Chapter 8: The Wendigo — Part 2
[Blackwater Ridge Forest — September 21, 2005, 3:17 AM]
The attack came without warning.
One moment Ethan was crouched near the fire they'd built—a pitiful defense, but fire was fire—watching the shadows for movement. The next, something impossibly fast crashed through their perimeter and grabbed Ben Collins by the throat.
Haley screamed. Dean's shotgun roared. Sam swung a burning branch at empty air.
The creature was already gone, dragging Ben into the darkness, the boy's screams fading with terrifying speed.
Ethan's transformation triggered before conscious thought could intervene.
Fire erupted from his skin. His skull emerged through burning flesh, wreathed in flames that painted the forest orange and red. The chains manifested at his wrists, whipping toward the retreating creature with a sound like tearing metal.
The Wendigo dropped Ben and fled.
Not attacked. Not fought. Fled. A creature that had hunted these mountains for centuries, that had killed dozens of humans without fear, took one look at the burning skull where Ethan's face had been and ran.
Ben hit the ground hard, gasping, hands clutching at his throat. Haley was at his side in seconds, pulling him toward the fire, away from the monster in their midst.
Because that's what Ethan looked like now. A monster.
His Rider form held for another ten seconds—long enough to confirm the Wendigo had retreated, long enough to watch the civilians stare at him with the same terror they'd shown the creature that attacked them. Then the transformation reversed, fire guttering out, flesh crawling back over bone, leaving him human and gasping and fundamentally changed in the eyes of everyone present.
"What..." Haley's voice shook. "What are you?"
Dean stepped between Ethan and the civilians, shotgun lowered but ready. "He's with us. He's on our side."
"He was—his face—"
"I know what he was. He just saved your brother's life."
The silence stretched. Ben was crying quietly, still holding his throat where bruises were already forming. Haley held him, eyes never leaving Ethan, caught between gratitude and terror.
Sam crouched beside them, voice calm and professional. "Are you hurt? Can you breathe?"
"I'm—I'm okay." Ben's voice was rough, damaged. "It was so fast. I didn't even see it coming."
"That's how they hunt. You're lucky to be alive."
Lucky. Ethan wasn't sure luck had anything to do with it. The Wendigo had retreated because it recognized a predator more dangerous than itself—something it had never encountered in centuries of hunting.
The Spirit hummed with satisfaction in his chest.
THE PREY RUNS. WE PURSUE.
"Not yet." Ethan kept his voice low, aware of the civilians listening. "We find the lair. There might be survivors."
"Roy—"
"Probably dead. But maybe not. And Haley's brother is still out there."
Dean nodded slowly. "Alright. We track it at first light. For now, we keep watch."
Nobody slept. Haley held Ben, both of them staring at the fire like it was the only thing keeping them alive—which, in a sense, it was. Sam researched on his phone, pulling up topographical maps, looking for caves or mines that might serve as a Wendigo's lair. Dean cleaned his weapons with the mechanical precision of a man who needed something to do with his hands.
Ethan sat apart from the others, feeling the weight of their stares. The civilians hadn't looked at him directly since the transformation. Dean glanced over occasionally, expression unreadable. Sam was more subtle about it, but Ethan caught him watching too.
He'd revealed too much. Saved a life, but at the cost of whatever normalcy he'd managed to establish. The Winchesters had seen him transform before—they'd accepted it, or at least tolerated it. But the civilians... they'd never look at him the same way again.
THEY FEAR YOU. GOOD. FEAR IS RESPECT.
"Fear isn't respect. It's the opposite of trust."
TRUST IS IRRELEVANT. ONLY RESULTS MATTER.
Ethan didn't have an answer for that.
Dawn came gray and cold, fog rolling through the trees like something alive. They packed quickly, efficiently, the silence broken only by necessary communication.
Ethan took point.
The Wendigo's trail was easy to follow now—not because it had left physical evidence, but because his Sin Sense had locked onto its hunger like a beacon. The creature was old, patient, and absolutely certain of its territory. It had retreated to its lair after the encounter, expecting them to flee like every other group of humans it had hunted.
It was wrong.
"This way." Ethan led them down a ravine, through a creek bed that had been dry for decades, toward a hillside riddled with old mine entrances. "It's in there."
