn't remind her of that moment just to stroke his ego, "but Grams woulda been proud if I could land me a smart dame like her. Too bad she was stuck on the other side of the island."

He thought a gal like that wouldn't go for a blue collar stud like him anyhow. I told him I wouldn't be too sure, but I guess that doesn't matter anyhow.

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I was standing between Kal and Alex when we came over the hill. At least three things happened all at once. Kal pulled back his bow string and gave what was left of Jen a small mercy. I hope he knows that.

There was not even time for condolences because as Alex's foot touched the ground beside me, he fell.

He fell into a pit in the ground just wide enough to slide into. Antlers filled the pit on both sides. The ends nearly touched the opposite side.

Flesh scraped off by hundreds of points from dozens of antlers. At the bottom of the pit, a somewhat sharp point of bone shoved into his right foot and looped out of the top and back through his leg. Yet he was alive, and screaming obscenities in Portuguese. To his credit, I only heard about a dozen.

Me and Valentina tried to pull him out, but the antlers were packed so tight. When we pulled, several points dug into his shoulders and tore skin from his neck.

The third thing was a scream of shock behind us. It turned to a scream of panic and then cut off into a strangled gurgling. A ghoulish creature with broken shards for teeth had cornered Cheryl against a tree with a glittering green spear. Its hair had thinned so much that we could almost see it falling out as it turned to run from us. One glimpse of its black eyes and sunken flesh proved to me that it was no longer human.

It laughed.

It cackled and trembled with conflicting thoughts as it backed into the shadows. The real issue was that Cheryl was going red and blue in the face from a vine wrapped around her neck. It started to pull her up the tree when Dale chopped it with a clean thump from his axe against the tree. A dirty golden elixer exploded from the vine where Dale had cut. Honey.

The cannibal tried to stab Dale as he turned his back, but Al stood between them with his spear. Both him and the cannibal looked confused for a moment before she ran.

The trunk of the tree was covered in honeycombs inches thick. Cheryl's arms pulled against the sticky substance as her and Dale fought the vines now flailing around them like tendrils in water. They lashed out like snakes with long, needle-thin thorns for heads. Dale deflected as many as he could, but it was too late by the time he cut Cheryl free.

The needles had pumped the honey substance into her until a dirty golden fluid ran out of her eyes and ears.

"My hero," she spoke her last words as Dale cradled her in his arms.