Eternal Love

The Hunger Harvest

Rain lashed the crumbling library walls as the handful of survivors barricaded the front entrance against the cacophony of shrieks outside. Caleb shoved another bookcase across the doorway, glancing back at the bedraggled crew: his new wife, Tenaya and their combined children huddling in the gloom of emergency lanterns.

They had taken shelter here to desperately comb the antiquated stacks for any clue to battling the demonic Wendigo scourge ravaging the countryside. All hope rode now on finding forgotten Native wisdom that could help destroy the ravenous monsters once and for all before the last human remnants were hunted down.

Ten-year-old Shelly whimpered as claws scrabbled violently against the reinforced doorframe. Her half-brother Owen squeezed her hand in solidarity, though his own young face was bloodless. At 16 years old, Caleb's son Dylan kept paranoid watch over a stack of heavy texts and his rifle as if either could shield them all from the horrors encroaching.

Caleb clasped Tenaya's shoulder bracingly before turning to help his eldest daughter Brandy reinforce the window casings. Though civilly wed only a year before the apocalypse threw them together in chaos, he and Tenaya had forged a sturdy union against the odds as friends and fellow scholars. Now their shared academic ambition may be the only thread left binding humanity from goddamn extinction.

An agonized moan severed the discussion. Tenaya rushed to her brother Julian's makeshift pallet, useless legs scarred by Wendigo claws during their last escape. She pressed a mug of precious herbal infusion to his cracked lips, failing to keep the worry from her eyes. His weeks were painfully numbered no matter what answers they unearthed within these walls.

"We found it!" Caleb's cry drew them all to gather reverently around Dylan's rare discovery.

A crumbling scroll recounting the Wendigo curse's ancient origins. Once a desperate tribal hunter had broken sacred law, consuming the flesh of starving kinsmen in the hope of survival. But the forbidden act twisted his soul, birthing an insatiable demonic spirit. The first Wendigo.

"Then there's no way to destroy them for good?" Brandy croaked.

"We're just food waiting for slaughter?"

"No!" Caleb countered fiercely.

"If the tribes faced this threat before, their elders must have created defenses to turn the monsters back."

Hours passed anxiously under the Wendigos' baleful cries. Then Caleb resurfaced with a crumbling scroll that stole the breath from every lung.

"This describes a sacred totem used by elders to cleanse those overcome by the curse. Carved from the first beast's bones to channel vibrations lethal even to immortal souls."

The explosive revelation kindled open to awe and disbelief. Could such a holy relic truly exist still? And if discovered, could its ancient power surpass the unleashed horrors prowling just outside hungry for their hearts?

Their fragile reverie was shattered by Brandy's terrified cry. Shelly screamed as a clawed hand smashed through the window casing, the frame splintering under some heavy impact.

The Wendigos had found a way in!

"Barricade the doors!" Caleb roared, all coordination forgotten as the frenzy took hold.

Adrenaline drowned rational thought as the group grabbed frantically for anything to pile against the windows, hearing the glass give way under the repeated battery.

Tenaya shoved a bookcase across the opening just as a pair of bloodshot eyes peered ravenously through gnarled fingers. Owen fumbled bullets to Dylan frantically trying to load his rifle on the fly. Outside the opportunistic pack howled.

A rasping shriek heralded a section of the ceiling giving way under scrabbling claws. Caleb flung aside his lantern and emptied his revolver wildly into the crumbling plaster as a sinewy arm smashed down grasping. Behind its thrashing cohort, more misshapen silhouettes jostled and shrieked triumphantly, choking the gap with grasping limbs.

There was nowhere to flee from their all-consuming hunger.

Tenaya clutched at her brother Julian uselessly where he slumped against the overturned shelves. Rivulets of blood leaked steadily from his saddlebag binds, bitten leg a septic ruin. His eyes begged for the mercy of a swift end. But her shaking hands refused to offer premature repose while their family still fought and screamed for life just heartbeats away.

Through the barrage of gunshots and collapsing masonry, she glimpsed Caleb across the chaos.  Tenaya burned the gut-wrenching pride and despair of his expression behind her eyes, worse than any viscera the horrors could rip out. She cursed an indifferent universe demanding immeasurably more from them now the courage of choice when all conceivable decisions led only to meaningless oblivion.

Then came a shattering wail that raised every hair on Tenaya's neck. She raised her brother's own pistol with oddly steady hands toward the writhing, corrupted silhouette in the rubble that had days before been her eldest daughter. Brandy's unchanged hazel eyes leaked bloody tears down colorless cheeks, her distended jaw unhinging with the monsters' craving.

The jagged exit cavity in her belly went ignored as Tenaya pulled the trigger point-blank into the crawling thing her child had become. Her thumb rasped softly, lovingly over Julian's cheekbone until recognition slipped from his feverish gaze at last. Only then did she permit her weapon hand to fall limp beside his cooling body? If she still possessed the capacity to care at all anymore.

Across the cacophony Caleb registered his daughter's obliteration, never ceasing his extermination of the beasts engulfing them. It was impossible to see where monsters ended and family began anymore amid the thrashing limbs and inhuman shrieks.

As the last candle extinguished under stamping feet and Shelly's screams went suddenly, horribly mute, Tenaya clung savage and unrepentant to revenge in place of reason. For the victory, for the future, through barrels steaming criticisms at a gluttonous universe that demanded everything from them now - far past bullets, beyond life itself.

When at last her blood-slick hands could pump destruction no more, she turned starving teeth alone against bristling sinew without a concept for an armistice or appetite abatement. Lips parting eagerly as clawed fingers extended toward her heart at long last acquainted of its own volition.  No horror left to fear but her unrelenting conscience.