THE NIGHTMARE TRAIL
By Scott. E. Power

I considered myself a rational and sensible person until that night. I don't blame anyone for disbelieving me. I often times don't believe it myself, but as soon as I close my eyes to sleep, there it is as vivid as that night. And as horrible.

I'm surprised at myself for trying to explain it all here again. I've told the story so many times. Each time people laugh in disbelief. I, too, would laugh if I heard such a story, if it had not happened to me. But it did. I can't deny it. If I hadn't been alone, maybe it wouldn't have happened at all. But I was, it did, and as a result, I will forever shun solitude.

Although I was anxious to arrive back at my cabin, which was only a mile down the river, I couldn't help but stop periodically to look around. All I could see through the falling snow was the river bank and jagged tree line, the black spruce stabbing the dark sky with their twisted tree tops. The whole panorama was illuminated by the soft light of the full moon, which was shining behind the thick cover of snow clouds. There was no sound. Only winter's silence literally humming in my ears. I have never understood how, when it is so silent in the north country, there seems to be a distant noise, not unlike the whine of a saw mill.

After a few moments of gazing at what appeared to be an enchanted fantasy land of a child's nightmare, which was really the frozen muskeg of northern Manitoba, I pressed on. The winter's silence was drowned out by the "crunch…crunch…crunch" of the snow beneath my snowshoes.

I was contemplating the epicurean delight of a hot cup of tea back at my cabin when I saw the tracks. They were large tracks, but not the tracks that moose leave behind as they move through the snow. They resembled tracks made by a human. But who?

No one lived within fifty miles of my cabin. I didn't remember making the trail. It ran perpendicular to my trap line and to my normal travels. I could not think of a reason why I would have gone that way, unless to satisfy an urge to explore. But the trail was fresh, made within the last few hours. I hadn't seen it earlier while hiking past. Someone, or something, had just traveled through here. If so, they must have seen my trail. What was it? A human? If so, who was it? What were his intentions? Why was he traveling on such a stormy night?

As I pondered these questions, I felt the rhythm of my heartbeat raise to a staccato pounding. The only way to know the answer to this mystery was to follow the trail and find out. If worse came to worse, I had my rifle. But surely this was the trail of a fellow trapper whom I did not know. I turned off my trail and onto the other, following it into the dark gloom of the trees.

I had followed the trail into the woods a hundred yards or so when I began to see dark splotches on the snow. It was a substance I didn't recognize. The splotches were sporadic and of diverse sizes. I took off my gloves to touch them, attempting to identify them by their textures. But of course, the cold temperatures had already frozen the substance into grains of ice.

The thought crossed my mind that possibly blood had dripped from dead game that this unknown person had hunted. I felt comfortable with this thought and ceased to puzzle over it any longer.

I stopped to look over the surroundings. I could no longer see the river behind me. All about me were sinister shadows of gnarled black spruce. Occasionally, I would brush up against a tamarack tree. The cloud cover had begun to thin out and the snow was changing into light flurries. The moonlight was swelling as the clouds dispersed.

The moon itself was full and ominous. The air seemed to be growing colder. I began to feel the frigid air stabbing me like pricking needles through my layers of wool and down. In the distance, I heard the hunger cry of an Arctic wolf.

The trail I followed was longer than I had anticipated and I began to feel as if it went nowhere specific. Just someone, or something, passing through. But that just seemed too outrageous, it had to be somewhere. Much to my surprise, as I continued trekking, I began to recognize various landmarks. I guess you could say I was experiencing a sense of déjà vu. I began to feel that I had been there before, but didn't consciously remember it. It was like a dream, or a nightmare.

Finally, just over the sounds of the snow crunching beneath my snowshoes, I heard what seemed to be the song of a Canadian Jay. But as I stopped to listen and discern, I realized it was the whistle of a human. As last I was nearing the mysterious person.

As I closed the distance between the whistler and myself, I began recognizing more and more of the surroundings. It was more eerie that bizarre. The hair on my neck stood up and the gloom of the forest was serenaded by someone whistling in the darkness. It seemed to me that I was walking myself into a realm of paradox and surrealism. The atmosphere reeked with the warmth of evil and frigidity of death. I tried to convince myself to turn around and go home. But not knowing what was ahead, whistling in such a dreadful context, would forever vex me. Besides, I had come this far, and I did have my rifle.

The stains in the snow had become more frequent. I lit a match to examine them more closely. As the match flame illuminated the snow, I saw a dark crimson color. It was definitely blood.

Exactly at that moment, the tune being whistled in the distance changed. At first it had been merry and delightful, however I did not recognize the melody. But now the air was filled with the robust melancholy of Bach's Toccata and Fugue. The sounds was amplified throughout the forest and resembled a pipe organ more than a whistle. But that was impossible and I knew it. It was all in my head, made worse by my fatigue and terrible imagination.

I looked up from the ground and saw candlelight shining through a cabin window. A cabin! I couldn't believe it. I didn't think there was a cabin within fifty miles of my own. As I approached the cabin stealthily and with great curiosity, I began noticing that the cabin resembled mine. But it was difficult to concentrate and be sure, because the whistle was getting louder. It seemed to weaken me.

I was positive that the cabin looked like my own. The roof was an A-frame, the main cabin was about the same size and there were windows on the east and west walls. And even more peculiar was the fact the outhouse and woodshed were designed identically to mine.