"You sure?" Dean's voice was carefully neutral.
"I can feel it. It's not alone—there are humans nearby. Alive."
Haley's breath caught. "Tom?"
"Maybe. I can't tell who specifically, just that there are living people in proximity to the creature."
The mine entrance gaped like a wound in the hillside. Timber supports had rotted decades ago, leaving only darkness and the faint smell of copper and decay.
"Standard formation," Dean said. "Sam and I take point, Ethan covers the rear, civilians stay in the middle."
"I'm not staying in the middle," Haley said.
"You don't have a choice. You want to save your brother, you let us do our jobs."
They entered the mine single-file, flashlights cutting through darkness that seemed to swallow light. The tunnel branched repeatedly, but Ethan guided them unerringly—the creature's hunger pulled at his senses like a compass needle pointing toward magnetic north.
Bodies first. Old ones, decades old, skeletons stripped of flesh and arranged with something approaching care. The Wendigo had been feeding here for a long time, keeping trophies of its kills.
Then newer bodies. The two hikers who'd been with Tommy Collins, dead for days, strung up from the tunnel ceiling like sides of beef.
And finally, the survivors.
Roy hung from a support beam, unconscious but breathing. His skin was pale, blood loss significant but not fatal. Next to him, similarly bound, was a young man who matched the photos Haley had shown them.
Tommy Collins was alive.
"TOM!" Haley lunged forward, knife already out, cutting at the ropes binding her brother.
"Wait—" Dean tried to stop her, but it was too late.
The Wendigo dropped from the ceiling.
It was faster than anything human had a right to be—eight feet of gray, emaciated muscle, moving with a speed that made mockery of physics. Its claws raked toward Haley's back as she struggled with Tommy's bindings, and there was no time to dodge, no time to react, no time for anything except—
Ethan's Hellfire caught it mid-leap.
The transformation happened in a heartbeat this time, faster than it ever had before. One moment he was human; the next, his skull burned with judgment and his chains wrapped around the creature's limbs and his fire poured into its ancient flesh.
The Wendigo screamed.
Not a hunting cry or a territorial challenge—a sound of pure agony. Centuries of accumulated kills burned away in seconds as Ethan's fire consumed it from the inside out. Its claws scraped uselessly at chains that held it immobile. Its eyes—ancient, intelligent, utterly inhuman—found Ethan's burning sockets and understood, in its final moment, that it had encountered something worse than itself.
One blast of concentrated Hellfire. Three seconds of sustained burning.
The Wendigo collapsed into ash and embers, centuries of monstrous existence ended in the time it took to draw a breath.
The mine went silent.
Ethan's transformation faded, flesh returning, fire guttering out. His hands were shaking—transformation drain, more intense than usual, but manageable.
The others stared at him with expressions ranging from shock to horror to something that might have been awe.
"Get them down," he said, voice rough. "We need to move before the mine collapses."
The authority in his tone broke the spell. Sam and Dean moved to help with Roy and Tommy, cutting ropes, checking vitals, supporting weight as they began the long trek back to the surface.
Haley paused beside Ethan as they left the chamber of horrors behind.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For saving my brother. For saving all of us."
Ethan didn't know how to respond. Gratitude felt foreign, uncomfortable. He'd done what needed doing because the Spirit demanded it, because innocents were in danger, because that was who he was now.
"Just doing my job."
They emerged from the mine into morning sunlight that felt like absolution. Roy regained consciousness during the descent, confused but alive. Tommy clung to Haley, both of them crying with relief.
Dean pulled Ethan aside while the others recovered.
"That was too fast. Too clean."
"The creature was fire-vulnerable. I have fire. Simple math."
"Nothing about you is simple." Dean's eyes searched Ethan's face for something—deception, danger, the monster that lived beneath the surface. "You killed a Wendigo that's been hunting these mountains for centuries, and you made it look easy."
"Would you prefer I struggled more?"
"I'd prefer to understand what I'm dealing with."
Ethan met his gaze steadily. "You're dealing with someone who kills monsters. That's what you wanted from a partner, isn't it?"
A long moment of silence. Then Dean shook his head, expression shifting from suspicion to something that might have been grudging respect.
"You did good back there. Don't let it go to your head."
Backhanded compliment. Ethan took it.
It was a start.
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