Suddenly, the person inside stopped whistling. My ears were ringing in its absence. My heart was pounding like a sledgehammer. Although the temperature was below zero, I was sweating. The trail of what I knew to be blood went around the corner of the cabin to the far side, where I assumed the entrance was. Just like mine.

I gazed through the window from where I sat, some twenty yards away, hoping to see who was inside this cabin. Unfortunately, I saw nobody, just a shadow dancing about in graceful glides. I un-lashed my snowshoes, took hold of my gun, and prepared my nerve to go look through the window at the person inside.

As I sat there, I looked down at my hands, which grasped the rifle with a white-knuckled grip, and realized how ridiculous I was behaving. If someone was to have seen me, they would have thought I was a child. I was ashamed. It was mere coincidence that this cabin resembled mine. It couldn't be mine. Besides, what did I think was in there? The windigo? The windigo is part of a Cree Indian legend that embodies all the fear, all the horror, and the wildness, starvation, misery and terrible cold of the North. The windigo is supposedly a man and cannibal. But it is an Indian legend, not reality. It simply doesn't exist!

I laughed at myself and my imagination. It crossed my mind that I had lived in that God-forsaken-land too long and I was becoming "bushed," as they say in the North. I decided to leave my gun behind and simply go look inside the window to check things out. Then I would knock on the door and introduce myself. Maybe that person would be kind enough to offer me a cup of java. I certainly needed a warm drink. With a huge boost of confidence, I got up from where I sat and walked, as quietly as possible, to the window.

However, as I got closer, my determination began to melt away. I began noticing debris and other objects that I recognized. The spool of rope against the wall. The kerosene barrel. And just a few feet away, I could see a sled that look like mine. This was my cabin! But how? Who was inside? And why the blood?

Immediately, I grew weak with fright. Everything was too freakish for it to be normal. I felt I had fallen into a trap and there was no way out. I remembered my rifle, but it was too late, I was at the window. I could delay no longer. I had to look in.

I peered in. Everything was as I had left it, but there was a fire burning in the stove, obviously started by this foreigner. And some kind of meat was being fried on the stove. Maybe that was what the blood came from.

I could see the person inside, but not the face. It was a man. He was tall and husky with long white hair. There was something hanging in the corner, but I couldn't tell what it was. The man moved the kerosene lantern onto a table by the stove and I could make out a few more details. It was definitely meat of some sort cooking on the stove. But exactly what kind I couldn't tell. The carcass was still dripping blood and under it was a bucket to catch the fluids. The carcass was hanging from its hind quarters, and the forelegs, minus the severed one, were almost touching the floor. It was a large animal, probably seven feet from tip to tip. The head had been severed.

The man, whose face I still could not see, removed the meat from the stove and, with his back to me, began to eat it. My eyes went back to the carcass. I tried to identify it. it was truly puzzled. Finally, as I let my eyes sweep over the room that was mine, I noticed something next to the lantern. The shadows on it cast from the light were sharp and full of contrast. It was difficult to discern what it was.

I stared and stared until the realization of its identity burned my consciousness with an evil that could only be from hell. My whole body quivered. My heart was overcome with fear. That thing in the shadows of my cabin was a human head! And the carcass was a human body!

I thought I was mad…insane…hallucinating. But there it was. Swinging in the shadows of my cabin. A bloody fresh carcass of a slaughtered human being.

The fear and horror of the evil overcame me. I wanted to run away, but I couldn't move. My whole body was paralyzed and sick.

The cannibalistic man inside stood up from the table where he was eating human flesh, and walked toward the door. He was going outside! I must run! I turned to escape. As I did, I looked up and there he was in front of me! The windigo!

"You're next!" he sneered.

Darkness overcame me. I lost consciousness.

When I awoke, I was inside my cabin. Tucked inside my warm sleeping bag. It was daylight. All was serene.

I looked around. No one was there. He, or it, was gone. Or had he even been there? There was no carcass, no head.

It was all a dream, a nightmare! My terrible ordeal was only a dream.

How good it was to be alive! Really alive! No fear, no horror. All was well.

After breakfast, I had to check my trap line. As I left the cabin, I walked with a bounce, a joy of peace. But as I turned the river bend and approached the spot where my nightmare had started, I slowed with uncertainty. Had it truly been a dream, or not?

Yes! Of course it was a dream. I was still alive wasn't I?

But as I continued trekking, the scar of a freshly made trail perpendicular to mine became visible.

STORY OUTLINE

I. The narrator finds a mysterious trail leading into the woods, only about a mile from his cabin located in isolated wilderness.

II. As he follows it he notices drops on the trail that he eventually finds to be blood.

III. He comes upon an inhabited cabin that he did not know existed.

IV. Initially scared, his fear increases when he notes that the cabin and its belongs appear to be identical with his.

V. To his horror, he sees that the body hung in the cabin, and being eaten by its inhabitant, is that of a human being.

VI. He knows that he has come upon then windigo, the embodiment of all the fear, all the horror, all the wildness, starvation, misery and terrible cold of the North.

VII. He turns to run from the cabin, but the windigo is behind him suddenly and shouts (and be sure to shout this when telling the story), "You're next!"

VIII. The narrator wakes up, safe in his cabin. It has only been a dream

IX. After breakfast he leaves to check his trap line and the story finishes with his noting a freshly made trail, perpendicular to his, just as in the dream.